feel in no way
bound to mechanical accuracy. His endeavour would be to give the
prevailing force and significance of the charges, of the defence, and of
the evidence; the impression they made upon him with a view to his
judicial conclusion. We know the judgment formed in advance by him and
his colleagues on the mendacity of Ralegh's account of the motive of his
enterprise. That could not but warp a compendium by him of an
investigation instituted in order to find a legal justification for a
capital sentence on a presumed impostor and pirate.

[Sidenote: _Charges and Defence._]

Sir Henry Yelverton, the Attorney-General, leading for the Crown, took
for his theme the conduct of the expedition. He was obliged to try to
excuse the King for his authorization of an adventure alleged by himself
to be an imposture. His Majesty had been induced, by the hope of 'his
country's good,' to grant a commission, which, it should be noted, Caesar
describes as 'under the Great Seal.' The King, Yelverton was not ashamed
to suggest, had been the dupe of Ralegh, who invented the Mine to regain
his liberty. He could not, it was argued, have meant to mine, since he
carried no miners or instruments. He had a French commission to assail
Spaniards. In reliance on that he had ventured to direct an attack on
San Thome. On its failure he was in a mood to depart, and leave his poor
company behind him helpless. He had anticipated lucrative booty from the
town. Disappointment at its meagreness helped to incite him to schemes
for the capture of the Mexico fleet. Much indignation was spent by Sir
Thomas Coventry, the Solicitor-General, in his turn, on 'vile and
dishonourable speeches, full of contumely to the King,' which, on the
word of Stukely and Manourie, he supposed Ralegh to have uttered.
Coventry stigmatized them as marking especial and flagitious
ingratitude. 'Never was subject so obliged to his Sovereign as he.'

Ralegh, in his reply, repudiated with his wonted courtesy the assertion
that he had received extraordinary marks of royal lenity. His release
from the Tower he claimed as a tardy reparation for a protracted wrong.
'I do verily believe,' he exclaimed, 'that his Majesty doth in his own
conscience clear me of all guiltiness in regard to my conviction in the
year 1603. Indeed, I know that his Majesty hath been heard to say, in
speaking of these proceedings, that he would not wish to be tried by a
Middlesex jury.' He added Dr. Turner's rep