rsecution of Ralegh, and not as a wretched
trickster.

Ralegh's own main anxiety was to settle his affairs in the first place,
and to secure that none suffered pecuniary detriment, much or little,
through his fault or negligence. When that was assured, he next longed
to clear his fame, in death, of every slur and taint. In November, for
discharge of his conscience, he gave to Wilson a testamentary note, that
he had never let to Captain Caulfeild land near Sherborne Castle, which
John Meere claimed by a counterfeit grant of his to Caulfeild. He
mentioned further that, before his departure from Cork to Guiana, he had
written in prejudice of H. Pyne's lease of Mogile Castle, and in favour
of Lord Boyle's claim. Since that time, better bethinking himself, he
desired the opinion he gave at Cork might be no evidence in law, and
that it should be left to other proofs on both sides. He requested Lady
Ralegh, 'if she should enjoy her goods,' to be kind to Hamon's wife, and
in any case to the wife of John Talbot, his servant in the Tower, who
had died in Guiana: 'I fear me, her son being dead, she will otherwise
perish.' He added that an account ought to be exacted from Stukely of
the tobacco he had sold at Plymouth, and also of the parcel he had sent
down the river, 'the Sunday that we took boat.'

[Sidenote: _Warrant for Execution._]

When he prayed a 'respite,' it was not that he was scared at the
approach of death. His mind was never brighter and happier. To this
moment may well be attributed, as it has been by popular tradition, his
composition of the couplet:

Cowards may fear to die, but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.

Assuredly he was not one of the cowards. But his career had been
confused and tumultuous. He would have been glad of a little leisure and
quiet for unravelling some of the knots. He understood his enemies and
events too well to be surprised that his shrift was to be short. Before
his appearance at the King's Bench, Bacon had drawn the warrant for
execution, and James had signed it. Naunton wrote to Carleton, the
general depositary of confidential gossip, on October 28, that the
warrant for execution had been drawn up, and sent to the King for
signature; only, 'it had better not be talked about, as it is de futuro
contingente.' James, meanwhile, was restlessly hunting to and fro
between Oatlands, Theobalds, and Hampton Court. He was composing
meditations on the Lord's