g handed over to the king. In the same year the
Dutch trading factory at Kyk-over-al on the river Essequebo was
established, and this was probably the reason why the English grant made
that river the boundary of their possessions, leaving the Hollander to
establish himself between the Essequebo and the Orinoco.

Meanwhile, in 1603, poor Ralegh had been tried on a charge of aiding and
abetting the plot to raise Arabella Stuart to the throne of England, on
the death of Queen Elizabeth. Any one who reads the account of his
trial will perceive at once the absurdity of the charge, yet Ralegh was
convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. However,
even with all his hatred for the knight, King James dared not carry out
the sentence, but instead, kept him imprisoned in the Tower.

Here Ralegh still hankered after the treasures of Guiana, and in 1611 he
made a proposition to the Government to send Captain Keymis to find the
rich gold mine which had been pointed out to him by an Indian. If Keymis
should live to arrive at the place and fail to bring half a ton or more
of that rich ore of which he had shown a sample, Ralegh himself would
bear all the expense of the journey. "Though," said he, "it be a
difficult matter of exceeding difficulty for any man to find the same
acre of ground again, in a country desolate and overgrown, which he hath
seen but once, and that sixteen years since--which were hard enough to
do upon Salisbury Plain--yet that your lordships may be satisfied of the
truth, I am contented to adventure all I have (but my reputation) upon
Keymis's memory."

This proposition was rejected, and the poor knight lingered on in the
Tower, attended during part of the time by two Guiana Indians, Harry and
Leonard Regapo. In 1616, however, he at last recovered his liberty on
condition that he went to Guiana and brought back gold, but at the same
time the king refused to pardon him. Nevertheless he took up the matter
with an amount of enthusiasm which showed his entire confidence in its
ultimate success. All his own money and as much of his wife's as could
be spared was spent in fitting out the expedition, and he also got
contributions from many of his friends. The king even went so far as to
give him a commission to undertake a voyage to the south parts of
America, or elsewhere in America, inhabited by heathen and savage
people, with all the necessary rights of government and jurisdiction;
yet with all this