n this I will die,
that he hath done me wrong: Why did not he acquaint him with my
dispositions?

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--But what say you now of the Letter, and the
Pension of L1500 per annum?

RALEIGH--I say, that Cobham is a base, dishonourable, poor soul.

ATTORNEY--Is he base? I return it into thy throat on his behalf:
but for thee he had been a good subject.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--I perceive you are not so clear a man, as
you have protested all this while; for you should have
discovered these matters to the king.

(_Note._--Here Raleigh pulled a Letter out of his pocket, which
the lord Cobham had written to him, and desired my lord Cecil to
read it, because he only knew his hand; the effect of it was as
follows:)

_Cobham's Letter of Justification to Raleigh._

'Seeing myself so near my end, for the discharge of my own
conscience, and freeing myself from your blood, which else will
cry vengeance against me; I protest upon my salvation I never
practised with Spain by your procurement; God so comfort me in
this my affliction, as you are a true subject, for any thing
that I know. I will say as Daniel, _Purus sum a sanguine hujus_.
God have mercy upon my soul, as I know no Treason by you.'

RALEIGH--Now I wonder how many souls this man hath. He damns one
in this Letter and another in that.

(Here was much ado: Mr. Attorney alledged, that his last Letter
was politicly and cunningly urged from the lord Cobham, and that
the first was simply the truth; and lest it should seem doubtful
that the first Letter was drawn from my lord Cobham by promise
of mercy, or hope of favour, the Lord Chief-Justice willed that
the Jury might herein be satisfied. Whereupon the earl of
Devonshire delivered that the same was mere voluntary, and not
extracted from the lord Cobham upon any hopes or promise of
Pardon.)

This concluded the evidence, and the jury having retired for less than a
quarter of an hour, they returned, and brought in a verdict of Guilty.

When asked whether he had anything to say why judgment should not be
passed upon him, Raleigh said that he had never practised with Spain,
that he never knew that Cobham meant to get there ('I will ask no mercy
at the king's hands, if he will affirm it'), that he never knew of the
practice with lady Arabella, that he knew nothing of Cobham's practice