ement, which was unexpectedly discovered between the sea
and the supposed situation of the mine. Raleigh returned a ruined man.
He wished himself to go to France, but his crew forced him to promise to
obtain their pardon from the King before he brought his ship into port.
In the end, after having touched at Kinsale, he persuaded his men to
sail for Plymouth. On landing he set out for London, but on the way met
his cousin, Sir Lewis Stukely, Vice-Admiral of Devon, charged with
orders to arrest him. Returning to Plymouth, he found means to put
himself into communication with the captain of a French ship, lying in
the Sound. Preparations were made for his escape in her, but Raleigh
changed his mind when he was actually in a boat on his way to board her,
and returned to land. Soon after orders came that he should be brought
up to London; but he managed to procure a little more time by feigning
illness at Salisbury. Here he attempted to bribe Stukely to allow him to
escape; but this proving in vain, he sent King, one of his captains, to
hire a vessel at Gravesend to await him till he could go on board. The
master, however, communicated the plan to a captain of one of the King's
ships, who passed it on to Stukely, who thereupon communicated both
attempts to the King. The next day Stukely sent the further information
to the Court, that Le Clerc, the agent of the King of France, had
offered Raleigh a passage on a French ship, and letters which would
procure him an honourable reception in France, which Raleigh had refused
on the ground that his escape was already provided for. Stukely was
accordingly ordered to feign friendship with Raleigh, and to aid his
attempt to escape, arresting him at the last moment; the object being to
gain as much information as to his designs as he could from Raleigh, and
possibly to obtain papers which would contain evidence against him and
his confederates. Raleigh was thereupon taken to his own house in Bread
Street, where he received a visit from Le Clerc, who repeated his
offers, which were accepted, and he was finally arrested the next
morning as he was escaping in a boat with Stukely and King, and brought
back once more to the Tower. Here Sir Thomas Wilson, an old spy of Queen
Elizabeth's, was set to extract from him, if he could, an acknowledgment
of the true character of his dealings with the French; and at length
Raleigh wrote to the King admitting that he had sailed with a commission
from the