and the very least that is implied by the
motto _Noblesse oblige_. He was splendidly handsome and tall, a perfect
blend of strength and grace, full of deep, romantic interest in great
things far and near: the very man whom women dote on. And yet, through
all the seductions of the Court and all the storm and stress of Europe,
he steadily pursued the vision of that West which he would make 'an
Inglishe nation.'

He left Oxford as an undergraduate to serve the Huguenots in France
under Admiral Coligny and the Protestants in Holland under William of
Orange. Like Hawkins and Drake, he hated Spain with all his heart and
paid off many a score against her by killing Spanish troops at Smerwick
during an Irish campaign marked by ruthless slaughter on both sides. On
his return to England he soon attracted the charmed attention of the
queen. His spreading his cloak for her to tread on, lest she might wet
her feet, is one of those stories which ought to be true if it's not.
In any case he won the royal favor, was granted monopolies, promotion,
and estates, and launched upon the full flood-stream of fortune.

He was not yet thirty when he obtained for his half-brother, Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, then a man of thirty-eight, a royal commission 'to
inhabit and possess all remote and Heathen lands not in the possession
of any Christian prince.' The draft of Gilbert's original prospectus,
dated at London, the 6th of November, 1577, and still kept there in the
Record Office, is an appeal to Elizabeth in which he proposed 'to
discover and inhabit some strange place.' Gilbert was a soldier and knew
what fighting meant; so he likewise proposed 'to set forth certain ships
of war to the New Land, which, with your good licence, I will undertake
without your Majesty's charge.... The New Land fish is a principal and
rich and everywhere vendible merchandise; and by the gain thereof
shipping, victual, munition, and the transporting of five or six
thousand soldiers may be defrayed.'

But Gilbert's associates cared nothing for fish and everything for gold.
He went to the West Indies, lost a ship, and returned without a fortune.
Next year he was forbidden to repeat the experiment.

The project then languished until the fatal voyage of 1583, when Gilbert
set sail with six vessels, intending to occupy Newfoundland as the base
from which to colonize southwards until an armed New England should meet
and beat New Spain. How vast his scheme! How pitiful its e