PREFACE. I TRUST it will not be deemed presumptuous when 1 express a hope that this Life will be found the most authentic account of SIB WALTER RALEIGH which has yet been given to the Fublic. This is said not only with respect, but with gratitude for the labours of my predecessors, Oldys, Birch, Cayley, and latterly Mrs Thomson, whose Appendix of original letters, although undervalued by herself, has assisted me in tracing to its real authors that extraordinary conspiracy against Raleigh, which ultimately brought him to the scaffold. But whilst I acknowledge these obligations, I must add that in none of these works, so far as I can judge, has full justice been done to Raleigh. The mistakes and aspersions of Hume, and other writers, have been suffered (except by Cayley) to pass unnoticed; the secret history of his offences, his trial, and condemnation, has been abandoned as obscure and unintelligible; his famous and fatal Guianian voyage has been misunderstood; and the gross charges against his honour and veracity, have neither been sufficiently examined, nor their falsehood exposed. To supply these defects and omissions, to inves |