Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/280

Rh 262 RALEIGH house and post-office (1875), the State geological museum, a State insane asylum, institutions for the blind and the deaf and dumb, the penitentiary, and the Shaw institute for the higher education of coloured pupils. There are a normal school and a graded school system for both white and coloured pupils. Raleigh is a centre of the cotton and tobacco trades, has railway machine and car shops, and manufactures steam-engines, shuttle blocks and bob- bins, ice, cotton-seed oil, fertilizers, hosiery, clothing, agri- cultural implements, carriages, carpentry, cigars, marble wares, <tc. The population was 4780 in 1860, 7790 (4094 coloured) in 1870, and 9265 (4354 coloured) in 1880. Raleigh was selected as the seat of government in 1 788, was laid out in 1792, and made a city in 1794. RALEIGH, SIR WALTER (1552-1618), admiral and courtier, was born at Hayes in Devonshire in 1552. After a short residence at Oriel College, Oxford, he took service in the autumn of 1569 with a body of volunteers serving in the French Huguenot army, and he probably did not return to England till 1576. During the course of these years he appears to have made himself master of seaman- ship, though no evidence of this is obtainable. In 1579 he was stopped by the council from taking part in a voyage planned by his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and in 1580 he commanded an English company in Munster (Ireland). On 10th November he took part in the massacre at Smerwick. He remained in Ireland till December 1581, distinguished for his vigour and ability as well as for his readiness to treat Irish rebels as mere wild beasts, who were to be pitilessly exterminated, and whose leaders might be smitten down if necessary by assassina- tion. In one way or another Raleigh's conduct gained the favourable notice of Elizabeth, especially as he had chosen to seek for the support of Leicester, in whose suite he is found at Antwerp in February 1582. For some years Raleigh shone as a courtier, receiving from time to time licences to export woollen cloths and to sell wine, after the system by which Elizabeth rewarded her favourites with- out expense to herself. In 1585 he became lord warden of the Stannaries, soon afterwards he was vice-admiral of Devon and Cornwall, and in 1587 was captain of the guard. But he was one of those who were dissatisfied unless they could pursue some public object in connexion with their chase after a private fortune. In 1583 he risked 2000 in the expedition in which Sir Humphrey Gilbert perished. In 1584 he obtained a charter of colonization, and sent Amadas and Barlow to examine the country which he named Virginia. In 1585 he despatched a fleet laden with colonists. They were, however, soon discouraged and were brought back to England by Drake in the following year. Shortly afterwards fifteen fresh colonists were landed, and another party in 1587. All these, however, perished, and, though Raleigh did all that was possible to succour them, the permanent colonizing of Virginia passed into other hands. In 1584 Raleigh obtained a grant of an enormous tract of land in Munster, in one corner of which he introduced the cultivation of the potato. To people that land with English colonists was but the counterpart of the attempt to exterminate its original possessors. This view of the policy of England in Ireland was not confined to Raleigh, but it found in him its most eminent supporter. In his haste to be wealthy, his love of adventure, his practical in- sight into the difficulties of the world, and his unscrupulous- ness in dealing with peoples of different habits and beliefs from his own, Raleigh was a representative Elizabethan Englishman. He did his best, so far as a usually absentee landlord could do, to make his colonists prosperous and successful; but he underestimated the extraordinary vitality of the Irish race, and the resistance which was awakened by the harsh system of which he was the con- stant adviser at Elizabeth's court. Elizabeth, too, was unable to support him with the necessary force, and his whole attempt ended in failure. Raleigh's efforts were at least made on behalf of a race whose own civilization and national independence were at stake. The Elizabethan men were driven to take large views of their difficulties, and it was impossible for Raleigh to separate the question whether English forms of life should prevail in Munster from the question whether they should be maintained in England. Two conceptions of politics and religion stood face to face from the Atlantic to the Carpathians, and every one of vigour took a side. The balancing intellects were silenced, or, like Elizabeth's, were drawn in the wake of the cham- pions of one party or the other. Wherever the strife was hottest Raleigh was sure to be found. If he could not succeed in Ireland he would fight it out with Spain. In 1588 he took an active^ part against the Armada, and is even supposed by some to have been the adviser of the successful tactics which avoided any attempt to board the Spanish galleons. In 1589 he shared in the unsuccessful expedition commanded by Drake and Norris, and for some time vessels fitted out by him were actively employed in making reprisals upon Spain. Raleigh was a courtier as well as a soldier and a mariner, and as early as 1589 he was brought into collision with the young earl of Essex, who challenged him, though the duel was prevented. Some passing anger of the queen drove him in this year to visit Ireland, where he renewed his friendship with Spenser, and, as is told in poetic lan- guage in Colin Clout's come Home again, took the poet back with him to England, introduced him to Elizabeth, and persuaded him to proceed to the immediate publication of a portion of the Faerie Queen. If Raleigh could plead for a poet, he could also plead for a Puritan, and in 1591 he joined Essex in begging for mercy for Udall. In the end of 1591 or the beginning of 1592 Raleigh seduced and subsequently married Elizabeth Throckmorton, and was consequently thrown into the Tower by Elizabeth, who could not endure that the fantastic love-making to herself which she exacted from her courtiers should pass into real affection for a younger woman. Previously to his imprisonment Raleigh had been forbidden to sail in command of a fleet of which a great part had been fitted out at his own cost for service against Spain. The ships, how- ever, sailed, and succeeded in capturing a prize of extra- ordinary value known at the time as the " Great Carrack." No one but Raleigh was capable of presiding over the work of securing the spoils. He was sent to Plymouth, still in the name of a prisoner, where his capacity for business and his power of Avinning the enthusiastic affection of his sub- ordinates were alike put to the test. The queen at last consented to restore him to complete liberty, though she tried to cheat him of his fair share of the booty. Raleigh resolved to use his regained liberty on an en- terprise more romantic than the capture of a carrack. The fable of the existence of El Dorado was at that time fully believed in Spain, and in 1594 Raleigh sent out Captain Wheddon to acquire information about the lands near the Orinoco. In 1595 he sailed in person with five ships for Trinidad. On his arrival he found that the Spaniards, who had occupied a place called San Thome at the junction of the Orinoco and the Caroni, had been obliged to abandon it. Raleigh ascended the river to the spot, heard more about El Dorado from the Indians, brought away some stones containing fragments of gold, and returned to England to prepare a more powerful ex- pedition for the following year. When he came back lies published an account of his voyage. The hope of enrich- ing himself, and of giving to his country a source of wealth f