Ralegh gained the respect of his fellow soldiers for his genius and his bravery; even men who, like Sir Anthony Standen, were hostile to him, wrote in enthusiastic praise of his conduct. "Sir Walter Ralegh did (in my judgment) no man better: and his artillery most effect. I never knew the gentleman till this time, and I am sorry for it, for there are in him excellent things, beside his valour. And the observation he hath in this voyage used with my Lord of Essex hath made me love him." But at the Court little had changed. Essex remained arrogant and hostile, and for the time his influence appears to have been dominant. Immediately on his return Ralegh busied himself in the preparation and despatch of another ship to Guiana, to keep in touch with the natives whose alliance he had on his own visit obtained. Mr. Thomas Masham sailed in a pinnace called the _Wat_ on the 14th of October from Limehouse upon the Thames. Ralegh never ceased from ardour in this great enterprise of his; nothing drove it from his mind; he was convinced of its ultimate success, believing in it as he believed in himself. But he could not go in person, the time was not yet ripe. So he with his wounded leg was glad to retire to Sherborne for a season to the quiet of his Dorsetshire garden. In Sherborne was brought him the news of the death of Lady Cecil, to whom Sir Robert was much devoted, and Ralegh's letter of sympathy is beautiful in thought and expression, though, such is the interesting divergency of human opinion, there are those who think the letter crude, sententious and laboured. "SIR, "Because I know not how you dispose of your sealf, I forbeare to visitt you, preferringe your plesinge before myne owne desire. I had rather be with you now then att any other tyme, if I could thereby ether take off frome you the burden of your sorrows, or lay the greater part thereof on myne owne hart.... There is no man sorry for death it sealf, butt only for the tyme of death; every one knowing that it is a bonnd never forfeted to God.... If then we know the same to be certayne and inevitable, wee ought withall to take the tyme of his arrivall in as good part as the knowledge; and not to lament att the instant of every seeminge adversity, which we ar asured have byn on ther way towards us from the begininge.... I beleve it that sorrows are dangerus companions, converting badd into yevill and yevill into worse, and do no other service then multeply harms. They ar the treasures of weak harts and of the foolishe. The minde that entertayneth them is as the yearth and dust whereon sorrows and adversetes of the world do as the beasts of the field, tread trample and defile. The minde of man is that part of God which is in us, which, by how mich it is subject to passion, by so mich it is farther from Hyme that gave it us. Sorrows draw not the dead to life, butt the livinge to deathe...."