For my own part I account it impossible for him to escape the snares which wit may sett and weaknesse is apt to fall into."[C] [C] Major Martin Hume gives an account of the scheme itself with admirable clearness; his quotations from the letters of the period I use. It is evident that Ralegh had some suspicion of what was being wrought against him; in sending a paper to the Queen against the proposals to declare a successor--the paper has unfortunately been lost--he writes a letter containing the following sentence: "Your Majestye may, perchance, speake herof to thos seeminge my great frinds, but I finde poore effects of that or any other supposed ametye. For, your Majesty havinge left mee I am left all alone in the worlde, and am sorry that ever I was att all. What I have donn is oat of zeale and love, and not by any incorngement: for I am only forgotten in all rights and in all affaires; and myne enemis have their wills and desires over mee. Ther ar many other things concerninge your Majesty's present service, which, meethinks are not, as they ought, remembered, and the tymes pass away, unmesured, of which more profitt might be taken." He may have known that Lord Henry Howard was mischievously inclined towards him; Howard had always been his enemy. But it is unlikely that he could have suspected Cecil, for Cecil was at the pains to show all the appearance of friendship both to him and to Lady Ralegh. Yet Cecil was, from the beginning of his own correspondence, working against his friend. "Your Majestie," he writes to King James, "will fynde it, in your case that a choyce election of a feaw in the present wilbe of more use than any general acclamation of many." And in his third letter he praises Howard for his fidelity, and refers bitterly to Ralegh.