Delay meant expenditure of money which was desperately wanted; and what was most serious of all, delay meant loss of time, for only at the most favourable season of the year could these heavily equipped vessels hope to make their voyage with any likelihood of success, and only at the most favourable season could they hope to carry out the great task which awaited them at the end of their long voyage. Ralegh was once again in Ireland, where he had started his career. Thirty-six years before he had written to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, now long dead, "I have spent some time here under the Deputy in such poore place and charge, as were it not that I knew him to be one of yours, I would disdayne it as much as to keepe sheepe." Here, too, he had spent those quiet months with Edmund Spenser, his friend, by Mulla's shore; nearly twenty years had passed since rebels burned Spenser's house to the ground and Spenser himself died of very grief. And here was Ralegh still living, still in quest of the dream's fulfilment, of which he had talked with the poet who was at rest, and still fretting at this last delay which was quietly ravelling away the fabric of all his hopes. Spenser had given the world his vision of the fairy realm into which his spirit had now passed; Ralegh had written the first half of his great History of the World, over which he desired to extend his country's dominion. Richard Boyle was still at Cork. Boyle had bought Ralegh's estates in Ireland and they were flourishing under his direction. Here as elsewhere Ralegh broke the ground from which others reaped a rich harvest. One Henry Pine of Mogelie was vexing Boyle as grievously as he had in years gone by vexed Ralegh with whom he was connected in industrial enterprises. So Boyle took advantage of Ralegh's visit to Cork to question him concerning the terms of a lease, and Ralegh spoke vigorously against the claims of Henry Pine, remembering well Pine's former bad treatment of him. He spoke so vigorously that in the following year, when he was reviewing all the many events of his great life, his words came back to him. He was then on the threshold of departure, and not wishing to think that any man had been harmed by him unjustly, he expressed a strong desire that the terms of this lease might be examined closely again. The action witnesses Ralegh's attention to justice and to detail. But at last a favourable wind sprang up, and on the 19th of August, though late in the year for its enterprise, the fleet set sail from Cork harbour. Nothing could deter Ralegh from his last venture. The wide sea opened out before him once again, and far away the rich land of his dreams, where wealth was waiting for him and greatness for his country. Behind him he left his adventurous past life, and his soul was inclined towards this new adventure.