"Sweetheart, I can write unto you but with a weak hand, for I have suffered the most violent calenture for fifteen days that ever man did and lived. But God, that gave me a strong heart in all my adversities, hath also now strengthened it in the hell-fire of heat.... We are yet two hundred men, and the rest of our fleet are reasonable strong. Strong enough, I hope, to perform what we have undertaken, if the diligent care at London to make our strength known to the Spanish King by his ambassador have not taught the Spanish King to fortify all the entrances against us." He tells her that their son is in excellent health, "having had no distemper in all the heat under the line," and after recording the names of those who had died, and the disasters which had fallen upon the survivors, he ends the letter with this characteristic sentence: "To tell you that I might be here King of the Indians were a vanity. But my name hath still lived among them here. They feed me with fresh meat and all that the country yields; all offer to obey me." He would always rather be King even of the Indians than king only of his griefs. The ship remained at anchor in the harbour of the river Cayenne until December 4. The sick men were landed, the ships were washed, fresh water was taken in; the barges and shallops which were brought out of England in quarters were put together, ready for the inland voyage to the mine. Ralegh reaped the full benefit of his courtesy to the Indians on his previous visit. Well they remembered him, as he wrote to his wife, and without their kindness it would have fared ill with the plague-stricken, tempest-tossed company. As it was, the Indians tended the sick with every attention possible, and helped the expedition by every means in their power. Ralegh was still too ill to walk. He was carried about in a chair, and in a condition in which most men would need all their strength to fight disease and death, he superintended the arrangements for the five ships which were to make their way up the great river to the mine under Captain Keymis. In the five ships were five companies, each of fifty men. The Lieutenant-General of the land force, John Piggot, had died of fever on the way out; Sir Warham St. Leger lay sick without hope of life; and accordingly the command of the whole expedition was entrusted to Ralegh's nephew, George Ralegh, "who had served long with infinite commendation," but who was somewhat too young to have over the men the absolute authority which his position required. The five companies were separately commanded by Captain Parker and Captain North, "brethren to the Lord Mounteagle and the Lord North, valiant gentlemen, and of infinite patience for the labour, hunger and heat which they have endured;" by Ralegh's son, Walter; by Captain Thornhurst of Kent, and by Captain Chudleigh's lieutenant.