"I received your letters this present day at Chattame concerninge the wages of the mariners and others. For myne own part, I am very willing to enter bonde, as you persuaded me, so as the Privey Seale be first sente for my injoyinge the third: but I pray consider that I have layd all that I am worth, and must do, ere I depart on this voyage. If it fall not out well, I can but loose all, and if nothinge be remayning, wherewith shall I pay the wages.... And farther I have promised Her Majestie that, if I can perswade the Cumpanies to follow Sir Martin Furbresher, I will without fail returne.... But, Sir, for mee then to be bounde for so great a sume, uppon the hope of another man's fortune, I will be loth: and besides, if I weare able, I see no privy seale for my thirds. I mean not to cume away, as they say I will, for feare of a marriage and I know not what. If any such thinge were, I would have imparted it unto yoursealf before any man livinge: and therefore I pray believe it not, and I beseich you to suppress, what you can, any such mallicious report. For I protest before God, ther is none on the face of the yearth that I would be fastned unto. And so in haste I take my leave of your Honor. From Chattame, the 10th of Marche. "Your's ever to be commanded, "W. RALEGH" Ralegh was anxious to stop this gossip about the relations between himself and Elizabeth Throgmorton. What they were, was entirely his own affair. At any rate he wanted Secretary Cecil to be quite clear that they would in no way affect his willingness to work as he had always worked for his country. And so little was he "fastned" to any on the face of the earth that he relaxed no effort to forward his enterprise of Guiana, and in three years' time he set sail for Guiana, though his marriage was then an established fact. It was for many reasons advisable to crush, if possible, the spread of gossip, and especially because the Queen Elizabeth hated her favourites to marry. As she grew old and began to lose her power as a woman, this feeling increased in violence. Whether that feeling be good or bad, is of no importance. It existed, and Ralegh knew well that it existed. Many consider that his devotion (and that of most of her courtiers) was merely based upon the advantages which he could get from the old woman: that he really flattered and despised her; that his conduct was base and unscrupulous. This view would seem to be at fundamental variance with the facts of his nature, of the Queen's extraordinary power, and of the whole tendency of the time. Not for nothing were love-sonnets the fashion: though there are men who think that fashion sufficient to prove once for all the coldheartedness and insincerity of the time.