So Ralegh and his brave men set their sails for England. Many hours in his cabin he must have enjoyed the luxury of rest, working out in his mind the time and proper equipment for the great expedition which he would lead back to the land which he had prospected. His imagination would picture to him the careful opponents who would be ready to put forward drawbacks and dangers; and he would answer them with such conviction that the most careful would gradually catch a part of his ardour. Guiana would be the topic of all Englishmen, and England's ultimate glory. He would view again the beauty of the land and its fertility, the broad plains and the thick woods, where birds of every brilliant colour flew, he would see the deer coming to drink at the water's edge, the refiner's basket, and the gold waiting to be worked out of the ground, and the precious stones waiting to be cut; the crystal, the sapphire, the lustre. He had his map, he had friends among the natives, he had made all ready for the great occupation. "The common soldier shall here fight for gold, and pay himself, instead of pence, with plates of half-a-foot broad, whereas he breaketh his bones in other wars for provant and penury. Those commanders and chieftains that shoot at honour and abundance, shall find there more rich and beautiful cities, more temples adorned with golden images, more sepulchres filled with treasure than either Cortez found in Mexico, or Pizzaro in Peru, and the shining glory of this conquest will eclipse all those so far extended beams of the Spanish nation." He arrived in England in August, 1595, having been absent not quite seven months. On all sides he met with opposition and disbelief. Some, the graver sort, considered it better to husband their forces, to repel the threatened invasion of Philip, who had sworn "to avenge the destruction of the Armada on Elizabeth, if he were reduced to pawn the last candlestick on his domestic altar." Others were angry that Ralegh had brought back no cargoes of gold and precious stones; others, again, laughed at him, saying that he had never been to Guiana at all, but had been lurking in Cornwall: that the whole thing was a cock and bull story to regain favour at Court. He, sneered they, was too easeful and sensual to endure the discomfort of so long a journey. Where were the riches which he would have taken, as Drake took, had he really been to Guiana? To which Ralegh answered proudly, "It became not the former fortune in which I once lived to go journies of picory: and it had sorted ill with the offices of honour, which, by her Majestie's grace I hold this day in England, to run from cape to cape, and from place to place, for the pillage of ordinary prizes."