'For my part,' said Essex, with a noble obstinacy, 'I will not leave the enterprise as long as I have any foot of land in England unsold. But my land is so entangled to the Queen's Majesty, for that money which I had of her towards this journey, as I cannot sell any land that I have for the one-half of that which before I might have done.' He was in the position of a borrower driving a risky trade, or of a would-be insurer who leads an unhealthy life. No one was willing to lend or to buy where the Queen was first mortgagee. He proposed two courses to her Majesty. If she would bear the charge of 100 horse and 600 foot, while he furnished 100 horse, and made a last effort with the adventurers, then he engaged to make the North profitable to the Crown, either by rents from the natives or by English settlers. 'Let me bear both the blame and the shame if I do not before Christmas Day make that part as quiet as any part in Ireland shall be.' For himself he asked only a grant at a nominal rent of Island Magee, the long narrow peninsula which protects Lough Larne from the fury of the Northern Sea, on condition of contributing 500_l._ towards any town which the Queen might think proper to build there. 'I find it more easier to bear the charges of 200 men than to bear the name of a general without wages.' The other alternative was for the Queen to take 250_l._ a year in land in discharge of the 10,000_l._ which he owed her, and to free the third part of his estate from the claim of the Crown. He would then do his best to carry out the original scheme alone, 'but yet this way will neither please the adventurers, nor encourage them to go forwards.'[274] [Sidenote: The Queen resolves to recall Essex.]