Now, if this were quite correct, it would be conclusive, that if Sir Walter Raleigh sailed from Gravesend on the 26th June, he could not have started from Virginia to return to England on the 20th of the same month. I thought it well, however, to verify this statement of Mr. Lodge, and had recourse to my old friend Hakluyt as usual. I there found (vol. iii. pp. 769. et seq.) that on starting from Gravesend, there were only two vessels called respectively the Red Dragon and the Clifford; these vessels arrived at Plymouth on the 24th of July, and were there detained by westerly winds until the 17th of August, when they-- "Then departed with another ship, also for our Rear-admirall, called the Roe, whereof W. Hawes was Captaine; and a fine pinnesse also, called the Dorothie, _which was Sir Walter Raleigh's_." It therefore follows, that the pinnace might have joined them immediately before the 17th of August, a date too late for our purpose. Nay more, the only authority for Mr. Lodge's statement, that the vessel was commanded by Sir Walter, rests upon the words which I have put in Italics; his name is not mentioned in the subsequent account of the expedition, although, on the 7th of February, 1587, it was found necessary to hold a council of war, at which no less than eighteen officers assisted, all of whom, beginning with the admiral, are named. Raleigh's name does not occur; and is it conceivable that he, if present in the fleet, would have been absent on such an occasion? This therefore affords one additional instance in which Raleigh was presumed to be present merely because he fitted out a vessel. Being inconclusive as a positive piece of evidence on the main question, my chief reason for referring to it was to show how hastily some writers make assertions, and how probable it is that "Theobald and others" went upon similar grounds in their statement as to Raleigh's having visited Virginia. In justice to Mr. Lodge, I must mention that the error into which he fell with respect to Raleigh, in his sketch of the life of the Earl of Cumberland, is not repeated in his biography of Raleigh, in which it may be supposed he was more careful. Raleigh's having concerned himself sometime in July or August in fitting out a vessel for Cumberland's expedition, undoubtedly forms part of that chain of evidence alluded to by Schomburgk, tending to prove his continued residence in England in 1586. I feel inclined, however, to search for positive evidence on the point. In the very valuable collection of letters entitled the _Leicester Correspondence_, published for the Camden Society in 1844, I find his name occurring several times. On the 29th of March, 1586, Raleigh writes "from the court" to the Earl of Leicester, at that time in the Low Countries: he states that he had moved the Queen to send Leicester some pioneers, and found her very willing; but that since, the matter had been stayed, he knew not for what cause. He then goes on to