When Raleigh arrived in England, he found that the tidings of his attack on the Spaniards, and the utter failure of his expedition, had reached there before him. The Spanish ambassador was clamorous for punishment on what he called a piratical proceeding; and the king and the nation, who might have pardoned a successful adventurer, had no indulgence to extend to one so much the reverse. Finding a proclamation had been issued for his arrest, Raleigh endeavored to escape to France, but was taken in the attempt, and committed close prisoner to the Tower. He was made a victim to court intrigue. The weak king, James, was then negotiating a Spanish match for his son, and, to gratify the King of Spain and his court, sacrificed one of the noblest of his subjects. Without being put on trial for his late transactions, Raleigh's old sentence, which had been suspended sixteen years, was revived against him; and on the 29th of October, 1618, four months after his arrival, he was beheaded on the scaffold. The fate of Raleigh caused a great sensation at the time, and has not yet ceased to excite emotion. The poet Thomson, in his "Summer," finely alludes to the various circumstances of his history, which we have briefly recorded:-- "But who can speak The numerous worthies of the 'Maiden reign'? In Raleigh mark their every glory mixed,-- Raleigh, the scourge of Spain, whose breast with all The sage, the patriot, and the hero, burned. Nor sunk his vigor when a coward reign The warrior fettered, and at last resigned To glut the vengeance of a vanquished foe: Then, active still and unrestrained, his mind Explored the vast extent of ages past, And with his prison-hours enriched the world; Yet found no times in all the long research So glorious or so base as those he proved In which he conquered and in which he bled." CHAPTER VIII. THE FRENCH PHILOSOPHERS. After so many abortive attempts to reach the Golden Empire, the ardor of research greatly abated. No expeditions, composed of considerable numbers, have since embarked in the enterprise; but from time to time, for the century succeeding Raleigh's last attempt, private expeditions were undertaken and encouraged by provincial governors; and several hundred persons perished miserably in those fruitless endeavors. The adventure we are now about to record was of an entirely different character in respect to its objects and the means employed; but it occupied the same field of action, and called into exercise the same qualities of courage and endurance.