In the shade though he was, he would abide no wrong to his official authority. In February, 1592, before his disgrace, he had found leisure in the midst of the preparations for his expedition to reprove the Devon justices of the peace for the application of their 'foreign authority' to compel his tinners to contribute to the repair of a private bridge. Still under a cloud in May, 1594, he was not afraid to protest highly to Lord Keeper Egerton against an encroachment by the Star Chamber on his Stannary jurisdiction. A year later the county magistrates do not seem to have thought his continuing obscuration exonerated them from defending themselves against the charge of 'intermeddling' with his prerogatives. He regarded himself as holding a commission to watch and warn against all danger by sea. In June, 1594, he was informing the Lord High Admiral that Spain had an armed fleet in the Breton ports. He prayed the Admiral to ask her Majesty's leave that his 'poor kinsman' might serve as a volunteer soldier or mariner in an attack upon it. Apparently he had his wish and was allowed to embark. But his advice had been followed tardily. He writes from the Foreland on August 25, that the season was too late. The only hope was that the enemy might approach the Thames. When he was not at sea he was contracting for the victualling and equipment of ships of war. That was among his frequent occupations. At all periods he had his eye upon Ireland. Neither royal coldness nor bodily ailments could force him to be silent on Irish affairs. In May, 1593, sick, and 'tumbled down the hill by every practice,' he would go on exclaiming against the administrative blunders which had let England be baffled and 'beggared' by a nation without fortifications, and, for long, without effective arms. 'The beggarly, the accursed kingdom,' had cost a million not many years since. 'A better kingdom might have been purchased at a less price, and that same defended with as many pence, if good order had been taken.' Though he was not admitted to the Queen's presence, she seems to have read memorials he drew up on the subject of Ireland. It is impossible not to reprobate his sentiments on the treatment of the native Irish. His correspondence with Cecil shows, that he was as willing to connive at their treacherous murder as other contemporary English statesmen, though not Burleigh, or perhaps Burleigh's son. But he believed honestly in the rectitude of his doctrines. He was patriotic in insisting upon their application for the benefit of a Government which, he thought, persecuted him. It may even be acknowledged that the resolute and consistent despotism he advocated might have been more tolerable, as well as more successful, than the spasmodic and fitful violence which discredited the Irish policy of the reign. He was indisputably right in condemning a system under which the island was 'governed neither as a country conquered nor free.' CHAPTER XII. GUIANA (1594-1595).