Raleigh’s spirit is stirred within him. If ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ fiction as it is, once excited us, how must a far worse reality have excited Raleigh, as he remembered that these Spaniards are as yet triumphant in iniquity, and as he remembered, too, that these same men are the sworn foes of England, her liberty, her Bible, and her Queen? What a deed, to be beforehand with them for once! To dispossess them of one corner of that western world, where they have left no trace but blood and flame! He will go himself: he will find El Dorado and its golden Emperor; and instead of conquering, plundering, and murdering him, as Cortez did Montezuma, and Pizarro Atahuallpa, he will show him English strength; espouse his quarrel against the Spaniards; make him glad to become Queen Elizabeth’s vassal tributary, perhaps leave him a bodyguard of English veterans, perhaps colonise his country, and so at once avenge and protect the oppressed Indians, and fill the Queen’s treasury with the riches of a land equal, if not superior, to Peru and Mexico. Such is his dream; vague perhaps: but far less vague than those with which Cortez and Pizarro started, and succeeded. After a careful survey of the whole matter, I must give it as my deliberate opinion, that Raleigh was more reasonable in his attempt, and had more fair evidence of its feasibility, than either Cortez or Pizarro had for theirs. It is a bold assertion. If any reader doubts its truth, he cannot do better than to read the whole of the documents connected with the two successful, and the one unsuccessful, attempts at finding a golden kingdom. Let them read first Prescott’s ‘Conquests of Mexico and Peru,’ and then Schomburgk’s edition of Raleigh’s ‘Guiana.’ They will at least confess, when they have finished, that truth is stranger than fiction.