Raleigh was encouraged in this enterprise by such men as Cecil, and the Lord High Admiral Howard, who contributed to its cost. His idea was to enter the land of gold by the Orinoco, and prior to his own voyage he despatched a ship, under Captain Whiddon, to reconnoitre on that part of the coast, and to seek information at the island of Trinidad. When Raleigh and his squadron had arrived at one of its ports he found a company of Spaniards from whom he cautiously extracted all they knew or believed concerning Guiana. “For these poor soldiers,” says he, “having been many years without wine, a few draughts made them merry; in which mood they vaunted of Guiana, and of the riches thereof, and all what they knew of the bays and passages, myself seeming to purpose nothing less than the entrance or discovery thereof, but bred in them an opinion that I was bound only for the relief of those English whom I had planted in Virginia, whereof the bruit was come among them, which I had performed in my return if extremity of weather had not forced me from the said coast.” Raleigh stopped some time here, not merely to extract all the information possible, but also to be revenged on the Governor, who the year before had behaved treacherously, entrapping eight of Captain Whiddon’s men. This he accomplished by taking and burning one of their new towns, and detaining the Governor, Berrio, at his pleasure on board. The same day two more of his ships arrived, and they prepared for the purposed discovery. “And first,” says Raleigh, “I called all the captains (_i.e._, caciques or native chiefs) of the island together that were enemies to the Spaniards; * * * and by my Indian interpreter, which I carried out of England, I made them understand that I was the servant of the queen, who was the great cacique of the north, and a virgin, and had more caciqui under her than there were trees on that island; that she was an enemy to the Castellani (_i.e._, Spanish from Castille) in respect of their tyranny and oppression, and that she delivered all such nations about her as were by them oppressed; and having freed all the coast of the northern world from their servitude, had sent me to free them also, and withal to defend the country of Guiana from their invasion and conquest. I showed them her Majesty’s picture, which they so admired and honoured as it had been easy to have brought them idolatrous thereof.” Raleigh used the Governor with courtesy and hospitality, and sounded him well concerning Guiana; and Berrio conversed with him readily, having no suspicion of Raleigh’s intentions. But when Sir Walter told him that he had resolved to see that country, the Governor “was stricken into a great melancholy,” and tried all he could to dissuade him. He described the rivers as full of sandbanks, and so shallow that no bark or pinnace could ascend them, and scarcely a ship’s boat; that they could not carry provisions for half the