This proposition was rejected, and the poor knight lingered on in the Tower, attended during part of the time by two Guiana Indians, Harry and Leonard Regapo. In 1616, however, he at last recovered his liberty on condition that he went to Guiana and brought back gold, but at the same time the king refused to pardon him. Nevertheless he took up the matter with an amount of enthusiasm which showed his entire confidence in its ultimate success. All his own money and as much of his wife's as could be spared was spent in fitting out the expedition, and he also got contributions from many of his friends. The king even went so far as to give him a commission to undertake a voyage to the south parts of America, or elsewhere in America, inhabited by heathen and savage people, with all the necessary rights of government and jurisdiction; yet with all this the old sentence hung over his head. The expedition of fourteen vessels started in March, 1617, but even from the commencement the voyage was disastrous. First a gale was encountered, which drove the fleet to take refuge in Cork Harbour, where it lay until August. This seems to have put a damper on the commander, who now began to realise how much depended on his success. He was twenty-two years older than when he went on his first voyage to Guiana, and most of those years he had spent in captivity. Is it any wonder that when the excitement attendant on his release had gone off he became sick and utterly prostrated? Such was his condition when the fleet arrived at Cayenne, where he went to look for his Indian boy Harry, who had gone back to his people and was now wanted as interpreter.