Robert Hues, who was an intimate friend and associate of Hariot, was born at Hertford in 1554. He became a poor scholar at Brazen nose, and was afterwards at St Mary’s Hall with Hariot. He took his degree of A.B.in 1579. He is said to have been a good Greek scholar, and after leaving the University travelled and became an eminent geographer and mathematician. He attracted the attention, probably through Raleigh, of that noble patron of learning Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, who took him into his service, made him one of his scientific companions while in the Tower, supported him partly at Sion, intrusted him to instruct his children, and finally sent him to Oxford as tutor at Christ Church of his eldest surviving son, Algernon Percy, who on the death of his father on gunpowder treason day 1632, became the 10th Earl of Northumberland. Hues died at Oxford the 24th of May, 1632, and was buried in the cathedral of Christ Church, according to the inscription on his monument. He is mentioned by Chapman in his translation of Homer’s Works [ 1616 ] as ‘another right learned, honest, and entirely loved friend of mine.’ See infra, p. 183. In 1595 Hariot was mentioned as a distinguished man of science in his Seaman’s Secrets by Captain John Davis the navigator, a friend and partner of Raleigh. On the eleventh of July 1596 Hariot under peculiar circumstances wrote a long and confidential letter to Sir Robert Cecil, Chief Secretary of State, in the interests of Raleigh’s Guiana projects. The letter is here given in full, as it shows better than anything else the close and confidential relations existing between Sir Walter and Hariot at that time. Raleigh had returned from Guiana, his first El Dorado expedition, in August 1595, and had in the mean time employed such energy and enterprise that within about five months he had fitted out and dispatched his second El Dorado fleet under his friend Captain Keymis. This second expedition returned to Plymouth in June 1596, a few days after Raleigh had gone with Essex and Howard of Effingham on that world-renowned expedition against Cadiz. Sir Walter appears to have left his affairs in the hands of his ever faithful Hariot, and hence this sensible and timely letter in the absence of his patron. There appears to have been no complaint against Keymis; but the master of his ship, Samuel Mace, seems to have been less discreet. The letter tells its own story, and gives a vivid picture of the intelligent earnestness of Sir Walter respecting Guiana, and at the same time the earnest intelligence of Hariot during Raleigh’s absence in Spain.