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Sir Walter Raleigh: England

So he fitted out two ships, and collected a lot of poor people who were willing to go anywhere, and he sent them across the ocean to plant a colony in the New World. After four months' sailing, they came to Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. Taking a look at the land, they sailed back home, and reported that the country was very beautiful, but that they would rather be in England. Raleigh named the land Virginia, in honor of the Virgin Queen; he was not quite sure where it was.

The next year another company was sent out by Raleigh. They landed on Roanoke Island and started a colony, but in a short while they grew tired and a passing ship took them also back to England. Thus the second effort was a failure.

These colonists, however, brought back to Raleigh many products of the country, among other things some tobacco, which they told Raleigh the Indians burned in their pipes, drawing the smoke through their mouths. Raleigh liked the idea of smoking, and soon began to use tobacco like the Indians. As he sat in his room one day with his pipe, blowing the smoke into the air, his servant came in with a pot of ale. He was amazed to see smoke coming out of Raleigh's mouth. "The master is on fire," he cried in alarm, and threw the ale into Raleigh's face, very much to the latter's amusement and chagrin.

One day while smoking before the Queen, Raleigh laid her a wager he could weigh the smoke coming from his pipe. The Queen accepted the bet. Raleigh thereupon weighed a small quantity of tobacco, smoked it all, and then carefully weighed the ashes. The difference between the weight of the tobacco and the weight of the ashes, he said, must be the weight of the smoke. The Queen laughingly paid the wager.

Raleigh tried to found a third colony in America, but it came to grief and was lost; he therefore gave up all his plans of colonization. He had spent large sums of money, and besides he had married one of the Queen's maids-of-honor, which so displeased Elizabeth that Raleigh lost his favored place at Court. He managed to get up an exploring party to go to South America in search of gold. Soon after his return to England, the Queen died, and James I. became King.

King James did not like Raleigh, and listened to his enemies, who were envious of his popularity.

Charges were preferred against him, and he was thrown into prison. On the day of his trial, he pleaded his own cause with great eloquence. He spoke all day long, from early morning until dark, but he was condemned to death.

For some reason he was not executed for fifteen years, but was kept confined in prison, where he spent his time writing a history of the world.

He met death like a brave man, asking to be executed in the morning hours, for he had a fever at the time, and he knew that if he waited until evening the chill would come and he would shake; thus his enemies might think he trembled for fear.

His request was granted. As he mounted the block, he touched the headsman's axe, saying, "It is a sharp medicine, but it will cure all ills."

He then laid his aged head upon the block, and, when the axe fell, the old courtier's troubles were over.