Overwhelmed by this terrible misfortune, the colonists returned to Newfoundland, where, yielding to his crew, Gilbert discontinued his explorations, and on August 31 changed the course of the two ships remaining, the Squirrel and Golden Hind, directly for England.  The story of the voyage back is most pathetic.  From the first the sea was boisterous; but to entreaties that he should abandon the Squirrel, a little affair of ten tons, and seek his own safety in the Hind, a ship of much larger size, Gilbert replied, “No, I will not forsake my little company going homeward, with whom I have passed so many storms and perils.”  Even then, amid so much danger, his spirit rose supreme, and he actually planned for the spring following two expeditions, one to the south and one to the north; and when some one asked him how he expected to meet the expenses in so short a time, he replied, “Leave that to me, and I will ask a penny of no man.”

A terrible storm arose, but Gilbert retained the heroic courage and Christian faith which had ever distinguished him.  As often as the Hind, tossed upon the waves, approached within hailing distance of the Squirrel, the gallant admiral, “himself sitting with a book in his hand” on the deck, would call out words of cheer and consolation—­“We are as near heaven by sea as by land.”  When night came on (September 10) only the lights in the riggings of the Squirrel told that the noble Gilbert still survived.  At midnight the lights went out suddenly, and from the watchers on the Hind the cry arose, “The admiral is cast away.”  And only the Golden Hind returned to England.[4]

The mantle of Gilbert fell upon the shoulders of his half-brother Sir Walter Raleigh, whose energy and versatility made him, perhaps, the foremost Englishman of his age.  When the Hind returned from her ill-fated voyage Raleigh was thirty-one years of age and possessed a person at once attractive and commanding.  He was tall and well proportioned, had thick, curly locks, beard, and mustaches, full, red lips, bluish gray eyes, high forehead, and a face described as “long and bold.”

By service in France, the Netherlands, and Ireland he had shown himself a soldier of the same fearless stamp as his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert; and he was already looked upon as a seaman of splendid powers for organization.  Poet and scholar, he was the patron of Edmund Spenser, the famous author of the Faerie Queene; of Richard Hakluyt, the naval historian; of Le Moyne and John White, the painters; and of Thomas Hariot, the great mathematician.

Expert in the art of gallantry, Raleigh won his way to the queen’s heart by deftly placing between her feet and a muddy place his new plush coat.  He dared the extremity of his political fortunes by writing on a pane of glass which the queen must see, “Fain would I climb, but fear I to fall.”  And she replied with an encouraging—­“If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all.”  The queen’s favor developed into magnificent gifts of riches and honor, and Raleigh received various monopolies, many forfeited estates, and appointments as lord warden of the stannaries, lieutenant of the county of Cornwall, vice-admiral of Cornwall and Devon, and captain of the queen’s guard.