With the death of Elizabeth in 1603 ends the brilliant and successful portion of Raleigh's career. Her successor James from the first regarded him with a suspicion and dislike which he was at no pains to conceal. He had besides made powerful enemies— the principal of whom were Cecil and Howard. His ruin was resolved and means were soon found to compass it. He was accused of complicity in a plot against the king; and though no jot of evidence of his being any way concerned in it was pro duced at his trial. a verdict was readily procured, finding him guilty of high-treason. The language of the prosecutor, attorney-general Coke, was outrageously abusive. He called "a damnable- atheist," "a spider of hell," "a viperous traitor," etc. Sentquee of death was passed, but :Tames did 'not venture to execute him; and he was sent to the tower, where, for thirteen years, he remained a prisoner, his estates confiscated, and made over to the king's favorite, Carr, earl of Somerset. During his imprisonment, he'devoted himself to literary and scientific pursuits, his chief monument in this kind being his History of the Work!, a noble fragment, still notable to the student. as one. of the finest models of our quaint and stately old English style. Certain of his poetical pieces, giving hint of a genius at once elegant and sententious, also continue to be remembered, and are more or less familiar to every one. In 1615 he procured his release, and once more sailed for Guiana. The expedition, from which great results were expected, failed miserably. Raleigh himself, in consequence of severe illness, was unable to accompany it inland, and nothing but disaster ensued. To add to his grief and disappointment, his eldest and favorite son was killed ,in the storming of the Spanish town of St. Thomas, and he returned to England, broken in spirit and in fortunes. He returned only to die. On the morning of Oct. 29, 1618, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, he was infamously executed, nominally on the sentence passed on him sixteen years before, but really, there is reason to suppose, in base com pliance on James's part with the urgencies of the king of Spain, who resented his per sistent hostility.
Raleigh was a man of noble presence, of versatile and commanding genius, unques tionably one of the most splendid figures in a time unusually prolific of all splendid developments of humanity. In the art and finesse of the courtier, the politic wisdom of the statesman, and the skillful daring of the warrior, he was almost alike pre-eminent. The moral elevation of the man shone out eminently in the darkness which beset his later fortunes: and the calm and manly dignity with which he fronted adverse fate con ciliated even those whom his haughtiness in prosperity had offended. Raleigh's "Life" has been written by Oldys, Cayley (1806), P. F. Tytler (1833); Edwards (1868), Bt. John (1868); his poems were published by sir E. Brydges (1814); his Miscellaneous Writing*, by Dr. Birch (1751), and his Complete Tirorks, at Oxford (8 vols. 1829).
RaLE, or RA SLES, SEBASTIEN, 1658-1724; b. France; became a Jesuit and teacher of Greek at Nismes; went to Canada as a missionary in 1689; was stationed at the Aben aki mission of St. Francis, near the falls of Chaudiere, afterward among the Illinois Indians, and in 105 at Norridgewock on the Kennebec river, Me. He learned the Abenaki language, was successful in converting the Indians, built a church, and had so much influence that the English, believing him to be the cause of the Indian forays upon their settlements, set a price upon his head. In 1705 a party attacked and burned the church; in 1722 another party pillaged his cabin, and burnt the church, which had been rebuilt, but he escaped to the woods; in 1724 another party surprised the town, killed several Indians, and shot Rale. Among the papers which were carried off when he fled was his dictionary of the Abcnaki language, which is preserved in the library of Harvard college, and has been printed in the memoirs of the academy of arts and sciences.