deposits of gold. James was in debt and in need of money, and he clutched at the chance of getting out of his difficulties through the gold of Guiana. That there was gold there is certain; Raleigh's mine has been identified; but since he had left the Orinoco, the Spaniards had pushed up the river and annexed land and built stations.
James did not want to break with the Spanish Government and gave Raleigh instructions not to come to blows with the Spaniards. Unhappily, Raleigh's lieutenant, whom he had dispatched up the river, did come to blows with them, and blood was shed; it was however in self-defence, for the Spaniards had fallen upon the English party when unprepared and killed some of them. This unfortunate business, and the fact that Raleigh could not reach his gold-mine, the way to it being intercepted by the Spaniards, made him turn back with a heavy heart. On reaching Plymouth, he hasted towards London to state the case to the King, when he was met at Ashburton by his cousin, Sir Lewis Stukeley, with smiles and professions of love—but having war in his heart. His rancour against his kinsman was due to a quarrel in 1584, when, as Stukeley asserted, Sir Walter did "extreme injustice" to Stukeley's father, then a volunteer in Sir Richard Grenville's Virginia voyage, by deceiving him in a matter of a venture he had made. James was in a great fright lest he should be plunged in war with the King of Spain, and very angry because the gold-mine had not been found; and Stukeley was promised £500 to worm out of his cousin some damning admissions, as that there never had been any goldmine at all, and to betray these to James. Stukeley had received only verbal instructions from the King. He therefore reconducted Raleigh back to Plymouth, where he placed him in Radford, the house of Sir Christopher
