And several years later, after an angry interview with Salisbury, the occasion of which is not known, Raleigh wrote to Sir Walter Cope:—
"I ever have been and am resolved that it was never in the worthy heart of Sir Robert Cecil to suffer me to fall, much less to perish. For whatsoever terms it hath pleased his lordship to use towards me, which might utterly despair anybody else, yet I know that he spake them as a Councillor, sitting in Council, and in company of such as would not otherwise have been satisfied. But, as God liveth, I would have bought his presence at a far dearer rate than those sharp words and these three months' close imprisonment, for it is in his lordship's face and countenance that I behold all that remains to me of comfort and all the hope I have, and from which I shall never be beaten till I see the last of evils and the despair which hath no help. The blessing of God cannot make him cruel that was never so, nor prosperity teach any man of so great worth to delight in the endless adversity of an enemy, much less of him who in his very soul and nature can never be such a one towards him."[2]
Such expressions afford strong testimony to the generous qualities of Salisbury, nor, as has been pointed out, is their witness invalidated by the suggestion that they were used for selfish reasons,
