ships or vessels unto any place or places hereafter to be by me, my aid or advice discovered towards the northwest or any part of the west, and also shall pay but 12d. for every ton of merchandize brought from such places during the said time in two such ships aforesaid, and no more whatsoever might otherwise have growing to Your Highness heirs or successors for any such merchandize so brought or transplanted as aforesaid.

"3. Also that I and my heirs may have and enjoy of Your Majesty's gift, the tenth part of all such lands, territories, and countries as shall be discovered as is aforesaid towards any part of the north and west as shall be by us chosen with all the profit thereto appertaining with free passage egress and regress to the same, holding the same. of your Majesty, your heirs and succesors by the yearly rent of a knight's fee, for all manner of service and other payments to be set or taxed.

"4. Also that it may please Your Majesty to grant me during my life the Captainship unto and government to Your Majesty's use of all such countries and territories as shall by me or my advice discovered as is aforesaid (with convenient fee and allowance for such a charge) and the same to be occupied and exercised by me or my deputy or deputies so as your Majesty shall allow of him or them by me to be nominated.

"5. Also that it may please your Majesty to grant me and the heirs male of my body and for default of such issue to the heirs male of Otis Gilbert deceased, the one half of your Majesty's part of such goods, fines and forfeitures or penalties as shall hereafter fortune to be forfeited by infringing the privilege of the said corporation for any offence committed towards the northwest or taking any point of the west.

"6. Also that all ships as shall from time to

time be employed about the traffic into any of the discovered countries of any corporation for discovery of new trades, both outwards and homewards with their gynge (?) may be free forever of all arrests, imprests, and impeachments for any common service of the Realm unless it be at the setting forth of a general army and navy and by virtue of your Highness special commission for the same under your Bill signed."

The Act, just passed, granted to the Corporation of the Merchants Adventurers the sole right to trade with any places northwards, north-eastwards, or north-westwards from London, not known or frequented prior to the recent voyages undertaken by the Company. There was therefore some question whether not the privileges asked for by Humphrey Gilbert were an infringement of the rights of the Company, and his petition was accordingly submitted to them for their comment and approval. The reply made is tabulated side by side with his petition.

To the first and second articles it was replied

"Touching the aid of shipping and releasement of custom it is not prejudicial to the Company if it please Her Majesty to grant them, notwithstanding since the Company have from the beginning of the first attempt minded the discovery of Cathay and have made divers attempts thereof and are determined so to do again either by the northeast or by the northwest. They desire to have the rule and ordering of all discoveries towards the said parts agreeing to their privileges wherein they will not refuse but desire the good advice helf and conference of Mr. Gilbert, if it please him, with reasonable conditions to enterprise it or to assist them therein.

"Item, The said fellowship doth mislike wholly the third request as derogatory to their privileges. For it is granted to them that they shall and may subdue

possess and occupy all manner of towns, isles, and main lands of the Infidels, lying northwards, northeastwards, or northwestwards, which shall be found, as vassals and subjects of the realm, and to acquire the title dominion and jurisdiction of those places to be found, unto the Queen's majesty and her successors for ever. Moreover it is granted to the said fellowship that none shall traffic, visit, or sail to any such country lying as is aforesaid undiscovered without the order and agreement of the said fellowship.

"Touching the fourth request the said fellowship can very well like that Mr. Gilbert accepting the freedom of the said society may be appointed in person and not by substitute to be captain and governor of the countries by his travel to be found, so as the liberty of traffic and the privileges aforesaid be entirely preserved to the said fellowship.

"To the fifth and sixth the said society submit themselves to the Queen's Majesty's pleasure."

In the preamble to his petition the discovery of a north-west passage to Cathay is offered as the first inducement, but the body of the petition treats mainly of the rights and privileges to be granted him in the countries he might discover.

Following up the idea of colonization expressed in his Discourse, he petitions that he should be appointed governor of all the lands he might discover, and have a grant in fee of one-tenth of the same. Colonization is therefore implied, although it is not proposed in so many words.

But again he was forced to control his ambitions. Prompted by the opposition of the Merchant Adventurers Company, Elizabeth, as we have heard, sent him back to Ireland, charged with a mission to plant a colony there instead of in the New World. This association of ideas is certainly remarkable, and the speculation naturally arises whether the design for colonizing Ulster may not have have originated with

Humphrey Gilbert himself and have been proposed to Elizabeth by him, or whether his petition may not at least have suggested the idea to her, or to its projectors, whoever they were.

Some years were to elapse before he could again return to his favourite project.

There are two copies of Gilbert's petition in the Record Office, neither of them is signed nor dated, and but one is in Gilbert's handwriting. Owing to some internal differences in dates it is evident that one was written some months before the other, the first probably in May or June, and the second in November, 1566. From a letter written by Anthony Jenkinson to Cecil early in 1566, it seems that he also was interested in this petition. He asks permission to undertake an expedition to discover Cathay, and says that he had talked the matter over with Gilbert, that they had determined to make the trial at their own charges, and that he had asked Gilbert to solicit the privilege on their joint account. The petitions, however, make no reference to him.

CHAPTER V

HIS MARRIAGE; PARLIAMENTARY CAREER; APPOINTMENT AS SURVEYOR OF ARTILLERY

DURING Sir Humphrey Gilbert's visit to England in 1570, bearing upon him "the blushing honours" of knighthood, he wooed and won Mistress Anne Ager, the daughter of Sir Anthony Ager, of Otterden, Kent, and heiress of a considerable fortune. Her father had been Marshal of Calais when it was taken by the French in 1558, and had lost his life in its defence, “having," says Stowe, "performed many notable deeds of valour." "Preferring to die rather than join those who betrayed the city," says another writer.

Gilbert was then in his thirty-second year, and was doubtless a gallant figure when he went a-wooing Mistress Anne, and easily won her heart and hand. Of his personal appearance we have no accurate description, beyond the statement of Hooker that he was "a man of higher stature than the common sort and of complexion cholericke." Sir Walter Ralegh was about six feet in height, and of a powerful build, his hair and beard were black and wavy, his eyes dark and piercing; a description which, with a change in colouring, would very probably answer for Sir Humphrey Gilbert. No striking family likeness, however, is to be observed in their portraits. Gilbert's is the handsomer, the more refined, the more intellectual face; but it lacks the strength and fire which are noticeable in all the portraits of Walter Ralegh.

Gascoigne the poet, writing of Gilbert about this time, says he was "well and worshipfully born and bred, endowed with great gifts of the mind and well given