Sir Walter Raleigh dropped anchor in so many ports, pulled up alongside so many Spanish galleons to ensure the booty was either unloaded or the larger Spanish galleon obediently followed under tight escort to a safe port to exchange goods. Or sometimes, an English flag would be hoisted, Spanish disposed of kindly, on a tropical beach, and off went the Raleigh men to another pirating raid, as Spain called them. Raleigh and his men would call it many more kindly words such as the honor of the Lord for their good behavior, or such.

Raleigh was eventually separated from his head by the jealous next king after the death of Elizabeth at the Tower, but that is the sad ending of a great man who opened up the world, and in particular created such interest in America, with his smoking on the streets of London and being doused by a kind minded man with a pail of water as he thought Raleigh was on fire. Progress, if it was that, and we now know it was not, is slow. But Raleigh, as he returned from more and more great raids with booty for his Queen, grew in stature and legend in England.

All eyes were on the West Indies, and this vast new land that had overwhelmed Sir Walter and his first attempt of settlement. He spoke fondly of his self named new land, Virginia, for his Virgin Queen. With all her other great glories, this land would yet become filled with people who speak the English as spoken by the Queen. And if not in 1580, then soon, surely. This new Virginia was swampland down at the coast, and that may have caused many of the deaths at Roanoake, with the bugs and mosquitoes, and the first settlers had not been of the best health; let out of jail for the experiment. As would be many others. That would be up to John Smith and the yet unborn Pocahantas, an entirely different story. We know the was some friendly contact with natives, and they may have exchanged more than peace pipes and tobacco, tribal trinkets for gemstones.

Meanwhile, after years in the Tower while Jamestown tried to outdo Virginia, it was off with his head for Sir Walter, ordered by some pampered prince with an inheritance. You know who you were. We are not to give bad names although I did mention his name, so I will not again. But shame, James, shame.At least you also pushed the Puritans out by 1620, and there was no stopping it then. Not then, not now, not ever.

Sir Walter Raleigh brought forward England onto the world stage, first as a privateer (pirate) but as a great explorer and visionary, and the man who saw to it that English America plunked itself right between the French in the cold north of Canada, and the Spanish down in tropical Florida. Middling good aim, perfect. America grows crops up to the icy north, and down to the deserts of Mexico. Sir Walter, you steer a mean course. The world thanks you, or should.

Raleigh is in the Carolina area, but it is all Sir Walter country, named after one English Queen after another. Walt saw many spots on the globe, and preferred London, except the Tower, and Virginia.

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