[A Thompson MS]
A folio volume of tracts by Ralegh, in a single hand. Early-mid-17th century.
Inscribed on a flyleaf ‘Given me by Wm. Collins Esqr. of Maise Hill, Greenwich, 12th Steptr. 1866 / Berrick’. In the library of Silvanus Phillips Thompson (1851-1916), physicist.
[item 1]
• RaW 608: Sir Walter Ralegh, A Discourse of the Invention of Ships, Anchors, Compass, &c.
Copy.
An epistolary tract addressed to Prince Henry, beginning ‘That the ark of Noah was the first ship because the invention of God himself...’. First published, as ‘Upon the first Invention of Shipping’, in Judicious and Select Essayes and Observations (London, 1650). Works (1829), VIII, 317-34.
[item 2]
• RaW 617: Sir Walter Ralegh, A Discourse of the Original and Fundamental Cause of Natural, Arbitrary, Necessary, and Unnatural War
Copy.
A tract beginning ‘The ordinary theme and argument of history is war...’. First published (in part), as ‘The Misery of Invasive Warre’, in Judicious and Select Essays and Observations (London 1650). Published complete in Three Discourses of Sir Walter Ralegh (London 1702). Works (1829), VIII, 253-97.
See also RaW 610.
[item 3]
• RaW 556: Sir Walter Ralegh, Apology for his Voyage to Guiana
Copy.
A tract beginning ‘If the ill success of this enterprise of mine had been without example...’. First published in Judicious and Select Essays and Observations (London, 1650). Works (1829), VIII, 477-507. Edited by V. T. Harlow in Ralegh's Last Voyage (London, 1932), pp. 316-34.