Lawrence Kemys or Keymis ( 1562–1618) was an English seaman and companion of Sir Walter Raleigh in his expeditions to Guiana in 1595 and 1617–18. First voyage to Guiana Raleigh's 1595 voyage to Trinidad and Guiana consisted of four vessels, with Kemys serving as second-in-command and captain of a small Spanish prize named Gallego. The aim of the expedition was to find Manõa, the mythic Gold city of El Dorado and to strike up friendly relations with native tribes. Upon reaching Guiana, Kemys led a force inland along the banks of the Essequibo River, reaching what he wrongly believed to be Lake Parime. Second voyage to Guiana The next year, 1596, Raleigh being unable to go himself sent Kemys in command of the Darling to continue the exploration of the Guiana coast and the Essequibo river. Kemys brought back glowing accounts of the wealth of the country he had visited, and urged on Raleigh that it would greatly advantage the queen Elizabeth I to take possession of it. Raleigh, however, was not in a position to follow the advice, and Kemys seems to have remained in his service on shore. During his exploration of the coast between the Amazon and the Orinoco, Kemys mapped the location of Amerindian tribes and prepared geographical, geological and botanical reports of the country. Kemys described the coast of Guiana in detail in his Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana (1596) and wrote that indigenous people of Guiana traveled inland by canoe and land passages towards a large body of water on the shores of which he supposed was located Manoa of El Dorado. Imprisoned in the Tower When, in 1603, Raleigh was accused of devising the so-called Main Plot against the King James I, Kemys, as his follower and servant, was also implicated, and was imprisoned with him in the Tower of London, and afterwards in the Fleet, September–December 1603. He was probably released at the end of the year, and during Raleigh's long imprisonment of thirteen years, seems to have acted as his bailiff and agent. In 1617, Raleigh was pardoned by the King James I and it was no doubt that Kemys instigated Raleigh to demand the Royal permission to go on his last voyage to the Orinoco, and when the permission was at last granted, Kemys accompanied him as pilot and captain, claiming to have certain knowledge of a rich