Frobisher's Voyage in Search of a Northwest Passage to India, and for Gold

Frobisher touched at Greenland, coasted up the shores of Labrador and entered a strait or inlet above the entrance to Hudson's Bay, which bears his name. There he landed and formally took possession of the country in the name of Elizabeth. Impenetrable pack-ice, the loss of some of his men and the growing discontent of others, caused him to return to England in the autumn, at the twilight of the polar night, taking with him some of the products of the new region which he had added to the British Empire. Among other things was a heavy dark stone, a fragment of which the wife of a man to whom Frobisher had given it threw into the fire, in a passion. Her husband snatched it out and quenched the glowing mineral in vinegar, when it glittered like burnished gold. On fusing it, a small quantity of the precious metal was found in it. The fact was soon noised abroad and produced a gold-fever. Many persons eagerly offered money to enable Frobisher to make another voyage to those high latitudes, and in May, 1577, he sailed from Harwich in a vessel of the royal navy, which the queen placed at his disposal, accompanied by two barks of thirty tons each.

Only for gold were these adventurers ordered to search. They were not to seek the mysterious passage to India. Indeed Frobisher had demonstrated the impossibility of passing the polar ice-fields. On the shores of Frobisher's Inlet, the whole company landed, freighted the ships with the black stone, and returned to England. A commission was appointed by the queen to determine the value of the discoveries made. Very little gold, if any, was procured from the cargoes of stone, but the commission, for reasons not made clear, deemed it expedient to send out another expedition. Frobisher was now placed in command of a fleet, for he had twelve ships in addition to the three with which he made his second voyage. With these he sailed from Harwich on the last day of May, 1558, instructed to make search for genuine gold-ore, or for a northwest passage. Storms and currents scattered the fleet, and not more than half of the ships reached their destination. Some turned back, and two of them went to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. No effort was made to force the vessels that reached Frobisher's Inlet to penetrate the ice-pack northward. They were laden with the dark stones (out of which not a particle of gold was obtained), and returned to England.

The three expeditions under Frobisher were unsuccessful, excepting in the discovery of several bays, inlets and island on the northern coasts of America, before unknown. The brave leader, however, won the honors of a discoverer and the fame of having been the first European who had penetrated so far toward the Arctic Circle, for Frobisher's Inlet is under the sixty-third degree of north latitude. For these exploits and other brave deeds, especially as one of the chief captains in the British fleet that confronted the "Invincible Armada" of Spain, he received the honors of knighthood.

Whilst these expeditions were in progress, Francis Drake, another Devonshire man, was circumnavigating the globe; a feat performed by the Portuguese navigator, Magellan, half a century before. Drake had suffered much in person and property from the Spaniards, and had vowed vengeance and retribution. His friends fitted out five vessels for him to go on a voyage of discovery and plunder. Promising the queen gold and conquest, he sailed under her sanction at the middle of November, 1577, from the harbor of Plymouth, making the Pelican, of a hundred tons burthen--the largest vessel in his squadron--his flag-ship. After touching at Brazil, and other places down the east coast of South America, he passed through the Straits of Magellan at the southern extremity of the continent, early in September, 1578. Then he ran up the western coast, plundering the Spanish settlements in Chili and Peru, capturing a royal Spanish galleon heavily loaded with treasure, and taking possession of California in the name of his sovereign. Burdened with gold and silver, and with his revenge fully satisfied, Drake determined to return home. Fearing to meet a superior Spanish force in the ocean, he resolved to seek a passage around the northern shores of America. Repelled by severe cold, he sailed across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at Plymouth late in September, 1579, having discovered points on the western coasts of our country as far north as Washington Territory, above the Columbia River. The queen partook of a banquet given by Drake on board the Pelican in Plymouth harbor, that was spread under a rich canopy of silk and tapestry that covered the clean deck, on which lay beautiful Turkish mats. The queen was attended by several ladies and gentlemen of her court. The food was, served on silver dishes, and the wine in golden goblets. All the fruit of plunder. When the banquet was ended, the queen conferred upon Drake the honor of knighthood. He was then between thirty and forty years of age. Richly dressed in the uniform of his rank, he knelt before his sovereign, at her command, in the presence of the goodly company, and with his own sword she smote him gently over the shoulders, three times, and then bade him stand, a knight of her realm.