THE LUST FOR GOLD

Of Frobisher’s interview with the queen and what followed we have account in the introductory paragraph of the third chapter of Best’s True Discourse:

“He was courteously enterteyned, and hartily welcommed of many noble men, but especially for his great adventure commended of her Majestie, at whose hands he received great thankes, and most gracious countenance, according to his deserts. Her Highnesse also greatly commended the rest of the Gentlemen in this service, for their great forwardnes in this so dangerous an attempt.... And finding that the matter of the gold Ore had appearance & made shew of great riches & profit, & the hope of the passage to Cataya, by this last voyage greatly increased, her Majestie appointed speciall commissioners chosen for this purpose, gentlemen of great judgmente, art, and skill, to looke thorowly into the cause, for the true triall and due examination thereof, and for the full handling of all matters thereunto appertaining. And because that place and countrey hath never heretofore beene discovered, and therefore had no speciall name by which it might be called and knowen, her Majestie named it very properly Meta Incognita, as a marke and bound utterly hitherto unknowen.”

A part of the ore was brought up from Bristol Castle and deposited in the Tower of London under lock and key; and after “sufficient triall and proofe” of it had been made, and they had also become satisfied of the “likelyhood” of the Northwest Passage, the commissioners advised the queen that “the cause was of importance, and the voyage worthy to be advanced again.”

Accordingly a third expedition was planned on quite a grand scale, and with this project was coupled a scheme of what might be termed limited colonization in Meta Incognita. One hundred selected “souldiers and discreet men” were to be assigned to inhabit the place at least through a year, for the “better guard” of those parts already found; for further discovery of the inland and of its “secrets,” meaning mineral wealth; and, lastly, for further search for the passage. For their accommodation the frame of a fort or house of timber, “cunningly devised by a notable learned man” in London, was to be carried out in parts in the ships; also a pinnace, in parts.

For this larger venture, besides most of the company on the previous voyage, “many well minded and forward young Gentlemen,” sons of the English gentry, volunteered. Fifteen well-furnished ships, including the experienced three, the “Ayde,” the “Gabriel,” and the “Michael,” were assembled, constituting an imposing fleet. The “Ayde” was again designated the “admiral,” carrying the captain-general. There was a “viceadmiral”—the “Thomas Allen”—in command of Captain Yorke of the “Michael” in the previous voyage. Christopher Hall was named chief pilot. The third ship in line was the “Judith,” under Captain Fenton, before of the “Gabriel,” and Frobisher’s lieutenant-general. The fourth was the “Anne Francis,” under Captain Best; the fifth, the “Hopewell,” Captain Carew; the sixth, the “Beare,” Captain Philpot, the ensign on the second voyage. The others were: the “Thomas of Ipswich,” Captain Tanfield; the “Emmanuel of Exeter,” Captain Courtney; the “Francis of Foy,” Captain Mayles; the “Moone,” Captain Upcot; the “Emmanuel (or Buss) of Bridgewater,” Captain Newton; the “Solomon of Weymouth,” Captain Randal; and the barks “Dennis,” "Gabriel," and “Michael,” Captains Kendal, Harvey, and Kinnesley, respectively. The government of the expedition was commended to Frobisher, with Fenton, Best, and Philpot as his principal aides. The one hundred appointed to constitute the temporary colony were to comprise forty mariners for the use of their ships, thirty miners to gather ore for shipment the next year, and thirty soldiers, the latter number including the gentlemen, goldfiners, bakers, and carpenters. Three ships of the fleet were to remain with the colony through the year: the others were to load with the ore and return at the end of the summer.

The gallant fifteen, all “in good readinesse,” foregathered at Harwich on the twenty-seventh of May, 1578. Thereupon “the Generall with all the Captaines came to the Court,” now at Greenwich, “to take their leave of her Majestie.” All received at her hands “great encouragement and gracious countenance”; while upon Frobisher she bestowed, “besides other good gifts and greater promises,” a “fair chain of gold,” herself throwing it around his neck. Then all the captains kissed the royal hand, and departed “every man toward his charge.”

At Harwich the general and his captains made formal view of the fleet and mustered their companies. Then the general handed to each captain his articles of direction for the conduct of the expedition. On the thirty-first anchors were weighed and the fleet were off.

The story of this voyage covers many pages in the telling by its chroniclers, but it can profitably be compressed into smaller compass. It is a tale of hardship with scant result, full of exciting incident and exhibitions of heroism and nerve. As before, Hakluyt gives us two narratives—the one written by Thomas Ellis, of the “Ayde’s” company; the other by Best, being the third chapter of his True Discourse.

The start was auspicious. Off the Irish coast a bark was sighted which by her actions was supposed to be a “rover of the seas,” and a merry chase was given her. When, however, overhauled, she was found to be not a pirate, but a reputable Bristol boat and the victim of a pirate. Several of her crew had been killed; others lay wounded, hungry, and desolate. The fleet was held up while our captain succoured them and started her homeward in comparative comfort. This good deed done the voyage was renewed, and without further incident of moment continued till the Arctic regions were reached. On the twentieth of June new land was discerned in “West Frisland”—the south of Greenland. Frobisher and others went ashore here, the “first known Christians,” Best wrote, “that we have true notice of that ever set foot on that ground.” Accordingly the captain-general “took possession thereof to the use of our Sovereigne Lady the Queen Majestie.” He named it “West England”; and a high cliff on the sea front he called “Charing Crosse,” for “a certaine similitude” to the London landmark. The inhabitants were found to be very like those of Meta Incognita. From this coast, where much drifting ice was met, they bore southerly toward the sea, hoping comfortably to make their destination. On the last day of June they came upon “many great whales.” One of the ships struck a big fellow head on, and such a powerful blow that the vessel was brought to a full stop. “The whale thereat made a great and ugly noyse and cast up his body and taile, and so went under water.” Two days after a dead whale “swimming” above water was met, and this was supposed to be the fellow which the ship struck. On the second of July Queen Elizabeth’s Foreland was sighted encompassed by ice.

QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Now their trials began. The way to Frobisher’s “straits” was found to be “choked up” with “many walles, mountaines, and bulwarks of yce.” Off the Foreland and, as they supposed, about the entrance to the “straits” they were buffeted by high winds and “forced many times to stemme and strike great rockes” of ice. Soon the fleet was dispersed. The “Judith,” carrying the lieutenant-general, Fenton, disappeared. The “Michael” had been early lost from sight by her companion ships. Of those which remained in company the bark “Dennis” shortly foundered, having received a crushing blow against a rock of ice. As she took the blow she signalled her danger by a shot from her great gun, and, fortunately, such quick aid was rendered by the other ships with their shipboats that all her men were saved. With her went down a part of the frame of the house to be erected for the band assigned to winter at Meta Incognita. Next a savage tempest suddenly arose, blowing from the sea “directly upon the place of the straits,” and various devices had to be resorted to to save the ships from destruction. Some getting a little sea room took in sails and drifted. Some were moored to great “islands of ice” and rode under their lee. Others were so shut in that they were at the mercy of the ice. To break its force, “junckes [junks] of cables, beds, masts, planks” were hung over their sides, while the mariners stood for hours beating it off with pikes, oars, and pieces of timber. Four—the “Anne Francis,” Best’s ship, the “Moone,” the “Francis of Foy,” and the “Gabriel”—being farthest from shore, and fast sailers, weathered 182the tempest under sail; and by noon the next day they had got off at sea clear of ice. And here by night of the following day they were joined by the rest of the fleet, which had escaped with a turn of the wind that had broken their ice barriers. Now joyous in fellowship again, they all “played off” more to seaward, there to abide till the ice had further cleared from before the entrance to their “straits.”

On the seventh of July they “cast about toward the inward” for another attempt. Shortly they sighted land, which was before them in form like the North Foreland, or Hall’s Island. But there was a difference of opinion as to whether it was or was not. The coast being veiled in fog was difficult to make out. After a while a height was discerned which some were sure was Mount Warwick. Yet they marvelled how it was possible that they should be so suddenly “shot up” so far into the “straits.” The captain-general sent his pinnace the round of the fleet to take a census of the opinions of all the captains and masters. As the matter grew more doubtful Christopher Hall, the chief pilot, whose knowledge of this Foreland, to whom his name had been given, was the more intimate, “delivered a plain and publique opinion in the hearing of the whole Fleete, that he had never seene the foresayd coast before, and that he would not make it for any place of Frobisher’s Straits.”

They were, in fact, southwestward of Queen Elizabeth’s Foreland, and at the entrance to Hudson’s Strait, to be rediscovered or re-explored thirty-two years afterward by Henry Hudson, and so named for him.

The fog continued to hang about them “thick and dark,” and on the tenth they were again partly dispersed. The “Thomas Allen,” aboard of which was the chief pilot with Captain Yorke, having lost sight of the admiral, turned back to sea with two others in her company. The “Anne Francis,” finding herself alone, also put to sea, to remain till the weather should permit the taking of the sun’s altitude. The “Ayde” kept on the course, and leading the rest of the fleet, passed into the “doubtful” strait.

Up this broad passage the “Ayde” and her consorts sailed for “about sixty leagues,” having “always a faire continent upon their starreboard side, and a continuance still of an open sea before them.” Frobisher was the first to realize that they were on a new and unknown water. Yet he dissembled his opinion and continued to persuade his associates that it was the right way, by such policy meaning to carry them along with him for further discovery. This he was said to have afterward confessed when he declared that “if it had not bene for the charge and care he had of the Flete and fraighted ships, he both would and could have gone through to the South Sea [the Pacific] ... and dissolved the long doubt of the passage” to “Cathay.” While he may have been more or less impelled to his adventures, in common with his chief backers, by the “lust for gold,” he was above all moved by the spirit of the true discoverer: a merit in his performances which some popular historians have failed to recognize.

When at length he turned the fleet and they sailed back to the entrance of this strait, he found a way into the “old strait” by the inside of Queen Elizabeth’s Foreland, thus incidentally discovering that to be an island. Now within the “proper strait,” after many perils overcome in making it, some of the dispersed ships were met, and others heard from. First appeared the “Anne Francis,” which had long been “beating off and on” before the Queen’s Foreland. At the meeting they joyously welcomed one another with “a thundering volley of shot.” The next day the “Francis of Foy” joined them, having fought her way through the ice out of the “mistaken strait.” She brought tidings of the “Thomas Allen,” which she had left at sea clear of the ice. Later the “Buss of Bridgewater” showed up, and reported the “marvellous accidents and dangers” she had experienced.

The latter’s men also declared that “Frobisher’s Straits” above were so frozen over that it was “the most impossible thing of the world” to reach the destined port—the Countess of Warwick’s Sound. This report spreading through the fleet “brought no small feare and terror into the hearts of many,” and murmurs against venturing further passed from lip to lip. Some urged that a harbour be sought where the battered ships might be repaired, and the fleet might await the dispersion of the ice. Others mutinously declared that they “had as leave be hanged when they came home as without hope of safetie to seeke to passe, and so to perish amongst the ice.”

To all these murmurings of discontent, however, the intrepid Frobisher lent a deaf ear, determined to reach the ultimate port or else to “burie himselfe with his attempt.” But, as before, he dissembled. “Somewhat to appease the feeble passions of the fearfuller sort,” he “haled on the Fleete with beleefe that he would put them into harborow.” Accordingly he went with his pinnace among the neighbouring islands as if searching for a haven, but really to see if any ore might be found in them.

Meanwhile another “terrible tempest” suddenly came up from the southwest, and once more the fleet were in part dispersed. It was the twenty-sixth of July, and snow fell so hard and fast that “we could not see one another for the same, nor open our eyes to handle our ropes and sails.” The “Anne Francis,” the “Moone,” and the “Thomas of Ipswich” again plied seaward. The rest of the fleet stayed by the admiral. When the storm was spent these remaining ships under Frobisher’s lead had pushed through the ice up the bay, “with incredible pain and peril,” and at last reached the goal, dropping anchors in the Countess of Warwick’s Sound on the thirty-first of July. At the entrance to the haven, when all hardship was thought to be over, the “Ayde” narrowly escaped sinking through contact with a “great island of ice.” Here, to their astonishment, the new-comers found arrived before them the “Judith” and the “Michael,” both of which had been mourned as lost. The happy meeting was celebrated with more exchange of thundering salutes from the great ordnance. Then all came together in a service of praise and thanksgiving, and the minister of the fleet, Master Wolfall, preached a “goodly sermon” to a kneeling company on the “Ayde.”

No time was lost in getting to work at the “mines.” Immediately upon landing on the Countess of Warwick’s Island Frobisher assembled his council of captains and orders of government were adopted. On the first of August the whole company were mustered on shore, the tents set up, and everything got in readiness for operations. On the next day the orders of the council were published and proclaimed by sound of the trumpet. On the next, all were diligently employed in their several classes, the miners plying their trade, the goldfiners trying the “ore,” the sailors discharging the ships: the gentlemen labouring as heartily as the “inferior sort” for “examples sake.” Meanwhile Frobisher was busied in seeking new mines in neighbouring parts. On the ninth of August preparations were made to set up the house for the one hundred men assigned to remain here a year. But half of the frame had been lost with the foundering of the “Dennis,” and the remaining parts, brought out in others of the ships, were imperfect, pieces having been used for fenders in the battles of the ships against the ice. Provisions also were short, the “Thomas of Ipswich” having carried most of the supplies intended for the temporary colonists. Captain Fenton offered to stay with sixty men, and the carpenters and masons were asked how soon they could build a house for this smaller number. They replied, in eight or nine weeks, provided enough timber could be found. Of course this would never do, for the fleet must depart much before that time or else be frozen in for the winter. There remained no alternative, and so the general and council were forced reluctantly to decide that the plan of a habitation for this year must be abandoned. Later in the month, however, a little house of lime and stone was erected under Captain Fenton’s direction for possible occupation another year. And when at length the company were making ready to leave the place, this house was stocked with the trifles they had brought for traffic with the natives—bells, whistles, knives, looking-glasses, combs, pins, leaden toy men and women, some on horseback some on foot—"the better to allure" the “bruitish and uncivill people to courtesie” against another coming of the Englishmen.

Toward the middle of August the “Thomas Allen” had joined the fleet here, and her company were working a “mine” which Captain Yorke had found on an island by Bear’s Sound, which he called the “Countess of Sussex Mine.” Near the end of the month the “Anne Francis” and the “Moone” had arrived. Now the fleet were once more together, excepting the lost “Dennis” and the “Thomas of Ipswich,” supposed also to be lost. The “Thomas of Ipswich,” however, as subsequently appeared, had, after the tempest of July twenty-six, when she was at sea in company with the “Anne Francis” and the “Moone,” turned about under the cover of night, and scudded home for England.

The “Anne Francis” came up laden with ore which she had taken on an island in a harbour of Queen’s Foreland, which Best had found, and which he reported was in such abundance there that if its goodness equalled its plentifulness it “might reasonably suffice all the gold-gluttons of the world.” The adventures of this ship after the tempest of the twenty-sixth of July—which the chroniclers distinguished as “the day of the great snowe”—were remarkable in several respects, and Captain Best showed himself to be of the same heroic mould as Captain Frobisher. When she, with the “Moone” and the “Thomas of Ipswich” had been for a long time beating about off “Queen’s Foreland,” and were bruised and battered from their contacts with the ice, Best called the several captains and masters to a conference in her cabin. Having grave doubts as to the fate of the rest of the fleet, and considering the sorry condition of their own vessels, together with the lateness of the season, a proposal to abandon further efforts and turn their prows homeward was earnestly debated. Both sides having been fully heard, Best rendered the decision. It should never be spoken of him, he declared, that “hee would ever return without doing his endeavours to finde the Fleete and know the certaintie of the General’s safetie.” It was therefore agreed that first a fit harbour should be sought; that this found, the pinnace brought out in parts on the “Anne Francis” should be put together; and that then, leaving the ships in the harbour, he himself would take the pinnace and push up the “straits” to prove if it were possible for the ships to break through the ice and reach the Countess of Warwick’s Land; and also to seek tidings of Frobisher and the rest of the fleet. In the meantime the skippers were to keep the craft together as near as they could, “as true Englishmen and faithful friends should supply one another’s wants in all fortunes and dangers.” Only the next night, however, the company of the “Thomas of Ipswich” was lost, and the “Anne Francis” and the “Moone” alone remained to pursue the adventure as agreed. Harbour was found by Best at an island lying under “Hatton’s Headland,” where he discovered the promising ore. For this “good hap” he called the island “Best’s Blessing.” Here his miners were put to work on the ore, while the carpenters toiled at building the pinnace. How this was done with the shifts they were put to for tools and materials is best told in Best’s words:

“They wanted two speciall and most necessaire things, that is, certaine principall tymbers that are called Knees, which are the chiefest strength of any Boate, and also nayles, where withall to joyne the plancks together. Whereupon having by chance a Smyth amongst them (and yet unfurnished of the necessary tooles to worke and make nayles withall) they were faine of a gunne chamber to make an Anvile to worke upon, and to use a pickaxe in stead of a sledge to beate withall, and also to occupy two small bellowes in steade of one payre of greater Smiths bellowes. And for lacke of small yron for the easier making of nayles, they were forced to breake their tongs, grydiron, and fire shovel in pieces.”

At length on the seventeenth of August the boat, although hung together only by the strength of the nails, and lacking some of the principal knees and timbers, was pronounced finished, and Best made ready for his voyage. Veteran seamen strongly advised against the venture in such a frail craft, assured that it could have only a fatal end. Thereupon he called for the best judgment of the master and mariners of his ship upon the matter, and to foster a favourable decision, he urged the absolute necessity for the voyage now that ore had been found, to seek with Frobisher’s company the goldfiners who alone could test the value of their “find.” This court of last resort decided that by careful handling the pinnace might suffice. Then the master’s mate and Captain Upcot of the “Moone” volunteered for the voyage. Others were quick to follow their example; and on the nineteenth Best set off with a goodly crew, the whole company comprising twenty men. With much rowing and cautious sailing, and hugging the shore, they got on without the disaster predicted. On the second day out they had sight of the Countess of Warwick’s Sound in the distance from a hilltop on shore where they had landed for observation. Again afloat, soon smoke was seen rising from a fire under a hillside. As this point was approached people were observed and apparently signalling them with a flag or ensign. They suspected that this was a trick of natives, for they saw no ship. Coming nearer tents were seen, and it was perceived that the ensign was “after the English fashion.” They fancied that some of the fleet had been brought up thus far and wrecked, and that they had been spoiled by the natives, who were now signalling them likewise into danger. Then, true Englishmen that they were, they resolved to have that flag, or, “els to lose their lives.” So they made for it, and to their great surprise and joy they found it to be a signal of their own countrymen. When within hailing they shouted “What cheer?” The response came cheerily back, “All’s well.” Then “there arose a sudden and joyfull outshoote [shout] with great flinging up of caps, and a brave voly of shot to welcome one another.” The group thus so happily met were a party working the “mine” on the Countess of Sussex Island. They, in their turn, had supposed when they signalled that Best’s company were survivors of a wreck of one of the ships. From this point the shaky pinnace hastened into the Countess of Warwick’s Sound, where Frobisher and the rest were met with as joyous greetings. Best displayed his samples of ore, and the goldfiners, trying them, “supposed” them to be “very good.” Accordingly Frobisher directed him to freight his ship at Best’s Blessing, and then bring her up. So he returned as he came, and found her already laden. The next day she sailed, and arrived with the “Moone” at the rendezvous on the twenty-eighth of August.

On the thirtieth the work at the Countess of Warwick’s Island was finished and the fleet were prepared for the homeward voyage. Frobisher endeavoured to persuade his council of captains to make one more effort at further discovery. He would “not only by Gods help bring home his shippes laden with Ore, but also meant to bring some certificate of a further discovery of the Countrey.” His associates were loth to fall in with the proposal, considering the time spent in the “mistaken straits,” and holding that discovery to have been something gained, in that thereby the hope of a passage to Cathay was “much furthered and encreased”; yet loyal to his leadership they were willing as he should appoint to “take any enterprise in hand.” Although the conclusion was reached that under all the circumstances “the thing was impossible,” Frobisher himself took his pinnace and explored some distance farther northward.

On their last day ashore the remnants of the frame of their timber house were buried, and about the lime and stone house were sown peas, corn, and other grain “to proove the fruitfulnesse of the soyle against the next yeere.” These things done, formal leave of the place was taken. The company being assembled, Master Wolfall preached another “goodly” sermon, and celebrated a communion. The next day, the thirty-first of August, all embarked, and the fleet, with the exception of the “Judith” and the “Anne Francis,” which tarried to take in fresh water, hoisted sail for home.

Now new perils were to beset them. The “Buss of Bridgewater” and the barks “Gabriel” and “Michael,” not fully laden, put into Bear’s Sound to take on a little more, the others meanwhile waiting for them farther down the bay. Frobisher also went ashore in Bear’s Sound to superintend the lading; and so did Best, the latter to take off his miners and their trappings here, in his rickety “kneeless” pinnace. That night an “outrageous tempest” fell upon them and created a general havoc. The fleet down the bay were beaten with such vehement “vigor that anchor and cable availed nought.” They were driven on “rockes and Ilands of yce” and not one escaped damage. The “Judith” and the “Anne Francis” had now joined them. Frobisher could not reach his ship and was compelled to board the “Gabriel.” Best and his men had the roughest time of it. Their crazy pinnace was taken in tow by the “Michael” and rushed through the icy waters till the “Anne Francis” (which with the “Judith” had now joined the fleet) was reached. They scrambled aboard the “Anne” in panicky haste, and as the last man mounted her side the pinnace “shivered and sank in pieces at the ship’s stern.” Thus fitly ended the career of this astonishing craft. Unseaworthy from the start, she had indeed performed wonders, and had miraculously held her own till her full work was done.

Again the fleet was dispersed, not to come together through the remainder of the voyage. The “boystrous blasts” continued so fierce and constant that all were blown homeward “will we or nill we” (willy nilly) at a clipping pace. “If by chance any one Shippe did overtake other by swiftness of sayle, or mette [met] as they often did, yet was the rigour of the wind so hideous that they could not continue company together the space of one whole night.” The “Buss of Bridgewater” took her course alone to the southeast of Greenland, and discovered on the way, in latitude fifty-seven and a half degrees north, a phantom island, “seeming to be fruitfull, full of woods, and a champagne country.” It was named “Buss Island,” and got onto the maps; but it was never again found. The other ships came limping home one by one, and by the first of October all had arrived, “some in one place and some in another.” Of the whole company that went out forty had perished during the expedition.

There is no record of public demonstrations at this home-coming, or of elation over the precious freight of the battered ships. During the absence of the voyagers a mystery which had been thrown over the ore previously brought had deepened, and now there was a growing suspicion that it was not the profitable thing that had been supposed. Indeed, before this expedition had started out from England a pretty sturdy quarrel had developed among the assayers. Now the breach between them had widened. There was, too, a rupture in the councils of the Company of Cathay. A sorry situation, therefore, was met by the returned voyagers. Frobisher fell upon evil days. Charges of broken promises were brought against him. He retorted with similar charges against the management of the promoting corporation. Finally, the Company of Cathay went to pieces, the adventurers lost heavily in their investment, while of the ore of the last voyage, so laboriously gathered and safely brought to port through such perils, nothing more was heard.

Thus dismally closes the story of the Eldorado of the Northwest. Three centuries afterward, in 1862, Captain Charles Francis Hall, the American Arctic explorer, on a New England whaler, identified the Countess of Warwick’s Island as “Kod-lu-narn,” the “Island of the White Man”; and found, even then in a fair state of preservation, the little house of lime and stone, with a number of relics of its furnishings.

Frobisher, upon the sorry sequel of his third voyage, lost the queen’s favour. He later regained it, however, sufficiently to secure his employment in 1580 as captain of his majesty’s ship the “Foresight” in preventing the Spaniards from aiding the Irish rebellion in Münster. The next year, 1581, he was the chosen leader for a new voyage of Northwestern discovery projected by the Earl of Leicester and others. But when, before the sailing, in 1582, the instructions were changed for the purposes of trade and not for discovery, he withdrew from the enterprise in favour of Captain Fenton, his lieutenant-general in the voyage of 1578.

In 1585–1586 he was in Sir Francis Drake’s warring expedition to the West Indies, in charge of the “Primrose”; and in 1588 he commanded the “Triumph” in the great fight against the Spanish Armada. It was hen that he received the honour of knighthood, being knighted by Admiral Howard at sea for bravery. In 1590, 1592, and 1594 he was in other engagements, vice-admiral to Sir John Hawkins in one; sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh in another; and in the third with Sir John Norris at Brest and Crozon. Wounded in the last fight while leading his men in action ashore, and the victim of unskilled surgery, he died after reaching Plymouth.

He was a brave and resolute man, harsh in bearing, with the rough manner of the sailor, but generous and just.