He this time found a good harbour, native boats, and tents. The people ran away, and Frobisher only took two white dogs, leaving some knives for payment.
Soon after, the Solomon struck a great whale with her full stern so violently that the ship stood still. "The whale thereat made a great and ugly noise and cast up his body and tail, and so went under water; within two days there was found a great whale dead, swimming above water." The creature had probably been asleep on the surface.
On the 2nd of July they had reached Frobisher's Straits, which to their discontent they found choked up with ice, and the ships were in great danger for some days. The Denis, of 100 tons, was struck by an iceberg and lost. She carried the movable fort; her crew only were saved.
Then followed a great storm, and they had much ado to defend the sides of their ships from "the outrageous sway and strokes" of the fleeting ice. For planks of timber of more than three inches thick were shivered and cut asunder by the surging of the sea and ice-floes, and the noise of the tides and currents reminded them of the waterfall under London Bridge. When the storm abated, under the lee of a huge iceberg Frobisher mustered his ships and caused the crews to offer up special thanksgivings for their great deliverance. After the storm came fogs, and they lost their bearings. Frobisher said the coast was in Frobisher Straits; Hall averred it was not, and they quarrelled like schoolboys; for "Frobisher fell into a great rage and sware that it was so, or else take his life."
However, Frobisher was afterwards proved to be in the wrong; he had discovered the great inlet, called subsequently "Hudson's Strait." This he followed up for three hundred miles, trying to persuade his comrades that they were in the right course. He himself began to see he had been misled, but a strong desire and hope came upon him—he would now find the passage to Cathay! But his crew cared little for such poor ambition; they talked against their leader behind his back, and soon openly demanded to be taken home. So they turned once more to the region of fog, and after imminent risks, the mariners being scared in the darkness and crying continually, "Lord, now help or never!" they cleared the corner of "Meta Incognita" on the 23rd of July. Then the mutineers murmured again because Frobisher wished to wait for the rest of the fleet; but Frobisher mastered them and brought his ships to the Countess of Warwick's Sound. There he was welcomed by the crews of the Judith and the Michael, and two days afterwards Hall appeared with the remaining vessels.
Special services of thanksgiving were offered and the mutinous men were forgiven, though they continued to be sulky and obeyed under protest. No colony could be left, because the timber for the fort was lost. When they reached Bear's Sound the flame of discontent blazed up so fiercely that it was even proposed to put their admiral ashore and leave him to perish in the snow. However, this was voted against by the majority, who perhaps were wondering what the Queen might say. For it was well known that she had a high opinion of her "trusty and well-beloved" Master Frobisher.
They embarked for home after they had filled their bunkers, and had hardly entered the open sea with their cargoes of mineral than a violent storm dispersed them; the Aid was nearly wrecked, and lost her pinnace. So with contrary winds and heavy storms they battled their way south, and reached port somewhere in England by October.
As before, their coming was welcomed with hearty delight, and once more the hopes of speculators stirred the enthusiasm of the nation.
One old chronicler writes: "Such great quantity of gold appeared that some letted not to give out for certaintie that Solomon had his gold from thence, wherewith he builded his temple."
The Queen had advanced £4000 herself, to show her belief in Frobisher and in the gold ore, and all were now waiting for the refiners' verdict. It came very rapidly—no gold to be got out of all these tons of rock! Enthusiasm and shouting gave way to abuse and slander, not only in the Court and City, but the mutinous part openly accused Frobisher of having misled them: "his vainglorious mind would not suffer any discovery to be made without his own presence."