So Raleigh and Gilbert gave up the voyage and returned to Plymouth in May. They came to London, poor in funds and somewhat dashed in spirit; but the unlooked-for sympathy of admiring courtiers and merchants cheered them not a little.
"Walter, we will not give it up yet! Let us work hard for a better ending."
The Queen was much concerned for Gilbert's failure, and sent him with Walter Raleigh in two ships to the Irish coast to prevent James Fitz-Maurice from raising an insurrection along the south coast. After some active service against Spanish vessels, Gilbert was sent back to England, while Raleigh remained to serve under Lord Grey of Wilton. Gilbert, returning to his wife in poverty and disappointment, was not unlike Martin Frobisher; they both suffered in promoting the expansion of the Queen's Empire, and both found their wives in abject destitution.
In July 1581 Sir Humphrey writes to Walsingham from his house in Sheppey a piteous letter, begging that he may be paid a small sum of money owed him for his services in Ireland, whereby he had lost so much that he was reduced to extreme want. "It is a miserable thing that after twenty-seven years' service I should now be subjected to daily arrests for debt, to executions and outlawries, and should have to sell even my wife's clothes from off her back."
Still Sir Humphrey did not despond, but talked much of his new colony which he was to found in Baccalaos, or Newfoundland.
The elder Cabot had discovered the island, and Spaniards and French had made trading voyages to it in search of codfish. The Bristol merchants still preferred commerce with Iceland, though Anthony Parkhurst of Bristol reported in 1578 that the English fishing fleet had increased from thirty to fifty sail, and he urged that more should try that trade.
But the moneyed gentlemen of the Court and City thought little of cod-fish, and yearned for the wealth of the Aztecs in Mexico, where lumps of gold as large as a man's fist could be picked up, and pearls were measured by the peck. With some retailers of such marvellous stories Gilbert had conference, and, with help from many speculative friends, he was able to make a second start in the summer of 1583.
His brother, Walter Raleigh, and his old friends Sir George Peckham and Carlile, helped to fit out the expedition. Raleigh, having made money in Ireland and at Court, fitted out the Raleigh, a barque of 200 tons. There were also the Delight, of 120 tons, the Golden Hind and the Swallow, each of 40 tons, and the tiny Squirrel, of 10 tons. In these vessels were some two hundred and sixty persons. "For solace of the people and amusement of the savages we were provided with music in great variety, not omitting toys, as morris-dancers, hobby-horses, and many like conceits, for to delight the savage people, whom we intended to win by all fair means possible."
The Queen, ever willing to lend approval to her sea-captains, not without a sense of favours to come from the Indies, had sent Gilbert, by Raleigh, a token, an anchor in gold guided by a lady; "And further she willed me to send you word that she wished you as good hap as if she herself were there in person, desiring you to have care of yourself as of that which she tendereth ... further, she commandeth that you leave your picture with me."
This time Gilbert had his own way and steered straight for Newfoundland, leaving Plymouth harbour on the 11th of June 1583. The wind was fair all day, but a great storm of thunder and wind fell in the night.