Had they taken plenty of salt and fishing-tackle they might have brought home a large cargo of fish, but they brought home the knowledge that a great trade was possible in the far North. Though Davis, on going west to his own county, tried to persuade the merchants that another voyage might be more successful, he did not succeed in rousing their sympathies so far as to give more subscriptions.
But on going home he found another little son, Arthur, and with his wife and old friend, Adrian Gilbert, enjoyed a pleasant autumn.
In the winter the restless adventurer rode up to London with Gilbert, and they visited the merchant-prince, William Sanderson, who gained for Davis enough help to fit out a third voyage to the Arctic. In our days rich men have so much scientific spirit that they—some of them—will consent to subscribe for Arctic and Antarctic voyages for purely scientific purposes. In the great Queen's days they looked for some return in hard cash, or furs, or stones and metal of value. But Davis's old shipmates loved him and were eager to volunteer again, and some were natives of the villages round Stoke Gabriel.
On the 19th of May 1587, the Sunshine, Elizabeth, and Ellen started from Dartmouth, the former to fish and make profit. But when they reached Gilbert Sound Davis resolved to send the two other ships to the fishery, while he in the Ellen, a pinnace of 20 tons, went north. In estimating the exploits of these men, we must remember how ill they were fitted out compared with modern explorers. At the very first the pilot of the Ellen came to report a leak, and it was debated whether they should risk their lives in exploring.
But when Davis addressed his little crew and said, "My boys, it will be far better that we should end our lives with credit than return in disgrace," they one and all agreed to go on with their captain.
They went along the west coast of Greenland, calling it the London Coast, and by the 30th of June had reached lat. 72'12°, the most northerly point Davis ever reached. Here an island with a cliff 850 feet high was named "Sanderson his hope"; along the narrow, dark ledges of this giant rock nestled myriads of white guillemots, screaming and circling as busily they fed their young.
The sea was clear of ice, save that the Dreadnoughts of the North, towering icebergs, reflected the sunshine in strange fantastic ways, and floated proudly down to warmer waters. Beyond them lay "a great sea, free, large, very salt and blue, and of an unsearchable depth."
But on the 2nd of July they met "the Middle Pack," a hundred miles long or more, and eight feet thick. The Ellen tried to find a passage through in vain, so they drifted west till they sighted the western coast of Davis Strait. Davis took many observations which were useful to succeeding explorers; he says in his log: "We fell into a mighty race, where an island of ice was carried by the force of the current as fast as our bark could sail. We saw the sea falling down into the gulf with a mighty overfall, roaring, with divers circular motions like whirlpools."
They were to meet the fishing-vessels off the Labrador coast; but these had gone home without waiting for Davis; and as they were being sought, the Ellen ran upon a rock and sprung a leak. This was mended with difficulty in a gale; then, with little fuel and less water, Davis headed for home. "Being forsaken and left in this distress," he says, "referring myself to the merciful providence of God, I shaped my course for England, and unhoped for of any, God alone relieving me, I arrived at Dartmouth."
The log of his third voyage is the only one that has been left, but we have no means of knowing if the fishing was successful.