The tiny fleet set sail from Ratcliffe on the seventh of June (1576), but at Detford came to anchor, the pinnace having “burst” her “boultsprit” and foremast, in coming against a ship that was riding there. The next day making a fresh start they bore down on Greenwich, where the court yet was. Here, as a quarter of a century before the Willoughby-Chancellor fleet had done when passing out by the boy king’s court, they made the “best shew” they could by shooting off their ordnance, while Queen Elizabeth waved her hand from a window in affectionate farewell. Afterward the queen sent one of her courtiers aboard the “Gabriel” with a message declaring her “good liking for our doings,” and summoning Frobisher to the court to take personal leave of her. The same day—the narrator is Christopher Hall—"towards night, M. Secretarie Woolly came aboord of us and declared to the company that her Majesty had appointed him to give them charge to be obedient and diligent to their Captaine and governors in all things, and wished us happie successe."
Accounts of this voyage were written in terse sailor fashion by Christopher Hall, and with more detail and colour by George Best, the historian of all of Frobisher’s Northwest expeditions. Hakluyt gives the text of both. Hall’s appears under this title: “The first Voyage of M. Martine Frobisher to the Northwest for the search of the straight or passage to China, written by Christopher Hall, Master in the Gabriel, and made in the yeere of our Lord 1576.” Best’s is an extended monograph thus entitled: “A true Discourse of the three Voyages of Discoverie, for the finding of a passage to Cathaya, by the Northwest, under the conduct of Martin Frobisher Generall: Before which, as a necessary preface, is prefixed a two-folde discourse, conteining certaine reasons to prove all partes of the World habitable. Penned by Master George Best, a Gentleman employed in the same voyages.”
From these two narrations, the one supplying details omitted by the other, the full graphic story is to be drawn.
XIII
FROBISHER IN ARCTIC AMERICA
It was the first of July before the fleet was clear of the coast of England. Eleven days later new land was sighted “rising like pinnacles of steeples, and all covered with snowe,” as Hall, with almost a poet’s touch, described. This Frobisher and his companion navigators agreed must be the “Friesland” of the brothers Zeno as laid down in the Zeno chart. It was, in fact, Cape Farewell, the southern point of Greenland. They sailed toward the shore, and Frobisher with four men in his shipboat strove to make a landing, but was prevented by the accumulation of ice about it. Leaving this coast and taking now a southwestward course they voyaged on through the trackless sea till the twenty-eighth of July, when they had their next sight of land, which Hall supposed to be Labrador. Meanwhile between the two points—Greenland and the supposed Labrador—there had been some pretty serious happenings to the voyagers during storms; and only those on Frobisher’s ship, the “Gabriel,” saw the new land, for the “Michael” had early deserted. We must turn to Best for this part of the story.
“Not far from thence [Greenland] hee [Frobisher] lost compnye of his small pinnesse which by meanes of the great storme he supposed to be swallowed uppe of the sea, wherein he lost onely foure men. Also the other barke named The Michael mistrusting the matter, conveyed themselves privily away from him, and retourned home, wyth great reporte that he was cast awaye.” His own ship, too, had sprung her mast, and the top-mast had blown overboard in “extreme foule weather.” Yet, notwithstanding these “discomforts,” the “worthy captaine” continued steadily on his course, “knowing that the sea at length must needs have an ending and that some land should have a beginning that way: and determined therefore at the least to bring true proofe what land and sea the same might be so far to the Northwestwards beyond any man that hath heretofore discovered.”
The new land sighted was a promontory of an island off the main above Labrador: the present Cape Resolution of Resolution Island, about the north entrance to Hudson’s Strait. Being his first discovery Frobisher loyally bestowed upon the promontory his sovereign’s name, calling it “Queen Elizabeth’s Foreland.” So environed was it by ice that the shore could not be reached. Hall tells of efforts made the next day unsuccessfully to find a harbour, for all the sound was filled with ice. Then they sailed northeasterly, following the coast, and early the next morning another headland was descried. Approaching, they found this to be a “foreland” with (it is now Best’s relation) a “great gut, bay, or passage, divided as it were two maine lands or continents asunder.” The gut was what we now know as Frobisher’s Bay. Believed to be a strait, and of great possibilities, it was so named for the discoverer—"Frobisher’s Straits."
Hereabouts was also a “store of exceeding great ice,” which kept them off this shore. Nor for a while was it possible to make further headway, contrary winds detaining them “overthwart” the supposed straits. Within a few days, however, the ice largely cleared, “either there ingulfed in by some swift currents or indrafts, carried more to the Southward, ... or els conveyed some other way,” and entrance was effected. Thereupon Frobisher proceeded to explore this water, having high hopes that he “might carry himself through it into some open sea on the back side.” He penetrated it for “above fifty leagues,” having on either hand, as he believed, “a great maine or continent.” As he sailed westward “that land upon his right hand ... he judged to be the continent of Asia, and there to be divided from the firme [land] of America which lieth upon the left hand over against the same.”
When he had sailed thus far a landing was made on an island—"Burchers," as Hall names it—and meetings were had with the people. Hall relates this adventure with a description of the natives:
“The 19 day [August] in the morning, being calme, and no winde, the Captaine and I took our boate, with eight men in her, to rowe us ashore, to see if there were there any people or no, and going to the toppe of the island we had sight of seven boates, which came rowing from the East side toward that Island: whereupon we returned aboord again: at length we sent our boate with five men in her, to see whither they rowed, and so with a white cloth brought one of their boates with their men along the shoare, rowing after our boat till such time as they saw our ship, and then they rowed ashore: then I went on shoare my selfe, and gave every of them a threadden point, and brought one of them aboord of me, where hee did eate and drinke, and then carried him ashore againe. Whereupon all the rest came aboord with their boates, being nineteen persons, and they spake, but we understood them not. They bee the Tartars, with long blacke haire, broad faces, and flatte noses, and tawnie in colour, wearing Seale skinnes, and so doe the women, not differing in the fashion, but the women are marked in the face with blewe [blue] streekes [streaks] downe the cheekes, and round about the eyes. Their boates are made of Seales skinnes, with a keel of wood within the skin: the proportion of them is like a Spanish shallop, save only they be flat in the bottome and sharpe at both ends.”