The Boy's Hakluyt: English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery

by Edwin M. Bacon; Richard Hakluyt

Here we have the first description of the Eskimo, or the Northwest American coast Indian.

The next day the “Gabriel” was sailed to the east side of this island and Hall with the captain and four men again went ashore and had parleys with the natives here. One was enticed into their boat and taken to the ship, where he was given some trinkets. Then he was sent back in the charge of five of the sailors with instructions to land him at a rock off the shore. But the “wilfulness” of these sailors was such that they would go on to the shore and mingle with the people. So they were captured together with their boat; and neither boat nor men were ever after seen. Some of the natives, whose curiosity at length got the better of their caution, visited the ship and made friends with the company. They entertained their hosts with exhibitions of their agility, trying “many masteries upon the ropes of the ship after our mariners fashion, and appeared to be very strong of their armes and nimble of their bodies.” (Best’s relation.) They bartered seal and bearskin coats for bells, looking-glasses and toys, much pleased with their bargains. Repeated attempts were made by Frobisher to secure one or more of them to take back to England as “a token” of his having been in these regions. But all his exertions were foiled by their wariness till he resorted to a “pretty policie.” This was to decoy a group by ringing toy bells, then throwing the bells one by one into the water for them to scramble for, at each throw shortening the distance from the ship. One, in his eagerness, paddled close to the ship, when he was grabbed and hauled aboard with his boat. So angered was the poor fellow at his capture that “he bit his tongue in twain in his mouth.” Nevertheless, he survived till the return of the voyagers to England, but shortly after he died miserably “of a cold which he had taken at sea.”

With this living witness of his “farre and tedious travels towards the unknowen partes of the world” (Best’s relation), and with other “tokens” which his companions had collected in their essays ashore—some bringing “floures [flowers], some greene grasse, and one ... a piece of blacke stone much like to a sea cole [coal] in colour which by the weight seemed to be some kinde of metall or minerall”—Frobisher turned his ship’s prow homeward at the end of August. Meanwhile, he had taken formal possession of the region round about the “straits,” in the name of the queen of England, who afterward dubbed it “Meta Incognita.” The name is still seen on modern maps, confined to the point of Baffin Land between Frobisher’s Bay and Hudson Strait.

The homeward voyage was without incident, beyond perils encountered in fierce storms, in one of which, as Hall relates, a sailor was “blowen into the sea,” and in his flight catching hold of the foresail was there held till the captain “plucked him again into the ship.” They arrived in late September, and anchoring first at Yarmouth came to port at Harwich, October second.

Frobisher immediately repaired to London with his report and his “tokens.” There he became the hero of the hour, being “highly commended of all men for his great and notable attempt, but specially famous for the great hope he brought of the passage to Cataya.” The captured native, too—"this strange infidell," as Best wrote, “whose like was never seene, read, nor heard of before, and whose language was neither knowen nor understood of any”—must have been gazed upon with awe.

But the bit of “blacke stone,” brought as a novelty only, and deemed by the captain of no account except as a souvenir, proved to be the “token” of greatest import, since, quite by accident, it became an instrument that practically transformed the Frobisher project from its original design into a fervid speculative enterprise.

Best tells how this came about: “After his [Frobisher’s] arrival in London being demanded of sundry of his friends what thing he had brought them home out of that countrey, he had nothing left to present them withall but a piece of this blacke stone. And it fortuned that a gentlewoman one of the adventurers wives to have a piece thereof, which by chance she threw and burned in the fire, so long that at length being taken forth, and quenched in a little vinegar, it glistened with a bright merquesset of golde. Whereupon the matter being called in some question, it was brought to certain Goldfiners in London to make assay thereof, who gave out that it held golde, and that very richly for the quantity. Afterwards the same Goldfiners promised great matters thereof if there were any store to be found, and offered themselves to adventure for the searching of those parts from whence the same was brought. Some that had great hope of the matter sought secretly to have a lease at her Majesties hands of those places, whereby to injoy the masse of so great a publike profit unto their owne private gaines. In conclusion, the hope of more of the same golde ore to be found kindled a greater opinion in the hearts of many to advance the voyage againe.”

Thereupon “preparation was made for a new voyage against the yere following, and the captaine more specially directed by commission for the searching more of this golde ore then [than] for the searching any further discovery of the passage. And being well accompanied with divers resolute and forward gentlemen, her Majesty then lying at the right honourable the lord of Warwicks house in Essex, he came to take his leave, and kissing her highnesses hands, with gracious countenance & comfortable words departed towards his charge.”

Under such auspices this second voyage was organized liberally. The queen invested in the venture, together with members of the privy council; and among other subscribers were the Countess of Warwick, the Earl and Countess of Pembroke, Lord Charles Howard, Michael Lok, Anthony Jenkinson, and young Philip Sidney. The total amount subscribed was fifty-one hundred and fifty pounds. A charter was issued for the “Company of Cathay,” with privileges similar to the old Muscovy Company, in which Michael Lok, “mercer,” of London, was named as governor, and Frobisher captain-general of their navy and high admiral of “all seas and waters, countreys, landes, and iles, as well as of Kathai [Cathay] as of all other countryes and places of new dyscovery.” The queen provided one of her large ships, the “Ayde,” of two hundred tons, to serve as the “admiral” of the fleet, the other vessels being the two barks which had started out on the first voyage, the “Gabriel” and the “Michael” (now recorded as of “about thirty ton apiece”). Frobisher was placed at the head as “captain-general of the whole company for her majesty”; George Best was appointed lieutenant; and Richard Philpot, ensign. Christopher Hall was made the master of the “Ayde”; Edward Fenton, “a gentleman of my Lady Warwicks,” captain of the “Gabriel,” with William Smyth, master; Gilbert Yorke, “a gentleman of my Lord Admirals” [Howard], captain and James Beare master of the “Michael.” At the start the company comprised one hundred and forty-three persons, made up of thirty-six officers and gentlemen, fourteen miners and “goldfiners,” and the remainder soldiers and sailors. Of this number the “Ayde” accommodated, with the captain-general and his staff, one hundred. The ships were fully appointed with munitions, and were provisioned for a half year.

Hakluyt gives two accounts also of this voyage, and, as in the case of the first one, the whole animated story of it is to be gleaned from the two. They comprise the narratives of Dionysus Settle and of George Best, that of the latter being the second chapter of his True Discourse. They are presented under the following titles, respectively: “The second voyage of Master Martin Frobisher, made to the West and Northwest Regions, in the yeere 1577, with a description of the Countrey and people: Written by Master Dionise Settle,” and “A true report of such things as happened in the second voyage of captaine Frobisher, pretended for the discovery of a new passage to Cataya, China, and the East India by the Northwest Ann. Dom. 1577.” Both narrators were active members of Frobisher’s company throughout the voyage.