Interest in the New World was increasing. Every year new maps, books of travel, and descriptions of various parts of the earth, especially of America, were published, some of the descriptions real and some almost wholly imaginative; but whatever they were, they always found readers.
One man who watched eagerly for whatever came from the press about the New World was a sea-captain named Martin Frobisher. He read all these books, he studied globes and charts, and at last he felt sure that he knew the way to fame and wealth, but he was a poor man and he could not carry out his plans alone. He sought an audience with the queen.
“I’ve heard of you before, my gallant captain,” said Elizabeth graciously. “Didn’t you care for the building of one of my ships that were sent against the Irish rebels?”
“I did, your Majesty, and if only that ship belonged to me, I would put her to a noble use.”
“And what might that be?” asked the queen.
“Your Majesty, men have sailed to the northeast, to the south, and to the west, but no man has yet gone to the north of the New World. There lies the way to India, and to find that way is the only thing in all the world that is yet left undone whereby a man may become both rich and notable.”
“And so you plan to go to the northwest?” asked Elizabeth.
“He who has little gold must have few plans, but it might well be that as the southern land tapers to a point, so the northern land narrows, and then with an open sea and a short voyage to Cathay, what would the wealth of the Spanish mines be to us? We could buy and sell in every clime. Give us the riches of India, and we could fit out a fleet that would drive King Philip from the shores of the New World, from the waters of the Atlantic, from——”
“Perchance from the face of the earth, my captain?” interrupted Elizabeth. “I promise you that I will think of this scheme of yours.”
Elizabeth did think of it, but to her mind there was a far greater charm in a wild voyage of buccaneering than in the possibilities of slow gain by trading with people across two oceans, and she gave Frobisher no help. He won a friend, however, in the Earl of Warwick, and the fleet of three daring little vessels set out for the north. Elizabeth did not help to pay the costs of the voyage, but she stood on the shore and waved her royal hand to the commander as he dropped slowly down the Thames.