This cut follows the engraving in the Hakluyt Society’s edition of Frobisher’s Voyages.
With this report, there was little difficulty in providing means for a second voyage. The new expedition consisted of a “tall ship of her Majesty’s,” named the “Ayde,” of two hundred tons, and of two smaller vessels, with the same names as those in the former voyage, but now said to be of thirty tons each. They were manned in all by one hundred and twenty men, to which number Frobisher was limited by his orders. After some delay, he sailed from Harwich on the 31st of May, 1577. By his orders he was directed to proceed at once to the place where the mineral was found, and set the miners at work. There he was to leave the “Ayde,” and then to sail to another place visited on his first voyage, where a further attempt at mining was to be made, and where one of the small barks was to be left. With the remaining bark he was to sail fifty or a hundred leagues farther west, to make “certayne that you are entred into the South Sea; and in yor passage to learne all that you can, and not to tarye so longe from the ‘Ayde’ and worckmen but that you bee able to retorne homewards wth the shippes in due tyme.” If the mines should prove less productive than it was hoped they would be, he was to “proceade towards the discovering of Cathaya wth the two barcks, and returne the ‘Ayde’ for England agayne.”[190] Frobisher had his first sight of Friesland on the 4th of July; and he reached Milford Haven, in Wales, on his return voyage, about the 23d of September. During this period of a little more than two months, his energies were mainly devoted to procuring ore, of which, in twenty days, he obtained nearly two hundred tons; but he also made as careful an examination as was practicable of the region previously visited by him, and added something to the stock of geographical knowledge. Two of the natives were captured, and were carried to England to be educated as interpreters.
Frobisher’s third voyage was planned on a much larger scale than any other which hitherto had been sent to the Arctic regions, and he was placed in command of fifteen vessels. They were all collected at Harwich by the 27th of May, 1578; and after receiving their instructions from Frobisher, they sailed together on the 31st. On the 2d of July they reached the mouth of Frobisher’s Bay; but after entering it a short distance, they found it so choked with ice that it was impossible to proceed. One of the vessels was soon sunk by the ice, and all suffered more or less. After beating about for several days, they entered a strait, supposed at first to lead to their desired goal, but which was, in fact, what is now known as Hudson’s Strait, the entrance to the great bay which bears his name, “havyng alwayes a fayre continente uppon their starreboorde syde, and a continuance still of an open sea before them.” According to Best, one of the captains, and an historian of the expedition, Frobisher was probably one of the first to discover the mistake, though he persuaded his followers that they were in the right course and the known straits. “Howbeit,” he adds, “I suppose he rather dissembled his opinion therein than otherwyse, meaning by that policie (being hymself ledde with an honorable desire of further discoverie) to enduce ye fleete to follow him, to see a further proofe of that place. And, as some of the company reported, he hath since confessed, that, if it had not bin for the charge and care he had of ye fleete and fraughted shippes, he both would and could have gone through to the South Sea, called Mare del Sur, and dissolved the long doubt of the passage which we seeke to find to the rich countrey of Cataya.”[191] Toward the latter part of July it was determined not to proceed any farther, and after many difficulties and dangers they returned to Meta Incognita. It had been their intention to erect a house here, and to leave a considerable party to spend the winter. But after a full consideration it was decided that this plan was impracticable, and it was relinquished. A house of lime and stone was, however, built on the Countess of Warwick’s Island, in which numerous articles were deposited. On the last day of August the fleet, having completed their loading with more than thirteen hundred tons of ore, sailed for England, where they arrived at various times about the 1st of October, and with the loss of not more than forty men in all. The ore proved to be of very little value, and the adventurers lost a large part of what they had subscribed.[192]
Of the voyages of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who is often included among the northwest explorers, little need be said here; for though he wrote an elaborate Discourse of a Discovery for a new Passage to Cataia, to stimulate the search for a northwest passage, the voyage in which he lost his life was not extended beyond the coasts of Newfoundland.[193]
FROM MOLINEAUX GLOBE, 1592.
[This globe is now in the Middle Temple. (See Editorial Note E, at the end of Dr. De Costa’s chapter.) This is thought to have been made, in part at least, from Davis’s charts, which are now lost. Kohl’s Catalogue of Maps in Hakluyt, p. 23. The sketch is to be interpreted thus:—
1. Grocland.
2. Hope Sanderson.
3. London cost.
4. Marchant Yle.
5. Davies island.
6. Challer’s Cape.
7. Gilbert’s Sound.
8. Easter Point.
9. Regin. Eli. forland.
10. Fretum Davis.
11. Mare Conglelatum.
12. C. Bedford.
13. Sandrson’s tour.
14. Mont Ralegh.
15. E. Cumberland isles.
16. E. Warwicke’s forland.
17. L. Lumley’s inlet.
18. A furious overfall.
19. Terre de Labrador.
20. Dorgeo.
21. I. de Arel.(?)
—Ed.]