Part 10
Gilbert, born in 1539, in the county of Devon, was the son of a country gentleman, half-brother of Walter Raleigh, on the mother’s side, an Eton schoolboy and an Oxford man, bred to the law, but taking instead to adventure. When a soldier in Ireland, in 1566–1567, a captain under Sir Henry Sidney against the Irish rebellion, his mind was busied with speculation on cosmography; and in the latter year, being sent home with despatches by Sidney, he took occasion to present to Queen Elizabeth, whose favour he enjoyed, a petition for privileges “concerning the discoverings of a passage by the North to go to Cathaie.” This, it is said, was an alternative to the earlier memorial of Anthony Jenkinson and himself for royal patronage to a new expedition of discovery by the Northeast. Both petitions lay unanswered, and he returned to soldiering. In 1570 he was knighted for his services in Ireland, the previous year having been given the government of Münster. In 1571, back in England, he was a member of Parliament for Plymouth. The next year he was fighting in the Netherlands, the first colonel in command of English forces there. Returned again to England, he temporarily retired to country-life at Limehouse, employing his leisure in further geographical investigations and in writing a learned _Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to Cathaia_, partly, it is assumed, in support of his petition still before the queen. One day in the winter of 1574 he showed the manuscript of the _Discourse_ to his friend George Gascoigne, one of the pioneer Elizabethan poets, who afterward edited and published it. Meanwhile it led to the granting of a license by the Fellowship of English Merchants, in 1575, to Martin Frobisher with “divers gentlemen,” out of which grew Frobisher’s Northwest voyage.
[Illustration: MARTIN FROBISHER.]
Martin Frobisher was of Welsh origin, but of English birth, born in Yorkshire in about 1535. He was now a thoroughly seasoned mariner, having followed the sea from his nineteenth year, going out for a decade in yearly voyages of merchant ships sent to Africa or the Levant by Sir John and Thomas Lock; and afterward employed in the queen’s service, in 1571 off Ireland. He had before this time become “thoroughly furnished of the knowledge of the sphere and all other skilles appertaining to the arte of navigation,” as the historian of his voyages, George Best, assures us, and as early as 1560 he had conceived a project for discovery of the short route by the Northwest to “Cathay” and the Indies, and had begun looking about for support for it. During the next fifteen years he schemed to this end, conferring with his “private friends of these secrets,” importuning members of the Fellowship of English Merchants to back him, soliciting men of estate and title, and even the court. But he met little encouragement till his public service in Ireland had brought him under the favourable notice of the queen and the attention of Sir Humphrey Gilbert. At length toward the close of 1574 the queen, moved apparently by Sir Humphrey’s _Discourse_, still in manuscript, addressed a letter to the Fellowship of English Merchants calling upon them either to despatch an expedition to the Northwest or transfer their privileges in that direction to other adventurers: and sent this pregnant message by the hand of Frobisher. The result was the issue, February, 1575, of their license for his first voyage.
Gilbert’s _Discourse_ is given by Hakluyt presumably as published by Gascoigne, in 1576, but with his own caption: “A Discourse written by Sir Humfrey Gilbert Knight, to prove a passage by the Northwest to Cathaia and the East Indies.” It is an essay in ten chapters displaying not a little erudition and mastery of his subject. The chapter-heads show its trend: “1. To prove by authoritie a passage to be on the North side of America to go to Cathaia, China, and to the East India. 2. To prove by reason a passage to be on the North side of America to go to Cathaia, Molucæ &c. 3. To prove by experience of sundry mens travailes [travels] the opening of this Northwest passage, whereby good hope remaineth of the rest. 4. To prove by circumstance that the Northwest passage has been sailed throughout. 5. To proove that such Indians as have bene driven upon the coastes of Germanie came not thither by the Southeast, and Southwest, nor from any part of Afrike or America. 6. To proove that the Indians aforenamed came not from the Northeast; and that there is no thorow [through] passage navigable that way. 7. To prove that these Indians came by the Northwest which induceth a certaintie of this passage by experience. 8. What several reasons were alleaged before the Queens Majestie, and certaine Lords of her Highnesse privie Council by M. Anth. Jenkinson a Gentleman of great travaile and experience, to prove this passage by the Northeast, with my severall answeres then alleaged to the same. 9. How that this passage by the Northwest is more commodious for our traffike then [than] the other by the Northeast, if there were any such. 10. What commodities would ensue, this passage being once discovered.”
The quaint opening paragraph expresses succinctly his theory and the steps by which he had reached it: “When I gave my selfe to the studie of Geographie, after I had perused and diligently scanned the descriptions of Europe, Asia, and Afrike, and conferred them with the Mappes and Globe, both Antique and Moderne: I came in fine to the fourth part of the world, commonly called America, which by all descriptions I found to bee an Island environed round about with Sea, having on the Southeside of it the frete or straight of Magellan, on the West side Mar del Sur, which sea runneth towards the North, separating it from the East parts of Asia, where the Dominions of the Cathaians are: on the East part an West Ocean, and on the North side the sea that severeth it from Groneland [Greenland] thorow which Northren Sea the Passage lyeth, which I take now in hand to discover.”
In the concluding paragraph we have an exhibition of Sir Humphrey’s highmindedness and his chivalrous devotion of himself to his country: "Desiring you hereafter never to mislike with me for the taking in hande of any laudable and honest enterprise: for if through pleasure or idleness we purchase shame the pleasure vanisheth, but the shame remaineth forever. And therefore to give me leave without offence, always to live and die in this mind, That he is not worthy to live at all that for feare, or danger of death, shunneth his countries service and his owne honour: seeing death is inevitable, and the fame of vertue immortall. Wherefore in this behalfe, Mutare vel timere sperno."
Frobisher’s initial voyage was financed, in the language of to-day, principally by Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick. The total amount subscribed for the venture was but eight hundred and seventy-five pounds. Two small barks, the “Gabriel,” of twenty-five tons, and the “Michael” of twenty tons, with a pinnace of ten tons, were furnished, and provisioned for ten months. The company were small but well selected. Christopher Hall, the master of the “Gabriel,” and Frobisher’s right hand, was an experienced mariner in the Northern seas, and had presumably sailed with Frobisher in one or another of his eastern voyages. Among his charts Frobisher is supposed to have included the Zeno map, delineating the fourteenth century discoveries of the Venetian brothers Zeno, then comparatively new, having been brought to light in Italy in 1558.
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.”
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.
Best, furnishing a description of the spirited scenes at the departure, properly begins the story.