.

specially bounde and beholdyng to the small pinnesse, which by means of the ryghte honourable Ambrose Dudley, great storme he supposed to be swalEarle of Warwicke, whose favourable lowed up of the sea,"―imagine the mynde and good disposition, hath alwayes hardihood of taking her there "wherein bin readye to countenance and advance he lost onely four men." The crew of all honest actions wyth the authors and the other ship, the Michael, "mistrusting executors of the same; and so by meanes the matter, privily conveyed themselves of my lorde hys honourable countenance, away," and reached England in safety, hee recyved some comforte of hys cause, reporting Frobisher lost. Frobisher in and by little and little, with no small ex- the Gabriel stood on alone. The perilous pense and payne, brought hys cause to character of the enterprise the following some perfection, and hadde drawen to- passage from Lok's MS. will reveal, while gither so many adventurers and suche it brings out the character of Frobisher summes of money as myghte well defray in high relief: "On the 13th July, in the a reasonable charge to furnishe himselfe rage of an extreme storme, the vessell to sea withall." was cast flat on her syde, and being open in the waste was filled with water. . . In this distress, when all the men in the ship had lost their courage, and did dispayr of life, the captayn, like himselfe, with valiant courage, stood up, and passed alongst the ship's side, in the chayn wales, lying on her flat syde, and caught holde on the wether leche of the forsaile; but in the weather coyling of the ship the foreyarde brake.” But, says Beste, "The worthy captayne, notwithstanding these discomfortes, although his mast was sprung, and his toppemast blowen away overboorde with extreame foule weather, continued hys course towards the N.W., knowing that the sea at last must needes have an endying, and that some lande shoulde have a beginning that way; and determined therefore at the least, to bring true proofe what lande and sea the same might be, so farre to the N.W. beyonde

*

"He prepared two small barkes of twentie and fyve and twentie tunne apeece, wherein he intended to accomplish his pretended voyage. Wherefore being furnished wyth the foresayde two barkes and one small pinnesse of ten tunne burthen, having therein victual and other necessaries for twelve moneths provision, he departed uppon the sayde voyage." One of the little ships was named the Gabriell, and the other the Michaell. Frobisher sailed in the Gabriell. The crews numbered some thirty-five hands. There is a narrative in Hakluyt (vol. iii. p. 52) of the first voyage, written by Christopher Hall, who was master in the Gabriell, which supplies an interesting little anecdote. "The 8th being Friday we wayed at Deptford . . . and bare down by the Court, where we shotte off our ordinance and made the best possible shew we coulde. Her Majestie behold-anye man that hath hitherto discovered." ing the same commended it, and bade us farewell, with shaking her hand at us out of the window. Afterward she sent a gentleman aboord of us, who declared that her Majestie had good liking of our doings, and thanked us for it, and also willed our Captaine to come the next day to the Court to take his leave of her. The same day towards night M. Secretaire Woolly came aboorde of us, and declared to the company that her Majestie had appointed him to give them charge to be obedient and diligent to their captaine and governours in all things and wished us happie successe."

...

On July 1st they "hadde sighte of a highe and rugged lande;" it rose like pinnacles of steeples, and all covered with snow." Evidently the southern part of Greenland, from the latitude. "Not farre from thence he loste company of his

They were not afraid of Friday. Nor was Columbus, who also sailed on Friday, and landed on Friday in the New World.

At the end of July — the dates in the different accounts are perplexing - they fell in with high land in latitude 62° 30m, which they named Elizabeth Foreland in honour of the Queen. Standing on N. another foreland was descried in latitude 63° 8m, which formed the southern point of a "greate gutte bay or passage, deviding as it were two maynelands or continents asunder." He would have crossed this, still continuing to press northwards, "but was alwayes by contrarie winde deteyned overthwarthe these straytes, and could not get beyonde." Observation of the currents and the drift of the ice made him determine "to make proofs of this place to see how far that gutte had continuance, and whether he might carrie himself through the same into some open sea on the backe syde, whereof he conceived no small hope." Accordingly he sailed up the inlet some fifty or sixty leagues, and named it Frobisher's Straits, "lyke as Magellans at the south weast

ende of the worlde having discovered the passage to the South Sea, and called the same straites Magellan's Streightes."* He found "upon eyther hand a great mayne or continent; and that land upon his right hande as he sayled westwards, he judged to be the continente of Asia, and there to be devided from the firme of America which lyeth uppon the lefte hande over against the same." After sailing sixty leagues they landed, "and founde signe where fire had been made." Here they fell in with_the “salvage peo-people; but the set of the Straits enple," and with some difficulty entered into friendly relations with them. They greatly resembled Tartars in appearance, but "perceeving these strange people to be of countenance and conversation proceding of a nature given to fyersnes and rapyne," the captain had to be on his guard. A native came on board the ship, a sailor being sent on shore as a hostage. This led to further intercourse, conducted most loyally on the English side, and Frobisher induced by signs one of them to be his pilot into the West Sea, who gave them to understand that it would be but two days' sail. But he was found useless, and sent on shore in a boat manned by five men. They disregarded their orders about the landing of the native at a certain point, and rowed further. Then they were seen to land, first three of them, then the remaining two, and neither men nor boat were ever heard of more. This loss or desertion, it is difficult to determine which it was in Lok's circumstantial account it looks more like the latter -was the cause of great sorrow and anxiety to the General. He tried every means to get knowledge of their fate and if possible to recover them. Their loss left him terribly shorthanded, for the complement of the Gabriel was but eighteen men; and it seemed to destroy all hope of accomplishing anything that year. After a good deal of management he succeeded in laying hold of the wrist of a native who came along side, fascinated by a bell which he held out to him; and "suddenly by mayne force of strength he plucked both the man and his bote out of the sea into the ship in a tryse, and so kept him without any shew of emnity, and made signes to him presently that yf he would bring his V men he should go

againe at liberty, but he would not seem to understand his meaning, and therefore he was still kept in the ship with sure garde." "Whereupon when he founde himself in captivitie for very choller and disdaine, he bit his tongue in twayne within his mouth; notwithstanding he died not thereof, but lived until he came in Englande and then he died of a colde which he had taken at sea." It was now far on in August; little had been discovered except ice, snow, and the salvage

couraged the hope that a path might under more favourable circumstances be found along that inlet to Cathay. But the weather was already growing winterly, the little ship was shorthanded, the people were much worn by their battle with storm and ice, and after earnest consultation it was resolved to return. They anchored for a few days at the mouth of the Straits, and then, on August 26, they weighed for England. They reached Harwich on the 2nd of October, "where they tarried to refresh their sick and weake men, and so came on to London with their ship Gabriel on the ix day of October, and there were joyfully received with the great admiration of the people, bringing with them their strange man and his bote, which was such a wonder unto the city, and to the rest of the realme that heard of it as seemed never to have happened the like great matter to any man's knowledge." Arrived at home "the saide Captaine Frobisher was highly commended of all men for his great and notable attempt, but specially famous for the great hope which he brought of the passage to Cataya, which he doubted nothing at all to find and passe through in those partes, as he reporteth."

The idea that a strait would be found in the North

corresponding to Magellan's Straits in the South, was a kind of ignis fatuns to our early explorers. But it gave them heart and led them on. Lord Bacon was the first to observe that the Continents were broad to the North, while they ran to a point in the South. In Frobisher's time that physical fact was unknown.

Thus ended this first great and notable attempt of one of the hardiest and most gallant of Elizabethan sailors to force the North-west Passage. He was the pioneer of a long and glorious line of adventurous seamen, who, if the "cheap defence of nations" be worth maintaining, and if Economics be not the Queen of the sciences, deserve all honour as our heroes; men whose memories we are bound to cherish, and whose work we are equally bound, if possible, to complete. Frobisher was in the north-west again in 1577, and 1578, but it was less to discover the passage than to search for gold. He brought home with him something, alas! besides the hope of the passage to Cataya, and the second and third expeditions were perverted, much to Frobisher's sorrow,

The

to a baser aim. We have no space to gold ore had been found spread rapidly, dwell upon their fortunes. Nor have and raised an eager expectation, and it they the special interest of the first, was resolved that a larger expedition, which was conceived and carried out in with a royal ship, should be sent out goldthat true adventurous spirit, which solved hunting the following year. There sailed at last, after the lapse of centuries, the in May, 1577, the Aid, nearly 100 tons, problem which Frobisher was compelled with 100 persons on board, the Gabriel, to abandon in disappointment and dis- with 18, and the Michael, with 16. tress.* With gold-hunting, strife, vio- instructions to the "Generall "† were to lence, angry passions, and mutinous con- search only for the ore, and to referre the duct make their appearance. There are further discovery of the passage to annoble passages in the history; terrible other time." It seems that a considerdangers bravely fronted and skilfully able portion of the expenses of the voyOvercome. The cruise of Captain Best ages was contributed by Lok. He comwith "manful and honest John Gray" plains bitterly that he had to make up in a pinnace rudely put together, and in £800 for the first expedition, and £1,400 which the carpenter who did the work for the second. The poor man was utterdeclared "that he would not adventure ly ruined. himself for £500," is one of the most daring exploits even of that daring time. Frobisher's character stands out through the whole in bright relief. He was a true captain and leader of men. But he had little heart for the gold-hunting; and the expeditions ended in utter disappointment and loss. They grew out of the following circumstances.

The sailors of course brought home all kinds of curious things, and one brought "a piece of a black stone, much lyke to a seacole in coloure, which by the weight seemed to be some kind of metall or mynerall." One of the adventurer's wives by chance threw a piece into the fire and burned it so long" that at the length being taken forth and quenched in a little vinagre, it glistered with a bright marqueset of gold.' There is another story told by Michael Lok. He says that he obtained a piece on board Frobisher's ship. He took it to three gold refiners in succession, who reported that they could find no gold. Being resolved apparently to find it to be gold ore, he took it to an Italian, one John Baptista Agnello, who being more compliant found in it a little powder of gold, remarking in answer to Lok's expressions of surprise, "Bisogna sapere adulare la natura." Lok communicated this result to the Queen. Mr. Secretary Walsingham no more keen-sighted man in England - looked into the matter, "And did thynk it to be but an alchemist matter such as dyvers others before had been brought to hir Majestie by others without trewthe." But the report that

There is a most dismal letter

from him dated from "The Fleete Pryson in London," in which he says that he, with his family of fifteen children, are involved in irremediable ruin. He writes fiercely against Frobisher, after the fashion in which men could rave and rail in those days. But his wailings would touch us more deeply if he had not appealed from the judgment of three honest Englishmen to that subtle Italian to find him some trace of gold.

The expedition of 1577 accomplished nothing. Frobisher shewed a true captain's interest in his lost men, whom he tried by every means to recover, but without the slightest success. A dim gleam of light is thrown on their fate by the traditions of the Eskimo, which, with some relics of the expedition, Captain Hall, the American explorer, collected in

See an interesting extract from a letter by Philip Sidney, in Mr. Bourne's "English Seamen under the Tudors," i. 134.

In those days the officer in chief command of a

naval expedition was the general; the admiral was the leading ship.

I

He wrote a letter and sent it on shore, hoping that it might reach them. It is the first Arctic letter and runs as follows: "In the name of God in whom we all believe, who, I trust, hath preserved your bodyes and soules amongst these infidels, I commend me unto you. will be glad to seeke, by all meanes you can devise, for your deliverance, eyther with force or with any com modities within my shippes, which I will not spare for your sakes, or any thing else I can do for you. I have aboord of theyrs man, a woman, and a childe, which I am contented to deliver for you; but the man I carried away from hence last yeare is dead in England. Moreover, you may declare unto them, that if they deliver you not, I wyll not leave a man alive in their country. And thus unto God, whome I trust you do serve, in haste I leave you, and to him we will dayly pray for you. Yours to the uttermost of my power,

MARTIN FROBISHER."

The first Arctic watchword is singular. Article 8 of *He appears to have used all his own and his wife's the sailing orders of the third expedition is as follows: means. She was the widow of a rich merchant. There"If any man in ye fleete come up in ye night, and hale is a very lamentable letter from Dame Isabel Frobisher his fellow, knowing him not, he shall give him this to Walsingham, complaining that her husband-"whom watchword, Before the world was God. The other shail God forgive!"-had spent everything, "and put them answere him, if he be one of our fleete, After God, came to the wide world to shift." Christ, His Sonne.

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1861 and 1862. But it is too dim to be | High Admiral, writing to the Queen, says of use. They captured a woman too, and Sir F. Drake, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Frowere much struck with her modest car- bisher, and Mr. T. Fenner, are those riage, which they had the manliness to whom the world doth judge to be men of respect; and, together with a large quan- the greatest experience that this realm tity of the supposed ore, they brought hath." To men trained as they had been, home "a dead fish having a horn two it was but a merry sport, a "morice-dance yards long growing out of its snout, on the waters," as one of them called it, which being, of course, the unicorn,' to scatter and destroy the most mighty they reserved as a jewell for the Queen's and splendid armament which has ever wardrobe." The ore was not found to be threatened the liberties of mankind in satisfactory, but there was immense ex- these modern days. Frobisher played his citement; and an extensive expedition, part so gallantly, that he was one of the consisting of fifteen ships was sent out four who were knighted by the Lord High the following year, to bring home a larger Admiral "when the fight was done." In quantity of ore, and to effect a settlement 1594 he was in charge of a squadron on on Meta Incognita- for so the new land the French coast, when the Queen adwas named. The most notable event of dressed to him a characteristic and flatthis voyage was the discovery accidentally tering letter. It was his last service. of Hudson's Straits, along which Fro- Brave soldier that he was, he writes to bisher longed to force his way, but he was the Lord Admiral a report of his achieveprevented by his instructions and the ments, and then in the last paragraph says murmurs of his people, who were all mad quietly, "I was shoott with a bullett in for the old inlet, which proved in the end the battrie alongst the huckell-bone. So to be no strait at all—and for gold. A as I was driven to have an insision made large quantity of ore was loaded, and to take out the bullett. So as I am after tremendous buffetings and hair- neither able to goa nor ride. And the breadth escapes the fleet reached Eng- marriners are verie unwilling to goa Exland. The ore was soon found to be not cept I goa with them myselfe: yett yf I only poor but worthless. Then began bit- find it to come to an extremitie we will ter recriminations and complaints. Fro- try what we are able." The letter is bisher was assailed with the most vehe- dated November 8, 1594. On November ment abuse, which he seems to have re- 22nd his brave heart had ceased to beat, turned with hearty good will. He was a and his "actions" passed into his counhasty, choleric, passionate man ; but just, try's history. generous, and humane. He was a consummate sailor and a daring adventurous leader, sure to be in the foremost ranks in all the most important and enterprising movements of his time. The Queen knew his value, and used him on special services. His part thenceforth was to be played on a wider field. A brave and able man, one of the simplest and noblest of the great sailors of that day, Jchn Davis, carried on his work in the northwest. He reached 73° N., and discovered the passage which is known by his

name.*

Frobisher was in command of the Triumph, one of the largest ships in the navy, at England's Salamis. The Lord

I would that I had space for a brief notice of John Davis and his work. He was up as far as 669 19m. N. "in a little boat of thirty tons," in 1585. In 1588 he was out in a boat of twenty tons, in the great Armada fight, to strike a blow for England and the gospel. He afterwards piloted the first Dutch ship to the East Indies, and made no less than five successful voyages to those remote lands; "an instance," says simple-minded Prince in his "Worthies of Devon," of "a wonderful Providence, and an argument that the very same Lord who is the God of Earth, is the God of the Seas." LIVING AGE. VOL. II.

60

The path that he opened has been explored for three centuries by some of the boldest, hardiest, and the most heroic of our race. English, Dutch, Scandinavians, Germans, French, Americans, have carried on the Arctic siege with unflinching resolution; and the question seems now to be, who shall be the first to complete the enterprise and win the crown.

It will be strange if the tercentenary of Frobisher's first expedition, which is rapidly approaching, should find the problem solved, and the mystery of the Polar Sea revealed. I occupy in this matter the room of the unlearned; but I may be permitted, in closing this brief narrative, to express my conviction that it will be a stain on that peculiar honour of our country which George Beste held so dear, if, now that volunteers are not only ready but eager, England, in a fit of dear economy, should refuse to complete the great discovery, which was a life-long passion with so many of her noblest and most heroic sons.

From Good Words. THE PRESCOTTS OF PAMPHILLON. BY MRS. PARR, AUTHOR OF DOROTHY FOX."

CHAPTER I.

A LITTLE CONTRE-TEMPS.

Isided with his friends. It was his boast that no one could tell the time when there hadn't been Carthews in Mallett. From his father he inherited Sharrows, an unpretentious, rambling sort of residence, visible from the high road, while the grounds-if such the tangle of flowers AMONG the inhabitants a tradition ex- and shrubs could be designated - ran isted that when the great naval port of down to the sandy beach below. Captain Dockmouth was a fishing village, Mallett Carthew had married somewhat late in was a thriving town, and sent two mem- life, on account so he said- of his bers to Parliament. It needed a consid- having been little on shore, and not haverable amount of faith to credit this as- ing been a good hand at keeping up a sertion, and of imagination to picture the running fire in the shape of epistolary quiet, old-fashioned place as other than wooing. When at length he had made it now stood a quaint, ill-built cluster of his opportunity, he did not long enjoy houses stretching from the water's edge domestic felicity. His wife died soon by a steep street to the high road above, after the birth of their first child, named and terminating in a straggling colony of Hero in honor of the dashing frigate pretty cottages, villas, and pleasant de- which the Captain then commanded. tached houses. These last were the resi- Since that time, by his ardent admiration dences of military and naval men, with of the fair sex, and his devoted attentions, large families and small means, and re- Captain Carthew had raised many a fluttired officers, maiden ladies and widows, tering hope among the spinster portion of who formed the principal gentry of Mal- Mallett society; but one by one these lett. The noses of the Mallett folk were not illusions fell to the ground. It gradually at all offended by the odour of fish, sea- came to be understood that such flattering weed, and old rope, which pervaded every gallantries were only part of the Captain's nook and corner of their primitive village. chivalrous manners, that they meant nothWhen strangers, pointing to the refuse ing in particular to anybody, and that it heaps rotting here and there, declared that was more than improbable that the dead even the delicious breezes from the adja-mistress of Sharrows would ever have a cent commons could not counteract such successor. baneful poison as this, the Mallett folk Twenty years had passed since Mrs. only smiled. They treated as new-fangled Carthew's death, during which time the notions the talk of the Dockmouth people Captain had been placed upon the retired about the drainage being so bad that vis- list, the navy had gone to the dogs, and itors could not stand it. And when a his daughter had grown from the "Capsuspicion dawned upon their untutored 'en's little maid," who shouted with deminds that some slur was thus intended light as her rough devotees swung her in to be cast upon their beloved home, they their brawny arms, into a bright, fearless would turn suddenly, as was their wont, girl, whose presence was greeted with dequick and fierce, and ask, "Who wanted light by every inhabitant of Mallett. It strangers? Not they. Folks as couldn't took outsiders some time to comprehend, abide a good wholesome stink o' fish had or in the least degree to understand, the best stay away. Who was they, they bond of faith and trust which existed be wondered, for whom Mallett must be al- tween the owners of Sharrows and their tered? 'Twas good enough for the Cap- humble friends. It was patent to all that 'en and Miss Hero; and if any man or a man with nothing beyond his pay and woman at Dockmouth, or at any other good-service pension could not win popuport, would say that they could lay finger larity by gifts or money. Yet not a joy on their betters, why p'raps they'd stand or sorrow entered one of the village out and say it." And this challenge be- homes without sympathy and help, to the ing given by men, who, noted as wrest-best of their means, coming from Sharlers, are strong and sturdy of limb, it was rows; and there was not a man or woman rarely taken up, and a surly silence, an in all Mallett but felt securely confident unintelligible growl, was accepted by the Mallett champions as an acknowledgment that the Cap'en, the King o' Mallett, as many fondly called him, ranked second

to none.

The Captain would most assuredly have

that, no matter what happened, the doors of Sharrows would never be closed against them; that if the Cap'en had but one loaf of bread he would share it with them, and that if he had a fortune left him they would be all gainers.