REVIVAL OF THE NORTHWEST THEORY

To Humphrey Gilbert belongs the credit for so reviving the Northwest Passage theory as to turn the thoughts of English merchants and statesmen to adventure and to colonization in America; while Martin Frobisher was the first English navigator fairly to begin the Northwest explorations.

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.

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.