84

III.

FROBISHER'S THIRD VOYAGE.

CHAP. danger, and laughs at obstacles; it resists loss, and anticipates treasures; unrelenting in its pursuit, it is deaf to the voice of mercy, and blind to the cautions of judgment; it can penetrate the prairies of Arkansas, and covet the moss-grown barrens of the Esquimaux. I 1578. have now to relate the first attempt of the English, under the patronage of Elizabeth, to plant an establishment in America.1

1578.

May

31,

to

Sept.

28.

It was believed that the rich mines of the polar regions would countervail the charges of a costly adventure; the hope of a passage to Cathay increased; and for the security of the newly-discovered lands, soldiers and discreet men were selected to become their inhabitants. A magnificent fleet of fifteen sail was assembled, in part at the expense of Elizabeth; the sons of the English gentry embarked as volunteers; one hundred persons were chosen to form the colony, which was to secure to England a country more desirable than Peru, a country too inhospitable to produce a tree or a shrub, yet where gold lay, not charily concealed in mines, but glistening in heaps upon the surface. Twelve vessels were to return immediately with cargoes of the ore; three were ordered to remain and aid the settlement. The north-west passage was now become of less consideration; Asia itself could not vie with the riches of this hyperborean archipelago.

But the entrance to these wealthy islands was rendered difficult by frost; and the fleet of Frobisher, as it now approached the American coast, was bewildered among immense icebergs, which were so vast, that, as they melted, torrents poured from them in sparkling waterfalls. One vessel was crushed and sunk, though the men on board were saved. In the dangerous

1 Hakluyt, iii. 71–73.

FROBISHER ABANDONS META INCOGNITA.

85

III.

mists, the ships lost their course, and came into the CHAP. straits which have since been called Hudson's, and which lie south of the imagined gold regions. The 1578. admiral believed himself able to sail through to the Pacific, and resolve the doubt respecting the passage. But his duty as a mercantile agent controlled his desire of glory as a navigator. He struggled to regain the harbor where his vessels were to be laden; and, after encountering peril of every kind; "getting in at one gap and out at another;" escaping only by miracle from hidden rocks and unknown currents, ice, and a lee shore, which was, at one time, avoided only by a prosperous breath of wind in the very moment of extreme danger, he at last arrived at the haven in the Countess of Warwick's Sound. The zeal of the volunteer colonists had moderated; and the disheartened sailors were ready to mutiny. One ship, laden with provisions for the colony, deserted and returned; and an island was discovered with enough of the black ore "to suffice all the gold-gluttons of the world." The plan of the settlement was abandoned. It only remained to freight the home-bound ships with a store of minerals. They who engage in a foolish project, combine, in case of failure, to conceal their loss; for a confession of the truth would be an impeachment of their judgment; so that unfortunate speculations are promptly consigned to oblivion. The adventurers and the historians of the voyage are silent about the disposition which was made of the cargo of the fleet. The knowledge of the seas was not extended; the credulity of avarice met with a rebuke; and the belief in regions of gold among the Esquimaux was dissipated; but there remained a firm conviction, that a passage to the

36

DRAKE IN THE OREGON TERRITORY.

CHAP. Pacific Ocean might yet be threaded among the icebergs

III.

to

and northern islands of America.1

While Frobisher was thus attempting to obtain wealth and fame on the north-east coast of America, the western limits of the territory of the United States became known. Embarking on a voyage in quest of 1577 fortune, Francis Drake acquired immense treasures as .1580. a freebooter in the Spanish harbors on the Pacific, and, having laden his ship with spoils, gained for himself enduring glory by circumnavigating the globe. But before following in the path which the ship of Magellan had thus far alone dared to pursue, Drake determined to explore the north-western coast of America, in the hope of discovering the strait which connects the oceans. With this view, he crossed the equator, sailed beyond the peninsula of California, and followed the continent to the latitude of forty-three degrees, corresponding to the latitude of the southern 1579. borders of New Hampshire. Here the cold seemed June. intolerable to men who had just left the tropics.

Despairing of success, he retired to a harbor in a milder latitude, within the limits of Mexico; and, having repaired his ship, and named the country New Albion, he sailed for England, through the seas of Asia. Thus was the southern part of the Oregon territory first visited by Englishmen, yet not till after a 1542. voyage of the Spanish from Acapulco, commanded by Cabrillo, a Portuguese, had traced the American con

tinent to within two and a half degrees of the mouth 1593. of Columbia River;3 while, thirteen years after the

1 On Frobisher, consult the original accounts of Hall, Settle, Ellis, and Best, with R. Hakluyt's instructions, in Hak. iii. 52-129.

2 Course of Sir Francis Drake, in Hak. iii. 524; Johnson's Life of Drake.

3 Forster's Northern Voyages, b.

NEWFOUNDLAND THE SCHOOL OF ENGLISH SAILORS.

III.

87

voyage of Drake, John de Fuca, a mariner from the CHAP. Isles of Greece, then in the employ of the viceroy of Mexico, sailed into the bay which is now known as 1593 the Gulf of Georgia, and, having for twenty days steered through its intricate windings and numerous islands, returned with a belief, that the entrance to the long-desired passage into the Atlantic had been found.1

The lustre of the name of Drake is borrowed from 1578 his success. In itself, this part of his career was but a splendid piracy against a nation with which his sovereign and his country professed to be at peace. Oxenham, a subordinate officer, who had ventured to imitate his master, was taken by the Spaniards and hanged; nor was his punishment either unexpected or censured in England as severe. The exploits of Drake, except so far as they nourished a love for maritime affairs, were injurious to commerce; the minds of the sailors were debauched by a passion for sudden acquisitions; and to receive regular wages seemed base and unmanly, when, at the easy peril of life, there was hope of boundless plunder. Commerce and colonization lest on regular industry; the humble labor of the English fishermen, who now frequented the Grand Bank, bred mariners for the navy of their country, and prepared the way for its settlements in the New World. Already four hundred vessels came annually from the harbors of Portugal and Spain, of France and England, to the shores of Newfoundland. The English were not there in such numbers as other nations, for they still frequented the fisheries of Iceland; but

ii. c. iv. s. ii. Humboldt, Nouv. Esp. ii. 436, 437. Compare Viage de las Goletas Sutil y Mexicana, 34. 36. 57.

1 Purchas, iv. 849-852. Forster is skeptical; b. iii. c. iv. s. iv. Belknap's Am. Biog. i. 224–230.

88

III.

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT OBTAINS A PATENT.

66

supremacy,

CHAP. yet they were commonly lords in the harbors," and in the arrogance of naval exacted payment 1578. for protection. It is an incident honorable to the humanity of the early voyagers, that, on one of the American islands, not far from the fishing stations, hogs and horned cattle were purposely left, that they might multiply and become a resource to some future generation of colonists.

2

While the queen and her adventurers were dazzled by the glittering prospects of mines of gold in the frozen regions of the remote north, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, with a sounder judgment and a better knowledge, watched the progress of the fisheries, and formed healthy plans for colonization. He had been a soldier and a member of parliament. He was a judicious writer on navigation; and though censured for his ignorance of the principles of liberty,' he was esteemed for the sincerity of his piety. He was one of those who alike despise fickleness and fear: danger never turned him aside from the pursuit of honor or the service of his sovereign; for he knew that death is inevitable, and the fame of virtue immortal.5 It was not difficult for June Gilbert to obtain a liberal patent, formed according to the tenor of a previous precedent, and to be of perpetual efficacy, if a plantation should be established within six years. To the people who might belong to his colony, the rights of Englishmen were promised; to Gilbert, the possession for himself or his assigns of the soil which he might discover, and the sole jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, of the territory within two

11.

1 See the letter of Ant. Parkhurst, who had himself been for four years engaged in the Newfoundland trade, in Hakluyt, iii. 170

-174.

2 Hakluyt, iii. 197.

3 Ibid. iii. 32-47.

4 D'Ewes's Journal, 168 and 175. 5 Gilbert, in Hakluyt, iii. 47. 6 The patent may be found in Hakluyt, iii. 174-176; Stith's Virginia, 4, 5, 6; Hazard, i. 24-28.