30 TRANSACTIONS iSgg-'oo 



Cabot, after his experience of western ice-bergs and ice-packs, 

 had abandoned the idea of a practicable North West passage, had 

 devoted himself to other projects and had been dead two or three 

 years when Frobisher began to agitate in favour of a renewal of 

 the attempt to attack the problem from the Greenland side. 

 After long and persistent efforts he succeeded in interesting per- 

 sons of means and influence in his project and in 1576, nineteen 

 years after Cabot's death, he, mainly by the help of the Earl of 

 Warwick, obtained two vessels — the Michael and the Gabriel, 

 one of twenty-five tons and the other of twenty tons burden and 

 a small pinnace, with crews all told numbering thirty-five men. 

 With these he sailed from the Thames, cheered with a message 

 from the Queen herself. 



By Willes, Gilbert, Stephen Burroughs (the celebrated 

 North Eastern Arctic explorer of the day), Dr. John Dee (the 

 official adviser of the Muscovy Company), Richard Hakluyt, 

 Michael Lok and others well versed in such matters, he had been 

 assisted with all the geographical knowledge of the day. Among 

 the subscribers were Queen Elizabeth, who took ^4,000 of stock, 

 Lord Burleigh, the Earl and Countess of Warwick, the Earl of 

 Eeicester, the Earl and Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney, 

 Sir Thomas Gresham, Sir Francis Walsingham and Michael Eok 

 (who subscribed ^5,000) — the total subscription being ^20,000. 



Frobisher' s agitation of the question had created so wide- 

 spread an interest that to him may be attributed justly the truly 

 national character which from his time onward Arctic research 

 assumed. 



The list of subscribers, as is evident from the partial mention 

 of the names, included many of the famous names of the age. 

 Every history of the times is studded with the names of the men 

 who hurried to sign the subscription books for Frobisher' s Arctic 

 exploration. 



From the Thames, Frobisher directed his course to the 

 Shetland Islands. In the storm and tempest that swept the 

 ocean the pinnace was lost. Soon after that calamity overtook 

 him, the Michael deserted. The Gabriel kept on her north- 

 western course, was nearly wrecked on Greenland's rugged 

 coast, and finally after a two months' voyage arrived at land to 

 the north of the out-rushing waters of the strait now known as 

 Hudson. The first land he sighted he named Gabriel Island, 



