SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 
29 
icebergs, and instantly went down ; thick fogs, heavy snow, 
with tides and currents of extraordinary violence bewildered the 
mariners, and involved them in endless distresses. At length 
after enduring extreme hardships, it was resolved to return, and 
postpone to the ensuing year, the attempt to make a settlement 
in the country. The storms, which had frustrated the object of 
the expedition, pursued the fleet in its passage homeward; the 
ships were scattered, but arrived at the various ports of England, 
before the commencement of October. 
This grand expedition ended in the miners, finers, and mer¬ 
chants bringing home a quantity of pyrites, and the South Sea 
bubble had a prototype in the North Sea gold mines. 
Success seems to have deserted Frobisher after his first voyage, 
which alone indeed had discovery for its object, for when the 
sanguine expectations to which he had given birth were disap¬ 
pointed, his voyages were looked upon as a total failure, and 
he appears himself for a time, to have fallen into neglect. 
The zeal of Frobisher in the pursuit of north western discoveries, 
is supposed to have been fostered by the writings of Sir Humphry 
Gilbert, a gentleman of brilliant talents and romantic temper. 
When we contemplate the early discoveries of the Spaniards and 
Portuguese, we see needy adventurers, and men of desperate 
character and fortune, pursuing gain or licentiousness with 
violence and bloodshed, and this may be considered as the 
decided characteristic of all voyages, the aim of which is the 
accumulation of riches, and not the promotion of science. 
The English navigators however, who in the reign of Elizabeth 
sought to extend our knowledge of the globe, were men of 
a different stamp, and driven forward by motives of an honour¬ 
able nature. They undertook the most difficult navigation, 
through seas perpetually agitated by storms, and encumbered 
with ice, in vessels of the most frail construction, and of small 
burden ; they encountered all the difficulties and distresses of a 
rigorous climate, and in most cases with a very distant, or with 
no prospect of ultimate pecuniary advantage. Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert was one of those gallant spirits, who engaged in the 
career of discovery, chiefly from the love of fame and thirst of 
