Editing Martin Frobisher (section)

===First voyage===
[[File: Greenwich Palace (anonymous).jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|[[Palace of Placentia|Greenwich Palace]] on the south bank of the [[River Thames]], from a window of which Queen Elizabeth waved to the departing ships (by an unknown artist)]]

In 1576, Frobisher persuaded the Muscovy Company to license his expedition. With the help of the company's director, [[Michael Lok]] (whose well-connected father [[William Lok]] had held an exclusive [[Worshipful Company of Mercers|mercers]]' licence to provide Henry VIII with fine cloths),<ref name="Alford2017">{{cite book|author=Stephen Alford|title=London's Triumph: Merchants, Adventurers, and Money in Shakespeare's City|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HUk6DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT142|date=2017|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-62040-823-0|pages=142–143}}</ref> Frobisher was able to raise enough capital for three [[barque]]s: ''Gabriel'' and ''Michael'' of about 20–25 tons each, and an unnamed [[Full rigged pinnace|pinnace]] of 10 tons, with a total crew of 35.<ref name=Bumsted55>{{cite book|last=Bumsted|first=J. M.|title=The Peoples of Canada: A Pre-Confederation History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pfMMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PP55|year=2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-543101-8|page=55}}</ref><ref name="McCoy2012">{{cite book|author=Roger M. McCoy|title=On the Edge: Mapping North America's Coasts|url=https://archive.org/details/onedgemappingnor0000mcco|url-access=registration|date= 2012|publisher=Oxford University Press, US|isbn=978-0-19-974404-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/onedgemappingnor0000mcco/page/72 72]}}</ref> Queen [[Elizabeth I]] sent word that she had "good liking of their doings", and the ships weighed anchor at [[Blackwall, London|Blackwall]] on 7 June 1576. As they headed downstream on the Thames, Elizabeth waved to the departing ships from a window of [[Palace of Placentia|Greenwich Palace]], while cannons fired salutes and a large assembly of the people cheered.<ref>{{cite book|title=The United Service Magazine|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NtsRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA437|year=1875|publisher=Hurst and Blackett|page=437|chapter=Arctic Discovery}}</ref><ref name="Markham2014">{{cite book|author=Clements R. Markham|title=The Lands of Silence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X2q8BQAAQBAJ&pg=PA83|date=2014|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-108-07687-6|page=83}}</ref>

On 26 June 1576, the little fleet reached the [[Shetland Islands]], where it stopped to repair a leak in ''Michael''{{'s}} hull and repair the barques' water casks. The ships hoisted sail the same evening and set course westwards, sailing west by north for three days until a violent storm arose and pounded them continuously through 8 July.{{sfnp|McDermott|2001a|p=136}} On 11 July 1576, they sighted the mountains of the southeastern tip of Greenland, which they mistook for the non-existent island called 'Friesland'. Crossing the [[Davis Strait]], they encountered another violent storm in which the pinnace was sunk and ''Michael'' turned back to England,<ref>{{cite book|title=Calendar of State Papers: Colonial Series, East Indiès, China and Japan, 1513–1616, preserved in Her Majesty's Public Record Office, and elsewhere. Edited by W. Noël Sainsburg|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aIg9AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA23|year=1862|publisher=Longman|volume=I|page=13}}</ref> but ''Gabriel'' sailed on for four days until her crew sighted what they believed was the coast of [[Labrador]]. The landmass was actually the southernmost tip of [[Baffin Island]]; Frobisher named it "Queen Elizabeth's Foreland".{{sfnp|McDermott|2001a|p=139}}

The ship reached the mouth of Frobisher Bay a few days later, and because ice and wind prevented further travel north, Frobisher determined to sail westwards up the bay, which he believed to be the entrance to the North-west Passage, naming it Frobisher's Strait,<ref name="Craciun2016">{{cite book|author=Adriana Craciun|title=Writing Arctic Disaster|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0mSSCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA205|date= 2016|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-12554-4|page=205}}</ref> to see "whether he might carry himself through the same into some open sea on the backside".<ref name="Hakluyt1880">{{cite book|author=Richard Hakluyt|title=Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America: Thirteen Original Narratives from the Collection of Hakluyt|url=https://archive.org/details/voyageselizabet00haklgoog|year=1880|publisher=T. De La Rue & Company|page=[https://archive.org/details/voyageselizabet00haklgoog/page/n96 66]}}</ref> ''Gabriel'' sailed northwestwards, keeping in sight of the bay's north shore. On 18 August 1576, Burch's Island was sighted and named after the ship's carpenter who first spied it;<ref name="Chalmers1814">{{cite book|editor=Alexander Chalmers|title=The General Biographical Dictionary|url=https://archive.org/details/generalbiograph53chalgoog|year=1814|publisher=J. Nichols and Son|page=[https://archive.org/details/generalbiograph53chalgoog/page/n169 139]|chapter=XV}}</ref>{{sfnp|McDermott|2001a|p=143}} there the expedition met some local [[Inuit]]. Having made arrangements with one of the Inuit to guide them through the region, Frobisher sent five of his men in a ship's boat to return him to shore, instructing them to avoid getting too close to any of the others. The boat's crew disobeyed, however, and five of Frobisher's men were taken captive.<ref name="McCoy201276">{{cite book|author=Roger M. McCoy|title=On the Edge: Mapping North America's Coasts|url=https://archive.org/details/onedgemappingnor0000mcco|url-access=registration|date= 2012|publisher=Oxford University Press, US|isbn=978-0-19-974404-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/onedgemappingnor0000mcco/page/76 76]}}</ref>

After days of searching, Frobisher could not recover the insubordinate sailors, and eventually took hostage a native man to see if an exchange for the missing boat's crew could be arranged. The captive refused to communicate with his fellow Inuit and Frobisher's men were never seen again by their fellows,<ref name=" Morison1986287">{{cite book|author=Samuel Eliot Morison|title=The Great Explorers: The European Discovery of America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JnotvLHX80gC&pg=PA291|year=1986|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-504222-1|pages=287–288}}</ref> but Inuit oral tradition tells that the men lived among them for a few years of their own free will until they died attempting to leave Baffin Island in a self-made boat.<ref name="Williams2010">{{cite book|author=Glyn Williams|title=Arctic Labyrinth: The Quest for the Northwest Passage|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H6kwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA20|date=2010|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-26995-8|page=20}}</ref>

Meanwhile, the local man, "Wherupon, when he founde himself in captivitie, for very choler and disdain, he bit his tong in twayne within his mouth: notwithstanding, he died not therof, but lived untill he came in Englande, and then he died of colde which he had taken at sea."<ref>George Best's ''The three voyages of Martin Frobisher, in search of a passage to Cathaia and India by the North-west, A.D. 1576–8. Reprinted from the first ed. of Hakluyt's Voyages, with selections from manuscript documents in the British Museum and State Paper Office''. Edited by Rear-Admiral Richard Collinson. Printed for the Hakluyt Society, London, 1867, p. 74.</ref>

Frobisher turned homewards, and was well received by the Queen when he docked in London on 9 October.<ref name="Allen1997" /> Among the things which had been hastily brought away by the men was a black stone "as great as a half-penny loaf" which had been found loose on the surface of [[Christopher Hall Island|Hall's Island]] of Baffin Island by the shipmaster, Robert Garrard, who took it to be sea-coal, of which they had to need.<ref>Garrard was one of the five men captured by the [[Inuit]] several days later.{{Harv|McDermott|2001a|p=72}}</ref>{{sfnp|McDermott|2001a|pp=4, 72}} Frobisher took no account of the black rock but kept it as a token of possession of the new territory.

Michael Lok said that Frobisher, upon his return to London from the Arctic, had given him the black stone as the first object taken from the new land. Lok brought samples of the stone to the royal assayer in the [[Tower of London]] and two other expert assayers, all of whom declared that it was worthless, saying that it was [[marcasite]] and contained no gold. Lok then took the "ore" to an Italian alchemist living in London, [[Giovanni Battista Agnello]], who claimed it was gold-bearing.{{sfnp|McDermott|2001a|p=154}} Agnello assayed the ore three times and showed Lok small amounts of gold dust; when he was challenged as to why the other assayers failed to find gold in their specimens, Agnello replied, ''"Bisogna sapere adulare la natura"'' ("One must know how to flatter nature").<ref name="Collinson1867">{{cite book|author=Sir Richard Collinson|title=The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher: In Search of a Passage to Cathaia and India by the North-west, 1576–8, A.D. 1576–8|url=https://archive.org/details/cihm_03952|year=1867|publisher=Hakluyt Society|page=[https://archive.org/details/cihm_03952/page/n134 93]|isbn=9780665039522 }}</ref> Ignoring the negative reports, Lok secretly wrote to the Queen to inform her of the encouraging result,<ref name="Andrews1984173">{{cite book|author=Kenneth R. Andrews|title=Trade, Plunder and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480–1630|url=https://archive.org/details/tradeplundersett0000andr|url-access=registration|date=1984|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-27698-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/tradeplundersett0000andr/page/173 173]}}</ref> and used this assessment to lobby investors to finance another voyage.{{sfnp|Bumsted|2009|page=56}} Subsequently the stone became the focus of intense attention by the Cathay enterprise's venturers, who saw in it the possibility of vast profits to be derived from mining the rocky islands of ''Meta Incognita'';{{sfnp|McGhee|2001|p=60}} gossip spread in the court and from there throughout London about the gold powder Agnello was supposedly deriving from the rock.<ref name="SmithFindlen2013">{{cite book|author=Deborah E. Harkness |editor=Pamela Smith |editor2=Paula Findlen|title=Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LUuMAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA152|date=2013|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-135-30035-7|page=152}}</ref>