1578-1582. The Troubles of Dame Isabel Frobisher. * 177 ships; but we are not told when, if ever, he really entered upon this work. That he stood in need of some remunerative employment is tolerably clear. There is extant a curious letter, undated, but evidently written between 1576 and 1578, addressed by his wife, Dame Isabel Frobisher, "the most miserable poor woman in the world," to Sir Francis Walsingham. In it, "in her most lamentable manner," she complained that, whereas her former husband, Thomas Riggat, a very wealthy man, had left her with ample portions for herself and all her children, her present husband-" whom God forgive!"-had spent everything, and "put them to the wide world to shift." She and her children, she said, were starving in a poor room at Hampstead; and therefore she begged Walsingham to help her in recovering a debt of 47. due to her husband, and so to keep them from famishing until Captain Frobisher's return.‡ It is to be feared that when Captain Frobisher returned he was not able to do very much towards restoring the money that he had borrowed from his wife. * RECORD OFFICE MSS., Warrant Book, vol. i., p. 118. He was employed as captain of one of the Queen's ships, the Foresight, in preventing the Spaniards from giving all the assistance they desired to the Irish insurgents in Munster, under James Fitzmaurice, in 1580; but of this we have no useful details.-RECORD OFFICE MSS., Irish, vol. lxxxiii., No. 35; vol. lxxxiv., No. 56; vol. lxxxvi., Nos. 64, 71, 72. RECORD OFFICE MSS., Domestic, vol. cli., No. 17. VOL. I. N 178 CHAPTER VII. THE COLONIZING PROJECTS OF SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. [1574-1583.] FROM active participation in the Cathayan enterprise, of which he was chief promoter, Sir Humphrey Gilbert was deterred, either by the jealousy of the men who superseded him in the work or by his own dissatisfaction at being thus superseded, or by both motives together. But he was at no loss for other and kindred ways in which to show his love of adventure and his anxiety to forward his country's welfare. While he was writing his Discourse to prove a Passage to Cathay,' we find him, in conjunction with other gentlemen of the west parts of England, among whom Sir Richard Grenville, Sir George Peckham, and Christopher Carlile were the principal, planning an expedition for the discovery of "sundry rich and unknown lands" in the more southern districts of America. On the 22nd of March, 1574, he and his friends addressed a petition to Queen Elizabeth on the subject, urging that this discovery was "fatally reserved for England and for the honour of Her Majesty ;" and on the same day they 1574-1577.] Gilbert's Projects against Spain. 179 wrote to the Earl of Lincoln, Lord High Admiral of England, bespeaking his help in furtherance of the work, and explaining more fully the advantages that would certainly come from a voyage to the parts south of the equinoctial line, which were rapidly being appropriated by Spanish adventurers.* But neither petition nor letter seems to have met with much favour, and we hear nothing more of this particular scheme. Another abortive project is set forth in a discourse, of which there is little doubt that Gilbert was the author, showing "how Her Majesty might annoy the King of Spain" by fitting out a fleet of war-ships under pretence of a voyage of discovery, and so fall upon the enemy's shipping, destroy his trade in Newfoundland and the West Indies, and possess both regions. Gilbert offered to conduct this expedition, and begged that it might be entered upon at once, seeing that “the wings of man's life are plumed with the feathers of death." The proposal is dated the 6th of November, 1577. It was not complied with, Queen Elizabeth having quite enough to do in keeping within bounds the schemes for annoying the King of Spain that were being enforced by Hawkins, Drake, and other men already engaged upon the business. But in another and kindred project, which soon afterwards he propounded, he easily obtained the Queen's approval. On the 11th of June, 1578, was granted to * RECORD OFFICE MSS., Domestic, vol. xcv., Nos. 63, 64. † Ibid., vol. cxviii., No. 12. The signature to this document is carefully erased, but it appears to have been H. GYLBERTE. him a charter for discovering and possessing any distant and barbarous lands which he could find, provided they were not already claimed by any Christian prince or people, and on condition that all cities, castles, towns, and villages that he might found or conquer, were held by him under the Crown of England, and paid for with the fifth that in all such cases was claimed by the sovereign. He was authorised to plant a colony and to be absolute governor both of the Englishmen and of the natives dwelling in it, the only restriction being that his rule should be, "as near as conveniently might be," in harmony with the laws and policy of England.* That charter Gilbert proceeded, as quickly as possible, to make use of. Towards fitting out a suitable expedition he seems to have employed the long arrears of pay lately issued to him on account of his services in Ireland. A goodly number of enterprising men, many of them destined hereafter to take famous part in the history of their country, also assisted him both with money and with personal attendance. Among them were George and William Carew, Edward Denny, Henry Nowell, Henry and Francis Knollys, and Miles Morgan. The greatest of all was his stepbrother, Walter Raleigh. † Raleigh, now twenty-six years old, was the youngest son of Walter Raleigh, a Devonshire gentleman, by his third wife, Catharine, the widow of Otho Gilbert, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert's mother. He had studied at * HAKLUYT, vol. iii., pp. 135–137. 1578.] His Associates in the Work :-Walter Raleigh. 181 Oxford, had gone to France with his and Gilbert's cousin, Henry Champernon, in 1569, to fight as a volunteer in the Huguenot cause, and, after five years thus spent, had entered on a further pupilage in fighting under Sir John Norris in the Netherlands. Thence he soon returned to England. "The slender pay," says one of his old biographers, "was not encouragement sufficient to make him stay long in the service. Being restless and impatient of a narrow and low condition, and his merits not answered with a fortune strong enough to buoy up his reputation, he was resolved to leave no stone unturned nor any method of living unexperimented; and, since his land expeditions could make no addition to his fortunes, novelty, and a desire of putting himself into a better capacity, urged him to a sea voyage." Like or worse motives seem to have actuated several others of Gilbert's partners, all "gentlemen of good calling," and they were not calculated to bring success to the enterprise. With a fleet of eleven ships, containing five hundred gentlemen and sailors, Gilbert quitted Dartmouth on the 23rd of September.† He was hardly out of port when his "gentlemen of good calling" began to show themselves too good for their work. Concerning them, we are told by one of the number, that "their dispositions were divers, which bred a feud, and made a division in the end, to the confusion *Cited in the continuation to SOUTHEY'S British Admirals, vol. iv., p. 211. + RECORD OFFICE MSS., Domestic, vol. cxxv., No. 70. |