to him from her palace window.[26] He explored Frobisher’s Strait and took possession of the land called Meta Incognita in the name of the queen.  He brought back with him a black stone, which a gold-finder in London pronounced rich in gold, and the vain hope of a gold-mine inspired two other voyages (1577, 1578).  On his third voyage Frobisher entered the strait known as Hudson Strait, but the ore with which he loaded his ships proved of little value.  John Davis, like Frobisher, made three voyages in three successive years (1585, 1586, 1587), and the chief result of his labors was the discovery of the great strait which bears his name.[27]

Meanwhile, the idea of building up another English nation across the seas had taken a firm hold on Gilbert, and among those who communed with him were his half-brother Sir Walter Raleigh, his brothers Adrian and John Gilbert, besides Richard Hakluyt, Sir Philip Sydney, Sir Richard Grenville, Sir George Peckham, and Secretary of State Sir Francis Walsingham.  The ill success of Frobisher had no influence upon their purpose; but four years elapsed after Gilbert’s petition to the crown in 1574 before he obtained his patent.  How these years preyed upon the noble enthusiasm of Gilbert we may understand from a letter commonly attributed to him, which was handed to the queen in November, 1577:  “I will do it if you will allow me; only you must resolve and not delay or dally—­the wings of man’s life are plumed with the feathers of death."[28]

At length, however, the formalities were completed, and on June 11, 1578, letters to Gilbert passed the seals for planting an English colony in America.[29] This detailed charter of colonization is most interesting, since it contains several provisions which reappear in many later charters.  Gilbert was invested with all title to the soil within two hundred leagues of the place of settlement, and large governmental authority was given him.  To the crown were reserved only the allegiance of the settlers and one-fifth of all the gold and silver to be found.  Yet upon Gilbert’s power two notable limitations were imposed:  the colonists were to enjoy “all the privileges of free denizens and persons native of England”; and the protection of the nation was withheld from any license granted by Gilbert “to rob or spoil by sea or by land.”

Sir Humphrey lost no time in assembling a fleet, but it was not till November 19, 1578, that he finally sailed from Plymouth with seven sail and three hundred and eighty-seven men, one of the ships being commanded by Raleigh.  The subsequent history of the expedition is only vaguely known.  The voyagers got into a fight with a Spanish squadron and a ship was lost.[30] Battered and dispirited as the fleet was, Gilbert had still Drake’s buccaneering expedient open to him; but, loyal to the injunctions of the queen’s charter, he chose to return, and the expedition broke up at Kinsale, in Ireland.[31]