which they reached in the end of September. Commissioners were now appointed by the queen to report on the whole affair; and, although it does not appear that anything could be got out of the pieces of black stone, it was still deemed expedient that another expedition should be sent out, either to make search for more genuine specimens of gold ore, or at least to prosecute the pursuit of the north-west passage, of which the discovery of Frobisher's Strait had appeared to open a prospect. Accordingly, on the 31st of May, 1578, Frobisher again sailed from Harwich with twelve ships in addition to the three he had commanded on his last voyage, that he might bring or send home an abundant importation of the black ore. This attempt, however, proved wholly unsuccessful; it was only after having been carried far out of their course by storms and currents that about half the number of the ships at last reached the mouth of the strait, when the season was too far advanced for a longer continuance in these inclement regions; so that, having collected as much of the black stone as he could find, Frobisher, without having added anything to his former discoveries, again set sail for England, which he reached about the beginning of October. It is unnecessary to say that the supposed ore appears to have only proved another exemplification of the truth of the old remark—that all is not gold that glitters. To Frobisher, however, geography owes the first penetration into these Polar seas, and the discovery both of the strait that bears his name, and of various islands, sounds, and points within and around it. Frobisher was afterwards employed in other naval commands, and as one of the chief captains of the fleet fitted out against the Spanish Armada; after one of the engagements with which his valour was recompensed by the lord high admiral with the honour of knighthood. He died in 1594 of a wound which he received in an attack upon a fort near Brest, which was held by a party of leaguers and Spaniards against Henry IV. of France, to whose assistance he had been sent with four men-of-war.
