[1] Baker started on his first voyage "to seek for gold" in October 1562.
The expedition consisted of two ships, the Minion and the Primrose, and was "set out by Sir William Garrard, Sir William Chester, Mr. Thomas Lodge, Anthony Hickman, and Edward Castelin" (members of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London).
Baker's efforts to traffic with the natives on the Guinea coast were not very successful, and he was wounded in a fight.
In November of the same year he made a second voyage to "Guinie and the river of Sesto" as factor in an expedition of two ships, the John Baptist and the Merlin,[2][3] sent out by the same London Merchant Adventurers.
The three survivors were rescued by a French ship, and imprisoned in France as prisoners of war; but they appear to have been subsequently released.