[8] After some initial reluctance, Orhogbua agreed to trade but while the pepper was being gathered, disease swept through the English crew killing many of them including the expedition leader, Wyndham.

Lacking sufficient sailors to crew the entire fleet, they abandoned one ship and, in their panic to leave, even left behind some members of the expedition.

"[9] Despite the loss of two ships and 100 lives, the 1553 voyage was considered a financial success and investors, including York, funded another trading expedition to Portuguese Guinea in 1554.

Undaunted by his first experience, Frobisher joined the new expedition and served as an apprentice merchant working for York's trading representative, John Beryn.

[18] On 30 September 1559, Frobisher married a Yorkshire widow, Isobel Richard, who had two young children and a substantial settlement from her previous marriage to Thomas Rigatt of Snaith.

Little is known of their domestic life, but having spent all her inheritance to finance his ventures, Frobisher seems to have left her and her children by the mid-1570s; Isobel's death in a poorhouse in 1588 went unremarked by the ambitious captain.

[27] According to the Dictionary of National Biography, the first direct notice of Frobisher apparently is an account in the state papers of two interrogations in 1566, "on suspicion of his having fitted out a vessel as a pirate".

In 1574, Frobisher petitioned the Privy Council for permission and financial support to lead an expedition to find a north-west passage to "the Southern Sea" (the Pacific Ocean) and thence to Cathay.

[31] Some of its members were intrigued by his proposal, but cautiously referred him to the Muscovy Company, an English merchant consortium which had previously sent out several parties searching for the Northeast Passage around the Arctic coasts of Norway and Russia, and held exclusive rights to any northern sea routes to the East.

As they headed downstream on the Thames, Elizabeth waved to the departing ships from a window of Greenwich Palace, while cannons fired salutes and a large assembly of the people cheered.

Crossing the Davis Strait, they encountered another violent storm in which the pinnace was sunk and Michael turned back to England,[40] but Gabriel sailed on for four days until her crew sighted what they believed was the coast of Labrador.

[46] 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.

[54] Ignoring the negative reports, Lok secretly wrote to the Queen to inform her of the encouraging result,[55] and used this assessment to lobby investors to finance another voyage.

The Queen lent the 200-ton ship Aid or Ayde to the Company of Cathay (Frobisher's biographer James McDermott says she sold it) and invested £1000 (equivalent to £360,000 in 2023) in the expedition.

[50][59] Prior to 30 March 1577, Frobisher petitioned the Queen to be confirmed as High Admiral of the north-western seas and governor of all lands discovered, and to receive five per cent of profits from trade.

Michael Lok, meanwhile, was petitioning the queen for his own charter, by the terms of which the Company of Cathay would have sole rights to exploit the resources of all seas, islands and lands to the west and north of England, as well as any goods produced by the peoples occupying them; Frobisher would be apportioned a much smaller share of the profits.

Letters from the Privy Council were waiting for him at Harwich, however, commanding him to trim the excess; consequently, he sent the convicts and several seamen ashore at the harbour on 31 May and set sail northwards to Scotland.

The next day, Frobisher and a small party landed at Little Hall's Island in Ayde's pinnace to search for more samples of the black ore acquired originally by Robert Garrard, but found none.

[69][70] Frobisher brought with him three Inuit who had been forcibly taken from Baffin Island: a man called Calichough or Kalicho, a woman, Egnock or Arnaq, and her child, Nutioc or Nuttaaq.

[70] Meanwhile, the Queen and others in her retinue maintained a strong faith in the potential productivity of the newly discovered territory, which she herself named Meta Incognita[77][70] (Latin: Unknown Shore).

Stormy weather and dangerous ice prevented the rendezvous, and, besides causing the wreck on an iceberg of the 100-ton barque Dennis, drove the fleet unwittingly up a waterway that Frobisher named "Mistaken Strait".

On the last day of August 1578, the fleet set out on its return and reached England at the beginning of October, although the vessel Emanuel was wrecked en route at Ard na Caithne on the west coast of Ireland.

[91] Finding his reputation as an adventurer-explorer damaged following the disastrous outcome of the Cathay Company venture, and that his services in that line were no longer required,[92] Frobisher sought other employment.

He applied to a major shareholder in the Arctic enterprise, Sir William Wynter, one of the Queen's most trusted naval commanders, who was leading a fleet of four heavily armed vessels to Ireland under orders to put down the Desmond rebellion against the English Crown.

Frobisher secured an appointment as captain of Foresight and sailed in early March 1580; in November, he participated in the Siege of Smerwick at the Dingle Peninsula,[93] a rocky promontory on the southwestern shore of County Kerry, where Emanuel had wrecked two years previously.

On 20 July 1588, the Spanish Armada set sail from Corunna in Galicia to escort the Army of Flanders, led by the Duke of Parma, to invade England.

[102] Three days later, the English fleet was reinforced by Lord Seymour's channel patrol of thirty-five or forty sail, and Frobisher assumed command of his newly formed squadron.

[29] Frobisher's squadron was close inshore at dawn on 25 July 1588, the only one landwards of the Armada that morning; the sea was dead calm when he engaged the Duke of Medina Sidonia's flagship San Martín and gave her another pummeling like that of a few days past.

[108] Frobisher, directly behind him in the English line, stayed with the San Martin at close range and poured cannon shot into her oaken flanks, but failed to take her.

In November 1591, he purchased from the Queen the leasehold of the manor of Whitwood in Yorkshire for an unstated sum, and of Finningley Grange in Nottinghamshire, which had belonged to the Mattersey Priory, for £949 (equivalent to £303,000 in 2023).