The spirit of Elizabeth seconded that of her people. The nation had now assumed a more determined and a prouder front in their resentment of the attempt of Spain to render them an appendage to the Spanish crown, and by the successful struggle of protestantism against catholicism. England strengthened her navy; frequented the bays and banks of Newfoundland; sent out adventurers to Russia and Africa; endeavoured to reach Persia by land, and enlarged her commerce with the East, whilst her privateers lay in wait at sea for the rich galleons of Spain. The study of geography was universally cultivated, and books of travels and adventures by land and sea were eagerly read. Frobisher, the boldest mariner who ever crossed the ocean, set forth to discover the long-sought-for north-western, passage, and Queen Elizabeth waved her hand to him in token of favour, as he sailed down the Thames. Frobisher, like all the rest of the world, hoped to find gold. If the Spaniards had found gold in the south, England was confident of finding gold in the north. Elizabeth entered enthusiastically into the scheme of planting a colony among the wealthy mines of the polar regions, where gold, it was said, lay on the surface of the ground. Frobisher was followed by a second fleet, But they found only frost and icebergs. Whilst Frobisher and his ships were thus vainly endeavouring to discover an el Dorado in the north, Sir Francis Drake was acquiring immense wealth as a freebooter on the Spanish main, and winning great glory by circumnavigating the globe, after having explored the north-western coast of America, as far north as the forty-third degree. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, also, a man of sound judgment and deeply religious mind, obtained a charter from Queen Elizabeth, in 1578, for the more rational purposes of colonisation. He set sail with three vessels, accompanied by his step-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh; but a series of disasters befell them; the largest vessel was wrecked, and a hundred perished, among whom was Parmenius, a Hungarian scholar, who had gone out as historian of the expedition. On the homeward voyage they were overtaken by a great storm. “We are as near to heaven on sea as on land,” said Sir Humphrey Gilbert, sitting abaft with a book in his hand. And the same night his little vessel went down, and all on board perished.