Martin Frobisher did some further exploring on this voyage, but not enough it appears to learn that his strait was only a bay. It is all very strange. An abundance of spiders in the region was taken as convincing evidence that gold-bearing ore was close at hand. In the end Frobisher loaded his ships with worthless black earth and returned to England. What he said, or didn’t say, must have been doubly impressive this time for the merchants evidently were not one whit discouraged. They backed him with a fine fleet, fifteen ships, for a third voyage in 1578. A large band of miners was sent along this time by the company, and two hundred twenty men were provided for the purpose of planting a settlement on the “strait” that would protect both the mines and the route to Cathay. But, so anxious was everyone to dig for gold, the necessary buildings never did get erected. Again it is not clear what happened, but apparently all thought of settlement was abandoned. Before the ice began to close in, Martin Frobisher set sail for home with all his company and another three hundred tons of fool’s gold, bankrupting the Company of Cathay. Next there was Sir Humphrey Gilbert. He and his half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, were the queen’s two favorite gallants among her soldiers of fortune. Both were brave men and both were intensely nationalistic. Sir Humphrey said that a man is “not worthy to live at all, that for feare, or danger of death, shunneth his country service, and his owne honour.” Like other gentlemen marauders of England at the time Gilbert and Raleigh practiced piracy abroad because it was considered both patriotic and sportingly profitable to do so. They were particularly jealous of Spain’s sea commerce and lent support to raids on that country’s shipping with lucrative results. But when they personally led forays against the silver fleet they were none too successful. Humiliatingly enough, they were beaten off with severe losses. Sir Humphrey, however, was good at drawing maps. Using a globe he showed the queen how interminably long were the southern routes to the Indian Ocean as compared with a great circle route to the northwest. This was true enough in theory--only there was land and ice to block the northern way. But Humphrey Gilbert didn’t let that bother him. He drew in a convenient strait, and once a thing is drawn in detail on a map it has a way of looking real, even to the artist who conceived it. So the queen gave Gilbert a patent to “discover and inhabit” all the land in the west not occupied by another Christian prince. In the language of the time this meant to explore and occupy such land. And as an incentive the patentee was given absolute title to all the country he occupied, except of course for precious metals. One-fifth of that went to the crown. Sir Humphrey planned to occupy Newfoundland as a starter. It was conveniently situated off the entrance to his strait--the Gulf of St. Lawrence!