But in London they were joyfully welcomed on October 9th, bringing with them the strange infidel and his boat, whose like was never seen, read, nor heard of before, and whose language was neither known nor understood of any. But the poor stranger, who could resist the inclemency of an Arctic winter, could not withstand our damp autumn gales; he caught a cold at sea, and lingered only a few weeks, after being the brief wonder of the town. But a more extraordinary discovery, and one which afterwards spoiled all Frobisher's attempts at scientific research, was this. Philip Sidney, writing in 1577, says to his tutor: "I wrote to you about a certain Frobisher, who, in rivalry of Magellan, has explored the sea which, as he thinks, washes the north part of America. It is a marvellous history. He touched at a certain island in order to rest his crew; there by chance a young man picked up a piece of earth which he saw glittering on the ground and showed it to Frobisher; but he, being busy with other matters, and not believing that precious metals were produced so far north, considered it of no value. But the young man kept the earth by him till his return to London. And there, when one of his friends saw it shining in an extraordinary manner, he tested it and found it was the purest gold." Another account says that this "earth" was a black stone, much like to sea-coal in colour; "and it fortuned a gentlewoman, one of the adventurers' wives, to have a piece thereof, which by chance she threw and burnt in the fire so long that at length, being taken forth and quenched in a little vinegar, it glittered with a bright glistening of gold." So the stuff was taken with some show of excitement to certain gold-refiners in the City to make an assay-thereof; and their verdict was that it held gold and that in very rich measure. Immediately this news got bruited about, there was no small stir among the merchants and courtiers--all, seamen and men of learning alike, clamoured for another expedition; for they argued that it was of small importance to find a passage to Cathay, if treasures equally valuable lay so near at hand. Queen Elizabeth and Burghley were both ready to throw economy to the winds, if good gold could be gotten by "Master Frobisher." So a charter was granted to the "Company of Cathay," and Frobisher was to have 1 per cent. of all he found, together with a fixed yearly stipend. He was to take his own ships _Gabriel_ and _Michael_, each of 25 tons burden, and a Queen's ship, the _Aid_, of 200 tons, and furnished with sixty-five sailors and twenty-five soldiers. Among the crews were ten convicts--highway robbers--taken out of prison and lent to Frobisher as "likely men of their hands." Frobisher had no relish for such gentry, as being men who might lead mutinies and do lawless deeds; he therefore dropped them on the English coast and carefully forgot to take them with him.