Meanwhile another “terrible tempest” suddenly came up from the southwest, and once more the fleet were in part dispersed. It was the twenty-sixth of July, and snow fell so hard and fast that “we could not see one another for the same, nor open our eyes to handle our ropes and sails.” The “Anne Francis,” the “Moone,” and the “Thomas of Ipswich” again plied seaward. The rest of the fleet stayed by the admiral. When the storm was spent these remaining ships under Frobisher’s lead had pushed through the ice up the bay, “with incredible pain and peril,” and at last reached the goal, dropping anchors in the Countess of Warwick’s Sound on the thirty-first of July. At the entrance to the haven, when all hardship was thought to be over, the “Ayde” narrowly escaped sinking through contact with a “great island of ice.” Here, to their astonishment, the new-comers found arrived before them the “Judith” and the “Michael,” both of which had been mourned as lost. The happy meeting was celebrated with more exchange of thundering salutes from the great ordnance. Then all came together in a service of praise and thanksgiving, and the minister of the fleet, Master Wolfall, preached a “goodly sermon” to a kneeling company on the “Ayde.” No time was lost in getting to work at the “mines.” Immediately upon landing on the Countess of Warwick’s Island Frobisher assembled his council of captains and orders of government were adopted. On the first of August the whole company were mustered on shore, the tents set up, and everything got in readiness for operations. On the next day the orders of the council were published and proclaimed by sound of the trumpet. On the next, all were diligently employed in their several classes, the miners plying their trade, the goldfiners trying the “ore,” the sailors discharging the ships: the gentlemen labouring as heartily as the “inferior sort” for “examples sake.” Meanwhile Frobisher was busied in seeking new mines in neighbouring parts. On the ninth of August preparations were made to set up the house for the one hundred men assigned to remain here a year. But half of the frame had been lost with the foundering of the “Dennis,” and the remaining parts, brought out in others of the ships, were imperfect, pieces having been used for fenders in the battles of the ships against the ice. Provisions also were short, the “Thomas of Ipswich” having carried most of the supplies intended for the temporary colonists. Captain Fenton offered to stay with sixty men, and the carpenters and masons were asked how soon they could build a house for this smaller number. They replied, in eight or nine weeks, provided enough timber could be found. Of course this would never do, for the fleet must depart much before that time or else be frozen in for the winter. There remained no alternative, and so the general and council were forced reluctantly to decide that the plan of a habitation for this year must be abandoned. Later in the month, however,