Later in Henry the eighth’s reign, in 1527, a larger expedition, composed of “divers cunning men,” set out for Northern discovery, but with no more satisfactory results. Their enterprise was impelled by the weighty reasoning of Robert Thorne, the observant Bristol merchant, then in Seville (whom Hakluyt terms a “notable member and ornament of his country”), in his “large discourse” of that year to Dr. Ley, the English ambassador in Spain, urging the immediate need of English discovery in the north parts, “even to the North pole,” to overcome the advantages gained by Spain and Portugal in their discoveries of “all the Indies and seas Occidental and Oriental,” so “by this part of the Orient and Occident” compassing the world. Who were the “divers cunning men” composing this expedition Hakluyt endeavoured to ascertain through much enquiry among “such as by their years and delight in Navigation” might inform him. He learned, however, of one only, and his name he could not get—a certain canon of St. Paul’s in London, a “great mathematician, and indued with wealth,” apparently the leader. Two “fair ships” formed the squadron, one of them called “The Dominus Vobiscum.” They set forth out of the Thames on a mid-May day. When sailing “far northwestward” one of the ships was cast away as it entered into “a dangerous gulph about the great opening between the North parts of Newfoundland and the country lately called by her Majestie Meta Incognita.” Thereupon the other ship, “shaping her course toward Cape Briton and the coaste of Arambec, and oftentimes putting their men on land to search the state of those regions, returned home about the beginning of October.” So this story lamely ends. Six years later an enterprise for discovery in the same parts was projected by certain London men, with the king’s “favour and good countenance,” under the leadership of one “Master Hore,” a “man of goodly stature and of great courage, and given to the studie of Cosmographie.” Master Hore’s “persuasions” were so effective that he soon drew into the scheme “many gentlemen of the Inns of court and of the Chancerie, and divers others of good worship, desirous to see the strange things of the world.” Two “tall ships” were obtained for the venture, the “Trinitie,” of one hundred and forty tons, which was designated the “admiral” (flag-ship) of the fleet, and the “Minion.” The company numbered about sixscore persons, of whom thirty were gentlemen. Among the latter were enrolled one Armigil Wade, “a very learned and vertuous gentleman,” afterward clerk of the councils of Henry the eighth and his successor, Edward the sixth; one Joy, subsequently gentleman of the king’s chapel; and Oliver Dawbeny, a merchant of London. All were “mustered in warlike manner” at Gravesend. After receiving the Sacrament they embarked and sailed away at the end of April, 1536. The adventures of these gentlemen-explorers were rare and tragic.