Frobisher's instructions for this voyage were principally to search for ore in this neighbourhood ; lie was directed to leave the further discovery of the north-west passage till another time. Having there fore iu the Countess of Warwick's Island found a good quantity, he took a lading of it. He set sail the 23rd of August, and arrived hi England about the end of September. He was most graciously received by the queen, and her majesty appointed commissioners to make trial ot• the ore, and examine thoroughly into the probability of a north west passage to China. The oommissioners did so, and reported the great value of the undertaking, and the expediency of farther carrying on the discovery of the north-west passage. Upon this, suitable pre parations were mado with all possible despatch; and because the mines newly found out were suffloieut to defray the adventurers charges, it was thought necessary to send a select number of soldiers to secure the places already discovered, to make farther discoveries into the inland parts, and to search again for the passage to China. Besides three ships, as before, twelve others wore fitted out for this voyage, which were to return at the end of the following summer with a lading of gold•ore. They assembled at Harwich ou the 27th of May 1578, and sailing thence on the 31st, they came within sight of Freeseland on the 20th of Jane, when Frobisher, who was now called lieutenant-general, took possession of the country in the queen of England's name, and called it West England, giving the name of Charing Cross to one of the high cliffs. On July 4th they came within the mouth of Frobieher'a Strait, but being obstructed by the ice, which sank one of their barks, and driven out to sea b7 a storm, they were so unfortunate as not to hit the entrance of it again. Instead of which, being deceived by a current from the north-oast, and remainiug twenty days in a continual fog, they ran sixty leagues into other unknown straits before they discovered their mistake. Frobisher however, coming back again, made for the strait which bore his 11R1110 ; and on the 23rd of July, at a place within It called liatton's headland, fouud seven sidles of his fleet- On the 31st of the 6,11110 mouth ho recovered his long-desired port, and came to anchor In the Countess of Warwick's Sound ; but the reason of the year being too advanced to undertake discoveries, after gettiug as much ore as he oould, he sailed with his fleet for England, where, after a stormy and dangerous voyage, he arrived in the beginning of October.
Wo have no account how Frei Isher employed himself from this time to 1595, when he commanded the Aid, in Sir Francis Drake's expedition to the West Indies. In 1588 he commanded the Triumph, and exerted himself very bravely against the Spanish Armada on July the 26th, in which year he received the honour of knighthood, on board his own ship, from the lord high admiral, for hie valour. In 1590 he commanded one of two squadrons upon the Spanish coast.
In 1594 he was sent with four men-of-war to the assistance of Henry IV. of France, against a body of the leagners and Spaniards, then in possession of part of Brittany, who had fortified themselves very strongly at Croyzon, near Brest. Hera in an assault upon that fort, on November 7th, he was wounded by a ball in the hip, of which he died soon after he had brought the fleet safely back to Plymouth, and was buried in that town. (Hakluyt's 'Collection of Voyages,' vol. iii, pp. 29, 32, 39 ; Stow's 'Annales,' edit. 1631, p. 109; Biogr. Brit.,' vol. iii., p. 2044.) There is a good portrait of Sir Martin Frobisher in the picture-gallery at Oxford ; and many of his letters and papers, with others relating to him, are preserved in the Cottonlan and Harleian collections of manuscripts in the British Museum. The instructions given to him for the voyage of 1577 are printed in the Archmologia; vol. xviii., p. 287, from one of Sir Hans Sloane's manuscripts. His last letter, reporting the taking of the fort of Croyzon, dated November 8th 1591, is preserved in the Cottonian Manuscript, Calig. E. ix. fol. 211. A Latin translation of the account of his voyage of 1577, under the title of Historia Navigation's Martini Forbisseri,' by Job. The. Freigius, was published at Hamburg in 4to, 1675.