Neptune's Needle

Gabriel Ship (3m). Tons; 20 tons. Hull; wood. Comp.; 18. Built; 1576. Following John Cabot's ill-fated second voyage to North America in 1498, European interest in a northwesterly route to the Orient was abandoned in favor of the pursuit of the Northeast Passage. But by the 1570s, there was such a mass of hearsay evidence and hypothesis that people began to think again that a Northwest Passage might exist. For the English, the primary motive for finding such a route was to capture part of the lucrative Oriental spice trade from the Spanish and Portuguese. But others, such as Sir Humphrey Gilbert, sought to "inhabit some part of those countries, and settle there such needy people of our country which now trouble the commonwealth and through want here at home are enforced to commit outrageous offenses, whereby they are daily consumed with the gallows."

One of the most fervent believers in the Northwest Passage was Martin Frobisher. With backing from the Muscovy Company, on June 12, 1576, he embarked in the bark Gabriel and sailed from Gravesend in company with the 25-ton Michael and a pinnace of 10 tons. A storm sank the pinnace and forced Michael back to England. Gabriel carried on and, after nearly capsizing off Greenland, sailed northwest into Davis Strait and by July 20 was off Resolution Island, between Labrador and Baffin Island. On August 11, Gabriel sailed into Frobisher's Bay, which, after covering 150 miles in 15 days, they believed was a strait separating America and Asia. Frobisher and his companions noted that the people "be like to Tartars, with long black haire, broad faces, and flatte noses, and tawnie in color." Unfortunately, five of the English were kidnapped by Eskimos, and in retaliation Frobisher seized an Eskimo who was taken back to England. The crew also returned with iron pyrites mistakenly thought to be gold. This discovery was more than enough incentive for a second voyage, sponsored by the newly formed Adventurers to the North-West for the Discovery of the North-West Passage, or the Companye of Kathai. In 1577, Gabriel, now under Robert Fenton, sailed with Michael, Queen Elizabeth's own Aid, and a company of about 155 men. Departing in mid-May, the ships arrived at Baffin Island on July 17. They returned home at the end of the summer with three Eskimos a man, a woman, and her child, all of whom died after a month in England and 200 tons of ore assayed (again incorrectly) as containing gold and silver.

In 1578, Gabriel was one of fifteen ships in Frobisher's third expedition during which his ships sailed partway into Hudson Strait. The Company of Cathay spent five years trying to smelt precious metals from iron and eventually went bankrupt; Frobisher took the blame. Creditors seized Gabriel, and her ultimate fate is unknown. The ship the Englishman Martin Frobisher sailed in his quest for a Northwest passage in 1576.

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Compiler

Peter Richards