America, with a view of disclosing to the world the new route to India which was confidently supposed to lie in that direction. The utmost diligence was also to be shown in looking for indications of gold in the new lands to be visited on the way. The discovery of Frobisher’s Straits was the only substantial result of this costly voyage, although the commander for a time flattered himself that he had found ore of extraordinary richness. In the second voyage, which was made in 1577, he returned to the spot in the vicinity of the Straits where he imagined there were deposits of metal, and leaving there the miners he had brought with him, he penetrated into Hudson’s Bay under the impression that it was the open passage to the South Sea. Further exploration showing the incorrectness of this notion, he reversed his course, and loading his ships with cargoes of worthless stones, thinking that they were rich in gold, sailed for England. In 1578 he set out upon his third voyage in company with a large band of miners, and returned home with three hundred tons of material supposed to contain the precious metals, but which proved to be without value. The enormous sum of twenty thousand pounds sterling, equal in purchasing power to about five hundred thousand dollars in modern currency,[1] was subscribed to sustain these three voyages of Frobisher, Queen Elizabeth alone furnishing four thousand pounds of this amount, while among the other
- ↑ It is almost impossible to give with exactness the purchasing power of a pound sterling in the long period covered in this work, as compared with the purchasing power of the pound sterling or American dollar in the present age. I have adopted the ratio of 6 to 1 as approximately correct only. See Brown’s Genesis of the United States, p. 810. A pound sterling is there given as equal in value to $20 or $25. This was in the early history of Virginia. The decline in the purchasing power of the pound sterling as the century progressed, could not have been very great. In the sixteenth century the ratio was probably as high as 7 to 1.
