186 ENGLAND'S ATTEMPTS TO REACH INDIA in churches of England." The password for the crews was " Before the world was God; " the countersign, " After God came Christ his Sonne." Amid tempests and ice dangers so dire that Frobisher, " when all hope should be past . . . resolved with powder to burn and bury himself and all, together with her Majestie's ships, and with this peal of ordnance to receive an honourable knell "the fleet secured its cargo of ore, and returned to England on October 1, 1578. The gold mania rushed to a climax. Wild rumours spread as to the value of the freight; an ominous silence followed, then angry fears. Finally in 1583 the assay of William Williams proved that two hundred weight of " Frobisher ? s ore " yielded but two minute particles of silver, not the size of a pin's head, which were fastened with sealing-wax to the margin of the report. The three voyages had cost 20,160; involved terrible sufferings in stormy and ice-bound seas, and left ruin behind. Frobisher seems to have adventured what lit- tle he had, and in 1577 (?) his wife represented her hard fate to Secretary Walsingham as " your humble oratrix, the most miserable poor woman in the world." A widow of good estate when she married Frobisher, she and her children were in a wretched room at Hamp- stead ready to starve, and she prayed for help in col- lecting an old debt of 4 to save them from fam- ishing. The miseries of Michael Lok were more drawn out. He had contributed or truly expended 6250 on the three voyages he declared to the Privy Council in 1579
