On 7 June 1576, Martin Frobisher set sail from London in search of the Northwest Passage with two small barks and a pinnace, manned by a crew of thirty-four. Apart from the distressing loss of nearly a third of his company – the pinnace sank, one of the barks turned back to England and five men were abducted by a group of Inuit – the voyage was deemed a success. There was great hope that the newly found Frobisher's Strait would turn out to be the mythical Strait of Anian, thought to provide a quicker way to the riches of Cathay and a safe route for England to build its empire away from the Spanish and Portuguese spheres of influence. Back in London, a male Inuit captive excited considerable curiosity; and above all, the composition of a small black stone picked up as a souvenir was tested by gold assayers who pronounced it to contain gold, ‘and that very ritchly for the quantity’ according to George Best (who did not then sail with Martin Frobisher but wrote about the journey). A second expedition was organized the next year, with the same barks, a much larger vessel, the Aid, ‘one tall shippe of hir Majesties’, and a crew of about 130 men. Finally, in 1578 a fleet of fifteen ships with more than 400 men sailed to ‘Meta Incognita’, as the northern region named by the queen had come to be known.