and beholding to the
Right Honorable Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, whose favorable mind
and good disposition hath always been ready to countenance and advance
all honest actions, with the authors and executers of the same. And so
by means of my lord his honorable countenance he received some comfort
of his cause, and by little and little, with no small expense and pain,
brought his cause to some perfection, and had drawn together so many
adventurers and such sums of money as might well defray a reasonable
charge to furnish himself to sea withal.

[2] Further details of this voyage may be gathered from the log of
Christopher Hall, master of the Gabriel, printed in Hakluyt. The
present narrative, prefixed to Best's accounts of the second and
third voyages, was preceded by a treatise intended to prove all
parts of the earth, even the poles, equally habitable.

He prepared two small barks of twenty and five-and-twenty ton apiece,
wherein he intended to accomplish his pretended voyage. Wherefore, being
furnished with the aforesaid two barks, and one small pinnace of ten ton
burden, having therein victuals and other necessaries for twelve months'
provision, he departed upon the said voyage from Blackwall, the 15. of
June,[3] Anno Domini 1576.

[3] The date is incorrect. Hall quitted his moorings at Ratcliffe
on the 7th, and left Deptford on the 8th. In passing the royal
palace of Greenwich, says Hall, "we shot off our ordnance, and
made the best show we could. Her majesty, beholding the same,
commended it, and bade us farewell, with shaking her hand at us
out of the window." Gravesend was passed on the 12th.

One of the barks wherein he went was named the Gabriel, and the other
the Michael; and, sailing northwest from England upon the 11. of July he
had sight of an high and ragged land, which he judged to be Frisland,[4]
whereof some authors have made mention; but durst not approach the same
by reason of the great store of ice that lay alongst the coast, and the
great mists that troubled them not a little. Not far from thence he lost
company of his small pinnace, which by means of the great storm he
supposed to be swallowed up of the sea; wherein he lost only four men.
Also the other bark, named the Michael, mistrusting the matter, conveyed
themselves privily away from him, and returned home, with great report
that he was cast away.

[4] The land