He returned to England without making the discovery of the Passage, which long remained the problem of arctic voyagers.

Yet ten years later, in 1577, he made another voyage, and though he made his second attempt with one of Queen Elizabeth's own ships, and two barks, with 140 persons in all, he was as unsuccessful as before.

He brought home some supposed gold ore; and on the strength of the stones containing gold, a third expedition went out in the following year.
After losing one of the ships, consuming the provisions, and suffering greatly from ice and storms, the fleet returned home one by one.

The supposed gold ore proved to be only glittering sand.
While Frobisher was seeking El-Dorado in the North, Francis Drake was finding it in the South.

He was a sailor, every inch of him.
"Pains, with patience in his youth," says Fuller, "knit the joints of his soul, and made them more solid and compact." At an early age, when carrying on a coasting trade, his imagination was inflamed by the exploits of his protector Hawkins in the New World, and he joined him in his last unfortunate adventure on the Spanish Main.