Oxford and Antonio bound, the Northwest Passage

Shy.  Three thousand ducats, for three months, and Antonio bound… Portia: But let me hear the letter of your friend.

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Bass.            Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried, my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low De Vere also wrote: …for the great liking Her Majesty hath to have the same passage discovered, as also for the special good favour I bear Master Frobisher, to offer unto you to be an adventurer therein for the sum of 1000 pounds or more, if you like to admit thereof; which sum or sums, upon your certificate of admittance, I will enter into bond, shall be paid for that use unto you upon Michaelmas day next coming. Requesting your answers therein, I bid you heartily farewell. From the Court, the 21st day of May 1578, your loving friend, Edward Oxenford “Before the voyage began Lord Oxford put 2,000 pounds more into the venture, buying the stock from Michael Lok (whose name was sometimes spelled Lock), this making the Earl, with 3,000 pounds at stake, for which he had given his bond, the largest investor in the enterprise. But alas for his hopes, the affair was a fiasco. The ore brought back was found, when tested, to be worthless; and Lok was attacked by the disappointed adventurers. On November 20, Frobisher and forty infuriated men descended upon him in his home, accusing him of being “a false accountant to the company, a cozener of my Lord of Oxford, no venturer at all in the voyages, a bankrupt knave.” In the end, convicted by the testimony of having known the ore was worthless, Lok was committed to the Fleet.” —This Star of England, Dorothy and Charlton Ogburn