art of the impetus for
the first expedition came from Michael Lok's personal enthusiasm for
extending England's commercial interests overseas.
The Loks were a long-established London family of merchants.
Michael's father had achieved such success that he was one of
England's leading merchants, Henry VIII's personal mercer, and a
knighted member of London's ruling class. From grammar school,
Michael Lok's education progressed to commercial apprenticeship in
the Low Countries. After his father's death (1550), Michael
and his older brothers sought out new markets to compensate for the
decline of those in the Low Countries. His career now took him to
Spain and Portugal, where he observed the value of the trade with
the Americas, and then to Venice from where he conducted trade with
the Levant. After his return to England (1559) he traded in
silk and other luxury goods, even going so far as to draft a radical
proposal for silk manufacture in England, submitted to but rejected
by the Privy Council. In 1571 he obtained the prestigious position
of London agent of the Muscovy Company,
supervising trade with Russia.
Lok had a good understanding of issues related to international trade,
but his desire to equal the achievements and status of his father led
to an obsession with opening up routes to distant markets. He had
become an avid collector of (expensive) maps, charts, and
accounts of travels; his study of geography brought him the
friendship and respect of scholars John Dee
and Richard
Hakluyt. It also led him into his alliance with
Frobisher and - when other
sources of funding for what was certainly a speculative venture
proved slow to materialize (postponing the expedition from an
intended launch in 1575) - an investment of his own money into
the first voyage. His uncompromising belief in the potential of the
Arctic venture led him to additional injudiciously large investments.
Once the ore was proven worthless, the failure to have obtained
incorporation for the Company of Cathay left
Lok, as treasurer of the "company", personally exposed to legal
actions for the debts incurred by the enterprise. Lok's difficult position
was weakened by many of the courtiers not having paid up their promised
investments, and by his efforts to defend his actions in the debacle
and shift blame for its failure onto the shoulders of Frobisher and
the assayers. His own investment of about £2200 left him almost
destitute, legal battles with creditors led to several bouts in
prison over the next few years, and his damaged reputation made it
difficult for him to engage in commerce in any significant way.
Yet even now he did not abandon the dream of new trade routes. He
assisted Hakluyt prepare some of his
books
on voyages of exploration. After a brief period as an agent of the
Levant Company, which too ended in legal disputes, he worked to develop closer
trading relations between England and Venice. Then in 1602 (when
70 years old) he championed Juan de Fuca's claims to have
travelled a high latitude passage between Atlantic and Pacific,
but failed to win support in England for a voyage to rediscover
this passage. In his final years he continued to contribute to
English cosmographical studies.
James McDermott sums up Lok thus:
"having made some mark and fortune in his early career, he
allowed both to dissipate thereafter in the pursuit of ultimately
unattainable goals.... A complex figure...he was a man who, with
justice, might be described simultaneously as a visionary,
intellectual, adventurer, dreamer and self-serving apologist."
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Meta Incognita: A Discourse of Discovery, pp.140-41
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