When he was an old and hunched man, shuffling about the interior of the stone house where he was raised, on a verdant farm along the Schuylkill River a few miles out of Philadelphia, William Bartram looked back on a life of turmoil, uncertainty, financial setbacks, and the political upheaval of the American Revolution. He could also reminisce on a life of adventure, danger and astounding accomplishments in a peculiar and ill-defined calling normally reserved for wealthy and eccentric hobbyists. His career as a naturalist initially showed great promise, but was derailed for many years before he was ultimately vindicated ...

After the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1585 England was a rising maritime power, flush with success and pride. English privateers were reaping great profits plundering Spanish shipping in the West Indies and trade was increasing. For England it was the dawn of a great age of prosperity and expansion as England emerged as the preeminent European maritime power. In the wake of this golden age, interest and pride in the nation's seafaring past increased dramatically.

Vowing "to make a sacrifice unto God of his life rather than return home without the discovery of Cathay" the notorious Elizabethan privateer Martin Frobisher ventured forth from his native England in command of a three ship flotilla of brave, or uninformed, mariners in 1576. Frobisher was on a quest to discover the elusive Northwest Passage – to navigate a seaway around the inconveniently located North America and open the wealth of the Orient to English merchants. According to Michael Lok, Frobisher's financial backer, it was a grandly altruistic scheme: the voyage would reveal the secret sea route, "to yield to the Queen's Majesty great honor, and to the whole realm infinite treasure."