GILBERT, Sin HUMPHREY (1539-1583), a celebrated English navigator, was born in 1539 in the county of Devon, second of the three sons of Otho Gilbert of Greenway. By his mother's side he was half-brother to Sir Walter Raleigh, who resembled him in many points of character, and whose early life was largely influenced and guided by his example. Educated first at Eton and then at Oxford, he was destined by his father for the law ; but being introduced at court by Raleigh's aunt, Catherine Ashley, he obtained the special favour of the queen, and was thus enabled to follow his natural inclination for active enterprise. Recommended by royal letter to Sir Philip Sidney, he received from him an appointment in the army in Ireland ; and his services contributed so powerfully to put down the rebellion raging there that in 1570 he was made a knight and rewarded with the government of Minister. He next served for about five years in the Netherlands, being the first English colonel entrusted with command of English forces in that country. On his return to his native laud he wrote a remarkable treatise on a subject at that time before the minds of men, the possibility of a north-west passage to India ; and in 1576 it was published without his knowledge by George Gascoigne as Discourse of a Discoverie for a New Passage to Cataia (London, Henry Middleton for Richarde Ihones). The theory in question was supported with no small force of argument, and the discourse was probably not without its influence in leadino Frobisher to set out on his first voyage to the frozen north. In June 1578 Gilbert received letters patent authorizing himself, his heirs and assigns, to discover, occupy, and possess such remote " heathen lands not actu ally possessed of any Christian prince or people, as should seem good to him or them." Disposing not only of his patrimony but also of the estates in Kent which he had through his wife, daughter of John Aucher of 011erden, he strenuously prepared to put his permission to use, and his brother Raleigh joined him in the enterprise. By the end of the summer of 1578 a fleet of 11 sail, with 400 mariners and men-at-arms, was collected off the coast of Devon ; but the gallant projectors were singularly unfortunate in the character of some of their associates. Dissensions broke out among the captains and disorder among the crews. Knollys, for example, boasted that, as kinsman to royalty, he was of more value than twenty knights, and insolently rejected. Gilbert's invitation to dinner ; and his men, encouraged by their captain's conduct, filled the town of Plymouth with uproar and riot, which finally culminated in murder. It was not till the 19th of November that Gilbert set sail, with his forces reduced to 7 ships and 150 men. The history of the voyage is involved in obscurity ; but about the beginning of summer or a little earlier in 1579, the fleet returned to England, with little, it would appear, to report except that it had lost one of its chief ships and one of its bravest captains, Miles Morgan, in an encounter with the Spaniards. Gilbert lent his three ships to the Government for service against the Spaniards on the Irish coast ; but in July 11, 1582, we still find him complaining to Walsingham that he had not received the moneys that were due to him, and that thus he was prevented from doing more for his queen and country. He was already planning a new expedition ; and at length in 1583 his fleet was got together. The queen, though she had at first dissuaded Gilbert from his purpose, and would not permit Raleigh to accompany him, wrote to him by his brother's hand that she wished him "as great good hap and safety to his ship as if herself were there in person," and sent him as a token a golden figure of an anchor guarded by a lady. On 11th of June he departed from Plymouth with 5 sail ; but on the 13th the " Ark Raleigh," which had been built and manned at his brother's expense, "ran from him in fair and clear weather having a large wind." This desertion was a cause of no small displeasure to the admiral, and he wrote to Sir George Peckham to solicit his brother to make the crew an example to all knaves ; but it appears not improbable (according to Hayes in Elakluyt's collection) that the reason of their conduct was the breaking out of a contagious sickness in the ship. On the 5th of August Gilbert landed in Newfoundland, and took formal possession of it in the queen's name ; but proceeding southwards with three vessels, he lost the largest near Cape Breton, and was at last constrained to return homewards with the " Golden Hind " and the " Squirrel " as the only remnant of his fleet. "On Monday the 9th September," reports Hayes, the captain of the "Hind," "the frigate was near cast away, yet at that time recovered ; and giving forth signs of joy, the general, sitting abaft with a book iu his hand, cried out unto us in the Hind,' We are as near to heaven by sea as by land.' The same Monday night the frigate's lights were suddenly out, and it was devoured and swallowed up by the sea." So perished Sir Humphrey Gilbert.

See Hakluyt's Collection, vol. iii. ; Hooker's S'upplcnient to Hollinshed's Irish Chronicle ; Roger Williams, The Actions of 11w Low Countries, 1618; Bliss's edition of Wood's Athena OX021k7ZSCS, 1-01, i. p. 493 ; North British No. 45 ; and the Lives of Sir W. Raleigh by Tytler, James Augustus St John, and Edward Edwards.