During the next half-century, only two noteworthy attempts were made by the English to accomplish the purposes of the Cabots: De Prado visited Newfoundland in 1527 and Hore in 1535,[9] but neither of the voyages was productive of any important result. Notwithstanding, England's commerce made some advancement during this period. A substantial connection between England and America was England's fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland; though used by other European states, over fifty English ships spent two months in every year in those distant waters, and gained, in the pursuit, valuable maritime experience. Probably, however, the development of trade in a different quarter had a more direct connection with American colonization, for about 1530 William Hawkins visited the coast of Guinea and engaged in the slave-trade with Brazil.[10] Suddenly, about the middle of the century, English commerce struck out boldly; conscious rivalry with Spain had begun. The new era opens fitly with the return of Sebastian Cabot to England from Spain, where since the death of Henry VII. he had served Charles V. In 1549, during the third year of Edward VI., he was made grand pilot of England with an annual stipend of L166 13s. 4d.[11] He formed a company for the discovery of the northeast and the northwest passages, and in 1553 an expedition under Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor penetrated the White Sea and made known the wonders of the Russian Empire.[12] The company obtained, in 1554, a charter of incorporation under the title of the "Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Lands, Territories, Isles, Dominions, and Seignories Unknown or Frequented by Any English." To Russia frequent voyages were thereafter made. A few days after the departure of Willoughby's expedition Richard Eden published his _Treatyse of the Newe India_; and two years later appeared his _Decades of the New World_, a book which was very popular among all classes of people in England. Cabot died not many years later, and Eden, translator and compiler, attended at his bedside, and "beckons us with something of awe to see him die."[13] During Mary's reign (1553-1558) the Catholic church was restored in England, and by the influence of the queen, who was married to King Philip, the expanding commerce of England was directed away from the Spanish colonial possessions eastward to Russia, Barbary, Turkey, and Persia. After her death the barriers against free commerce were thrown down. With the incoming of Elizabeth, the Protestant church was re-established and the Protestant refugees returned from the continent; and three years after her succession occurred the first of those great voyages which exposed the weakness of Spain by showing that her rich possessions in America were practically unguarded and unprotected.