But this did not put a stop to the quarrels of the captains, and Henry Knollys, his brother Francis, Captain Denny, Gilbert's cousin, and others of the company broke away from the admiral with four ships, and set sail on their own account. It is pleasant to know that the Queen stood by her faithful Gilbert, and would listen to no complaints from the Knollys. It was not until the 19th of November that Sir Humphrey, with Walter Raleigh, was able to sail from Plymouth with seven ships and three hundred and fifty men. But whither they went has been left in obscurity. It seems that Gilbert wished to plant a colony on the North American coast, a little south of Newfoundland, but the majority of his officers were for making an attack upon the Spanish possessions further south. In attempting this they fell in with a strong Spanish fleet in the spring of 1579, and were defeated with the loss of one of their best ships and of the brave Captain Miles Morgan, and of many others among the adventurers. So Raleigh and Gilbert gave up the voyage and returned to Plymouth in May. They came to London, poor in funds and somewhat dashed in spirit; but the unlooked-for sympathy of admiring courtiers and merchants cheered them not a little. "Walter, we will not give it up yet! Let us work hard for a better ending." The Queen was much concerned for Gilbert's failure, and sent him with Walter Raleigh in two ships to the Irish coast to prevent James Fitz-Maurice from raising an insurrection along the south coast. After some active service against Spanish vessels, Gilbert was sent back to England, while Raleigh remained to serve under Lord Grey of Wilton. Gilbert, returning to his wife in poverty and disappointment, was not unlike Martin Frobisher; they both suffered in promoting the expansion of the Queen's Empire, and both found their wives in abject destitution. In July 1581 Sir Humphrey writes to Walsingham from his house in Sheppey a piteous letter, begging that he may be paid a small sum of money owed him for his services in Ireland, whereby he had lost so much that he was reduced to extreme want. "It is a miserable thing that after twenty-seven years' service I should now be subjected to daily arrests for debt, to executions and outlawries, and should have to sell even my wife's clothes from off her back." Still Sir Humphrey did not despond, but talked much of his new colony which he was to found in Baccalaos, or Newfoundland. The elder Cabot had discovered the island, and Spaniards and French had made trading voyages to it in search of codfish. The Bristol merchants still preferred commerce with Iceland, though Anthony Parkhurst of Bristol reported in 1578 that the English fishing fleet had increased from thirty to fifty sail, and he urged that more should try that trade.