Business was beginning to improve somewhat after its long decline. The Muscovy Company had been chartered in 1555, and trade was seeking those new outlets which Sebastian Cabot had been recalled from Spain to find; but England felt the effects of the vast injection of American bullion into the currency system of Europe later than the continental countries. After the recoinage of the debased money in 1559, however, the advance in prices, which had already begun, was very rapid, with effects upon the country gentry and other classes, which were to have a marked influence upon American colonization. In the meantime, while Drake was hastening home from the Pacific in the Pelican, loaded to the gunwales with the spoils of Spanish treasure-ships, another voyage, the first, except those of fishermen, since the ill-fated escapade of a London lawyer in 1536, was being made to the shores of Newfoundland. The motive was the old continuing one of a passage to the Orient by the northwest, although little is known of its details. The Queen, however, granted to its leader, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a patent to colonize and rule such lands as he might choose from his new discoveries. This patent, which was issued in 1578, and marked a new epoch in England's American policy, followed in many respects the charters of the trading companies granted by the Crown both previously and subsequently.[60] It had, however, a wholly novel feature in the clause which permitted Gilbert to transport a colony to his new possessions. It is probable that this first attempt to plant an English community beyond the seas was largely based upon the experience being gained at this very time in the efforts to colonize Ireland. Sir Humphrey himself, with other west-country gentlemen, had undertaken to plant colonies on the Crown lands in Ulster, eleven years before, and various plans and essays had been made, though unsuccessfully.[61] These colonizing schemes in Ireland were being considered and carried out during the whole period of the early efforts to plant colonies in America, and many individuals and city companies were interested in Irish and American lands at the same time. Both were almost equally wild and uncivilized, and both were rich and undeveloped.[62] The Irish Plantation Society, formed in 1613, was a serious rival to the Virginia Company, and diverted both funds and colonists at a critical time for the American scheme.[63] Footnote 60: It is given in Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vol. VIII, pp. 17-23. Footnote 61: W. Cunningham, _The Growth of English Industry and Commerce_ (Cambridge, 1892), vol. II, pp. 31-33. Footnote 62: M. J. Bonn, _Die Englische Kolonisation in Irland_ (Stuttgart, 1906), vol. I, pp. 265-373. Footnote 63: Brown, _Genesis_, p. 860.