Part 4

After begging his pardon, if he should receive from me any offence in the conversation, I called to his recollection how often I had spoken to him, and how well he had always answered me, and that, according to his replies, I had always hoped that at the end he would not go to the so great dis-service of your Highness; and that what I always told him was that he should see that this road had as many dangers as Saint Catharine’s wheel, and that he ought to leave it and take the straight road,[13] and return to his native country and the favour of your Highness, where he would always receive benefits. In this conversation I introduced all the dangers which appeared to me, and the faults which he was committing. He said to me, that now he could do nothing else, for his honour’s sake, except follow his path. I said to him, that to acquire honour unduly, and when acquired by such infamy, was neither wisdom nor honour, but rather deprivation of wisdom and honour, for he might be certain that the chief Castilians of this city, when speaking of him, held him to be a vile man, of low blood, since to the dis-service of his true king and lord he accepted such an enterprise; and so much the more since it was prepared, concerted, and requested by him, that he might be sure that he was held to be a traitor in going against the State of your Highness. Here he answered me that he saw the fault he was committing, but that he hoped to observe the service of your Highness, and to do you great service by his going. I told him that whoever should praise such a speech, did not understand the matter, because, supposing that he did not touch any of the conquest of your Highness, how was he going to discover what he talked of; moreover, it was to the great detriment of the revenues of your Highness, and this would be sustained by the whole realm and by all sorts of persons: and that thought of his had been a more virtuous one which he had when he said to me that, if your Highness ordered him to return to Portugal, he would do so without any other assurance of favours, and that should your Highness not confer them, there was always Serradossa and seven ells of serge, and some beads of acorns.[14] It seemed to me then that his heart was true as to what befitted his honour and conscience; that which was said was so much that it is not possible to write it.

Here, Sire, he began to give a sign, telling me to tell him more, that this did not come from myself, and that if your Highness had bidden me say it, that I should tell him, and the favour which you would confer upon him. I told him that I was not of so much tonnage as that your Highness should put me into such a business; but I said it to him as I had done on many other occasions. Here he wished to do me honour, saying that if what I had begun with him, went forward, without other persons intervening, that your Highness would be served; but that Nuño Ribeiro had told him one thing, and that it was of no importance; and Joam Mendez, another, and that these did not agree; and he told me the favour which they promised on behalf of your Highness. Here he made a great lamentation, and said that he felt it all, but that he did not know of anything by means of which he could reasonably leave a king who had shown him so much favour. I told him that to do that which he ought and not to lose his honour, and the favour which your Highness would confer upon him, would be more certain and accompanied by truer honour: and that he should weigh his coming from Portugal, which had been for a hundred reals, more or less, of allowances,[15] which your Highness had not granted him, so as not to break your ordinance, and that two regulations had arrived contrary to his, and that which he had contracted with the King Don Carlos, and he would see whether that neglect weighed more, for him to go and do what he ought to do, or come here for that which he had come for.

He wondered much at my knowing so much, and here he told me the truth, and that the courier had left: all which I knew. And he told me that certainly there would be no reason for his throwing over the undertaking, unless they deprived him of anything which had been assigned him by the contract. But first he had to see what your Highness would do. I said to him, what more did he want to see than the instructions, and Ruy Faleiro, who said openly that he was not going to follow his lantern, and that he would navigate to the south, or would not go in the fleet? also, that he thought he was going as captain-major, whilst I knew that others were sent in opposition, whom he would not know of except at a time when he could not remedy his honour; and that he should not pay attention to the honey, which the Bishop of Burgos put to his lips, and that now was the fit time for him to see whether he would do it, and that he should give me a letter for your Highness, and that I from affection for him would go to your Highness to act on his behalf, because I had no message[16] from your Highness to occupy myself with the like, but that I only spoke what I thought as at other times I had done. He said to me that he would not say anything to me until he saw the message which the courier brought: and with this we concluded. I will watch the service of your Highness to the full extent of my power.

At this juncture, it seems to me well that your Highness should know that it is certain that the navigation which these men hope to perform is known to the King Don Carlos, and Fernan Magellan has told me as much, and there might be some one to undertake the enterprise who would do more harm. I spoke to Ruy Faleiro on two occasions. He never answered me anything else than, how could he do anything against the king his lord, who did him such favour. To all that I said to him, he did not reply anything else. It seems to me that he is like a man deranged in his senses, and that this familiar of his has deprived him of whatever knowledge there was in him. It seems to me that, if Fernan Magellan were removed, that Ruy Faleiro would follow whatever Magellan did.

The ships of Magellan’s fleet, Sire, are five; that is to say, one of a hundred and ten tons, two of eighty tons each, and the other two of sixty tons each, a little more or less. They are very old and patched up; for I saw them when they were beached for repairs. It is eleven months since they were repaired, and they are now afloat, and they are caulking them in the water. I went on board of them a few times, and I assure your Highness that I should be ill inclined to sail in them to the Canaries, because their knees are of touchwood.

The artillery which they all carry are eighty guns, of a very small size; only in the largest ship, in which Magellan is going, there are four very good iron cannon. All the crews whom they take in all the five vessels are two hundred and thirty men. The greater number have already received their pay; only the Portuguese, who will not accept a thousand reis, and who are waiting for the courier to arrive, because Magellan told them that he would get their pay increased, and they carry provisions for two years.

The captain of the first ship is Fernan Magellan, and of the second, Ruy Faleiro; of the third, Juan de Cartagena, who is the chief factor of the fleet; of the fourth, Quesada, a dependant of the Archbishop of Seville; the fifth goes without any known captain, —— Carvalho, a Portuguese, goes in her as pilot. Here it is said that, as soon as they are out of the mouth of the river, he will put into her, as captain, Alvaro da Mesquita of Estremoz, who is here.

The Portuguese who have come here to sail are,

—— Carvalho, pilot.

Estevan Gomez, pilot.

—— Serrāo, pilot.

Vasco Galego, pilot; he has been living here for some time.

Alvaro de Mesquita of Estremoz.

Martin da Mesquita of Estremoz.

Francisco d’Afonseca, son of the Corregidor of Rosmaninhal.

Christopher Ferreira, son of the Corregidor of Castelejo.

Martin Gil, son of the Judge for the Orphans of Lisbon.

Pero d’Abreu, a dependent of the Bishop of Zafy.

Duarte Barbosa, nephew of Diogo Barbosa, a dependent of the Bishop of Siguenza.

Antonio Fernandez, who lived in the Moorish quarter of Lisbon.

Luis Affonso of Beja, who was a dependent of the Lady Infanta, whom may God have in His keeping.

Juan da Silva, son of Nuno da Silva, of the island of Madeira. This man has always told me that he would not go unless, if your Highness held it to be for your service, and he behaves as a concealed friend.

Faleiro has got here his father and mother, and brothers, one of whom he takes with him.

Other small people of the servants of these also say that they are going, of which I will make a report to your Highness, if you command it, when they go.

The fifth part of this armament is from Cristoval de Haro, who has spent on it four thousand ducats. They say here that your Highness had ordered to take from him there [in Portugal] twenty thousand cruzados of property. He gives here information about the fleets of your Highness, both of what is done, and of what is to be done. I learned that by a servant of his whom he has got there; by obtaining from him the letters, your Highness might be able to know by what means he learns these secrets.

The goods which they take are copper, quicksilver, common cloths of colours, common coloured silks, and jackets made of these silks.

It is assured that this fleet will start down the river at the end of this July; but it does not seem so to me, nor before the middle of August, even though the courier should come more quickly.

The course which it is said they are to take is straight to Cape Frio, Brasil remaining on their right hand, until they reach the line of the demarcation; from thence they are to navigate to the west and west-north-west, straight to Maluco, which land of Maluco I have seen laid down on the sphere and map, which the son of Reynell made here, which was not completed when his father came here for him; and his father finished it all, and placed these lands of Maluco; and after this pattern all the maps are made, which Diogo Ribeiro makes, and he makes the compasses, quadrants, and globes, but he does not go in the fleet, nor does he wish to do more than gain his living by his skill.[17]

From this Cape Frio, until the islands of Maluco throughout this navigation, there are no lands laid down in the maps which they carry with them. Please God the Almighty that they may make such a voyage as did the Cortereals,[18] and that your Highness may be at rest, and for ever be envied, as you are, by all princes.

Sire, another fleet is being prepared of three small rotten ships, in which Andres Niño goes as captain; he takes out, inside these old ships, two other small vessels built in pieces; he goes to the mainland which Pedre Ayres discovered, to the port of Larym, and from thence he is to go by land twenty leagues to the South Sea, whither he is to carry by land the newly-built ships, with the rigging of the old ones, and to fit them out on that South Sea, and with these vessels he is to discover for a thousand leagues, and not more, towards the west of the coasts of the land which is named Gataio; and in these Gil Gonzalez, the accountant of the Island of Hispaniola, is to go as captain-major, and they are going for two years. When these fleets have sailed, another of four ships will then be made to go, as it is said, on the track of Magellan; but, as this is not yet put into gear for performance, nothing certain is known: and this is arranged by Christoval do Haro. Whatever more may occur, I will make known to your Highness.

As to the news of the fleet which the King Don Carlos orders to be built to defend himself from, or to attack France, or to go to the Empire, as it is said, I excuse myself from writing of it to your Highness, since your Highness will obtain them with more certainty from Nuno Ribeiro, who is in Cartagena. But there is certain news in this city by letters, that the King of France announces that the King Don Carlos is not going to be emperor, and that he will be it. The Pope assists the King of France in an honest way. He grants to him four cardinal’s hats for him to give to whomsoever he pleases. It is said that the King of France keeps them to give to those whom the electors of the empire might wish. There it is assured that either the King of France will be emperor or else the person he may choose. I will take especial care to inform your Highness of what more happens with these fleets, although I had become cool in this matter, because it seemed to me that your Highness wished to learn it from some one else; for I saw here Nuno Ribeiro and other persons who spoke to me in a dissembling manner, and seeking to learn about me. I kiss the hands of your Highness. From Seville, the 18th of July, of 1519.

+Sebastian Alvarez.+

The long interval which elapsed before the example set by Magellan was followed by Drake and Van Noort (for the expedition of the Comendador Loaysa in 1527, and two others having failed, this voyage was not again attempted in those times by the Spaniards) is a proof that greater hardihood was displayed in Magellan’s voyage than in those of Columbus and Gama; and the fortitude and constancy of Magellan appear strongly from the foregoing despatches, since in addition to the physical difficulties of his enterprise, he had to struggle against intrigues, jealousy, and the alternate upbraiding and cajolery of the King of Portugal’s agents. The despatch of Sebastian Alvarez to Dom Manuel, though biassed as it naturally is, shows that whatever he and the Portuguese of that day thought of Magellan’s design, he himself did not consider that he was doing anything injurious to his king or country, and Camoens, though he repeats the hackneyed accusation of disloyalty against Magellan, yet boasts of his achievements as a lasting honour to Portugal, in the following lines:

“Fired by thy fame,[19] and with his king in ire, To match thy deeds shall Magalhaens aspire: In all but loyalty, of Lusian soul, No fear, no danger shall his toils controul. Along these regions from the burning zone To deepest south he dares the course unknown. While to the kingdoms of the rising day, To rival thee he holds the western way, A land of giants shall his eyes behold, Of camel strength, surpassing human mould: And onward still, thy fame, his proud heart’s guide, Haunting him unappeased, the dreary tide Beneath the southern star’s cold gleam he braves, And stems the whirls of land-surrounded waves. +For ever sacred to the hero’s fame These foaming straits shall bear his deathless name.+ Through these dread jaws of rock he presses on; Another ocean’s breast, immense, unknown, Beneath the south’s cold wings, unmeasured, wide, Receives his vessels; through the dreary tide In darkling shades where never man before Heard the waves howl, he dares the nameless shore. Thus far, O favoured Lusians, bounteous heaven Your nation’s glories to your view has given. What ensigns, blazing to the morn, pursue The path of heroes, opened first by you! Still be it your’s the first in fame to shine: Thus shall your brides[20] new chaplets still entwine, With laurels ever new your brows enfold, And braid your wavy locks with radiant gold.”[21]

The poet of the Lusiad, who had said that the Muses sang of Gama unwillingly, here concludes his praises of Magellan with a promise to the Portuguese of ever renewed praise—a promise which will be fulfilled by posterity whenever the character and enterprise of Magellan are compared with those of his contemporaries; for whilst the cruelty and violence of Gama, and the difficulty his companions had in restraining him, were very serious defects in his character, Magellan gave many noble examples of the opposite virtues and of other qualities of a very high order. His conduct on the occasion of the shipwreck near the Maldive Islands has been already described; the clemency with which he tempered justice when he put down the mutiny in Port St. Julian—a mutiny which Sebastian Alvarez, the King of Portugal’s agent, would appear to have been privy to, if indeed he did not prepare it, shows great self-restraint, and the whole of his conduct in the islands of Sebu and Matan, where he fell, defending the retreat of his companions, is more like that of the knights errant of an earlier date, than that of his contemporaries. Pigafetta, who was with him at his death, was deeply affected by it, and recounts his many virtues and qualities in an appeal to the Grand Master of Rhodes not to allow Magellan’s memory to be lost.

Most of the captains of ships at this time, and long afterwards, were soldiers put into naval commands; but Magellan, besides being a military officer, was also an experienced and learned navigator, and Pigafetta’s Treatise of Navigation may be taken as the result of Magellan’s instruction in that art.[22] The voyage of Columbus, which employed only thirty-three days out and twenty-eight homeward-bound, cannot be compared with that of Magellan, and if Columbus was as good a seaman and navigator as Magellan, yet a certain superiority must be allowed to the latter on account of his numerous military exploits in India and Africa.

I have not been able to ascertain who was Juan Serrano, who remained in the hands of the Sebu islanders after the massacre of Duarte Barbosa and his companions, and in Navarrete he is sometimes spoken of as an inhabitant of Seville and sometimes as a Portuguese. Pigafetta speaks of him as a Spaniard, but the despatch of Sebastian Alvarez leaves no doubt as to his being Portuguese, which otherwise might have been inferred from his being a _compadre_ of Joan Carvalho. It is probable that he was a relation of Francisco Serrano, the friend and correspondent of Magellan, who died in Ternate about eight months before the arrival at Tidore of Magellan’s ships: it is also probable that he was the same Juan Serrano whose voyage with Francisco Serrano in 1512 from Malacca to the Java Seas is related in the book of Duarte Barbosa on the coasts of East Africa and Malabar (Hakluyt Society).

Sebastian de Elcano, a native of Guetaria in Biscay, had the good fortune to be in command of the _Victoria_ on her return to Seville, and though his name is not mentioned during the voyage in any of the narratives, he reaped the principal rewards of the expedition, and on his arrival at Court, received from Charles V a pension of five hundred gold crowns, and was authorised to take for arms a globe, with the motto “Primus me circumdedisti”. Amongst other sonnets to his memory, are the following:

Por tierra y por mar profundo Con iman y derrotero, Un Vascongado, el primero Dió la vuelta á todo el mundo.

_Conchita._

Entraba en el breado y hueco pino, Tomando el dulce y suspirado puerto, Juan Sebastian del Cano, Vizcaino, Piloto de este mundo el mas esperto, Despuces de haber andado en su camino Cuanto del mar se halla descubierto, En una nave dicha la Victoria: Hazaña digna de inmortal memoria.

_Mosquera._

This volume contains six contemporary accounts of Magellan’s voyage for the circumnavigation of the globe: one was written by a Genoese pilot of the fleet; the second by a Portuguese companion of Duarte Barbosa, which has been preserved by Ramusio; the third by Antonio Pigafetta of Vicenza; and the fourth is a letter of Maximilian Transylvanus, a Secretary of the Emperor Charles V; the fifth a log book of a pilot named Francisco Albo or Alvaro; the sixth is taken from Gaspar Correa’s _Lendas da India_.

Of Pigafetta’s account, four manuscripts are known, three of them are in French, and one in Italian. Two of the French manuscripts are in the Bibliothèque Impériale of Paris; one of these, numbered 5,650, is on paper; the other, numbered 68, of the Lavallière collection, is on vellum, and is richly illuminated; it does not contain the Brazilian and Patagonian vocabularies given in No. 5,650, and some rather indecent details are omitted or softened down, which leads to the conclusion that this copy was the one presented by Pigafetta to the Regent, Louise of Savoy. The third French manuscript, and the most complete, was in the possession of M. Beaupré of Nancy till 1855, it then passed into the Solar collection, and in 1861 was sold for 1,650 francs to a London book-seller, and, later, was bought by Sir Thomas Phillipps at Libri’s sale.

M. Rd. Thomassy published a memoir in the _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_ of Paris, September 1843, in which he examines the question whether Pigafetta composed his account of his voyage in French. He has come to a conclusion (which M. Ferdinand Denis has also adopted) in favour of the French manuscript having been originally composed by Pigafetta, and not translated from the Italian, on the grounds of its being addressed to the grand master of Rhodes, Villiers de l’Ile-Adam, who was himself a Frenchman, and that Pigafetta had recently been made a Knight of Rhodes; and that Pigafetta used the French language for the device which he set up over his paternal house in the street of la Luna in Vicenza, “Il n’y a pas de roses sans épines”; that other Italians of the time had written in French; that the Italian MS. of the Ambrosian Library of Milan, published in 1800 by Amoretti, is in bad Italian, mixed with Venetian and Spanish, so that M. Amoretti saw in it rather a copy than the original of the relation presented to the Pope or to the Grand Master; these defects M. Amoretti removed by translating them into good Italian: also that the French edition of Fabre, though stated to be a translation from the Italian, was used in 1536 to publish an Italian edition; whereas if an Italian edition had existed before, that of Fabre would not have been required. Fabre’s edition, moreover, is very imperfect; and he puts what Pigafetta says in the third person. M. Thomassy concludes, therefore, that the version of Fabre was made from some Italian _resumé_.

In addition to the motives urged by M. Thomassy for believing that Pigafetta himself composed the French manuscripts, there is evidence of it in the phraseology of the MSS.; had these been translations from the Italian, every word would have been translated into French, whereas, instead of that, we find a great many Italian words used, especially in the vocabularies, also some Italian idioms. It was natural that Pigafetta, if he had not the French word at command, should write down an Italian one, such as “calcagno” for “talon”.

For the same reason, I should be inclined to believe that the Ambrosian MS., with its mixture of Spanish words, was composed by Pigafetta himself, in whom such a mixture of words would be more natural after so long a voyage in a Spanish ship, than in an Italian scribe.