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.
That Pigafetta did compose a work in Italian appears from a document
in the archives of Venice, containing a petition of Pigafetta to the
Doge and Council of Venice, dated August 5th, 1524, applying for leave
to print his account of his circumnavigation of the globe, and to have
a privilege for twenty years. This is followed by a statement that the
prayer of the petition was granted by the Doge and 152 of the Council,
six members of which voted against Pigafetta. The text of this document
is given in the Appendix; it was communicated to me by the Geographical
Society of Paris, which has published a translation of it in its
bulletin of February 1869.
Until M. Amoretti published his edition of Pigafetta from the
Ambrosian MS. in 1800, there never was a complete or an original
Italian edition of Pigafetta; for the quarto edition of 1536
(Grenville, 6,977), without name of author or printer, is, as is
mentioned in the address to the reader, a translation from the edition
of Jacques Fabre. This edition of 1536 had a privilege for fourteen
years; it must be by Ramusio, for the address to the reader is almost
the same as his more abridged “discourse” in his collection of
travels of Venice, 1550, and Venice, 1613, folio, 346 v. In Ramusio’s
collection, and in the edition of 1536, Pigafetta’s voyage is preceded
by the letter of Maximilian Transylvanus, Secretary of the Emperor
Charles V, to the Cardinal of Salzburg. This letter of Maximilian’s is
not quite the same in the two books in the division of the paragraphs;
in Pigafetta’s voyage there is greater similarity, and the paragraphs
are numbered identically in the edition of 1536 and in Fabre’s French
edition. Ramusio says:
“Magellan’s voyage was written, with details, by Don Pietro
Martire, of the Council of the Indies of the Emperor, and that he
had examined all those who had survived the voyage, and returned
to Seville in the year 1522; but, having sent it to be printed at
Rome, in the miserable sack of that town it was lost, and it is not
yet known where it is. One who saw it and read it gives testimony
of it, and amongst the other things worthy of recollection which
the above-named Don Pietro noted in this voyage, was that the
Spaniards having navigated about three years and a month, and the
greater part of them (as is the custom of those who navigate on
the ocean) having noted down each day of each month, when they
rejoined Spain they found they had lost one day; that is, when they
reached the port of Seville, which was on the 7th of September, by
the account which they had kept it was the 6th. Don Pietro having
related this particularity to an excellent and rare man, Sig.
Gasparo Contarino,[23] a Venetian senator, who was then in Spain
as ambassador to his Majesty from his Republic, and having asked
him how it could be, he, as a very great philosopher, shewed him
that it could not be otherwise, as they had navigated three years,
always accompanying the sun, which was going westwards; and he said
that the ancients had observed that those who navigated to the west
greatly lengthened their day.”
This book of Don Pietro’s having been lost, says Ramusio, he thought
of translating the Latin letter of Maximilian, and of adding to it the
summary of a book which was written by the valiant knight of Rhodes,
Messer Antonio Pigafetta, a Vicentine; and this said book was abridged
and translated into French by a very learned philosopher, named Messer
Jacopo Fabri, of Paris, at the instance of the most serene mother of
the most Christian King Francis, Madame Louisa the Regent, to whom the
aforesaid knight had made a present of one [of his books].
This French epitome by Fabre is a small octavo of seventy-six leaves,
in Gothic type (Grenville, 7,065); it is without date; the title is as
follows:
“Le Voyage et Navigation, faict par les Espaignolz es Isles de
Mollucques, des isles quilz out trouue audict voyage, des Roys
dicelles, de leur gouuernment & maniere de viure, auec plusieurs
aultres choses.”
“Cum Priuilegio, ¶ on les vend a Paris en la maison de Simon de
Colines, libraire iure de luniuersite de Paris, demeurāt en la rue
sainct Jehan de Beauluais, a lenseigne du Soleil Dor.”
Simon de Colines, the printer, issued his last work in 1546, and his
heirs are mentioned on a work of 1550.[24]
In 1801, a French translation of Amoretti’s edition of Pigafetta was
published by H. J. Jansen, who added a translation from the German of
M. de Murr’s Notice on the Chevalier M. Behaim. In this translation,
some liberties have been taken with the text; and it is to be regretted
that this translation was published instead of the French text
contained in the two MSS. of the Bibliothèque Impériale; these, even
were they not Pigafetta’s own composition, possess a philological
interest of their own.
An English translation of Pigafetta by Richard Wren, London, 1625, is
mentioned in _l’Art de Vérifier les Dates, depuis 1770_, folio, vol.
iii, p. 333. There is no copy of this in the British Museum Library.
The other contemporaneous account of Magellan’s voyage, a translation
of which precedes that of Pigafetta’s account, is by a Genoese pilot.
This pilot probably was named Mestre Bautista, since Barros mentions
him as a Genoese who, on the death of the pilot Joan Carvalho, was
charged with piloting the _Trinidad_, which got as far as Ternate.
Correa (tom. ii, p. 632) also mentions that Mestre Joan Bautista was
made captain instead of Carvalho, after he had allowed the son of the
King of Luzon to escape at Borneo. Of this account, three manuscripts
exist; all three are in Portuguese. From two of these MSS. a printed
edition was published in the _Noticias Ultramarinas_, No. II, by
the Academy of History of Lisbon. The text which served for this
publication was a MS. which belonged to the library of the monks of S.
Bento da Saude; and it has been supplemented and annotated from another
manuscript, which is in the Bibliothèque Impériale at Paris, numbered
⁷¹⁵⁸⁄₃₃, a copy of which was made by Dr. Antonio Nunes de Carvalho
in 1831. A third manuscript of this pilot’s narrative exists in the
library of the Academy of History of Madrid, No. 30, Est. 11a, grada 2a.
After the Genoese pilot’s narrative follows that of an anonymous
Portuguese taken from Ramusio.