r returning; that
the Portuguese not only yearly, but almost daily, in their voyages
to the east, made no difficulty about sailing twelve degrees south
of the tropic of Capricorn: what had they then to boast of, when
they had only advanced some four degrees south of it; that he, for
his part, had made up his mind to suffer anything that might happen,
rather than to return to Spain with disgrace; that he believed that
his companions, or at any rate, those in whom the generous spirit of
Spaniards was not totally extinct, were of the same way of thinking:
that he had only to exhort them fearlessly to face the remainder
of winter; that the greater their hardships and dangers were, the
richer their reward would be for having opened up for the emperor a
new world rich in spices and gold.

Magellan thought that by this address he had soothed and encouraged the
minds of his men, but within a few days he was troubled by a wicked
and disgraceful mutiny. For the sailors began to talk to one another
of the long-standing ill-feeling existing between the Portuguese and
the Castilians, and of Magellan's being a Portuguese; that there was
nothing that he could do more to the credit of his own country than
to lose this fleet with so many men on board: that it was not to be
believed that he wished to find the Moluccas, even if he could, but
that he would think it enough if he could delude the emperor for some
years by holding out vain hopes, and that in the meanwhile something
new would turn up, whereby the Castilians might be completely put out
of the way of looking for spices: nor indeed was the direction of
the voyage really towards the fertile Molucca islands, but towards
snow and ice and everlasting bad weather. Magellan was exceedingly
irritated by these conversations, and punished some of the men,
but with somewhat more severity than was becoming to a foreigner,
especially to one holding command in a distant part of the world. So
they mutinied and took possession of one of the ships, and began to
make preparations to return to Spain, but Magellan, with the rest
of his men who had remained faithful to him, boarded that ship,
and executed the ringleader and other leading mutineers, even some
who could not legally be so treated: for they were royal officials,
who were only liable to capital punishment by the emperor and his
council. However under the circumstances no one ventured to resist. Yet
there were some, who whispered to one