Amerigo Vespucci, who on his three or four voyages was never in command, indirectly gained (though many would say he had not earned) the honour of having his name bestowed on the New World, since it was through the publication of his letters, most notably by Waldseemüller in 1507, that

The recognition of course was not automatic and universal; it is fair to say that in 1504 Columbus's conviction that he was only a couple of weeks from the Ganges might be scouted, but also that it had some respectable authority behind it and was quite widely accepted by disinterested parties, such as Italian geographers; and a similar concept retained acceptance by a much interested party—the Castilians—at least as late as the Badajoz conference in 1524. Nevertheless the concept of a continental barrier increasingly took hold.

The contrast is strikingly shown by the maps of Contarini and Ruysch (1506 and 1508) and Stobnicza-Waldseemüller (1507). In Ruysch's map (Figure Plate V, “THE COLUMBAN INDIES: RUYSCH 1508. ”) from the 1508 edition of Ptolemy, Greenland and ‘Terra Nova’ (Newfoundland) form part of an eastwards peninsula of Asia, separated from ‘Terra sancte crvcis sive Mvndvs novvs’ (Venezuela-Brazil) by a wide sea with only a few islands, the most notable being ‘[E]spagnola’ and a misshapen Cuba, with an inscription attached to the latter indicating that Spanish ships had reached it; on this map Polo's Zaiton (in Fukien) is only eighteen degrees of longitude beyond the- 38 -

- 39 -latter, and between them is another inscription suggesting, rather doubtfully, that ‘spagnola’ may be Cipangu. Beside this elegant map, Stobnicza's inset on Waldseemüller's world map is crude (Figure Plate VI, “THE AMERICAN INDIES: STOBNICZA 1512. ”); but it shows an (American) continent continuous from 50°N to the bottom edge of the map in 40°S; the western ‘coasts’ of this land-mass are shown diagrammatically, as not known but intelligently inferred; Cipangu lies nearer to this land than to Asia. Yet the older concept lingered on: in the planisphere of Franciscus Monachus (1529) we have the Spanish version: America is a vast projection from southeast Asia (with a guessed-at strait somewhere in central America) and the Indian and Pacific Oceans are one.^[37]

- 40 -

How far the barrier extended north and south was unknown, nor whether any through passages existed; by 1518 there had been several probes in both directions. Unless Vicente Yañez Pinzon's cruise of 1499 along the coast of Venezuela, and possibly of northern Brazil, be counted, the first of these probes to go in a southerly direction was that of the Portuguese Nuño Manuel, with Vespucci, in 1501–2. How far south this expedition reached is a matter of dispute; Vespucci claimed 52°S, though somewhere between 20 and 32° is more favoured.^[38] But at any rate it found no passage, and Vespucci's last voyage, in 1503–4, did not get so far. Indeed, however much Vespucci and Haro might be interested in a Southwest Passage, their then master D. Manuel can have been concerned only with the exploration of the trans-Atlantic lands due to him by Tordesillas.

Proposed expeditions under Pinzon—with Vespucci, now again in Spanish service—in 1506 and by Vespucci in 1508 lapsed or were diverted as a result of Portuguese protests, and Vespucci became head of the Casa de Contratacion's school for pilots. It was becoming clear, however, that the coast of the new continent trended far beyond the Tordesillas limit. The last voyages of significance before Magellan's were those of Frois and of Juan de Solis in 1515–16; this had definite instructions to find a way to the Mar del Sur and thence to Castilla del Oro. Near the modern Montevideo, which he calculated to be (as it was) well on the Spanish side of the Tordesillas line, Solis took possession of the country for Castile, and sailed up the La Plata estuary, the freshwater ‘Mar Dulce’, far enough to be assured that it was a great river and no passage. Here he was eaten by cannibals, and the expedition returned to Spain in disarray. But the idea of a strait was ‘in the air’ and Magellan's proposal well timed.^[39]

When he sailed, then, Magellan knew that he would have to go beyond 30°S to avoid Portuguese waters, and that any passage lay far beyond that—perhaps about 50°S, possibly even twenty or more degrees further still.

Magellan's troubles were but beginning: at first the Casa de Contratacion took hardly the issue of the capitulacion over its head, but when briskly called to order by royal letters was generally co-operative. The erratic Faleiro was a constant source of troubles, and there was a marked reluctance all round—not least amongst the putative crews—to engage in the enterprise. And all the time the Portuguese were doing their best to sabotage a venture which was against their country's material interests and also—Magellan's breach with D. Manuel being notorious—damaging to their amour propre as Portuguese, and to that of their Prince—factors which weighed greatly in the Renaissance world.

Five ships were allotted to the voyage: San Antonio, 120 tons, 31 metres long, 9.8 in the beam; Trinidad, 110; Concepcion, 90; Victoria, 85; Santiago, 75.^[40] They were old and the worse for wear—the Portuguese factor or consul at Seville, Sebastião Alvares, said that he would not risk sailing to the Canaries in them,^[41] but Magellan threw himself with tremendous energy into the task of refitting at royal expense through the Casa; but by 1519 funds were running short, and- 41 -Cristobal de Haro had to put up one-fifth of the cost—which he was repaid, with no profit or interest, eighteen years later.^[42]

Recruitment was the worst problem: there were plenty of Portuguese agents to spread alarmist stories. D. Carlos had wished for all-Spanish crews, with Portuguese limited to at most the five pilots and a few boys; he had to accept twenty-four, and in the event perhaps forty sailed, some enlisted as Spaniards. This amounted to one out of six in the total complement of 237 men, and even so Magellan, almost on the eve of sailing, had to fill up with aliens: about thirty Italians, a score of Frenchmen, Flemings, Germans, Levantines, nondescript mixed-bloods, and one Englishman, the master-gunner Andrew of Bristol, who died in the Pacific.^[43] With Portuguese pilots, and staff officers unavoidably but dangerously mixed between Portuguese and Spaniards, there was material enough for the seditions and dissensions of the voyage, though both nations contributed both to Magellan's supporters and to his deserters and mutineers.

Repeated efforts were made by the Portuguese, especially Sebastião Alvares, to re-seduce Magellan from his new allegiance; Alvares pointed out the dangers, ‘as many as the Wheel of St Catharine’, stressed Castilian suspicions of Magellan (which he had done much to manufacture), and held out rewards, at one point flattering himself that he was very close to success. But quite apart from Magellan's position as a man of honour pledged to his new and more generous Lord, on which Lagôa lays much stress, it is not very likely that an intelligent man of the Renaissance would put so much trust in princes. Alvares had more success in stirring up discord in general, and in particular a waterfront riot over the false allegation that Magellan had displayed Portuguese ensigns on the Trinidad. This was in October 1518; Magellan's firm appeal to the King greatly strengthened his hand with unco-operative local officials; and the too-obvious Portuguese anxiety to disrupt the expedition was counter-productive, indicating that a Spanish presence in or control of the Spice Islands would indeed be profitable.

Although Ruy Faleiro's vanity and bad temper must have been most detrimental to the project, his prestige as a scientific expert had played a large part in its acceptance, and in mid-1519 Magellan still considered him, in Lagôa's phrase, as his ‘colleague in the high command’, whereas had he been really mad, as is so often stated, the Captain-General would have been anxious to get rid of him. Faleiro's supersession in July 1519, however, seems not to have been due to his mental instability, much exaggerated by Sebastião Alvares after failing to lure him back into the Lusian fold. Some were sceptical of Faleiro's boasted cosmography, which others attributed to the promptings of a familiar daemon, and altogether he must have seemed less stable and safe than the impressive Magellan. Above all, it must have seemed much wiser to have a Castilian next to or alongside Magellan, rather than two Portuguese at the top; the machinations of Alvares had stimulated not unnatural doubts and apprehensions among the royal advisers.

Faleiro, then, was excluded by the Casa, being soothed by the promise of- 42 -taking charge of a follow-up expedition; perhaps also he feared to put to the test his unorthodox methods—to determine longitude by isogonal lines—in utterly unknown regions, although Magellan himself insisted that he should be given Faleiro's book of pilotage before acquiescing in his replacement as chief pilot by Andrés de San Martin. It was only after Magellan's departure that Ruy Faleiro became really insane.^[44]

The critical appointment of Juan de Cartagena, Fonseca's man—his nephew or perhaps bastard—as Veedor-general and captain of the third ship was definitely a reinsurance against Portuguese predominance in the command. The office of Veedor-general might best be described as a super-supercargo, charged to look after the royal financial interests, and such an appointment was a perfectly normal procedure; but a royal cédula of 10 May 1518 is explicit:

This has been held to indicate that Cartagena was in effect a commissar, or at least a spy, with secret powers, or a second in command—that is the whole point of the cedula—and his actions suggest that in his own view he was joint commander. In addition to the ordinary functions of a veedor, he was to advise on colonisation and to be alcalde, or governor, of the first fort to be constructed. But his own instructions of 6 April 1519, in Lagôa's words, ‘were not of a type to allow any intervention in the functions of the Captain-General, being limited to giving him powers to control the commercial side of the enterprise.’^[45]

On the other hand, any officer was given the right to report in writing, uncensored, on the conduct of the expedition, so that the chief might be called to account on return; such a residencia, or post-mortem, on a governor's actions was normal in Spanish colonial practice, though in this case somewhat pointed towards Magellan. But had Cartagena been given any powers beyond this, he could hardly have failed to appeal to them at his trial at Puerto San Julian, at least for the record, even if the immediate verdict might be a foregone conclusion. In Lagôa′s view, the King may have considered giving Cartagena such powers, but desisted lest Magellan should be impelled to accept Portuguese offers by such a mark of no-confidence. Obviously the likelihood of a serious rift in the command was great, in fact the worst weakness of the expedition.

Final instructions were based on standard Iberian practice for long voyages. Magellan was not to take any risks by going ashore himself, but to send officers and take hostages. No arms, axes, or iron were to be sold to natives. No native women were to be touched, and cards and dice were banned—a counsel of perfection going beyond the Portuguese model, which allowed play for low stakes. All these, except the provision already noted for independent reporting,- 43 -were fairly normal for contemporary expeditions, if not normally followed with exactitude. One other directive was most important: on no account should Magellan infringe on the Portuguese zone. According to las Casas, directly reporting (but forty years later) his own talk with Magellan, if he failed to find the Southwest Passage the Captain-General would take the African route—or perhaps a more daring plan, predicated on the quasi-Ptolemaic map of Lopo Homem (1519), which prolongs the coast south of Brazil in a great Antarctic sweep to join up with Cathay, thus reconciling Ptolemy's closed Indian Ocean with da Gama's discovery: the ocean is still closed but it takes in both the Atlantic and the Indian.^[46] Such an immense navigation along the coasts of an unknown Terra Australis would certainly have given Magellan good reason to conceal his plans from his officers; but this reticence was a major provocation to the mutiny which could have wrecked his whole project.

After two postponements, all obstacles being at last overcome, the fleet dropped down the Guadalquivir from Seville in early August, and after final victualling at San Lucar de Barrameda cleared the estuary on 20 September 1519, Magellan flying his flag on the Trinidad.