At this time a private correspondence was carried on between Francis Serram, who resided in Ternate and Ferdinando de Magallanes in Portugal, which turned to the advantage of Spain and the detriment of Portugal.  Magalanes, otherwise named Magellan, was a man of note and a knight of St Jago, who had served with reputation at Azamor in Africa and in several parts of India.  Having solicited for a small allowance usually given in reward of service, and which was refused, he left Portugal and entered into the service of Spain.  From his skill in sea affairs, and the correspondence he held with Serram at Ternate, he concluded there might be another way to India; and as the Spaniards had already tasted the fruits of these islands, he wrote to Serram that he hoped soon to be his guest at Ternate going thither by a new way[156].  He accordingly got the command of five ships with 250 men, some of whom were Portuguese.  Sailing from the port of San Lucar de Barameda on the 20th of September 1519, after having renounced his country by a solemn act, he sailed toward the south along the eastern coast of South America.  When past Rio de Janeiro on the coast of Brazil, the men began to grow mutinous, and still more so when they had gone beyond the river of St Julian on the coast of Patagonia, where they did not immediately find the strait of passage to the Pacific Ocean, and found themselves pinched by the cold of that inhospitable climate.  As they proceeded to hold disrespectful discourses against Magellan, both reflecting upon his pretended knowledge, and espousing doubts of his fidelity, which came to his knowledge, he called together all the principal people in his squadron, to whom he made a long and learned discourse.  Yet a conspiracy was entered into to kill Magellan, by three of his captains, named Cartagene, Quixada, and Mendoza.  Their design however was discovered, on which Mendoza was immediately stabbed, and the other two arrested and punished as traitors; Quixada being quartered alive, while Cartagene and a priest concerned in the plot were set ashore on the barbarous coast.  Most of the men were engaged in the conspiracy, but it was necessary to pardon them that there might be seamen for prosecuting the voyage.

[Footnote 156:  From the text, coupled with a consideration of the infallible grants of his holiness, who had given every part of the world to the west of a certain meridian to the Spaniards and all eastwards to the Portuguese, or all to both, those Spaniards who had been at the Moluccas must have come from the western coast of Mexico.  Magellan proposed a new route by the southwest, to evade the grant of the sovereign pontiff, which was actually accomplished, though he lived not to enjoy what may in some measure be termed the treasonable honour.—­E.]