At last, on the 6th November 1521, they reached the goal of their journey, and anchored at Tidor, one of the Moluccas.  They traded on very advantageous terms with the natives, and filled their holds with the spices and nutmegs for which they had journeyed so far; but when they attempted to resume their journey homeward, it was found that the Trinidad was too unseaworthy to proceed at once, and it was decided that the Victoria should start so as to get the east monsoon.  This she did, and after the usual journey round the Cape of Good Hope, arrived off the Mole of Seville on Monday the 8th September 1522—­three years all but twelve days from the date of their departure from Spain.  Of the two hundred and seventy men who had started with the fleet, only eighteen returned in the Victoria.  According to the ship’s reckoning they had arrived on Sunday the 7th, and for some time it was a puzzle to account for the day thus lost.

Meanwhile the Trinidad, which had been left behind at the Moluccas, had attempted to sail back to Panama, and reached as far north as 43 deg., somewhere about longitude 175 deg.  W. Here provisions failed them, and they had to return to the Moluccas, where they were seized, practically as pirates, by a fleet of Portuguese vessels sent specially to prevent interference by the Spaniards with the Portuguese monopoly of the spice trade.  The crew of the Trinidad were seized and made prisoners, and ultimately only four of them reached Spain again, after many adventures.  Thirteen others, who had landed at the Cape de Verde Islands from the Victoria, may also be included among the survivors of the fleet, so that a total number of thirty-five out of two hundred and seventy sums up the number of the first circumnavigators of the globe.

The importance of this voyage was unique when regarded from the point of view of geographical discovery.  It decisively clinched the matter with regard to the existence of an entirely New World independent from Asia.  In particular, the backward voyage of the Trinidad (which has rarely been noticed) had shown that there was a wide expanse of ocean north of the line and east of Asia, whilst the previous voyage had shown the enormous extent of sea south of the line.  After the circumnavigation of the Victoria it was clear to cosmographers that the world was much larger than had been imagined by the ancients; or rather, perhaps one may say that Asia was smaller than had been thought by the mediaeval writers.  The dogged persistence shown by Magelhaens in carrying out his idea, which turned out to be a perfectly justifiable one, raises him from this point of view to a greater height than Columbus, whose month’s voyage brought him exactly where he thought he would find land according to Toscanelli’s map.  After Magelhaens, as will be seen, the whole coast lines of the world were roughly known, except for the Arctic Circle and for Australia.