Edition Magellan

Magellan

The Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521) is one of the most famous navigators in history – he was the first man to sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and led the first voyage to circumnavigate the globe, although he was killed en route in a battle in the Philippines.In this biography, Zweig brings to life the Age of Discovery by telling the tale of one of the era's most daring adventurers. In typically flowing and elegant prose he takes us on a fascinating journey of discovery ourselves.

The First Voyage Round the World by Magellan

Though Magellan’s enterprise was the greatest ever undertaken by any navigator, yet he has been deprived of his due fame by the jealousy which has always existed between the two nations inhabiting the Peninsula: the Spaniards would not brook being commanded by a Portuguese, and the Portuguese have not yet forgiven Magellan for having abandoned them to serve Castile. But Magellan really had no choice; for if the western passage which he expected to discover was to be sought for, it could only be under the auspices of Spain, within whose demarcation those waters lay. It would seem that D. Manuel had only himself to blame for the loss of Magellan’s services; and, as M. Amoretti well observes, D. Manuel ought to have been well aware of the value of those services, since Charles V knew it, and showed his appreciation of them. It is difficult to believe that the injury of which Magellan complained, and which led him to seek other service, was merely, as Osorio says, the refusal of promotion in palace rank, and which he had well deserved, especially since the motive ascribed by Osorio to the king’s refusal, namely the necessity of avoiding a bad precedent, was not alone a sufficient affront to account for Magellan’s sacrificing all his hopes and property in his own country, had he not also felt that the king was condemning him to inaction, obscurity, and uselessness. Barros, indeed, says that: “The favours of princes given for services are a retributive justice, which must be observed equally with all, with regard to the quality of each man: and that if a man’s portion be denied him, though he endures it ill, yet he will have patience; but if he see the advancement of those who have profited more by artifice and friends than by their own merits, he loses all patience; indignation, hatred, and despair arise, and he will commit faults injurious to himself and others. And what outraged Magellan more than the refusal of the half ducat a month, was that some men who were with him at Azamor, said that his lameness was feigned to support his petition.” The king, moreover, refused to receive Magellan, and showed his ill-will against him. It is therefore highly probable that before Magellan took the step of leaving Portugal, D. Manuel, prompted by his niggardly disposition, had refused to entertain Magellan’s desire for employment at sea, or his projects of discovery, from which no immediate profit was to be expected. This is apparent from the statement of Barros, Decad. iii, lib. v, cap. viii, that letters of Magellan to Francisco Serrano were found after the death of the latter in Maluco, in which Magellan said that he should soon see him; and, if it were not by way of Portugal, it would be by way of Castile, and that Serrano should therefore wait for him there. Further on, Barros says that recourse to Castile appears from these letters to have been in Magellan’s mind some time before the occurrence of the king’s dismissal of his business: and that this was shown by his always associating with pilots, and occupying himself with sea-charts.

The First Voyage Round the World, by Magellan