of Spain[15]: they were not able, however, at that time, to adjust the other point as to the route; but the Cape of Good Hope, interposing in their voyages to India, it was not doubted, that America might be like this hemisphere, and finish also in a cape, and passage to the South Sea. The desire of the Spaniards to take possession of the Spice Islands, or, as they were called, the Moluccas, instigated them to ascertain the truth of this conjecture; and a squadron of five ships, was fitted out for that purpose, viz. La Trinidad, in which Magellan himself embarked; San Antonio, La Concepcion, Santiago, and La Victoria; the whole manned with two hundred and thirty-four men, and paid and victualled for two years. Magellan sailed from Seville with this armament on the 10th of August 1519, and on the 13th of December he arrived at the Brazils, and coasting the land in quest of the expected passage to the South Sea, on Easter day, he entered the Bay of Saint Julian, in fifty degrees of south latitude, where he intended remaining, finding the winter had commenced in those regions. Here his people mutinied, upon an idea that their provisions were exhausted, and that it was impossible to discover the pass they were in search of. Magellan quelled this mutiny; but immediately after understood, that another had broken out in the ship San Antonio, and that the crew had murdered the commander, and confined his cousin Alvaro de Mesquita, who was made captain on the arrest of Juan de Cartagena. The leader on this occasion was Gaspar de Quezada, whom he ordered to be hanged; and setting on shore a Franciscan friar and Juan de Cartagena, on account of their turbulent disposition, he sailed in prosecution of his voyage, by the much desired pass to the South Sea. On the 1st of November 1520, he discovered the straits which bear his name; and having occupied twenty days in passing through them, he found himself in the South Sea with three ships, the Santiago having been wrecked, and having separated from the San Antonio, which his cousin commanded, and which, by the route of the coast of Guinea, returned to Spain. Magellan, with fair winds and pleasant weather, ploughed that sea, which never before had been navigated. Uninterrupted in the pursuit of his object, he discovered, on the Sunday of Saint Lazarus, a great number of islands, which he named the Archipelago of Saint Lazarus; and on Easter Day, he arrived at the island of Mindanao, where he ordered the first mass which was said in the Philippines. This took place in the town of Batuan, in the province of Caraga, where he set up the cross, and took possession of these islands, in the name of the King of Spain.