They steered for _Brazil_, and in the middle of the following December he entered the river _Plata_. Finding that it was not a strait, he sought his way southward, and took refuge in a harbour on the coast of _Patagonia_ in the 49th degree of S. latitude, to which he gave the name of Port _San Julian_. During his stay here he had to repress a conspiracy amongst the four commanders of his squadron, who were Spaniards, and who resented his being placed over them. Of these, two were hanged, a third was stabbed, and the fourth was put on shore. [Sidenote: 1520.] It was not until August 1520 that Magellan, who had previously taken possession of Port _San Julian_ in the name of the king of Spain, proceeded southward, and on October 21st he entered the strait which separates _Patagonia_ from _Terra del Fuego_, and which bears his name. On the 20th of November he cleared the strait with his squadron, which, by the desertion of one ship and the loss of another, was now reduced to three vessels. Emerging triumphantly on the vast expanse beyond,--having been the first navigator to sail to it from the Atlantic, he had the right to bestow upon it the name of the _Pacific_ Ocean.[J] [Sidenote: 1526.] The name which, next to that of De Solis, deserves to be remembered in connection with the discovery of _La Plata_, is that of Sebastian Cabot, the son of John Cabot, a Genoese navigator, who, being then in the service of Henry VII., was the first European that set foot on North-American soil. Sebastian Cabot is said to have been born in England, Bristol being assigned as his birthplace. In 1497 he coasted the shore from _Labrador_ to _Florida_. In 1526, Cabot, then chief pilot to the king of Spain, accepted the command of a squadron of four vessels fitted out by the merchants of Seville. In April of that year he set sail with the view of reaching China and Japan--then called Cathay and Cipango--by way of the straits discovered by Magellan in 1520; but, a mutiny breaking out in his command, he renounced his more ambitious enterprise and resolved to content himself with following up the discovery that had been made by the ill-fated De Solis.