After this document, translations are given of two letters (the text of which is given in the Appendix) from Alvaro da Costa, the Portuguese ambassador in Spain, and from Sebastian Alvarez, the Portuguese factor, about the efforts made by them to prevent Magellan’s expedition. M. Ferdinand Denis, in the _Biographie Universelle_, mentions that Alvaro da Costa is said to have pushed his zeal to the extremity of wishing to assassinate Magellan, and even his poor associate, Ruy Faleiro; this, with regard to the latter, seems hardly probable, judging from Costa’s own letter. Navarrete states that the Portuguese agents succeeding in exciting the mob of Seville against Magellan on the 22nd of October, 1518, under the empty pretext that he was substituting the arms of Portugal for those of Castile in his ships. Faria y Sousa, in his _Europa Portuguese_, tom. II, pt. IV, cap. I, p. 543, says: “D. Fernando de Vasconcellos, Bishop of Lamego, alone expressed the desire that the King of Portugal should either grant favours to him (Magellan) or else have him killed, because his intentions were most dangerous to the kingdom. The result of this (counsel) was that the kingdom received a great disappointment, and Magellan glorious and everlasting fame; since, whilst the world endures it will endure in the monument of his name, which has remained applied to all the South Sea and to his Straits.” Que nunca se vera tāo forte peito, Do Gangetico mar ao Gaditano; Nem das Boreaes ondas ao Estreito, Que mostrou o aggravado Lusitano. _Camoens_, Canto II, 55. And never will their prowess find its mate, No, not from Ganges to the Gadite shore, Not from Arcturus to the Southern Strait Which first an injured Lusian will explore. _Quillinan._ Eis aqui as nóvas portas do Oriente, Que vosoutros agora ao mundo dais, Abrindo a porta ao vasto mar patente, Que com tam forte peito navegais: Mas he tambem razaō, que no ponente De hum Lusitano hum feito inda vejais, Que de seu Rey monstrandose agravado, Caminho ha de fazer nunqua cuidado. _Camoens_, Canto X, 138. Thus hast thou all the regions of the East, Which by thee giv’n unto the world is now: Opening a way with an undaunted breast, Through that vast sea which none before did plough. But it is likewise reason, in the West That of a Lusian too one action thou Shouldst understand, who (angry with his king) Achieves a great and memorable thing. _Fanshaw._ _Contract and Agreement made by the King of Castile with Fernan Magellan for the discovery which he was to make, a copy of which he carried with him, signed by the Officers of the King of Castile, and made by his Secretary Fernan de los Cobos, and copied word for word._[9]