Having remained at Port St. Julian until August 15, they sailed for the Straits, reached them August 20, and passed safely into the Pacific, September 6, with three ships, having taken out the men and stores, and abandoned the two smaller vessels. But there arose on the 7th a dreadful storm, which dispersed the ships. The Marigold was no more heard of, while the dispirited crew of the Elizabeth returned to England, being the first who ever passed back to the eastward through Magellan’s Strait.[7] Drake’s ship was driven southwards to the 56th degree, where he ran in among the islands of the extreme south of America. He fixes the farthest land to be near the 56th degree of south latitude, and thus appears to claim the honour of having discovered Cape Horn. From September 7 to October 28, the adventurers were buffeted by one continued and dreadful storm: and in estimating the merits of our intrepid seamen, it is to be considered that the seas were utterly unknown, and feared by all, those who had tried to follow in Magalhaens’ course having seldom succeeded, and then with much pain and loss, and little fruit of their voyage; that their vessels were of a class which is now hardly used for more than coasting service; and that the imperfection of instruments and observations laid them under disadvantages which are now removed by the ingenuity of our artists. Add to this, that as the Spaniards gave out that it was impossible to repass the Straits, there remained no known way to quit the hostile shores of America, but by traversing the unexplored Pacific. Footnote 7: This is the general statement: but in the ‘Lives of Early English Navigators,’ in the Edinburgh Cabinet Library, vol. v., it is said that a Spaniard named Ladrilleros had made the passage twenty years before.