Nor were they unrewarded. All received food and money, and Elcano,
the leader, was voted a life-pension of 500 ducats; and, in token of
his great accomplishment in having first circumnavigated the globe,
the King knighted him, awarding him, as his escutcheon, a globe with
the motto: "Primus circundedit me."
The cargo of the Victoria consisted of 26-1/2 tons of cloves and other
spices: cinnamon, sandalwood, nutmegs, and so forth. It is said that
one of the Tidor islanders, brought back with the expedition, who
was presented to the King, was never permitted to return to his home,
because he had committed the blunder of making inquiry regarding the
value of spices in the Spanish markets.
The Trinidad, the other vessel of this remarkable expedition, after
many terrible hardships, fell into the hands of the Portuguese, who
sent the survivors to Lisbon. They reached that port five years after
their departure with Magellan.
The enthusiasm of the Spanish monarch and his subjects on account of
these remarkable discoveries was unbounded. Other expeditions to the
islands were soon fitted out. One, under the leadership of Ruy Lopez
de Villalobos, gave to them the name of the Philippine Islands. This
was in honor of Philip, Prince of Austria, the son of King Charles I.,
heir-apparent to the throne of Castile; to which, in 1555, upon the
abdication of his father, he succeeded as Philip II.
This bigot, convinced by his religious advisers of the importance of
winning the newly-discovered islands for the Church, caused another
expedition to be fitted out from Navidad, in the South Sea.
Legaspi, the First Governor-General.
Accordingly, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, a well-known Basque navigator,
of great piety, and with a reputation for probity and ability, set
out with four ships and one frigate, all well armed and carrying
800 soldiers and sailors. Six priests also accompanied them. One was
Urdaneta, who had formerly sailed as a captain to the Moluccas. The
avowed object of the expedition was to subjugate and to Christianize
the benighted natives of those islands.
After a propitious voyage, not without incident, General Legaspi
resolved to cast anchor at Cebú, a safe port. On the way the ships
stopped at the port of Dapitan, on the island of Mindanao. Prince
Pagbuaya, the ruler of this island, was so astonished at the sight
of these large ships off the coast of his country, that he commanded
one of his subjects, who had some reputation for boldness, to observe
their movements and to report his observations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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