Charles Raymond Beazley

“ Only thirty-one men returned with del Cano to Seville in the first vessel that had ever made the tour of the earth. Though Magellan had not quite reached the Spice Islands when he fell at Mactan, his task had then been accomplished. He had already reached and passed the longitude of the Moluccas, where he had already been; the way home from the Philippines by the Indian Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope was perfectly known to the Portuguese, himself included. Magellan’s name has never received its due recognition in general history. ”

“ It ranks with those of Columbus, Marco Polo, and Henry the Navigator. The circumnavigation of the globe is as great an event as the discovery of America. Magellan achieved what Columbus planned—the linking of west Europe with east Asia by direct transit over the western ocean. ”

“ Here the fleet rested, watered, revictualled and refitted; on the 9th of March they started again westward; and on the 16th of March sighted the southern point of Samar Island in the archipelago, since 1542 called the Philippines, but named by Magellan, its first discoverer, after St Lazarus. On the 7th of April the squadron arrived at Cebu, south-west of Samar, in the heart of the Philippines; here Magellan contracted a close friendship and alliance with the treacherous native sovereign, who professed Christianity the better to please and utilize his Catholic friends. ”