Charles V was elected Holy Roman Emperor just before Magellan sailed, and for much of the duration of the voyage he was engaged in a successful struggle to assert his challenged authority in Spain itself. Del Cano's return was thus psychologically most timely; new horizons of empire were opened, and in the last four months of 1522 thirty-three ‘privileges’ were issued for Spanish subjects willing to equip a Moluccan voyage.^[9] But matters hung fire pending the procrastinatory Badajoz discussions, and it was not until the end of July 1525 that seven ships, under the command of Garcia Jofre de Loaysa, with del Cano as the obvious choice for Chief Pilot, sailed from Corunna, where a (short-lived) Casa de Contratacion, specifically for the Spiceries, was set up.^[10] Amongst the company, as an accountant, was Andrés de Urdaneta, destined to make a great name in the annals of the Pacific. Three of the four Malays brought to Spain by del Cano were aboard for repatriation, though they seem not to have survived the voyage out; the fourth was kept in Spain, having shown himself all too inquisitive about the spice trade, and all too shrewd in appreciating the price differential between Europe and the Indies.^[11]

Materially, the voyage was a succession of disasters. The Sancti Spiritus, with del Cano, was wrecked at the Cape of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, though all but nine men were saved; two ships deserted; the caravel San Lesmes was driven to 55°S and saw what ‘appeared to be the end of the land’, presumably the first sighting of Staten Land, so named by Schouten and Le Maire in 1616. The San Lesmes rejoined, and four ships entered the Pacific, to be scattered within a few days by a great tempest. The pinnace Santiago made its way to New Spain; the San Lesmes disappeared, and its wreck on Amanu in the Tuomotus may be taken as proven by the discovery there of four cannon.^[12] Another caravel, Santa Maria del Parrel, reached Mindanao on its own; the few survivors of wreck and mutiny became captives of the islanders, and of the three picked up by Saavedra one was hanged for mutiny and one went bush.

The flagship Santa Maria de la Victoria sailed on alone; although by leaving in July rather than September Loaysa avoided wintering before passing the Straits, the Pacific crossing took almost as long as Magellan's, and only one island was seen, Taongi, the northmost outlier of the Marshalls; this, named San Bartolomé, came to bulk large in Urdaneta's thinking. The same ills as had afflicted Magellan's crews prevailed; Loaysa died on 30 July 1526 and del Cano took command, to die himself only five days later, a victim to his own courage in daring that terrible crossing for a second time. His successor Alonso de Salazar tried to make for Cipangu (Japan) before changing course directly for the Moluccas; eight days after their arrival at Guam (4 September), Salazar died in his turn, to be succeeded by Martin Iniguez de Carquisano. At Guam they were hailed in good Spanish by a naked ‘Indian’; he was a surviving cabin boy from Magellan's Trinidad. It was now the Southwest Monsoon season, the wrong time for sailing from the Ladrones to the Moluccas, and progress was- 91 -slow; but after touching at Mindanao and Talao to the south of it, at the end of October they reached Zamafo on the east of Gilolo: of the total 450 men who left Corunna, 145 had been on the Victoria when they passed the Straits, only 105 reached Zamafo. The people here were vassals of Tidore, and the Rajah of that island retained Spanish sympathies from the time of del Cano and Espinosa, so that the Spaniards were among friends. Contact with Tidore was soon made; but after outfacing the terrors and horrors of the Ocean Sea, they had now to meet the intense hostility of their fellow-Christians.

Tidore town had just been taken and sacked by the Portuguese; its Rajah was in the mountains, and eager for assistance in his revenge. The expedition's instructions were ambivalent: Article I, in the standard form, forbade touching at any land ‘within the limits of the king of Portugal’; XVIII recommended avoiding contact, but a Portuguese presence should not inhibit a Moluccan landing; XXII directed that if the Portuguese had arrived, if they had ill-treated Magellan's survivors, and if they could be overcome without risking the fleet, then overcome they should be—but if they were too strong, the fleet should go elsewhere.^[13] The Portuguese were not ambivalent: their commander, Garcia Henriques, sent to say that if the Spaniards came in to him at Ternate, they would be honourably received; if not they would be compelled by force of arms, or sunk with all hands. The Spaniards did come, but to Tidore, where they anchored on 1 January 1527.

The Portuguese attacked twelve days later, but were beaten off, though the Victoria was so badly strained by the firing of her own guns that she had to be burnt.^[14] Rather desultory petty warfare followed, full of treasons and stratagems—Urdaneta accuses a new Portuguese commander, Jorge de Meneses, of a wholesale poison plot,^[15] and, on a lighter note (though it was very serious to good Catholics facing death unshriven), the Spanish chaplain, visiting Ternate to be confessed by his Lusian counterpart, was unsportingly kidnapped and had to be exchanged (unequally) since there was no other confessor available, but plenty of sins to confess. For the time being the local rulers found their account in these hostilities: with Spanish competition, the price of cloves rocketed. Ternate stood stoutly by the Portuguese, Tidore by the Spaniards, who also had a base and powerful support on Gilolo. For some fifteen months, with lulls due to Portuguese dissensions, these handfuls of men, Lusians and Castilians, raided and slew each other at the end of the earth from their homelands. The Spaniards clung desperately to the hope of succours from Spain; when help came at last, it was from an unexpected quarter: not Spain but New Spain.