powers conferred upon him: these documents are dated in the spring of 1518, more than a year before Magellan sailed; and it appears that delay was caused partly through the procrastination of the Spanish authorities in Seville, who were charged with equipping the fleet, and partly by the intrigues of the agents of the King of Portugal. These intrigues appear to have been partially successful, and to have caused delay. A final order for the departure of Magellan was given in Barcelona, April 19th, 1519. The original of this document is preserved in the Lisbon archives, and it was probably carried out with the fleet, and fell into the possession of the Portuguese in the Moluccas after Magellan's death; a translation of this order is given below, and the text is in the Appendix.
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
