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LIFE OF MAGELLAN.
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he should weigh his coming from Portugal, which had been for a hundred reals, more or less, of allowances,[1] which your Highness had not granted him, so as not to break your ordinance, and that two regulations had arrived contrary to his, and that which he had contracted with the King Don Carlos, and he would see whether that neglect weighed more, for him to go and do what he ought to do, or come here for that which he had come for.
He wondered much at my knowing so much, and here he told me the truth, and that the courier had left: all which I knew. And he told me that certainly there would be no reason for his throwing over the undertaking, unless they deprived him of anything which had been assigned him by the contract. But first he had to see what your Highness would do. I said to him, what more did he want to see than the instructions, and Ruy Faleiro, who said openly that he was not going to follow his lantern, and that he would navigate to the south, or would not go in the fleet? also, that he thought he was going as captain-major, whilst I knew that others were sent in opposition, whom he would not know of except at a time when he could not remedy his honour; and that he should not pay attention to the honey, which the Bishop of Burgos put to his lips, and that now was the fit time for him to see whether he would do it, and that he should give me a letter for your Highness, and that I from affection for him would go to your Highness to act on his behalf, because I had no message[2] from your Highness to occupy myself with the like, but that I only spoke what I thought as at other times I had done. He said to me that he would not say anything to me until he saw the- ↑ This contemporary document confirms Osorio as to the cause of Magellan's being disgusted with the King of Portugal; some historians have represented the quarrel as arising from a distribution of plundered cattle. Gaspar Correa uses a similar phrase to that in this despatch, "a hundred reis, more or less".
- ↑ Compare this statement with that in the second line of the fifth paragraph of this despatch.
