THE OPENING OF THE EAST 



India. He established himself at Goa and immediately set about 

 repairing the damage done by the errors of his successors, but he was 

 not destined to go very far with them and died at Cochin on Christmas 

 Eve, 1524. He was certainly one of the greatest men in the history of 

 Portugal and of the sea, and it was after his death and that of Alfonso 

 d'Albuquerque who followed him that the abuses were allowed to com- 

 mence which finally wrecked the Portuguese Eastern Empire. 

 Magellan. 



Alliances were easily made and broken off in the Peninsula in the 

 sixteenth century, as is shown by the history of Ferdinand Magellan. 

 He was born in Portugal, the son of a minor noble, about the year 1480, 

 and as a young man served as a volunteer in one of the early Portuguese 

 voyages to the East. He later undertook a number of voyages in the 

 East and also distinguished himself as a soldier, but finally he was 

 dismissed from the service of the Portuguese on an allegation that he 

 had been selling munitions to the Moors during the war. He immedi- 

 ately went across to Spain and tendered his services to Charles V, offering 

 to evade the Papal Bull which gave to the Spaniards all territory to the 

 West of a certain line and to the Portuguese all territory to the East. 

 In the Pacific there were the Spice Islands and other territories which 

 Spain wanted very badly but it was obvious that they lay to the East 

 of the line and were therefore Portuguese. Magellan got over this by 

 volunteering to sail round the world and to reach them westabout. Once 

 they were firmly annexed without offending the Pope they could be 

 reached by whatever method was convenient. He sailed in 1519 with 

 a fleet of five vessels and by colossal efforts contrived to get into the 

 Pacific through the Straits which now bear his name. He finally 

 reached the Philippines where he got mixed up in a native quarrel and 

 was killed for his trouble, while several of his men were executed by the 

 party that he had befriended. Finally Juan Sebastian del Cana reached 

 Portugal in the Vittoria with only thirty-one men of the original expedi- 

 tion, and was thus the first man to circumnavigate the globe. In 

 addition to being an extraordinarily gallant navigator Magellan was a 

 scientist far above the ordinary level of his time. 



Sir Hugh Willoiighby and the White Sea. 



When the Company of Merchant Adventurers was first put on its 

 feet it was determined to find a passage to China by way of the North 

 East and Sir Hugh Willoughby, a Nottingham gentleman, was chosen to 

 command the expedition. His flagship was the Bona Speranza and 

 with him were the Edward Bonaventure, under the command of the 

 famous Richard Chancellor, and the small Bona Confidentia. This 

 expedition sailed in May, 1553, from London. The flagship sighted Nova 

 Zembla (Novaya Zemlya) and eventually reached the Lapland coast 

 where Willoughby and all his crew perished in the Spring of 1554. Chan- 

 cellor found his way into the White Sea whence he proceeded to Moscow, 

 stayed several months and opened up commercial relations which were 

 developed under the protection of the Muscovy Company incorporated 



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