: Pp 
-*Sisting the expedition of Loaysa. 
_ dead failure. For some unaccountable reason, 
Notes on the earliest discoveries in America. 3829 
misfortunes. The 18th of October Ayllon died, and soon after 
the few survivors, about 150 out of the 500, returned to His- 
paniola, the expedition being a dead failure. Thus ended the 
attempt to plant a colony near the mouth of Cape Fear River, 
and thus ended the Spanish attempts to penetrate to the Hast 
by the way of the North. Both Gomez and Ayllon had found 
no gold, and no strait, and even the trees and animals they re- 
ported were common in Europe; whereat old Martyr exclaims, 
“to the south! to the south! for the great and exceeding riches 
of the equinoxial ; they that seek riches must not go unto the 
cold and frozen north.” The whole story is comprehended in 
Martyr’s sentence. North America, by the Spaniards, was never 
considered of any consequence of itself, and was regarded only 
as a barrier or a stepping stone to a richer, older and better 
It was necessary, however, to shut it up by a coast line 
west of the line of demarcation, so that other nations might be 
deterred from finding a northern passage to Indi 
The Emperor, considering the et of the Congress of 
Badajos in ti favor, lost no time in dispatching his new fleet of 
six sail and 450 men by the Straits of Magellan, from Coruna, 
on the 24th of July, 1525, under the command of Loaysa, to 
€ Moluccas and the Spice Islands, with the view, first, to suc- 
cor the men left there by Magellan’s fleet, and then to establish 
@ government bureau and to protect its commerce. The Straits 
Were passed, and four of the six ships reached the Moluccas; 
= the story of their long, long sufferings is too long to be to 
ere, 
In April, 1526, Sebastian Cabot, who had for years been the 
Pilot Major of Spain—said, however, to have been a better cos- 
four well-equipped ships, for the o> of reinforcing and as- 
iti e 
_ ng prudent to try the Straits of Magellan, but attempted 
to a e cme the Rio de la Plata. He 
far into the interior of Paraguay, explored many large rivers 
and fertil provinces, suffered many hardships, lost most of his 
_ men and ships, and finally, after four years of toil and disap- 
Pointment, returned without any favorable results. 
