Notwithstanding this the Emperor persisted in the project, and on Tuesday, 20th September 1519, a fleet of five vessels, the _Trinidad, St.Antonio, Concepcion, Victoria_, and _St.
Jago_, manned by a heterogeneous collection of Spaniards, Portuguese, Basques, Genoese, Sicilians, French, Flemings, Germans, Greeks, Neapolitans, Corfiotes, Negroes, Malays, and a single Englishman (Master Andrew of Bristol), started from Seville upon perhaps the most important voyage of discovery ever made.

So great was the antipathy between Spanish and Portuguese that disaffection broke out almost from the start, and after the mouth of the La Plata had been carefully explored, to ascertain whether this was not really the beginning of a passage through the New World, a mutiny broke out on the 2nd April 1520, in Port St.Julian, where it had been determined to winter; for of course by this time the sailors had become aware that the time of the seasons was reversed in the Southern Hemisphere.

Magelhaens showed great firmness and skill in dealing with the mutiny; its chief leaders were either executed or marooned, and on the 18th October he resumed his voyage.

Meanwhile the habits and customs of the natives had been observed--their huge height and uncouth foot-coverings, for which Magelhaens gave them the name of Patagonians.

Within three days they had arrived at the entrance of the passage which still bears Magelhaens' name.
By this time one of the ships, the _St Jago_, had been lost, and it was with only four of his vessels--the _Trinidad_, the _Victoria_, the _Concepcion_.