They traded on very advantageous terms with the natives, and filled their holds with the spices and nutmegs for which they had journeyed so far; but when they attempted to resume their journey homeward, it was found that the _Trinidad_ was too unseaworthy to proceed at once, and it was decided that the _Victoria_ should start so as to get the east monsoon.

This she did, and after the usual journey round the Cape of Good Hope, arrived off the Mole of Seville on Monday the 8th September 1522--three years all but twelve days from the date of their departure from Spain.

Of the two hundred and seventy men who had started with the fleet, only eighteen returned in the _Victoria_.

According to the ship's reckoning they had arrived on Sunday the 7th, and for some time it was a puzzle to account for the day thus lost.
Meanwhile the _Trinidad_, which had been left behind at the Moluccas, had attempted to sail back to Panama, and reached as far north as 43 deg., somewhere about longitude 175 deg.

W.Here provisions failed them, and they had to return to the Moluccas, where they were seized, practically as pirates, by a fleet of Portuguese vessels sent specially to prevent interference by the Spaniards with the Portuguese monopoly of the spice trade.