Circumnavigation and return
The casualties suffered in the Philippines left the expedition with too few men to sail the three remaining ships. Accordingly, on May 2, they abandoned
Concepción and burned the ship to ensure it could not be used against them. The fleet, reduced to
Trinidad and
Victoria, fled westward to
Palawan. They left that island on June 21, and were guided to
Brunei, Borneo by Moro pilots who could navigate the shallow seas. They anchored off the Brunei breakwater for 35 days, where the Venetian Pigafetta mentioned the splendour of Rajah Siripada's court (
gold, two
pearls the size of hens' eggs, etc.). In addition, Brunei boasted tame
elephants and armament of 62 cannons, more than 5 times the armament of Magellan's ships, and Brunei disdained
cloves, which were to prove more valuable than gold, upon the return to Spain. Pigafetta mentions some of the technology of the court, such as
porcelain and
eyeglasses (both of which were not available or only just becoming available in Europe).
After reaching the
Maluku Islands (the Spice Islands) on November 6, 115 crew were left. They managed to trade with the Sultan of
Tidore, a rival of the Sultan of
Ternate, who was the ally of the Portuguese.
The two remaining ships, laden with valuable spices, attempted to return to Spain by sailing west. However, as they left the Spice Islands,
Trinidad began to take on water. The crew tried to discover and repair the leak, but failed. They concluded that
Trinidad would need to spend considerable time being overhauled, but the small
Victoria was not large enough to accommodate all the surviving crew. As a result,
Victoria with some of the crew sailed west for Spain. Several weeks later,
Trinidad departed and attempted to return to Spain via the Pacific route. This attempt failed.
Trinidad was captured by the Portuguese, and was eventually wrecked in a storm while at anchor under Portuguese control.
Victoria set sail via the
Indian Ocean route home on December 21, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano. By May 6, the
Victoria rounded the
Cape of Good Hope, with only rice for rations. Twenty crewmen died of starvation before Elcano put into
Cape Verde, a Portuguese holding, where he abandoned 13 more crew on July 9 in fear of losing his cargo of 26
tons of spices (cloves and
cinnamon).
On
September 6, 1522, Elcano and the remaining crew of Magellan's voyage arrived in Spain aboard the last ship in the fleet,
Victoria, almost exactly three years after they departed. Magellan had not intended to circumnavigate the world, only to find a secure way through which the Spanish ships could navigate to the Spice Islands; it was Elcano who, after Magellan's death, decided to push westward, thereby completing the first voyage around the entire Earth.
Maximilianus Transylvanus interviewed the surviving members of the expedition when they presented themselves to the Spanish court at
Valladolid in the autumn of 1522, and wrote the first account of the voyage, which was published in 1523. The account written by Pigafetta did not appear until 1525, and was not wholly published until the late 18th century. The expedition eked out a small profit, but the crew was not paid full wages.
Four crewmen of the original 55 on
Trinidad finally returned to Spain in 1525; 51 of them had died in war or from disease. In total, approximately 232 Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, English and German sailors died on the expedition around the world with Magellan.
