Loaisa's voyage until the Strait of Magellan is passed. The fleet
leaves Corunna July 24, 1525, and finishes the passage of the strait
May 26, 1526. On the voyage three ships are lost, the "San Gabriel,"
"Nunciado," and "Santi Spiritus." The "Santiago" puts in "at the coast
discovered and colonized by. . . Cortés at the shoulders of New Spain,"
to reprovision. Loaisa is thus left with only three vessels. (No. ix,
pp. 223-225.)

The deposition of Francisco Dávila--given (June 4, 1527) under oath
before the officials at Corunna, in order to be sent to the king--and
several letters by Rodrigo de Acuña, dated June 15, 1527, and April
30, 1528, give the interesting adventures of the ship "San Gabriel"
and its captain after its separation from Loaisa's fleet. The vessel
after various wanderings in the almost unknown seas near South American
coasts, and exciting adventures with French vessels on the coast of
Brazil, finally reaches Bayona May 28, 1527, in a wretched condition
and very short of provisions. She carried "twenty-seven persons and
twenty-two Indians," and is without her proper captain Acuña, who had
been left in the hands of the French. Abandoned by the latter on the
Brazilian coast, he was rescued by a Portuguese vessel and carried
to Pernambuco "a trading agency of the King of Portugal," where he
was detained as prisoner for over eighteen months. In his letter to
the King of Portugal, Acuña upbraids him for treatment worse than the
Moors might user "but," he adds, "what can we expect when even the sons
of Portuguese are abandoned here to the fare of the savages? There are
more than three hundred Christians, the sons of Christians, abandoned
in this land, who would be more certain of being saved in Turkey than
here.... There is no justice here. Let your majesty take me from this
land, and keep me where I may have the justice I merit." Late in the
year 1528, Acuña is ordered to Portugal, as is learned from another