Account of What Happened to
the Ship “Trinity”
and her Crew
After she Parted company with the “Victoria”
From Navarrete
In the Introduction to the Hakluyt Society's First Voyage Round the World …, the editor comments on the included works, but says nothing of this one. As noted above, its title page states that it is from Navarrete, but gives no further information. It is, in fact, in Navarette's Coleccion …, Tomo IV, Chapter VII (pp. 98-103): “Acaecimientos de la nao Trinidad, que quedó en las Molucas para carenarse, cuando salió para España la nao Victoria.”
After the Victoria left Tidore, the crew of the Trinidad commenced careening their ship, and took out of her and placed in the store-house in Tidore their goods and the guns of the Concepción, which they had burned, and of the Santiago, which was lost. Gonzalo Gomez de Espinosa determined to leave in charge of these goods and factory the accountant, Juan de Campos, as clerk; the officer, Luis del Molino; the servants, Alonso de Cota, Genoese, and Diego Arias; and Master Pedro, a bombardier.
Taking leave of the King of Tidore, the Trinidad sailed thence on the 6th of April 1522, with fifty men on the muster-roll, and a cargo of nine hundred quintals of cloves. The Trinidad sailed for forty leagues to an island named Zanufo, in 2 deg. 30 min. N. latitude, belonging to the King of Tidore, thence to the open sea, where they calculated they had two thousand leagues to run to Panama. In 20 deg. they fell in with an island, where they took in a native, and continuing a northerly course to 42 deg., they met with a storm which lasted five days, and they had to cut away the castle at the prow; their poop was broken; their mainmast was broken in two. The crews fell sick, and they returned to seek the island from which they had taken the native; but, not being able to fetch it, they arrived at another twenty leagues distant from it. This island was named Mao, and is to the north of the island Botaha; they are in 12 deg. and 13 deg. This island was three hundred leagues from the Moluccas, and they were a month and a half in getting there; many of the crew died. When they arrived and anchored at the first land, which was Zanufo, a vessel passed by which informed them that a fortnight after the Trinidad sailed, five or seven Portuguese sail had arrived at Terrenate, whose captain was Antonio de Brito, and that they were building a fortress there. Barros states that the first stone of this was placed by Antonio de Brito June 24th, 1522. The captain of the Trinidad begged the people of this vessel to take a man to Terrenate, who was Bartolome Sanchez, the clerk of the ship, by whom he sent a letter to the Portuguese captain, begging him, on the part of His Majesty, to send him succour to prevent the ship being lost, for his crew was sick and reduced in number. Gonzalo Gomez, seeing that this was delayed, weighed, and came to anchor in the port of Benaconora. Simon Abreu, and Duarte Roger, clerk of the King of Portugal's factory, came there, with other people, in a caracora, and after that came a fusta and caravel, with other armed Portuguese, who entered the Trinidad, and gave to the captain a letter from Antonio de Brito in answer to his, dated October 21st, 1522, which only said that people were going to bring in his ship. By an order which they brought from Antonio Brito, they at once took from Gonzalo Gomez all the letters, astrolabes, quadrants, and log-books which he had made; they took the vessel and anchored her in the port of Talangomi. There were seventeen Castilians of sound and sick in the vessel, and they took those that were well with Gonzalo Gomez to the fortress, and next day took the sick to the hospital.
Gonzalo Gomez complained of the violence done in taking that which belonged to the emperor, and in his country. They replied that he had done what the emperor, his lord, had commanded him; and they, what they ought to do by the instructions from the king, their lord. They asked him to give up the royal standard of Castile, and he answered that he could not do so, neither could he defend it, since he was in their power. Upon which they drew up some documents before a notary; and when they discharged the cargo of the ship, he asked the Portuguese to give him a certificate of what was in it, for him to render an account to His Majesty; and they replied that, if he asked for this often, they would give it him on a yard arm. In the fortress we found Juan de Campos, Diego Arias, and Alonzo, the Genoese, sick, who were three of those who had remained in Tidore with the goods of His Majesty. They said that the Portuguese had knocked down the factory-house and taken the cloves and receipts for cloves which were paid for, and all the rigging and fittings of the ships; Luis del Molino had fled, and Gonzalo Gomez called him to come to the fortress under safe conduct, but when in it they put him in irons; Master Pedro had died.
When the ship was in Tidore, the pilot, Juan Lopes Carvalho, died on the 14th February, 1522; and, between sailing thence and anchoring at Benaconora, there died in August, September, and October, thirty-one individuals, without counting three who ran away in the isle of Mao of the Ladrones.
The twenty-one Castilians of the ship and factory remained about four months as prisoners in Terrenate, until, at the end of February 1523, Captain Antonio de Brito gave them a passage to India, sending them to the island of Banda, which was a hundred leagues off, excepting the carpenter Antonio, and the caulker Antonio Basazaval, whom he said that he required. The clerk of the factory, Juan de Campos, and three other Castilians, went in a junk, of which nothing was known nor what became of those persons. The Castilians remained in Banda about four months; from thence they were conducted to Java, and coasting it they arrived at a city named Agrazue. Agrazue was a town of thirty thousand inhabitants, Mussulmans, of great trade, to which porcelain, silks, and other Chinese goods were brought from Borneo and other parts.
From Agrazue they went to Malacca, two hundred leagues distant, where Jorge de Albuquerque was captain.
They were about five months at Malacca. Four Castilians died there at the end of November 1524, The ship-boy, Anton Moreno, remained there, who was, they said, the slave of a sister of Jorge de Albuquerque, and the rest went on to India. They were twenty-five days in reaching Ceylon, which was three hundred leagues, and they went a hundred leagues more to Cochin. The clerk, Bartolomé Sanchez, and two others, went in a junk, of which nothing more was heard. In Cochin they found that the ships for Portugal had sailed a short time before their arrival, and they had to wait a year for the passage of the spice ships.
After they had been ten months in Cochin, without obtaining leave to embark, the seaman, Leon Pancaldo, and Bautista Poncero, master of the ship Trinidad, fled secretly in the ship Sta. Catalina, which left them in Mozambique. There they were arrested and put on board the ship of Diego de Melo to be taken to the Governor of India, but contrary winds did not permit her departure; and, having been allowed to go ashore, Bautista Poncero died, and Leon Pancaldo hid himself in the ship of Francisco Pereira, which was going to Portugal. He remained hid till they got a hundred leagues from Mozambique, When they arrived at Lisbon they put him in prison, from which the king commanded him to be set free.
At this time, D. Vasco da Gama arrived in India as Viceroy, and the Castilians begged for leave to embark in the ships which were going to Portugal, but he would not give it. The Viceroy died in twenty days, and they elected in his stead D. Enrique de Meneses governor of Goa, who came to Cochin. Two Castilians died there, and those that remained had to wait for another year.
Gonzalo Gomez had done homage and could not get away until after constant recourse and petitions to the governor, D. Enrique de Meneses, who gave him leave, as also to the seaman, Gines de Mafra, and to Master Hans, a bombardier, when it was known there that the King of Portugal was married to Da. Catalina, sister of His Majesty the Emperor, These three individuals left Cochin in the Portuguese ships, and when they arrived at Lisbon they put them in the Limoneiro or public prison, where Master Hans died. Gonzalo Gomez and Gines de Mafra remained there about seven months, until they were set free by letters from His Majesty; but Gonzalo Gomez* was set free twenty-seven days before Gines, whom they supposed to be a pilot, having found some log-books in his box and two other (books), which Andres de San Martin, pilot of His Majesty, had made, which books and other writings they took, and would not return to him.
* This Gomez was the alguazil who assisted Magellan so much in putting down the mutiny in the port of St. Julian.
From their departure from Terrenate, in the Moluccas, to Lisbon, inclusively, there died eight individuals. What became of seven was unknown; two remained in the Moluccas; one in Malacca; and three reached Spain, besides the licentiate and priest, Morales.
Gaspar Correa says (tome iii, p. 109):— §
“In this year 1527, one Sebastian Gabato, a Basque, and a great pilot, sailed from Seville as captain-major of two ships and a caravel, who was ordered by the Viceroy of the Antilles to go and take in cargo at Maluco, and recover the property of the Castilians, which he might find belonging to the ship of the fleet of Fernan de Magalhães which put in in distress; and if he found any things in the possession of the Portuguese, he was to ask for them and require them from the captains on behalf of the emperor, with all urbanity: and if they did not choose to give them up, he was to ask for documents, with protests, which he was to bring to the emperor for him to do in the matter what might be for his service. This fleet sailed from Seville, and never more was any news heard of what became of it, nor what end it had. This only was known, that this fleet had thus sailed this year, through other Castilians, who later arrived at Maluco in another fleet, as I will relate further on in its place.”
[Correa relates, in his Tom. III, cap. xiv, that Charles V sent a fleet of five ships in 1527 to Maluco under Fray Garcia de Loaysa, that only one ship under Captain Martim Inbigo reached Maluco: he then describes the disputes aud skirmishes between the Castilians and Portuguese.]
§ The paragraph from Correa and bracketed note are not in Navarrete's account. Apparently both were inserted by the Hakluyt editor.