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 Trinity, 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[452] 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.
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 Magalhāes 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, and that only one ship under Captain Martim Inhigo reached Maluco: he then describes the disputes and skirmishes between the Castilians and Portuguese.]