It was entrusted to Garcia Jofre de Loaysa, with del Cano as pilot-major,
and other survivors of Magellan's armada.

They sailed from Coruna in July, 1525, with an armament of seven ships.
Every precaution was taken to ensure the success of the voyage, but the
expedition proved a most disastrous one notwithstanding. During a fearful
storm del Cano's vessel was wrecked at the entrance to Magellan's
Straits, and the captain-general was separated from the fleet.

Francisco de Hoces, who commanded one of the ships, is reported to have
been driven by the same storm to 55 deg. of south latitude, where he
sighted the group of islands which became known at a later date under the
name of South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands.

It was April before the rest of the fleet entered Magellan's Straits, and
the passage was tedious and dismal, several of the sailors dying from the
extreme cold. At last, on the 25th of May, 1526, they entered the Pacific
Ocean, where they were met by another storm, which dispersed the fleet
right and left.

On this occasion an extraordinary piece of good luck befel one of the
small vessels of the fleet--a pinnace or row boat, of the kind called
_pataca_, in command of Joam de Resaga, who steered it along the coast of
Peru, unknown at the time, and reached New Spain, where they gave an
account to the famous conquerer of Mexico, Fernand Cortez, telling him
that Loaysa was on his way to the islands of cloves.*

[* It is strange that this voyage, along the coasts of an hitherto
unexplored country, preceding as it did, not only the conquest of Peru by