For Bulkeley, this route seemed to have another, deeper seduction. They would be charting their own destiny, emancipating themselves from a naval mission that had been bungled by government and military officials back home—a mission that had been doomed from the outset. The castaways would now choose to survive rather than venture north through the Pacific, where a Spanish armada would likely pulverize or capture them. “Our going through the Strait of Magellan for the coast of Brazil would be the only way to prevent our throwing ourselves into the hands of a cruel, barbarous, and insulting
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