Francisco de Hoces

Francisco de Hoces (died 1526)^[1] was a Spanish sailor^[2][3] who in 1525 joined the Loaísa Expedition to the Spice Islands as commander of the vessel San Lesmes.

In January 1526, the San Lesmes was blown by a gale southwards from the eastern mouth of the Strait of Magellan to 56º S latitude, where the crew "thought they saw a land’s end".^{[citation needed]} This is commonly understood as that they saw open waters westward away from a point of land that could be the southeasternmost tip of either Tierra del Fuego or Isla de los Estados. In either case, they supposedly had seen an open water connection between Atlantic and Pacific Oceans south of Tierra del Fuego, so they preceded Francis Drake in inferring the existence of such a connection. This is the reason some Spanish, Argentine, and Chilean historians maintain that Drake Passage should be named Mar de Hoces.^[4]