“This produced a deep impression upon the audience; and while these late pagans were singing so correctly and impressively a hymn in a Christian church, many ‘weeping eyes,’ bore testimony that the act and its associations touched a chord that vibrated in many hearts.  Cinque was then introduced to the audience, and addressed them in his native tongue.  It is impossible to describe the novel and deeply interesting manner in which he acquitted himself.  The subject of his speech was similar to that of his countryman who had addressed the audience in English, but he related more minutely and graphically the occurrences on board the Amistad.  The easy manner of Cinque, his natural, graceful and energetic action, the rapidity of his utterance, and the remarkable and various expressions of his countenance, excited the admiration and applause of the audience.  He was pronounced a powerful natural orator, and one born to sway the minds of his fellow men.  Should he be converted and become a preacher of the cross in Africa, what delightful results may be anticipated!

“The amount of the statements made by Kin-na, Fu-li and Cinque, and the facts in the case, are as follows:—­These Mendians belong to six different tribes, although their dialects are not so dissimilar as to prevent them from conversing together very readily.  Most of them belong to a country which they call Mendi, but which is known to geographers and travellers as Kos-sa, and lies south-east of Sierra Leone; as we suppose, from sixty to one hundred and twenty miles.  With one or two exceptions, these Mendians are not related to each other; nor did they know each other until they met at the slave factory of Pedro Blanco, the wholesale trafficker in men, at Lomboko, on the coast of Africa.  They were stolen separately, many of them by black men, some of whom were accompanied by Spaniards, as they were going from one village to another, or were at a distance from their abodes.  The whole came to Havana in the same ship, a Portuguese vessel named Tecora, except the four children, whom they saw, for the first time, on board the Amistad.  It seems that they remained at Lomboko several weeks, until six or seven hundred were collected, when they were put in irons and placed in the hold of a ship, which soon put to sea.  Being chased by a British cruiser, she returned, landed the cargo of human beings, and the vessel was seized and taken to Sierra Leone for adjudication.  After some time, the Africans were put on board the Tecora.  After suffering the horrors of the middle passage, they arrived at Havana.  Here they were put into a barracoon, one of the oblong enclosures, without a roof, where human beings are kept, as they keep sheep and oxen near the cattle markets, in the vicinity of our large cities, until purchasers are found, for ten days, when they were sold to Jose Ruiz, and shipped on board the Amistad, together with the three girls and a little boy who came