de Sacerdotes, awaiting the disposition of the
honorable court; * * *—that, owing
to the condition of the deponent, as well as the haste
in which the boats departed for the attack, the Americans
were not forewarned that there were, among the
apparent crew, a passenger and one of the clerks
disguised by the negro Babo; * * *—that,
beside the negroes killed in the action, some were
killed after the capture and re-anchoring at night,
when shackled to the ring-bolts on deck; that
these deaths were committed by the sailors, ere
they could be prevented. That so soon as informed
of it, Captain Amasa Delano used all his authority,
and, in particular with his own hand, struck down
Martinez Gola, who, having found a razor in the
pocket of an old jacket of his, which one of the
shackled negroes had on, was aiming it at the negro’s
throat; that the noble Captain Amasa Delano also
wrenched from the hand of Bartholomew Barlo a
dagger, secreted at the time of the massacre of
the whites, with which he was in the act of stabbing
a shackled negro, who, the same day, with another
negro, had thrown him down and jumped upon him;
* * *—that, for all the events, befalling
through so long a time, during which the ship was in
the hands of the negro Babo, he cannot here give
account; but that, what he has said is the most
substantial of what occurs to him at present,
and is the truth under the oath which he has taken;
which declaration he affirmed and ratified, after
hearing it read to him.
He said that he is twenty-nine years
of age, and broken in body and mind; that when
finally dismissed by the court, he shall not return
home to Chili, but betake himself to the monastery
on Mount Agonia without; and signed with his honor,
and crossed himself, and, for the time, departed
as he came, in his litter, with the monk Infelez,
to the Hospital de Sacerdotes.
BENITO CERENO.
DOCTOR ROZAS.
If the Deposition have served as the key to fit into
the lock of the complications which precede it, then,
as a vault whose door has been flung back, the San
Dominick’s hull lies open to-day.
Hitherto the nature of this narrative, besides rendering
the intricacies in the beginning unavoidable, has
more or less required that many things, instead of
being set down in the order of occurrence, should be
retrospectively, or irregularly given; this last is
the case with the following passages, which will conclude
the account:
During the long, mild voyage to Lima, there was, as
before hinted, a period during which the sufferer
a little recovered his health, or, at least in some
degree, his tranquillity. Ere the decided relapse
which came, the two captains had many cordial conversations—their
fraternal unreserve in singular contrast with former
withdrawments.
Again and again it was repeated, how hard it had been
to enact the part forced on the Spaniard by Babo.