with the boats, as well as during the action, they sang melancholy songs to the negroes, and that this
melancholy tone was more inflaming than a different one would have been, and was so intended; that all
this is believed, because the negroes have said it;
that of the thirty-six men of the crew, exclusive of the
passengers (all of whom are now dead), which the deponent had knowledge of, six only remained alive,
with four cabin-boys and ship-boys, not included with the crew;
that the negroes broke an arm of one of
the cabin-boys and gave him strokes with hatchets. Then follow various random disclosures referring to various periods of time. The following are extracted:
That during the presence of Captain Amasa Delano on board, some attempts were made by the sailors,
and one by Hermenegildo Gandix, to convey hints to him of the true state of affairs; but that these attempts
were ineffectual, owing to fear of incurring death, and furthermore, owing to the devices which offered
contradictions to the true state of affairs, as well as owing to the generosity and piety of Amasa Delano
incapable of sounding such wickedness;
that Luys Galgo, a sailor about sixty years of age, and formerly
of the kings navy, was one of those who sought to convey tokens to Captain Amasa Delano; but his
intent, though undiscovered, being suspected, he was, on a pretence, made to retire out of sight, and at
last into the hold and there was made away with. This the negroes have since said;
that one of the ship-
boys feeling, from Captain Amasa Delanos presence, some hopes of release, and not having enough
prudence, dropped some chance word respecting his expectations, which being overheard and understood
by a slave-boy with whom he was eating at the time, the latter struck him on the head with a knife, inflicting
a bad wound, but of which the boy is now healing; that likewise, not long before the ship was brought to
anchor, one of the seamen, steering at the time, endangered himself by letting the blacks remark some
expression in his countenance arising from a similar cause to the above; but this sailor, by his heedful
after conduct, escaped;
that these statements are made to show the court that from the beginning to the
end of the revolt, it was impossible for the deponent and his men to act otherwise than they did;
that the
third clerk, Hermenegildo Gandix, who before had been forced to live among the seamen, wearing a
seamans habit, and in all respects appearing to be one for the time, he, Gandix, was killed by a musket
ball fired through mistake from the boats before boarding, having in his fright run up the mizzen-rigging,
calling to the boats, Dont boardlest upon their boarding the negroes should kill him; that this inducing
the Americans to believe he some way favoured the cause of the negroes, they fired two balls at him, so
that he fell wounded from the rigging, and was drowned in the sea;
that the young Don Joaquin, Marques
de Aramboalaza, like Hermenegildo Gandix, the third clerk, was degraded to the office and appearance
of a common seaman; that upon one occasion when Don Joaquin shrank, the negro Babo commanded
the Ashantee Lecbe to take tar, and heat it, and pour it upon Don Joaquins hands;
that Don Joaquin
was killed owing to another mistake of the Americans, but one impossible to be avoided, as upon the
approach of the boats, Don Joaquin, with a hatchet tied edge out and upright to his hand, was made by
the negroes to appear on the bulwarks; whereupon, seen with arms in his hands, and in a questionable
attitude, he was shot for a renegade seaman;
that on the person of Don Joaquin was found secreted a
jewel, which, by papers that were discovered, proved to have been meant for the shrine of our Lady
of Mercy in Lima; a votive offering, beforehand prepared and guarded, to attest his gratitude, when he
should have landed in Peru, his last destination for the safe conclusion of his entire voyage from Spain;
that
the jewel, with the other effects of the late Don Joaquin, is in the custody of the Hospital de Sacerdotes,
awaiting the disposition of the honourable 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 reanchoring 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 negros 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
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