—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,
futhermore, 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 king’s
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 pretense, 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 Delano’s
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 cause similar 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 seaman’s 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—“don’t board,” lest upon their
boarding the negroes should kill him; that this inducing the Americans
to believe he some way favored 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 Joaquin’s 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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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