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
brethren of the Hospital 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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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