FullReads

[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, 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 is a questionable altitude, 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 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.