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the deponent understood it, that the mate, who was a good navigator, should be killed with
Don Alexandro and the rest; that the deponent, who was the friend, from youth of Don
Alexandro, prayed and conjured, but all was useless; for the Negro Babo answered him that
the thing could not be prevented, and that all the Spaniards risked their death if they should
attempt to frustrate his will in this matter, or any other; that, in this conflict, the deponent
called the mate, Raneds, who was forced to go apart, and immediately the Negro Babo
commanded the Ashantee Martinqui and the Ashantee Lecbe to go and commit the murder;
that those two went down with hatchets to the berth of Don Alexandro; that, yet half alive
and mangled, they dragged him on deck; that they were going to throw him overboard in
that state, but the Negro Babo stopped them, bidding the murder be completed on the deck
before him, which was done, when, by his orders, the body was carried below, forward;
that nothing more was seen of it by the deponent for three days;... that Don Alonzo
Sidonia, an old man, long resident at Valparaiso, and lately appointed to a civil office in
Peru, whither he had taken passage, was at the time sleeping in the berth opposite Don
Alexandro's; that, awakening at his cries, surprised by them, and at the sight of the Negroes
with their bloody hatchets in their hands, he threw himself into the sea through a window
which was near him, and was drowned, without it being in the power of the deponent to
assist or take him up;... that, a short time after killing Aranda, they brought upon deck his
german-cousin, of middle-age, Don Francisco Masa, of Mendoza, and the young Don
Joaquin, Marques de Aramboalaza, then lately from Spain, with his Spanish servant Ponce,
and the three young clerks of Aranda, Jose Mozairi, Lorenzo Bargas, and Hermenegildo
Gandix, all of Cadiz; that Don Joaquin and Hermenegildo Gandix, the Negro Babo for
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purposes hereafter to appear, preserved alive; but Don Francisco Masa, Jose Mozairi, and
Lorenzo Bargas, with Ponce, the servant, beside the boatswain, Juan Robles, the
boatswain's mates, Manuel Viscaya and Roderigo Hurta, and, four of the sailors, the Negro
Babo ordered to be thrown alive into the sea, although they made no resistance, nor begged
for anything else but mercy; that the boatswain, Juan Robles, who knew how to swim, kept
the longest above water, making acts of contrition, and, in the last words he uttered,
charged this deponent to cause mass to be said for his soul to our Lady of Succour;... that,
during the three days which followed, the deponent, uncertain what fate had befallen the
remains of Don Alexandro, frequently asked the Negro Babo where they were, and, if still
on board, whether they were to be preserved for interment ashore, entreating him so to
order it; that the Negro Babo answered nothing till the fourth day, when at sunrise, the
deponent coming on deck, the Negro Babo showed him a skeleton, which had been
substituted for the ship's proper figure-head, the image of Christopher Colon, the
discoverer of the New World; that the Negro Babo asked him whose skeleton that was, and
whether, from its whiteness, he should not think it a white's; that, upon his covering his
face, the Negro Babo, coming close, said words to this effect: "Keep faith with the blacks
from here to Senegal, or you shall in spirit, as now in body, follow your leader," pointing to
the prow;... that the same morning the Negro Babo took by succession each Spaniard
forward, and asked him whose skeleton that was, and whether, from its whiteness, he
should not think it a white's; that each Spaniard covered his face; that then to each the
Negro Babo repeated the words in the first place said to the deponent;... that they (the
Spaniards), being then assembled aft, the Negro Babo harangued them, saying that he had
now done all; that the deponent (as navigator for the Negroes) might pursue his course,
warning him and all of them that they should, soul and body, go the way of Don Alexandro
if he saw them (the Spaniards) speak or plot anything against them (the Negroes)- a threat
which was repeated every day; that, before the events last mentioned, they had tied the
cook to throw him overboard, for it is not known what thing they heard him speak, but
finally the Negro Babo spared his life, at the request of the deponent; that a few days after,
the deponent, endeavouring not to omit any means to preserve the lives of the remaining
whites, spoke to the Negroes peace and tranquillity, and agreed to draw up a paper, signed
by the deponent and the sailors who could write, as also by the Negro Babo, for himself
and all the blacks, in which the deponent obliged himself to carry them to Senegal, and
they not to kill any more, and he formally to make over to them the ship, with the cargo,
with which they were for that time satisfied and quieted.... But the next day, the more
surely to guard against the sailors' escape, the Negro Babo commanded all the boats to be
destroyed but the long-boat, which was unseaworthy, and another, a cutter in good
condition, which, knowing it would yet be wanted for lowering the water casks, he had it
lowered down into the hold.
[Various particulars of the prolonged and perplexed navigation ensuing here follow, with
incidents of a calamitous calm, from which portion one passage is extracted, to wit:]
-That on the fifth day of the calm, all on board suffering much from the heat, and want of
water, and five having died in fits, and mad, the Negroes became irritable, and for a chance
gesture, which they deemed suspicious- though it was harmless- made by the mate, Raneds,
to the deponent, in the act of handing a quadrant, they killed him; but that for this they
afterwards were sorry, the mate being the only remaining navigator on board, except the
deponent.
-That omitting other events, which daily happened, and which can only serve uselessly to
recall past misfortunes and conflicts, after seventy-three days' navigation, reckoned from
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the time they sailed from Nasca, during which they navigated under a scanty allowance of
water, and were afflicted with the calms before mentioned, they at last arrived at the island
of Santa Maria, on the seventeenth of the month of August, at about six o'clock in the
afternoon, at which hour they cast anchor very near the American ship, Bachelor's Delight,
which lay in the same bay, commanded by the generous Captain Amasa Delano; but at six
o'clock in the morning, they had already descried the port, and the Negroes became uneasy,
as soon as at distance they saw the ship, not having expected to see one there; that the
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