Bartleby the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street

BENITO CERENO 161
was * * * — powerless that in ;
some things his memory
is confused, he cannot distinctly recall every event * * *
;
— that as soon as they had cast anchor at six of the
clock in the evening, as has before been stated, the
American captain took leave, to return to his vessel ;
that upon a sudden impulse, which the deponent believes
to have come from God and his angels, he, after the
farewell had been said, followed the generous Captain
Amasa Delano as far as the gunwale, where he stayed,
under pretence of taking leave, until Amasa Delano
should have been seated in his boat ; that on shoving
off, the deponent sprang from the gunwale into the
boat, and fell into it, he knows not how, God guarding
him that
;
[Here, in the original, follows the account of what further
happened at the escape, and how the San Dominick was
in the
retaken, and of the passage to the coast ; including
i
recital many expressions of eternal gratitude '
to the
1
geneiQus Captain Amasa Delano, '
The deposition then
proceeds with recapitulatory remarks, and a partial renumeration
of the negroes, making record of their individual
part in the past events, with a view to furnishing, according
to command of the court, the data whereon to found the
criminal sentences to be pronounced. From this portion
is the following :]
—That he believes that all the negroes, though not
in the first place knowing to the design of revolt, when
it was accomplished, approved it. * * * That the negro,
Jose, eighteen years old, and in the personal service
of Don Alexandro, was the one who communicated the
information to the negro Babo, about the state of things
in the cabin, before the revolt ; that this is known,
because, in the preceding midnight, he used to come from
h