Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
the negroes faced about, and though scorning peace or truce, yet fain would have
had respite. But, without pause, overleaping the barrier, the unagging sailors again
closed. Exhausted, the blacks now fought in despair. Their red tongues lolled, wolflike,
from their black mouths. But the pale sailors’ teeth were set; not a word was
spoken; and, in ve minutes more, the ship was won.
Nearly a score of the negroes were killed. Exclusive of those by the balls, many
were mangled; their wounds—mostly inicted by the long-edged sealing-spears,
resembling those shaven ones of the English at Preston Pans, made by the poled
scythes of the Highlanders. On the other side, none were killed, though several
were wounded; some severely, including the mate. The surviving negroes were
temporarily secured, and the ship, towed back into the harbor at midnight, once
more lay anchored.
Omitting the incidents and arrangements ensuing, suce it that, after two days
spent in retting, the ships sailed in company for Conception, in Chili, and thence
for Lima, in Peru; where, before the vice-regal courts, the whole aair, from the
beginning, underwent investigation.
Though, midway on the passage, the ill-fated Spaniard, relaxed from constraint,
showed some signs of regaining health with free-will; yet, agreeably to his own
foreboding, shortly before arriving at Lima, he relapsed, nally becoming so
reduced as to be carried ashore in arms. Hearing of his story and plight, one of
the many religious institutions of the City of Kings opened an hospitable refuge to
him, where both physician and priest were his nurses, and a member of the order
volunteered to be his one special guardian and consoler, by night and by day.
The following extracts, translated from one of the ocial Spanish documents,
will, it is hoped, shed light on the preceding narrative, as well as, in the rst place,
reveal the true port of departure and true history of the San Dominick’s voyage,
down to the time of her touching at the island of St. Maria.
But, ere the extracts come, it may be well to preface them with a remark.
The document selected, from among many others, for partial translation,
contains the deposition of Benito Cereno; the rst taken in the case. Some
disclosures therein were, at the time, held dubious for both learned and natural
reasons. The tribunal inclined to the opinion that the deponent, not undisturbed in
his mind by recent events, raved of some things which could never have happened.
But subsequent depositions of the surviving sailors, bearing out the revelations of
their captain in several of the strangest particulars, gave credence to the rest. So
that the tribunal, in its nal decision, rested its capital sentences upon statements
which, had they lacked conrmation, it would have deemed it but duty to reject.
I, DON JOSE DE ABOS AND PADILLA, His Majesty’s Notary for the Royal
Revenue, and Register of this Province, and Notary Public of the Holy Crusade
of this Bishopric, etc.
Do certify and declare, as much as is requisite in law, that, in the criminal
cause commenced the twenty-fourth of the month of September, in the year
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