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- 4876
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- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.409Z
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- 4835
- text
- 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, suffice it that, after
two days spent in refitting, the ships sailed in company for
Conception, in Chili, and thence for Lima, in Peru; where, before the
vice-regal courts, the whole affair, 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, finally 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 official Spanish
documents, will, it is hoped, shed light on the preceding narrative, as
well as, in the first 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 first 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 final decision, rested its capital sentences
upon statements which, had they lacked confirmation, it would have
deemed it but duty to reject.
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