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Swearing, quarrelling, gambling, were prohibited under terrible penalties. The galleons were named after the apostles and saints to whose charge they were committed, and every seaman and soldier confessed and communicated on going on board. The ship-boys at sunrise were to sing their Buenos Dias at the foot of the mainmast, and their Ave Maria as the sun sank into the ocean.
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.
"Come, young gintleman," he said, "let me see what you have got in your pockets, and next your skin; or, if you will save me the throuble, just hand out your orders or any papers you may have about you." "I have got none, sir," answered Bill. "I told you the truth, that we are mere ship-boys, and as to being spies as you seem to think, we had nothing to spy out that I know of."
Ship-boys were discovering the delicate wines and fine liquors, which a wise foresight had placed in reserve. Soldiers and sailors were penetrating even into the spirit-room, broaching casks, staving others and drinking till they fell exhausted. Soon the tumult of the inebriated made us forget the roaring of the sea which threatened to engulf us.
"I am sorry, countess," the commandant said, "that I was obliged to quarter these two English boys upon you, but every house in the town is full of sick and wounded; and as they were given over to me as officers, though they look to me more like ship-boys, I could not put them in prison with the twenty or thirty soldiers whom we captured at the victory on the heights above Inkerman."
The able seamen, or oldest and most experienced hands, did duty about the decks and guns, in the setting up and preservation of the rigging, and in the trimming of the braces, sheets, and bowlines. The ordinary seamen, younkers, grummets, and ship-boys, did the work aloft, furled and loosed the sails, and did the ordinary, never-ceasing work of sailors.
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