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.

* * * * *

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 seventeen hundred and ninety-nine, against the negroes of the
ship San Dominick, the following declaration before me was made:

_Declaration of the first witness_, DON BENITO CERENO.

The same day, and month, and year, His Honor, Doctor Juan Martinez
de Rozas, Councilor of the Royal Audience of this Kingdom, and
learned in the law of this Intendency, ordered the captain of the
ship San Dominick, Don Benito Cereno, to appear; which he did, in
his litter, attended by the monk Infelez; of whom he received the
oath, which he took by God, our Lord, and a sign of the Cross;
under which he promised to tell the truth of whatever he should
know and should be asked;--and being interrogated agreeably to
the tenor of the act commencing the process, he said, that on the
twentieth of May last, he set sail with his ship from the port of
Valparaiso, bound to that of Callao; loaded with the produce of
the country beside thirty cases of hardware and one hundred and
sixty blacks, of both sexes, mostly belonging to Don Alexandro
Aranda, gentleman, of the city of Mendoza; that the crew of the
ship consisted of thirty-six men, beside the persons who went as
passengers; that the negroes were in part as follows:

[_Here, in the original, follows a list of some fifty names,
descriptions, and ages, compiled from certain recovered documents
of Aranda's, and also from recollections of the deponent, from
which portions only are extracted._]

--One, from about eighteen to nineteen years, named Jose, and this
was the man that waited upon his master, Don Alexandro, and who
speaks well the Spanish, having se