771 Sheet – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

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Reading Time: 3 minutes [367 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

PEDRO GIBERT AND OTHERS

To the countenance and eye of the prisoner, a new expression emerges. We see guilt written in every lineament of his visage, and we translate the look of conscious innocence into ruffian hardiness or callous indifference.

These men, gentlemen, are accused of the crime of piracy and are consequently viewed with horror as robbers and murderers. Let me entreat you to lay aside all prepossessions of this kind and not suppose, because the prisoners are accused, that they are guilty. There is not a man, perhaps, who has looked upon these individuals without thinking in his heart, "Why, they can't be innocent; what hardened villains they are." Doubtless, if a phrenologist had examined them, he would have decided that they possess the bumps indicative of those propensities which have filled the world with violence and blood. I venture, however, to say that the men before you differ only in the color of their skins from the most respectable crew that ever sailed out of the port of Boston.

Prejudices exist, too, in relation to the place from which they come. We are too apt to suppose Havana a mere nest of pirates and to believe that the same sun which, in some countries, so speedily ripens and brings to perfection the productions of the vegetable world, induces similar precocity and redundancy of crime.

Even Spain, with its romantic associations, has but a sorry reputation among us; our imagination usually paints a Spanish sailor with a bloody knife in his hand. And yet, we have heard today a striking instance of Spanish humanity. A vessel, in circumstances of extreme peril, lay aground on the Bahama bank. Her crew and passengers (many of the latter women and children) awaited death from the two most opposite elements, fire and water. While in this situation, one of our own ships, like the Levite and Priest in the Scriptures, passed by and left the sufferers unnoticed. But another man, like the good Samaritan in the parable to which I have alluded, saw and rescued them. And this man, was he a Yankee? An American? No! He was a Spaniard, and his name was Bernardo De Soto!