“Eight days after this, we arrived at Santa Carolina, where we were landed. The ‘Zambesi’ remained at Santa Carolina two or three days, and then returned to Mozambique with the late Governor Leotti. I wished to go to Inhambane in the ‘Zambesi,’ but I was not allowed to do so.
“In about a month’s time, the ‘Zambesi’ with Leotti on board, returned to Santa Carolina; she remained there two days, and then we and Leotti came up in her to Mozambique.
“(Signed) Henry Batt,
“Second Mate.
“Witness to Signature.
“(Signed) John Turner.”
On bringing these circumstances under the notice of the Governor-general of Mozambique, he admitted the correctness of all the statements made by me relative to the “Zambesi” communicating with the “Minnetonka,” and stated that he had delivered both the Commander of the “Zambesi,” and the Ex-governor Leotti to the proper tribunals. To this I replied that I was aware that the Moor, who happened to be in command of the “Zambesi,” had been imprisoned; but that I was also aware that the Ex-governor Leotti, under whose orders the Moor acted, was still at large. He then stated that he had taken his sword from Leotti, and forbade his leaving the island of Mozambique, and that he had now released the Moor from prison, placing both of them in the same condition.
The Moor, I learned, had been kept in command of the “Zambesi,” because the officer who ought properly to have commanded that ship refused to do the bidding of the Governor-general of Mozambique, in communicating with slavers, and seizing legal traders. This fact is well known, not only in Mozambique, but also at Lisbon; but the deserving officer who would not prostitute himself, his uniform, and the “Zambesi” to the nefarious practices of Vasco Guedes, will go unrewarded. It is by losing these opportunities of promoting the deserving that the Portuguese government have established the reputation of neglecting merit and advancing knaves.
Eight months after this action had occurred, and after numerous failures to collect the members of the Court, Leotti and the Moor were tried by military officers, not for communicating with the “Minnetonka” slaver in the Portuguese schooner of war “Zambesi,” but simply for disobedience of orders, and of course acquitted. Leotti had bribed the members of the Court well, and himself and his companion were pronounced innocent of the charge preferred against them.