speech, and his close and
pertinent style of remark. He appeared to me such a man as would have
made a hero in the ranks of his country, had circumstances placed him in
the proper road to fame; but ignorance and poverty turned into the most
ferocious robber, one who might have rendered service and been an honor
to his sunken country. I should like to hear what the phrenologists say
of his head; it appeared to me to be the most peculiar I had ever seen,
and certainly, as far as the bump of _destructiveness_ went, bore the
theory fully out. It is rumored here that the skull has been sent to the
_savans_ of Edinburg; if this be the case, we shall no doubt be made
acquainted with their sage opinions upon the subject, and great
conquerors will receive a farther assurance of how much they resemble in
their physical natures the greatest murderers.

When I visited the pirate in the Moorish castle where he was confined,
he was sitting in his cold, narrow, and miserable cell, upon a pallet of
straw, eating his coarse meal from a tin plate. I thought him more an
object of pity than vengeance; he looked so worn with disease, so
crushed with suffering, yet so affable, frank, and kind in his address;
for he happened to be in a communicative mood, a thing that was by no
means common with him. He spoke of his long confinement, till I thought
the tears were about to start from his eyes, and alluded to his
approaching trial with satisfaction; but his predominant characteristic,
ferocity, appeared in his small piercing black eyes before I left him,
as he alluded to his keeper, the Provost, in such a way that made me
suspect his desire for blood was not yet extinguished. When he appeared
in court on his trial, his demeanor was quite altered; he seemed to me
to have suddenly risen out of the wretch he was in his cell, to all the
qualities I had heard of him; he stood erect and unembarrassed; he spoke
with a strong voice, attended closely to the proceedings, occasionally
examined the witnesses, and at the conclusion protested against the
justice of his trial. He sometimes spoke to the guards around him, and
sometimes affected an air of carelessness of his awful situation, which,
however, did not sit easy upon him. Even here the leading trait of his
mind broke forth; for when the interpreter commenced his office, the
language which he made use of being pedantic and affected, Soto
interrupted him thus, while a scowl sat upon his brow that terri