Captain Colnett has been in such a state of insanity ever since the vessel has been captured by the Spaniards that we are obliged to confine him to his cabin. Yesterday morning he jumped out of the cabin window, and it was with great difficulty his life was saved. His constant cry is that he is condemned to be hanged. I sincerely hope for his speedy recovery, but am apprehensive he never will recover his former senses again. I understand from the boy, Russell, that it is a family disorder and that they all have symptoms of madness more or less.
The next day he wrote: “Captain Colnett is much better to-day, and, in general, discourses very rationally.” It was at this time that Duffin made his vain attempt to draw out the particulars of the capture. Duffin seems to blame Colnett.
On the afternoon of July 3, immediately after seizing Colnett, Martinez had taken possession of the _Argonaut_, had run up the Spanish flag, and had imprisoned all of the officers and crew, removed them from their own ship, and confined them on board the two Spanish vessels. Of the events that followed during the next ten days, while preparations were being made to send the vessel to San Blas for the Viceroy to decide whether she was good prize, there are greatly divergent accounts, as in the case of the other captured ships. It is significant that the further the writing was removed from the event the blacker is the picture drawn in the English accounts of the Spaniard’s cruelty. Doubtless the most authentic is the one first written--the letters of Duffin, already referred to.
After a little time Colnett and Duffin, with two other officers, were allowed to return to their own ship. On the 11th Duffin wrote: “I am at present in possession of my cabin, as are also the rest of us, and the commodore behaves with great civility, by obliging us in every liberty that can be expected as prisoners.” This is pretty strong evidence that there was nothing very barbaric about Martinez’s treatment, since Duffin had no motive for concealing the truth. What he wrote had to be by stealth, he says, and was taken by Mr. Barnett, an Englishman of the crew of the _North-West America_, who was going to China on board the American ship. Under these circumstances he would probably not have represented the Spaniard’s conduct more favorably than it deserved. Many of the supplies and stores on board the English ship were appropriated by the Spaniards; but not without arrangement for compensation, as would be inferred from later English accounts. Speaking of their appropriation, Duffin says: