“Captain Lewrie was, perjuriously, tried in absentia before,” MacDougall said with a sly look. “Once back on Jamaica, might Mister Hugh Beauman arrange a second? From wherever he has gone? No, I say, my lord! It must end here today. Justice must be done him!”
Oh Christ, it was almost over! Don’t do . . . ! Lewrie fearfully thought; I’d known Beauman scarpered, I’d’ve considered it myself!
“I humbly urge you to empanel a jury of twelve men, good and true, my lord,” MacDougall said with a hand on his breast. “Let them hear, and see, the facts of the matter, and determine Captain Lewrie’s fate for good and all, my lord.”
Some spectators cheered and huzzahed, though most made buzzing sounds of confusion and surprise; which noises covered Lewrie’s groan. To the crowd in the courtroom, it had looked over and done with, and MacDougall’s request seemed suicidal.
Mine arse on a band-box, Lewrie gawped to himself; he wants to show off! Got all his set-pieces, and can’t abide not usin’ ’em!
“Milud,” Sir George Norman cried before the last of the hub-bub died down. “To proceed without my principal, my witnesses, and the use of the trial transcript, Mister Hugh Beauman might as well be tried in absentia! It would be so one-sided. . . .”
“Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander!” MacDougall chirped.
“Ahem!” from the Lord Justice, and some more gavelling. “There is the risk to Captain Lewrie that at some time in the future, a trial could be demanded by the plaintiff. And, though your presentation to a jury may not go much beyond your opening statements to lay charges, Sir George, if counsel for the Defence has his affidavits, witnesses . . . whose service may not allow them to be gathered together all in one place ever again . . . might even be unavailable to Captain Lewrie and some future attorney should the plaintiff in this matter decide to pursue his case on more salubrious grounds . . . well, they’re here today. If you have no objections, Sir George, I am tempted to seat a jury and proceed. How say you, sir?”
Sir George Norman, K.C., could never admit that he’d been taken in by the seeming authority of the trial transcript from Jamaica; that the witnesses Hugh Beauman had imported might have been lying through their teeth; that he’d never looked into the makeup of the jury before MacDougall had brought it up.
There was also the honourarium to consider; his fee, which had been partly paid, and, with the Beaumans fled the country, looked like it might never be. No skin off my arse! he seemed to say to himself. He scowled in thought for a long moment, then bowed his head.
“If Mister MacDougall wishes to proceed, and the demands of the Navy would not allow his witnesses to be gathered together at a later time, then . . . I bow to your ruling, milud.”
With voir dire objections and questioning, it took an hour for a jury to be seated; then came the opening statements. Sir George did his best, though with a “third party” distancing air. “My principal asserts that on such and such a date, Captain Alan Lewrie, with malice aforethought . . . witnesses at the scene of the crime asserted that . . . did conspire with Leftenant-Colonel Christopher Cashman, now fled the jurisdiction of King’s Justice to America, to receive twelve Negroes slaves, from my principal’s plantation on Portland Bight, the value of the slaves at the time twenty-five pounds apiece . . . ‘’
MacDougall ostentatiously cleaned his fingernails with a pen-knife ’til Sir George was done, then sprang to his feet like a Jack-in-the-Box.
“My lord, gentlemen of the jury, I am not quite sure whether counsel for the plaintiff has just accused Captain Lewrie of outright theft, or of the lesser charge of illegal conversion! Either way, is it believable that the value of a human being’s life, the value of his short and brutal labour, so back-breaking and hideous that most perish within five years, is only worth twenty-five pounds? And if so, why did not Hugh Beauman sue in the Court of Common Pleas for three hundred pounds?”
He then encapsulated for the jury the injustice done his client at the trial on Jamaica; to which Sir George Norman made no objections. . . . He might have been contemplating dinner, for his part was done. It was old news for the spectators, but visibly distasteful to the jury as they learned what a sham the trial in absentia had been, and the feud that had preceded it.
“Now let us proceed, gentlemen, to the root cause,” MacDougall said, returning to the Defence table for a letter that his clerk, Mr. Sadler, handed him. “Here is a letter from former Leftenant-Colonel Christopher Cashman, with whom Captain Lewrie allegedly conspired. I wish you to be patient as I read this affidavit, sworn before a Justice of the Peace in Wilmington, North Carolina, in the United States, and witnessed and notarised . . . which affidavit has already been presented to the court and laid in evidence.”
The affidavit laid out Cashman’s career in both the British and East India Company armies, his return to the West Indies, his initial acceptance of slavery as a necessity to work his lands, his previous military service in conjunction with then Lieutenant Lewrie during the last year of the American Revolution, and their rencontre in the ’90s, when he had been asked by the Beaumans to lead the volunteer regiment. The botched battle, Ledyard Beauman’s cowardice, and the feud that followed, which led to the duel. Then . . .
“By this time, I was heartily sick of Jamaica, heartily sick of the Beaumans, and all their brute class, and, most especially, sick of the horrid institution of slavery, a view which I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my old friend Alan Lewrie wholeheartedly shared,” MacDougall stressed, pacing urgently before the jury box as he read on. He’d sold some of his slaves off, the most troublesome and truculent, but freed the bulk of them. Then as he was selling up, after the duel, it had been Cashman who had suggested freeing some of Beauman’s slaves as well.
“ ‘I took it upon myself to approach the field hands of Mister Hugh Beauman’s plantation next to mine on Portland Bight, using one of my newly freed house servants as intermediary, hinting that those among them who wished to run and join the Royal Navy would be welcome aboard a frigate which would be off the coast in a few days. I then suggested to my fellow Abolitionist, Alan Lewrie, that, was his crew so decimated by Yellow Fever that he was in difficulties to keep her manned, there could be a round dozen eager volunteers available . . . ’ ”
Lyin’ like a Turkey carpet! Lewrie flummoxed to himself in the dock; Didn’t happen quite like that. A damned good lie, though!
“ ‘. . . night that Proteus closed the coast, I rode down shoreward, to the edge of my property, which abutted the Beaumans’ lands, and with a great deal of satisfaction, watched as the boats came ashore, a dozen young men embark into them, and was, for a time, fearful that the commotion from their parents and kinfolk, who had come down the beach with them to see them off, might awaken the overseers, for such lamentations of loss, yet joyful hosannahs of relief that some few of their fellows might gain their freedom, were hardly to be contained no matter the need for quiet and secrecy. At that moment I felt such a rush of pride that it was successfully carried off, without interruption, along with such a flood of emotion that brought tears to my eyes to see even a few young men escape the clutches of the Beaumans, and take their freedom from a life that is little better than a death sentence, that I swore at that moment that not only would I abjure from owning another human being in my life, but would work tirelessly to see slavery outlawed in all the nations of the earth, no matter what that stance personally cost me.’
“The words of a man who now resides in a nation which upholds slavery . . . in a state famed for its agriculture, and naval stores . . . all of which require Negro slave labour. In a town where such views are anathema, where, once the contents of Colonel Cashman’s affidavit are known to his fellow citizens, he very likely faces social and financial ruin, sirs. Consider what courage that took for him to testify on Captain Lewrie’s behalf,” MacDougall posed to the jury.
“Milud,” Sir George Norman said with a piteous smirk as he rose to his feet, “it would seem that my lear
ned colleague has just admitted his principal’s guilt!”
“To what specific crime, my lord, does Sir George refer?” Mr. MacDougall quickly retorted, plucking the front of his black court robe. “Does he maintain that Captain Lewrie instigated and premeditated the crime of Robbery, in the face of Leftenant-Colonel Cashman’s confessing affidavit? Or does he wish to now reduce his accusations to Conversion of Property? The waters must be un-muddied upon this head for the clarification of the jury, my lord. Let us be specific.”
Has he lost his fuckin’ mind? Lewrie could but goggle quietly.
Lord Justice Oglethorpe scratched his scalp under his bag-wig with a pencil, scowled, pursed his lips, then impatiently waved both barristers forward to the front of his bench, where ensued a lengthy, hushed conversation; one that must have pleased MacDougall right down to the ground, for, when Oglethorpe shooed them away, he had a bright smile plastered on his phyz, whilst Sir George Norman was shaking his head.
“Ahem . . . upon reception of the confession from Mister Christopher Cashman, counsel for the plaintiffs has amended his accusations to a charge of illegal Conversion. Silence! Silence in the . . . !” He had to cry and gavel for order as the spectators raised yet another great cheer.
“Now, let us see how the event occurred, that dark night off the coast of Portland Bight, three years ago,” Mr. MacDougall said in the relative silence, after the crowd had settled down once more. He waved to his clerk, Mr. Sadler, and another assistant, who stood up the easel and hung the bed sheet–sized roll of cloth upon the cross-piece, allowing it to fall open.
Wonder what that cost? Lewrie thought, shifting in his chair in the dock to look at it. MacDougall had gone to a chart maker’s for an up-to-date map of that section of coast, compared the new one to the old one that Proteus’s Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, had used, and had an artist or sign painter do up a large-scale version in full colour; pale blue wash for ocean, rocky shoals in grey, sand bars in tan, and land in pale green, with forests and fields done in a darker green. A topographic map of the plantations in question surely must have come from Jamaica, as well, for the Beaumans’, and Cashman’s, plantings were delineated quite accurately, right down to the locations of the houses, barns, and slave quarters; all of them neatly labelled, as was the beach where the ship’s boats had grounded; and all distances from specific points clearly marked, corresponding to a distance scale in the lower left corner.
“At this point, my lord, I call Lieutenant Adair to testify,” MacDougall intoned, going all solemn, now that he was at the meat of the matter.
MacDougall worked his way down through the Commission officers to Mr. Winwood, and the Purser, Mr. Coote, showing how the “crime” was committed. Sir George Norman sat mum at his table through it all, a befuddled and seemingly disinterested air about him. Under English Common Law, he had no right to cross-examine witnesses, and, with no witnesses of his own to present in rebuttal, his continued presence was merely decorative.
Yet MacDougall did not stick to the distances, the times, or the particular actions that Lewrie’s juniors had performed that night; to Lt. Adair, he posed the question of what he heard and saw on shore.
Had the other slaves been celebrating?
“They were, sir,” Adair stated. “I was fearful that their cries might rouse the overseers.” The form of it? “Tears, and hugging, and handshaking, sir. Joy and sadness, mixed. Soft singing, and such.”
“And once into the boats and making your way back to Proteus, sir, did anything odd occur?” MacDougall asked.
“We heard barking, sir,” Lt. Adair answered. “At first, I imagined that the overseers and their dogs were near the beach, but in a short time, we discovered that the barking came from seals, sir.”
“Seals, Lieutenant Adair?” MacDougall said, striking a surprised pose, obviously with foreknowledge of what Adair would say. “In the West Indies? Are they not hunted out?”
“It was . . . eerie, sir,” Adair declared. “Aye, seals are rare in those seas, but that night, they appeared all round us. Every man at the oars saw them, and commented on them. A dozen or more of them, swimming about our boats, just beyond the reach of the oars, right to the ship’s side, sir, where the rest of the crew saw and heard them, as well.”
“And what did you make of that, sir?” MacDougall crooned.
“God’s blessing ’pon our action, sir,” Lt. Adair solemnly said, then smiled. “Captain Lewrie and seals, well sir . . . ’tis mysterious how often seals have appeared in warning or . . . almost approval, sir, just before Captain Lewrie went into a fight. For so is the rumour in the Fleet about him, d’ye see, sir. A minor miracle, some say.”
Did the dozen slaves sign aboard willingly? Were they fed and clothed, kitted, and paid, the same as any English sailor? Were any of them troublemakers, drunkards, discipline problems; were any of the Black sailors stupid, were any of them cowards? MacDougall asked him.
Willingly, aye; treated the same as any volunteer; very little trouble from any of them; the usual binges on runs ashore, which were rare, same as British tars; illiterate, but not stupid, for many went on from Landsman to Ordinary Seaman, two had been rated Able in short time, and, there were certainly no cowards among them. The runaways were as brave as lions, every Man Jack, Lt. Adair could swear.
Lt. Gamble and Midshipman Grace reiterated Adair’s high opinion of them, whilst Mr. Winwood told of their muster-aboard baths under a wash-deck pump and hose, which he likened to their baptism into a new life; how little they’d been told of Christianity, and the sacrifice and resurrection of the Saviour (which had many a lady in the courtroom dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief) and how he had taken it on himself to minister to their spiritual needs and education, seeing as how HMS Proteus did not, at that time, rate a Chaplain willing to ship to the Fever Isles of the West Indies.
“Are you conversant with slavery laws in the Crown colonies, Mister Winwood?” MacDougall finally asked.
“Somewhat, sir. More so now, than previous,” Winwood intoned in his sober and ponderous manner; and frowned when his comment was taken as slightly humourous by the spectators.
“What charge may be laid against a slave who runs away from his master or mistress, Mister Winwood?” MacDougall pressed.
“Uhm . . . that, since he is not a free man, sir, only property, . . . not reckoned a man at all, really . . . that he is guilty of stealing himself, I believe,” Winwood replied.
“Guilty of stealing himself?” MacDougall pretended consternation in a loud voice. “And the punishment would be what? An hundred lashes? Pilloried in the stocks? Branded? His hamstrings cut so he may only limp? A foot cut off with an axe?”
“I have heard-tell that one, or all, of those punishments are awarded, sir,” Mr. Winwood agreed in grave sadness, shaking his head sorrowfully. “A second unsuccessful attempt may result in death by the lash, or being hung.”
“Do civilised people do such to cows that stray, horses that take the bitt ’tween their teeth and gallop?” MacDougall posed. “To a dog that piddles on the carpet? A cat which climbs a tree?”
“Indeed not, sir!” Winwood said.
“Yet many slaves do risk such punishments each year, do they not, Mister Winwood? Steal themselves and run . . . on Jamaica, to the so-called Cockpit Country . . . to the Blue Mountains, and the jungles, don’t they? What do they call them, Mister Winwood?”
“They do, sir. They call them Maroons,” Winwood answered.
“Do you believe that Captain Lewrie is a thief, Mister Winwood? One who received stolen property for his own use, sir?”
“No, sir. In this instance, I would call him a Christian gentleman,” the Sailing Master somberly replied, turning to look the men of the jury in the eyes. “You might as well put me on trial, for what we did that night. . . . I only wish we’d had a ship of the line, ’stead of a frigate, in need of hands, and taken all of them away.”
MacDougall paced back towards the Defence table, but paused in
midstride and whipped about. “One last question of you, sir. . . . If, under Jamaican slave law, the Blacks in this matter stole themselves, who, then, used them for his own purposes, Mister Winwood . . . Captain Alan Lewrie, or King George the Third, in whose service twelve brave Black men willingly volunteered, and five of whom have perished?”
“Now, I must object, milud!” Sir George Norman cried, shooting to his feet, roused from his nodding stupor at last. “The witness is a Warrant Officer in the Navy, not a legal scholar, and cannot form a legal judgement, in the first instance, and . . . for honoured counsel for the Defence to suggest that his Majesty shares any guilt in this crime is abominable and shameful, in the second!”
“Withdrawn, my lord,” MacDougall offered, hiding his amusement. “I have no more questions for this witness.”
“The insult to the Crown, milud!” Sir George pressed.
“Mister MacDougall,” Lord Justice Oglethorpe said with a dyspeptic scowl or warning, “you are known for frippery in court, but let me caution you to eschew any suggestion of lèse-majesté against our Sovereign.”
“The question is withdrawn, my lord,” MacDougall said, looking a trifle hurt, like a boy caught skylarking and called down for it. “An injudicious phrase, when the proper statement might have been the Royal Navy, or Great Britain, which prospered from the services of the sailors in question, rather than our King. I stand admonished, milord.”
“Very well, then. You have more witnesses?” Oglethorped asked.
“I do, my lord.”
“It is now nearly a quarter to twelve,” the Lord Justice said, “so we shall adjourn for dinner. Proceedings shall resume this afternoon, at half past one.”
The Baltic Gambit Page 3
