'Sir George can't touch him in Portugal! Why, there's thousands owing!'
What my father did, when he went bust, Lewrie enjoyed recalling; after he crimped me into the Navy, and Granny Lewrie refused to die and leave me ev'rything. He took a second to look back at the spectators' benches and espied Sir Hugo, who was hovering rather droolishy and leeringly wolf-like over some 'chickabiddy' woman in her late thirties.
'I do so look forward to seeing the expression on Sir George's face when that shoe drops, 'deed I do, Captain Lewrie,' Mr. MacDougall whinnied like a panting pony.
'If they've decamped, this could just be dismissed, then… just like that?' Lewrie asked with a snap of his fingers.
'Well, not quite, sorry t'say.' MacDougall sobered, leading him back towards the Defence table. 'Our first outing last year was an evidentiary hearing, with Lord Justice Oglethorpe ruling that he would review both the trial transcript, and our affidavits. Even with those Beaumans gone… and Sir George left without a leg to stand on, with all previous testimony against you declared 'colourable,' there still remains the fact that, with your own witnesses giving the lie to the evidence in the trial transcript, you do lay yourself open to the charge of Illegal Conversion of another's property… assuming the jury will be of a mind to consider your Black sailors property. Once I learned of the Beaumans' departure, I did consider requesting an en bane proceeding, with Lord Justice Oglethorpe to rule upon your guilt or innocence, yet… 'tis not the irrefutable facts of your defence t'will prevail today, but the irrational emotions of your Black sailors' testimony that will carry the day. Logic bedamned. 'Tis the heartstrings of the jurymen… the notoriety your cause has created among them beforehand… the sympathy for your Blacks, and for you, particularly, that the jurymen's wives have expressed over the last year, that will… hopefully… find you acquitted.' MacDougall all but promised in a sly, cagy way. 'Be of sanguine takings, Captain Lewrie. You stand very good odds of walking out of court a competely free man. Aha!'
A side door at the back of the courtroom opened. A court official emerged in robe and wig, with a large ornamental mace in his hand, which he loudly thudded on the floor, crying 'Oyez, oyez, oyez!' to silence the packed crowd, and order them to take seats.
Free to do what? Lewrie wondered as the procession of officials emerged, as Lord Justice Oglethorpe in his voluminous black silk robes and large bag-wig strode out as grand as a royal.
Even were he acquitted, Lewrie just knew that Lord Spencer at Admiralty would never give him another warship. He'd be assigned to the Yellow Squadron, that unofficial dust-bin for fools, incompetents, lunaticks, and dodderers. He'd stay ashore on half-pay, might even rise to Rear-Admiral of the Red, should he outlive his contemporaries-but 'beached,' waiting for seniors to die.
Lewrie knew his shortcomings; they were legion. He could not pretend to be a gentleman farmer; he'd tried that 'tween the wars and had been a miserably confused failure. He was too old to take up some new career, too gullible to stand for a seat in Parliament, too idle and slug-a-bed, if given the chance, to seek merchant service. He was too poor to play the market at the 'Change (and most-like would waste his last farthing on speculative idiocy and ignorance), too much of a stiff-necked 'gentleman' to stoop to anything that smacked of 'Trade' and Commerce, no matter how lucrative (or risky) such turned out to be for other venturers. The prize-money he had reaped in the Med, in the West Indies, and South Atlantic was tied up in the Sinking Funds and Three Percents anyway, and sooner or later, the last of that'd come in, and there'd be nothing after.
Maybe Twigg needs a new cut-throat, he speculated as he took a seat at the Defence table, before the summons to the raised dock.
CHAPTER THREE
Lord Justice Oglethorpe was a stolid man, a phlegmatic and ponderous older fellow who, it was rumoured, could take an hour choosing an entrйe from his club's daily menu, and so meditative at chess, cards, or backgammon that no one had asked him for a game since his teens.
'Your principals are not present, Sir George?' he enquired with a bland expression. 'How odd.'
'They are not, milud,' Sir George Norman, usually a very smooth gentleman, responded, fidgeting a little, looking as if he wished that he could jerk his head about to hunt for them. Both his clerks had already been sent haring round the halls and into the street outside, in a desperate last-minute search for the Beauman party.
'And have you, sir, had cause to correspond with them prior to this instant?' Oglethorpe intoned, with his head cocked to one side.
'I have not, milud,' Sir George had to admit, all but wringing his hands. 'Not since a brief note from their lodgings in Islington, in receipt of my informing them of the date their case was to be held.'
'How extremely odd,' Oglethorpe commented with an uncharacteristic huff. 'Mister MacDougall… I trust your witnesses are here.'
'We are, in all respects, both ready, and eager, to proceed, my lord,' MacDougall piped up as he bowed his head, taking a second for a smirk in Sir George Norman's direction.
A folder of pale 'law calf' was opened, up on the banc surface, and papers rustled as Lord Justice Oglethorpe cleared his throat with several 'ahems,' waiting out the snickers and whispers of the court spectators.
'Ahem… in the matter of Beauman versus Lewrie… after an exhaustive review of the trial transcript from the High Court in Kingston, Jamaica… and comparing the witness statements sworn in that proceeding against the sworn affidavits provided by the defendant, I find such contradictions of the facts of the matter obtaining to warrant an entirely fresh proceeding,
'Further… the nature of the jury empanelled on Jamaica, with so many of the members either kin to the Beaumans, or kin to the Captain George Sellers, who perished along with Colonel Ledyard Beauman in an infamous duel of honour, and, the inclusion of men either employed by Mister Hugh Beauman or his kin, or intimately linked with the slave trade on Jamaica, smacks of collusion and prejudice… which as well requires a new proceeding,
'Therefore… ahem!… I rule that Captain Lewrie's trial in absentia at Kingston, Jamaica, the verdict of guilty, and the sentence of death by hanging is null and void, and is set as-'
The last of his ruling was drowned out by hoots, whistles, and cheers from the spectators, and a boisterous round of clapping (along with the surreptitious exchange of pound notes as bets were paid off) that continued 'til Oglethorpe gavelled them to relative silence, and more carefully guarded pleased whispers, coughs, and the rustling of ladies' skirtings.
'At this juncture, ahem…,' Lord Justice Oglethorpe continued. 'I should empanel a jury. I wonder, however, Sir George, whether such an action might be precipitate. If your principal is not here, and neither are any of the witnesses quoted in the transcript, I conjure you, sir… are you able to lay a case against Captain Lewrie, this day?'
'I… I… '' Sir George Norman stammered, all his glibness and noble carriage punched from him. 'Is the transcript of the previous trial eliminated, milud, I do not see how I would be able, no.' Sir George could almost be heard groaning… or grinding his teeth.
'My lord!' MacDougall cried. 'Will this odious charge hang over my principal's head the rest of his life, like the Sword of Damocles? Must Captain Lewrie's good name, his repute as a successful Commission Sea Officer in our Navy, be besmirched? His accusers are not present today, but… when might Mister Hugh Beauman come forth with a fresh proceeding, a new crop of witnesses, perhaps even an expanded list of charges, since the first set did not suit? A year, my lord? Two, or five, or ten?
'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
