The Baltic Gambit

CHAPTER ONE

A bloody awful day for 't," Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby commented as the hired coach-and-four clattered and swayed to a stop on the cobblestones before the steps leading up to the Old Bailey. With a wince and a sniff, he sampled the weather, sticking his head out of the right-hand side door window into the cold.

"Arr," his son, Captain Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy, idly replied. Lewrie, it must here be pointed out, was a tad hung over, after a sleepless night in his rooms at the Madeira Club, a sedate lodging for gentlemen not too far away from the Old Bailey, at the corner of Duke Street and Wigmore Street. His father, the old reprobate, leaned back to gather his walking stick and cloak, allowing Lewrie a view of the building. "Oh, Lord," Lewrie whispered.

Epiphany Sunday of the new year of 1801 had been on the fifth of January, and Hilary Term for King's Bench trials had, therefore, waited to open on Monday the sixth, with all the pomp, majesty, and circumstance of which England was capable, designed over the centuries to impress upon all Crown subjects, the innocent and the guilty alike, the terribleis gucir and implacable inevitability of Justice and Law.

Lewrie (whom no one could ever call innocent, exactly, but who had yet to learn if he was to be declared guilty) was definitely one of the impressed. Daunted, in point of fact. Shuddering in dread.

And did we mention hung over?

Lewrie looked beyond the horde of gawkers and spectators who spilled off the sidewalks onto the cobbled street, who had yet no inkling of whom the coach contained… up the wide steps that were clogged with even more spectators, from nobility to pick-pockets, prostitutes and the "flash" lads, the middling sort, and the idle poor, to the grim faзade of the building. Up beyond the roof to the sky that was grey and gloomy, half coal smoke and half wintry overcast that boded even more snow later in the day, up beyond to the flagpole…

"Oh, Lord," Lewrie reiterated, squeezing his eyes shut to squint for a second, before taking a second peek at the flag. "Eyes must be going, I think," he muttered.

On January 1, the Act of Union 'twixt England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland had come into force, with twenty-eight new Lords Temporal and four Lords Spiritual seated in Parliament, along with even more Members seated in the House of Commons. The old Union Flag had gotten updated with a so-called St. Patrick's Cross superimposed upon the old St. Andrew's Cross of the new Union Flag, which made it, to Lewrie at any rate, look rather… squiffy and un-focussed.

Maybe it's just me, Lewrie thought as a coachee opened the door and folded down the metal steps; ev'rything else seems clear. Though he had to shake his head and go "Brr!" before returning his eyes to the spectators.

"There 'e is! 'At's 'im! Huzzah!" several voices cried almost together as Lewrie alit on the street cobbles, and tried to shrug into the deep folds of his heavy wool boat-cloak, and clapped on his cocked hat. "Saint Alan, the Liberator, 'imself!"

Christ, I wish they'd lose that'un! Lewrie thought, wincing as his father jostled him as he got out behind him.

"Black Alan!" was hooted from others. "Three cheers, huzzah!"

Hell's Bells, that'un's not a whit better! he thought.

"Smile, damn ye," his father cautioned in a harsh whisper right near his ear. "Confidence, hmmm? Show for the damned Mob, what? As yer barrister said?" Sir Hugo prompted.

Lewrie forced himself to smile, took off his hat, and transferred it to his left hand, to leave his right one free… to fend off the pick-pockets, if for nothing else. The last time he'd appeared before King's Bench the summer before, one particularly skilled young lady of "the lifting lay," as his notorious old school friend Clotworthy Chute called it, had made off with his watch and fob and leather coin purse right as he'd threaded his way through throngs of well-wishers after his case had been held over for review! So it was understandable he kept his "top-lights" skinned for the charming "Three-Handed Jenny"!

Thursday the eighth of January, and bloody damned early in the morning to boot, was a hellish cold day for London. Had Lewrie his druthers, he'd have worn two boat-cloaks and a carriage blanket round his knees, but… his impending trial had become a Nine-Day Wonder, no thanks to the many tracts, cartoon prints, and "bought" newspaper articles put out by the Reverend William Wilberforce's Society for the Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire the last year, entire, so Lewrie could hardly disguise himself any longer, nor could he swaddle himself against the weather, either. Reluctantly, he flung back the boat-cloak to reveal his gilt-laced uniform coat, and the hundred-guinea presentation sword given him by the East India Company after a sea fight against a French frigate in the South Atlantic that saved a small convoy of "John Company" ships returning from India, in 1799.

And, despite his wariness of pick-pockets (and eyes darting for signs of "Three-Handed Jenny"), Lewrie was thronged by gentlemen and ladies wishing to take hands with him, by people fluttering portrait prints of the artist de Koster's charcoal life sketch (now available from Mr. Brydon's shop in Charing Cross) for him to sign with pencil in the margins.

Ye'd think I'm Nelson, fresh from the Battle of the Nile, not a slave-crimper! Lewrie ruefully told himself, and wondering if he'd attract the same sort of acclaim should he be found guilty and carted off to the gallows, a few days hence. And would he have to put on the same confident and affable show, to "Go Game" as a convicted highwayman?

"God bless you, sir! Good on yer! Might you do me the honour of inscribing…? Best of luck t'ye this day, sir! Me son served wi' ye in th' old Jester sloop, Cap 'm, un'… The Devil take those horrid Beaumans, and God uphold the right, I say, Captain Lewrie!" came from dozens as he slowly made his way up the broad steps to the welcoming doors, now standing wide open despite the cold, and visibly blasting waves of warmth from the interior. Calls for "Abolition of slavery, throughout the British Empire, now!" were followed by " 'Ere, oo's 'at git?" with the faint cry of "Thief, thief!" from the edge of the crowd, out by piles of shovelled-away snow, now gone grey from coal smoke grit and frozen half to ice. Thankfully, it was not directed at Lewrie, but at some clumsy pick-pocket, who was sprinting away as fast as his legs could carry him, with or without the object of his craft, pursued by a clutch of men.

Oh, there were some stout and prosperous-looking men, heavily and expensively overcoated against the chill, who stood far back at the edges of the crowd, round to either side of the top of the steps, who glowered at him; men engaged in the sugar trade, which utterly depended on slave labour for their crops… men in the tobacco, rice, rum, and cotton imports, and men in the West Indies and American shipping businesses, which maintained the infamous Triangle Trade of British gewgaws to Africa, slaves in exchange to the Americas and West Indies, then raw goods back to Great Britain. Any threat to slave economies would mean utter ruin to their fortunes. Sadly, among those silently jeering men were several senior officers of his own service; most-like muttering "that bloody bastard, Lewrie"-there were more than a few who'd formed that opinion of him during his twenty-year naval career!

Closer to, though, was a shivering clutch of "Saint Giles Blackbirds," Negro sailors off merchant ships docked, or frozen in, in the Pool of London. Freemen, or slaves who had been successful in running away to sea, thousands of miles from the warmth of their islands in the Caribbean, half starved on bad victuals, cheated of their due pay by skinflint captains, "crimped off" at the end of their voyages to the Impress Service without ha'pence of their wages by some captains even cleverer, they huddled in the slums of St. Giles a clan apart, waiting for an outbound vessel to sign them aboard once more; and, living hand to mouth and begrudging every meal at a two-penny ordinary, every pot of ale or beer in the meantime.

"You show 'em, sah! You whup dem slavah mens!" they dared cry out. "Ya git anuddah ship, sah, ah'll take yah Joinin' Bounty, sah! De Good Lord bless ya, Cap'm Lewrie!"

Lewrie turned aside to go to them, the crowd parting before him like the Red Sea had for Moses, and shook hands with as many as were in reach; though he felt like snarling to hear the simpering and cooing of the "Respectable," and superior, sort among the Abolitionists, who kept the objects of their Cause at arm's length, and patted themselves on the back for their Doing of Good Works… of the Drawing Room variety, and would never even think of going down to St. Giles… or of deeming those "Blackbirds" real people.

And what had led to this display of acclaim? A ship's crew in the West Indies ravaged by Yellow Jack in 1797; a disagreement between the Beauman family of Jamaica and his old friend Christopher Cashman, who had retired from the Army with his reaped wealth from hard field service in "John Company's" army in India, and who had, for a time, thought the life of a slave-owning sugar planter on Jamaica would be the sweet life. The bloody slave revolt on the ultra-rich sugar colony on French St. Domingue, which butchered Whites no matter their class or station, and which had drawn a British Army with an eye to seizing the whole thing… thankee that damned scheming fool, Henry Dundas, the Secretary of State for War, who would trade ten thousand British soldiers' lives for an enemy colony in the West Indies, and a cheer in Commons… had led the "patriotic" Beaumans to raise a regiment, and who better to lead it than former-Major Christopher Cashman, with that simpering twit Ledyard Beauman as Colonel of the Regiment over Leftenant-Colonel Cashman, with the rest of the officers' mess made up from Beauman kin and the younger sons of fellow planters. Most-like with an eye for new lands for themselves, and stout workers, once they were back in chains!

Outside Port-au-Prince, though, in the middle of a battle with the howling, fanatical army of the ex-slave general Toussaint L'Ouverture (no slouch, he, but damn' near a military genius!) Col. Ledyard Beauman, who'd gotten his martial experience from books and tabletop games with lead toy soldiers, had panicked, issued orders for retreat, and had galloped to the rear with his cousins and toadies, leaving Lewrie's friend Christopher Cashman to sort out the mess!

Back on Jamaica after the eventual evacuation of all British forces, the volunteer regiment shamed and dis-banded, the Beaumans had laid all the blame on Cashman, using their newspaper to vilify everyone but them, which had led to a duel of honour; which duel had turned to a farce, for Ledyard had been shivering drunk and fearful, and had turned and fired early, clipping the top of Cashman's shoulder. "Kit" had winced, but turned, and had taken careful, implacable aim, and Ledyard's cousin, George Sellers, his second, had thrown Ledyard a spare pistol, aiming his own at Cashman, and naturally Lewrie, as Cashman's second, and the judges on the field, to boot, had shot down the cousin, whilst Christopher had carefully plumped his own ball into Ledyard Beauman's belly, the sort of wound that would take several excruciating days to prove mortal.

With such a feud, which now included Lewrie, and death threats from the Beaumans, Cashman had begun selling up his lands, livestock, furnishings, and slaves for a fresh start in the United States, just about the time that Lewrie's precious HMS Proteus frigate had been hit with the Yellow Jack. As a cruel joke on the Beaumans, "Kit" Cashman had proposed a scheme for a dozen Beauman slaves off one of their plantations on Portland Bight (next to Cashman's) to run away and go aboard Proteus some dark night, which they had done, with HMS Proteus slipping close ashore like a thief in the night, and sailing back out as quietly as smoke went up a chimney.

Christopher Cashman landed in Wilmington, North Carolina, eventually, swearing he'd never own another slave (he'd manumitted almost all his house hold servants, and all the married couples, old'uns, and children), and Lewrie had gone on to cut a swath of destruction and mayhem through the King's enemies in the West Indies… 'til 1799, when the shoe finally dropped, and the Beaumans discovered just who had made away with their "property"!

Hugh Beauman, the elder of their Jamaican clan, with his icily beautiful new young wife, his Jamaican solicitor, and witnesses in tow, had come to England last spring, toting a preordained, bought-and-paid-for verdict of guilty, and a sentence of death by hanging. For a time, it had appeared that King's Bench would uphold the verdict and Lewrie would be doing a "Newgate Hornpipe," but for the intercession of Rev. William Wilberforce and his Abolition Society, who had taken the case as a "Holy Cause," gotten him a wily young barrister to defend him, and paid for his legal fees; shouted Abolition to the rafters of the House of Commons daily, and had flooded all London, all the British Isles, with tracts to keep the pot boiling, and the Cause advanced… embarrassing as all that notoriety was to Lewrie.

Now, here he was, about to enter a court of law to hear what Lord Justice Oglethorpe of King's Bench thought of that trial in absentia, and the conflicting evidence that Lewrie's barrister had presented in reply. Free of well-wishers and glad-handers at last, at the doors to the Old Bailey at last, Lewrie turned to the crowd and waved his hat, plastering a broad grin on his phyz that he most definitely did not feel, and went inside. No matter what transpired in the next few hours-and most trials in England barely lasted more than four)-at least he might be warm again.