The Baltic Gambit

CHAPTER FOUR

The afternoon's testimony indeed turned out to be emotional and dramatic as Mr. MacDougall put all seven surviving Black sailors in the witness box, and led each of them first through their wretched lives as chattel slaves in the West Indies, and on the Beauman plantation in particular, then about their flight, their reception aboard Capt. Lewrie's frigate, and their experiences in the Royal Navy, since.

Shoddy clothing, if clothed at all; the poorest, meanest rations of condemned salt-beef or salt-pork, bug-infested rice, and but a few fresh greens or vegetables, with even so-called holiday victuals of a barely unremitted sameness, for even the rare duffs or puddings were, though cooked on a sugar cane plantation, sadly lacking in sweetness. How prime field hands, sleek when first they came from the slave ships and the vendue houses, wasted away to skin, gristle, and bones before three years were out… which was considered a bargain by unfeeling masters, considering the sad, low price placed on a human being they'd initially paid. There were always ships arriving with healthy slaves from Africa, the barracks and pens were continually full, and prices for people were nigh as low as those for cattle.

Crude huts for shelters, leaf-stuffed sacks for bedding on the dirt floors at night, exposed round the clock to insects and weather; up before the sun to the tolling of bells and the crack of whips, poor victuals choked down after being scooped by hand from communal pots, then back-breaking labour 'til the sun was all but set, with only one brief break in the shade for a miser's dinner.

And whips, and chains, and choke-collar boards round their necks for the slightest act of mis-behaviour, hot irons to brand recalcitrant shirkers; hot irons to sear the tongue from those who dared speak back without being asked a question, or for the merest suspicion of lying to an overseer, master, or mistress.

Poisonous snakes had been imported from Africa and India, turned loose in the surrounding forests to make sure that slaves wouldn't dare run off without risking a "five-stepper" death.

For the slow, the slow-witted, or lazy, for those who broke the poor tools they were given, for hiding a cane-cutting machete or knife, there was the whipping post, where the lashes were doled out capriciously; thirty for this sin, fifty for another, perhaps an hundred for the same offence at the whim of the overseer's imagination, with age or sex no assurance of leniency.

And slave women… the young, firm, and handsome were masters' prey, overseers' perquisites. In the fields, in the huts after dark, it was just rape, when drunken sons of slave-masters and their friends or cousins felt like it, and the mother, the father, the lover who objected in the slightest laid himself open to pure torture, and no one could lift a hand to rescue the young girls. After all, slave children quickened by White men fetched more when auctioned off, and made lighter skinned, less-African-featured house servants-to-be.

Did house servants have it slightly better? Of a certainty, but they paid a high price. Did slave women, mothers against their will, hope that their offspring might be "bright" enough to be spared field work? Of course. If girls, though, planters' sons desired them more.

Did anyone ever preach the Gospel to them? Only the snippets from Saint Paul's letters that urged, "Slaves, behave your masters."

"And, since signing articles aboard Proteus," MacDougall asked the wiry young George Rodney, who had been a spry topman and a sharpshooter, "did Captain Lewrie ever put you, or any of the other volunteers to any work in his great-cabins? To wait upon his table, buff his boots, do his laundry? Anything like that?"

"Nossuh, he nevah did. Wull, Jones Nelson be in 'is boat crew, but dat 'coz he big un' strong oarsman. Be a run-out tackleman on de twelve-poundah'r eighteen poundah'r, sah."

"So Captain Lewrie did not consider you his personal property?"

"Oh, nossuh!" Rodney firmly replied. "I'z a British sailah in de Royal Navy, sah. I'z a sailah o' King George."

"Captain Lewrie rated you a topman… one of the lads who goes aloft? Yes. Did you want to be one?"

"Oh, yassah. Topmen be kings o' de ship, sah."

"And he trained you, all of you, with pistols, muskets, swords, and boarding pikes?" MacDougall asked, as he had of all the rest, but Mr. Cooke, who was a bit too old and stout for close combat; for he was indeed well-named, and had been Proteus's ship's cook.

"Lemme shoot Frenchmen wid his own Ferguson rifle-musket, me or his ol' Cox'n, Andrews, 'e did, sah," Rodney boasted. "Said de bot' o' us have de good eye."

"Yes, and have you killed a lot of Frenchmen?"

"Yassuh, I sho' have! 'Specially when we fight de French frigates two year ago," Rodney supplied. "Round dozen, right dere."

"You mentioned Coxswain Andrews," MacDougall went on. "Of what race was Coxswain Andrews?"

"He Black, like me, sah, well… fo' he run, I hear tell he wuz a house slave'r body slave," Rodney related, "so he wuz light-skinned. He be Cap'm Lewrie's Cox'n almos' since de 'Merican Revolution. But he got killed in de South Atlantic, two year ago."

"Was he a body servant to Captain Lewrie?" MacDougall shrewdly asked, looking at the jury, not his witness.

"Nossuh, he run de Cap'm's boat when he be called ashore, an' such," Rodney said. "Only fellah dat sees t' th' Cap'm is 'is cook an' cabin steward, Mistah Aspinall, ovah yondah," Rodney said, with a jab of his arm to the sailors behind the Defence table.

"And did Captain Lewrie ever have one of you fellows flogged for disobedience?" MacDougall asked.

"Can't recall dat evah happen, sah," Rodney said, frowning in reverie. "Cap'm Lewrie ain't big on floggin', 'cept fer when a man's been real bad. Didn't even flog Hood, Howe, Whitbread, Groome, and Bass, when dey git wobbly-drunk on Saint Helena, an' borrowed Mistah Wigmore's donkeys f'um de circus, an' raced 'em up de valley. Weren't no zebras, like dat Mistah Wigmore said, just painted up t'look like 'em. Dey git de donkeys drunk, too, at de las' tavern up de valley."

"And Captain Lewrie didn't flog anyone else on Saint Helena?" MacDougall enquired. "Not even when they tore up the island governor's gardens? Stole a magnolia tree, and rose bushes?"

"Cap'm be plenty mad, aye, sah," Rodney tittered with delight, "but 'e didn' flog nobody, just put 'em on bread an' watuh, wid no rum ner 'baccy fer a week. Didn't even flog when me an' Groome run off t'see Africker. Well, Groome died when de Cape Buff'lo trample 'im, an' I got mauled by a she-lion, so I s'pose I wuzn't fit t'flog fo' a spell… it ain't like we wuz desertin', sah, 'cause de circus people hadta come back t'Cape Town wid dey new beasts fo' de shows, but Groome an' me jus' wanted t'see where we come f'um fo' a bit, sah. I'z clawed up and bit on right bad, an' I s'pose de Cap'm think I punished enough."

The spectators could not contain simpers and snickers when the lad named his compatriots, who, at Mr. Winwood's urging, had taken new, freemen's names after their mustering-in baths under the wash-deck pump, as if leaving pagan lives of sin behind and being "washed white as snow" by baptism; new souls with new identities, and not what some capricious slave-master had named them.

Hood, Howe, Rodney, Anson, and Nelson for naval heroes; Groome and Cooke for their old occupations, then Bass and Whitbread for the imported beverages their masters had drunk.

Sir Samuel Whitbread, Member of Parliament, seated in the middle of the courtroom's spectator area that afternoon, perhaps didn't find it quite so amusing, but…

What Rodney described were sailors' antics, the sorts of things that young men of any race might risk when in drink and high spirits; and the adventures! Trampled by Cape Buffalo, mauled and bitten by a lion on a hunting, trapping jaunt into the wilds of mysterious Africa with a circus? Battling pirates in the Caribbean, the French and Spanish, with lashings of prize-money to prove their mettle, and success, why, what English lad didn't wish to run away to sea and have such adventures!

Lewrie peeked at the gentlemen in the jury box and was heartened to see a fair number of them smiling, or shaking their heads in kindly wonder over such doings.

"And you were paid the same as any British sailor in your rate, Seaman Rodney?" MacDougall good-naturedly asked him.

"Ev'ry penny t'th' jot an' tittle, sah," Rodney answered. "Ol' Mistah Coote, de Pursah, an' Cap'm Lewrie'z fair men, sah. An' ev'ry prize we take, I git my share same'z anybody. We whup de Creole pirates two year ago in Looziana, I made t'ree years' wages right dere!"

"And now you're a free man, Seaman Rodney," MacDougall continued in a softer voice, "do you wish to remain a British sailor, and a free man?"

"Best life I evah know, sah. Aye, I ain't nevah let any one make me a slave again," Rodney declared, with some heat. "I learn t'read an' write 'board ship, so nobody gon' trap me makin' my mark on somethin' I don't understand… got cypherin', too, so nobody gon' cheat me outta money, neither. War be ovah, I 'spect I'll ship out on a merchantman, 'less I find me a good girl an' start a fam'ly."

"And, finally, Seaman Rodney… what do you think of Captain Lewrie?" MacDougall asked him.

"He be a fine man, sah," Rodney gushed, "a fightin' man, and a good 'un, an' I just thank God he free me, an' God bless him fo 'evah."

And MacDougall's summation was glorious, of course, focussing not so much on denying the theft of slaves as he did praising it for a courageous Christian act. With the Jamaica trial transcript out, he could not refer to it, except to ask the jury to consider why not one accuser was present in court, even though the Beaumans had pursued the matter with white-hot eagerness, and at the cost of thousands of pounds for several years; did they suddenly fear being taken up themselves for laying a false and vengeful prosecution?

"And lastly, gentlemen," MacDougall declaimed in histrionic fashion, his arms outstretched, "consider that the dozen slaves, not worth three hundred pounds as less-than-human hewers of wood and drawers of water, worked to death in a few short years, then easily replaced with fresh young muscles… the merest pittance of those who yearly perish… the most minute fraction of all those hundreds of thousands yearning to live free!… have shed their blood for you, given their lives for you, who sleep snug at night behind Britain's 'wooden walls'! Go aloft, serve the guns, endure the boredom of blockading, and bravely face all the perils of weather and the wrath of the sea on our men-o'-war all round the world, this very minute, this very hour! Ask how many more would wish to emulate these stalwart young men. Yes, I say men, not dumb beasts, men who feel pain and joy, suffer disappointment and revel in victory… who serve God, King, and Country, in whose breasts burn the fires of patriotism as strongly as yours.

"It would be unconscionable to deny England their services… just as it would be equally unconscionable to return these men to the vengeful cruelty of slavery, to their former master, Mister Hugh Beauman of Jamaica!" MacDougall declared.

"And that, sirs, would be the logical result if the instrument of their new-found freedoms was condemned for a selfless act of liberation," MacDougall told the jury. "Human bondage had been outlawed in our happy isle for nearly fifty years, yet, do you find that Captain Alan Lewrie is guilty of stealing human beings, you reduce these men to chattel status once more, tacitly admit that they were mere property! Property, I say, with as little right to determine their own destinies as a bed-stead, or a dining room table! To even reward Hugh Beauman a single shilling per head as a compromise settlement would be tantamount to calling these eager young volunteers in our Navy no more men than a dozen pair of shoe buckles!

"No, gentlemen, don't do it," MacDougall urged the jury. "Deem what Captain Lewrie did a courageous act, the leeward gun fired in the challenge to a foe… as our beloved Admiral Horatio Nelson urges all captains to fire no matter the odds, or risk… a first, tentative, but significant blow against the abominable practice of Negro slavery that I am sure all true Britons despise… a bold geste done not for personal aggrandisement, which, I am also certain all Britons cheer, with nought but admiration for Captain Lewrie's courage in striking any sort of blow to this despicable institution, and expose its putrescent evils for all the world to see.

"We sing, gentlemen," MacDougall said, lowering his arms, sounding weary and exhausted, of a sudden, which forced the twelve men of the jury to lean a bit forward. " 'Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.' Fine for us, for we were born free men, and are now engaged in a war, defending our ancient right to remain free of a conquering tyrant with bulldog tenacity and determination. Can we deny the right to others who are just as determined to become free? Can we condemn a heroic Paladin who freed the first few?

"Find these charges baseless and mean, gentlemen!" MacDougall cried, suddenly finding new energy. "Acquit Captain Lewrie and set him free upon our nation's foes, and, in doing so, condemn the brutes who would make scornful mock of freedom for any man, Black or White, slave or free! Acquit, acquit, acquit, and show the world what true Britons think of human bondage!"

The jury shuffled out to their deliberation chamber, and Lewrie had time to visit the "jakes" for a long-delayed pee. Making his way through the throngs of supporters in the hallways, who had not gained seats in the courtroom, was a maddening hindrance 'pon his bladder, and it was with an immense sense of relief that he could stroll back out after doing up his breeches buttons to face the gauntlet once again, now of much better, less impatient takings.

"Sir! Sir, come quick!" MacDougall's clerk, Mr. Sadler, urged, making a narrow aisle through the crowd and beckoning in some haste. "The jury is ready to render. Bless me, not above eight minutes, in total. Never seen the like!"

"Is that good or bad?" Lewrie asked, considering that, whilst in the "necessary," it might have been a good idea to throw on his boat-cloak, exchange hats with a civilian gentleman, and "take leg-bail" for parts unknown.

"Might be very good, sir. On the other hand… excuse us?"

I'd love t'meet a one-armed law clerk or lawyer, Lewrie told himself; who can't say 'on the other hand.'

MacDougall gave him a tentative smile as he re-entered the grim courtroom, and a shrug as Lewrie re-mounted to the railed dock, where he felt too unsettled to sit down. Lewrie paced the tiny enclosure, a fair approximation of a condemned man's cell, he could imagine, trying to appear stoic, with a slight touch of bemusement, as he looked over the refilling courtroom from his elevated vantage point.

Damme, there's a stunner! he irrelevantly thought, espying an especially attractive young lady in a lavender gown and matching hat; Hope springs eternal… all that. It cheered him that the handsome lass smiled at him and dipped him a brief bow of encouragement.

Bang! went the bailiff's mace, and the cry of "Oyez!" as Lord Justice Oglethorpe resumed his place in the banc, and court functionaries filed in and took their own places… as the twelve men of the jury re-entered the courtroom through a side door and took seats in their own railed-off box. There was much shuffling of feet, coughing into fists, the rustling of gowns and men's coats, the creaking of a new pair of boots, and the bang! of a stubbed toe against the pew-like benches of the spectators' gallery. Oddly, there was no whispering or chatting, this time; only an expectant hush worthy of the last act of a tragedy staged in Drury Lane.

"The jury has determined a verdict in the matter of Beauman versus Lewrie?" Lord Justice Oglethorpe enquired, once the last of the traditional forms had been acted out.

"We have, my lord," the elected foreman announced.

"Pray, do you declare it," Oglethorpe ordered.

"Ahem!" from the foreman.

"Free him, pray God!" some feminine voice was heard to utter.

"We, the jury, find, in the matter of Beauman et al. versus Captain Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy, that the defendant is not guilty."

"Halleluah!" a male spectator shouted, a second before womanly shrieks of relief and joy, and a general "hoo-raw" and chorus of "huzzahs!" mixed with a tidal wave of bright chattering and glad laughter. Sailors behind the Defence table raised "three cheers"!

Holy shit! Lewrie thought, dumbstruck, and nigh-shaking with unutterable relief himself; ready to break out in maniacal laughter as well! What a marvellous thing it was, to know that one would not be cashiered, that one would not hang, and… that one did not owe one's lawyer tuppence! Not guilty! Well, not innocent, exactly, but it'll more than do, Lewrie thought; more… what did MacDougall call it? Jury nullification? Emotion ruled, not logic… and thank God for't!

He goggled round the courtroom at the spectators, the powerful and dedicated to abolition, the enthusiastic, and the mere lookers-on who'd come to any notorious trial. Lewrie spotted wee Rev. Wilberforce and his coterie, all looking about to break into unaccustomed dances of glee (for such an earnest and usually dour crowd), and confessed to himself that he'd let them down badly that night, for it was better than fair odds that he'd be drunk as a lord… drunk as an emperor by God!… by midnight!

Lord Justice Oglethorpe was gavelling away, had been for several minutes in point of fact, before the crowd in the courtroom subdued to a level where in he could make himself heard.

"Captain Alan Lewrie," Oglethorpe solemnly intoned in a loud voice, looking as stolid as ever he might had the jury gone the other way. "A jury of your peers having found you not guilty of the crime with which you were charged, I now declare you a free man."

Which formal declaration only served to set the crowd off once more. Oglethorpe banged away for order, now looking "tetched" by the interruptions.

"Last year, when first you appeared before this court, Captain Lewrie, you put up a surety bond to guarantee your future appearance, which your presence today fulfilled," Oglethorpe announced, "in the amount of one hundred pounds. Such sum I now order returned to you. These proceedings I now declare at an end, and you are free to depart. Court is… dismissed!" he said, with one final bang of his gavel.

An hundred pounds? Lewrie thought as he exited the dock; Orgy! A fкte champкtre, a roast steer, and barrels and lashin's o' drink!

"I told you!" MacDougall was chortling as he came to take hands with his "brief" and shake away vigourously. "I told you t'would be a complete exoneration! The jury found slavery guilty, as I planned."

"Nullification, d'ye mean? Wasn't it risky?" Lewrie asked, though in no mood to disagree with the verdict.

"Exactly so, sir," MacDougall crowed. "But no one ever went 'smash,' over-estimating the sway of emotions 'pon a jury, the pluck of the heartstrings, 'stead of the dry, paper rustlings of cold, hard logic. Congratulations to you, Captain Lewrie, 'pon your freedom, and for how far this case has advanced the noble cause of emancipation of all slaves in the British Empire. Mind, I'd not suggest you do such again, ha ha!"

"If I do, I'll engage only you, Mister MacDougall!" Lewrie teased. "Allow me to extend my hearty congratulations to you, as well, sir! For the notoriety of this will surely be the making of you… though, I dare say your name was already made. Congratulations, and my utmost thanks for being my attorney, Mister MacDougall. I am forever in your debt. Have I another son someday, I'll name him Andrew in honour of you."

Don't trowel it on that thick! Lewrie chid himself; And Christ spare me fresh spit-ups and drool… legitimate or otherwise, but…

"So, ye dodged the hangman, have ye? Huzzah!" Lewrie's father, Sir Hugo came forth to celebrate. "The Devil might have ye yet, but not this day, haw haw!"

Then there were his former officers and sailors to surround him, to clasp hands or knuckle brows, and, before the Sir Samuel Whitbreads and Sir Malcolm Shockleys, Lord Peter Rushtons, and fiery-eyed Abolitionists seized upon him, his Cox'n Desmond and his mate Furfy, Landsman Jones Nelson and the rest of his Black sailors hoisted him up and bore him in triumph from the courtroom; out through the double doors into the hallways to the massive entry halls (someone had enough wit to gather up his hat, sword, and boat-cloak) and outside to the steps overlooking the street, where people took up "Hail, the Conqu'ring Hero Comes" and "Three Cheers and a Tiger." Where, with his sheathed sword in one hand and his hat hastily clapped far back on his head, Lewrie felt free enough-free!-to wave with his right hand to all in sight, and "Huzzah!" right back at them.

Hope they get me to a carriage quick, though, he had to think; Someone's got my cloak, and it's perishin' damn' cold!