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?"