From pre-hearing interviews and meetings, Flood was able to recognise everybody who would be testifying.

Captain James Winchester, the principal owner, who had travelled from New York to enter claim for possession of the vessel, sat immediately behind the counsels’ table, a neat, precise man whose deeply tanned face indicated the mariner’s life he had led before going ashore to become a businessman-sailor. It appeared to have been a successful transition. Winchester sat with a pince-nez upon his nose, pens regimented in his waistcoat pocket and an initialled briefcase by his side.

Respectfully in the row behind him and then assembled in order of priority were the crew of the Dei Gratia, shifting and moving in their uncertainty in such official surroundings, too ready to smile at whispered asides.

Nearest the aisle, as his seniority befitted, was Captain David Reed Morehouse, master of the Dei Gratia. He sat stiffly in his creased unaccustomed going-ashore suit, head positioned high by the starched collar, gazing straight ahead and refusing any involvement in the hushed conversation alongside. He was a formidable, almost wild-looking man, his beard grown freely over his chest and then parted, so that two bushy tails appeared to be growing from his chin.

Next to him sat Oliver Deveau, the first mate, who had transferred to the Mary Celeste and captained her to Gibraltar. He was a dark-haired, sallow-faced man in a thick serge suit. Like his commanding officer, he had a full, chest-length beard, but better combed than Morehouse’s. The first mate’s hair was greased tightly to his head and he kept darting looks at the captain, trying to emulate the man’s demeanour.