Garrow's Law: Tales from the Old Bailey (2009) s02e01 Episode Script
Series 2, Episode 1
WAVES CRASH Mr Southouse! HE CHUCKLES I had reckoned your absence longer than two months.
It burdens me to see you looking so.
If I could have come back from the northern circuit sooner to keep company with you I'm sure of it.
The life of a widower is not easy.
The loss of heris hard to take.
Mr Southouse, we can remedy this.
Firstly, we will improve your appearance by some shaving to your face.
And I will send out for some coffee, and thus enlivened, you will venture into the world, converse with the merchants and anybody else in need of an attorney.
HE CHUCKLES You did not send word of your return to London.
I did not expect my confinement to last six months.
Bramber is hardly a confinement.
Bramber is not my home, it is your borough and, my dear Arthur, you are never there.
And so, when we are united, it is a happy occasion.
And when we are not, it is a less than happy separation.
Now I'm come home.
To you.
But I'm engaged in parliament.
And at the Admiralty.
You're Second Assistant Secretary there.
How engaged can you be? I must take my leave of you.
You go where? I have urgent business I must attend to.
BABY CRIES HE CLEARS HIS THROA I insisted on knowing what she had in her apron.
There I found two gowns, a scarlet cloak and a sheet.
Were there any other things found but these? This key I found on her, which opens the prosecutor's door.
No more questions, my lord.
Do you have anything to say in your defence? I buy and sell old clothes.
I bought these clothes off a woman.
And as for the key, it is the key of my door.
My lord, as this poor woman has no counsel, will you permit me as amicus curiae to ask Mr Yardley a thing or two? Very well.
Did you ever try this key you say opens the prosecutor's door? No.
Then how do you attempt to identify it as such? Because the prosecutor tells me that her key was eat up with rust.
CROWD MURMURS Is it by a key being worn with rust that you affect to identify it in a court of justice? It's a very unusual key.
Not because it has been "eat up with rust", my lord.
We still have no reliable evidence of who it belonged to.
I have the key to my chambers.
It too has been "eat up with rust"! LAUGHTER Have you finished, Mr Garrow? My lord.
Do you have any witnesses to speak on your behalf? I have no friend in the world but God and you gentlemen.
LAUGHTER And I beg for mercy.
Members of the jury, consider your verdict.
I will speak for her.
Lady Sarah? I do not normally take kindly to being interrupted in my own court, but your appearance gives me an altogether different humour.
I think you are not alone, my lord.
Swear her ladyship.
She was formerly housemaid to me, and I still employ her sister, Mary, as my personal maid.
Lady Sarah, I do not represent the prisoner, but I ask questions on her behalf as amicus curiae, a friend of the court.
Then she is truly befriended.
By you too, I think.
Mr Garrow? Do you have any questions for the witness? You are well, I hope? INAUDIBLE I hope my appearance did not cause you any discomfort.
It was only your previous disappearance that caused me any difficulty.
I will not pity you, especially when I suspect that you have lately met several young women who do walk chaperoned beside you.
And not because good manners demand it, but lest they swoon and are in want of someone to lean on.
Alas, I am only in demand at the bar.
I have been in the country.
I have a son now, Samuel.
I wish you well in your happiness.
Coincidental, Mr Southouse.
Not serendipitous, then? The only good fortune in this is the outcome of the trial.
Do not enquire after my heart.
A lady bears witness at the Old Bailey to a former scullery maid? That does not happen.
You should know of me, I care not for convention.
I do hope you make an exception for the conventions in your marriage.
Who did defend her? It was Mr Garrow.
Garrow? I had no more expectation of seeing him than he had of seeing me.
A ship called the Zong.
The owners claimed for the value of their cargo.
133 slaves thrown overboard on the grounds of necessity.
The captain deemed they were running out of water supplies, the action purportedly taken to save the ship.
Purportedly.
We honoured the loss.
And now you dispute the claim? We do more than that.
We challenge fraud.
This is a diary written by the only passenger on board the ship, Robert Stubbs.
It contradicts the captain's account.
Well, gentlemen, I am very happy to accept the case.
Your engagement is conditional on you instructing Mr Garrow.
Goodbye.
Excuse me sir.
Excuse me.
Excuse me.
The insurance claim declared the ship was rendered "foul and leaky, having been retarded by perils of the sea, "contrary winds and currents and other mistakes".
Affecting the safe passage of its cargo.
440 Africans on board from West Africa to Jamaica.
133 thrown into the sea, 60 dead from fever.
Now, Liverpool Assurance covered the loss of £30 per Negro, because although Captain Collingwood may have been in want of common care, he was not negligent.
However, Robert Stubbs' diary suggests very strongly that the loss arose not from perils of the sea, but from Collingwood's poor judgement.
How so? On the voyage, he mistook Jamaica for Hispaniola.
The journey took 112 days instead of the 60 days of most middle-passage journeys.
As a consequence of which, they ran out of water.
And the slaves jettisoned.
There is an appalling loss of life in this.
54 women and children thrown singly through the cabin windows, one after the other.
The rest from the quarterdeck, shackled together two by two and weighed down with iron.
11 jumped into the water voluntarily.
Death becomes the best friend you have on such a voyage.
You wish its relief.
You should know that I am already requested in this cause.
Liverpool Assurance wish to prosecute the owners of the Zong for insurance fraud.
You are wrong if you think that is the same cause.
That is a mercenary business about the pecuniary value of Negroes, not their right to live.
And in being deprived of their right to live, I intend to prosecute for murder.
Forgive me, Mr Vassa, you were not aboard this ship, you lost no relative on it.
I mean to say that no crime has been committed against you.
Because I was not murdered myself? Because I survived my own passage, must I stand aside and venture only my good fortune? I am them, Mr Garrow.
I am them.
But a prosecution for murder cannot succeed either at the Old Bailey or the Admiralty Court.
Its success will depend upon a jury.
I mean it cannot even be begun, because cargo cannot be murdered.
Africans are viewed as no different from other forms of property like horses and cattle.
If you're an attorney, you should know your law.
The Somerset ruling gave it out that property CAN have rights.
For a freed slave in England like yourself, perhaps, but not maritime cargo.
It is inanimate.
I think we can proceed in a way that will satisfy us all.
If Mr Southouse is to be satisfied, then you will prosecute an insurance fraud.
It will help you in your cause.
Lose a prosecution for murder, and a definitive precedent is set that slaves can be killed at will.
But if I can prove the claim to be fraudulent, if I can prove the plea of necessity for those deaths to be false Then the insurers' interests will be served.
Yes, but more than that.
In future, because of this case, they may find a better way to see those interests served by providing the least possible indemnity for slaves murdered in passage.
Instead of £30 pounds for a Negro's head, they will only pay out £20? That is your idea of progress, Mr Garrow? If it will inhibit the murder of slaves, then yes.
So you will inch towards justice and not demand it? If we go in its direction, then yes.
I cannot allow myself your patience.
I will begin preparation of the case by visiting Liverpool.
I only wish that it were not such a long way to venture.
BABY CRIES I enquire after James Kelsall, first mate on the Zong.
I understand he lodges here.
You have found him.
And who enquires after him? John Southouse.
Attorney.
Your business, sir? I act for Liverpool Assurance.
Then you have no business with me.
You will be called by the defence, and then you shall do business with the prosecution's counsel.
So it may be as well for you to hear what may be put to you.
I have already sworn that there was only enough water for four days, but ten to 13 days would be required to regain Jamaica.
Which knowledge caused Captain Collingwood to call his crew about him to begin the throwing over of the slaves? Women and children first? 29th November.
Eight o'clock in the evening, coinciding with the changing of the watch, when the maximum number of crew members were available for the task.
And how did it feel to perform such an act? I will not reproach myself for my obedience.
And does your conscience reproach you? Well, if the charge were murder, it might be so, but as it is fraud, it does not figure.
Robert Stubbs wrote a journal of his time on the ship.
You know of it? The man was in a fever.
And his view of Captain Collingwood? Did his agitation only come from the typhoid, or from what he had seen? You will not make a case with me.
I must make my living.
From the pushing of slaves into the sea? I have already obtained the muster roll.
There were two Kelsalls on board, yourself and It does not signify! Besides, I know what I must answer.
What you must, not what you ought.
But then, you are first mate, and practised in doing the bidding of Captain Collingwood.
I was not so easily bidden.
I stood by my opinions.
Then you did have disputes with him? Concerning? I admire the way you seek to gain, sir, but you will not profit from me.
As you profit from your silence.
Show as much resolve at the Old Bailey, and you will find no quarrel with me.
Thank you, Captain Collingwood.
Still at your service.
WAVES CRASH THUD! THEY SCREAM MUFFLED SCREAMING Mr Stubbs! I'm indebted that you journey here despite your health.
I think the cause worth any discomfort.
And so in support of your journal, you will testify, Mr Stubbs? As Liverpool Assurance prosecute this case largely on my account, I shall answer to it in court.
God wish you strength.
Do you have a drop of wine, sir? It will indeed fortify me.
He would go no further but that there had been some disagreement.
If the blood was bad between Kelsall and Collingwood, we shall have it out in court.
And Stubbs? Determined to convince a jury.
With yourself to take him through his evidence, certainly.
Lady Sarah.
Mr Southouse.
I have my son, Samuel, to introduce.
Ah! A healthy boy! A cement to conjugal affection.
I mean, further cement.
Mr Garrow, you are mute as a mackerel.
You're not taken with this infant? I stand back merely in order not todistress it.
Or "it" to distress you.
It is your child, Lady Sarah, how could that ever be? You think I would engineer an assignation involving an attorney, a nursemaid and a baby? I said nothing! I have long since relinquished all such feelings on the matter.
Lord Melville You wish me to intervene? I merely ask you to persuade Liverpool Assurance to withdraw.
Unless you wish abolitionists to gain encouragement from this trial? The commander of a British slave ship hanged? And the economies of the French and Dutch much improved.
It is paramount that everybody involved in the slave trade can make assurances that conditions aboard the ships are acceptable.
Who acts for Liverpool Assurance in this prosecution? Mr Garrow.
Garrow! In every case, he smells out a cause and a challenge to our laws.
He is as malignant as any spy that moves in our society.
You wish to have hold of him, sir? No, no, no, no.
Just look upon him.
What do you think of his appearance? Very handsome, sir.
And very much in the way of his father.
Your valet? Hm.
He had occasion to be there in the park .
.
and did report A meeting? I came upon the man.
Then was it hoped for? Did you wish to reunite Garrow with what is his? With Samuel? I have been faithful to you! I cannot believe it to be so.
I have given my thoughts over to this CONSTANTLY.
I shall not condemn you for my spurious offspring.
I will accept the child as my own.
He will inherit my entire estate, my title and my property.
At least I shall keep my dignity in society, with you alongside me.
So you will arrange our marriage according to your own delusion? You will allow me to have deceived you when I have never been anything but constant to you? And all this in the cause of your dignity? You cannot be glad that I forgive you? I cannot be glad that you believe it so.
And you think to tolerate your son as a bastard.
The unsavoury aspect of this case may well lead to pressure in Parliament to regulate slave insurance.
How so? By specifying along the lines that no loss will be recoverable against the throwing-over of living slaves on any account whatsoever.
So underwriters like yourselves will lose business.
We do not intend to sustain or accept any loss in this case by abandoning it.
You deal in risk? How will you underwrite the end of your own business? You are of this trade.
You cannot undermine it.
We do not predict history, we follow policy.
And we are £4,000 out of pocket because of a fraudulent claim.
And slaves overboard or not, Sir Arthur, I'm afraid that is our most grievous discovery.
Good day.
Naturally, we resisted Sir Arthur's wish for us to take a political view.
What view do you take? We wish our money back, and by proving the claim falsely made, you will obtain it.
If Captain Collingwood was not a true commander of his ship, Mr Garrow will have it out, for he can steer the Old Bailey to his will.
"For he can steer the Old Bailey to his will.
" I thought it was suitably maritime.
I shall not tell you what I thought it.
They are clients to us both.
Cargo, Negro, our fellow creatures, it is mere noise to them.
Profit is their trumpet blast and I am to blow it for them.
Will? Does not the meddling of the Admiralty suggest this is about more than mere insurance? I should make it so.
Look, all I ask of you, all I ask is some gesture to me, some thought or word or deed that means that you reciprocate the feeling I have for you.
What can I ever do in such a way that will convince you of my constancy? Mr Garrow.
I am in need of some information about a trial he is prosecuting.
I see.
I am your husband, you can convince me you are really my wife.
If I am truly your wife .
.
then you will believe that Samuel is truly your son.
It is my most fervent wish, Sarah.
It would It would break the spell that I've fallen into.
I had not thought that we would come to be in each other's company again.
Or that you might wish it and request it.
You object to the cause of friendship? I cannot object.
It is a favour you bestow on me and I'm truly grateful.
And that you find time to indulge me, I am also thankful.
You are the scourge of venal prosecutors still? And soon to be their advocate also.
I cannot imagine it.
An insurance fraud Not heard at the King's Bench? It's a criminal trial.
A slave ship threw its captives overboard.
They claim out of necessity.
I must prove negligence.
But there is evidence? Southouse is assiduous.
But enough to prove the claim false? You are curious.
Forgive me, we shall not talk of it.
I've been too long out of society and stilted in conversation.
The case presses me, I must go.
I wish you well.
133 souls should be in this case.
Massacre is not anywhere in the indictment or in Stubbs' journal, but it may come to find itself in the evidence I shall present.
How so? If YOU will appear as a witness.
This is why you have sent for me? Yes.
But I was not there.
Not on the Zong.
But you and those 133 souls may be concealed in another vessel altogether.
Trojan Horse.
HE MUMBLES I will not do it.
I cannot.
"Cannot"? It would be unjust.
A betrayal.
But your loyalty is to me! I must be true to myself.
And true to him, because you love him.
You accused me before of delusion, but now, it's proven.
It's all proven! Your judgement is all wrong.
I see you make your decision.
'Sharks would always accompany the ship,' in expectation of the dead bodies being thrown over.
They were never disappointed.
And you would wish to be thrown over yourself? If I could have gotten over the nettings.
Nettings? The assembly of ropes placed along the sides of the ship to prevent that particular redemption.
And then, we were truly delivered, Mr Garrow.
In Barbados? The merchants and planters came on board and examined us most attentively, and then they made us jump.
Jump? Those who could jump the highest fetched the best price.
A sign of strength and health.
Like this.
Like this.
You see, Mr Garrow, how high? Mr Vassa Like this.
Like this.
Like this Gustavus, please.
You will take your place in the witness box, Gustavus.
You will take your place.
You will initiate proceedings.
At least I shall be master of my fate in that.
A parliamentary divorce would amicably allow both sides to remarry.
No, I cannot think that you could contemplate Garrow as Sarah's new husband.
I cannot think that you would wish it to be amicable.
Well, then, what is there for me to do, Lord Melville? I think you are in want of the services of a particular attorney.
Mr John Farmer.
Separation from bed and board, as a legal dissolution of the marriage, forbids either party from remarrying.
It is not my desire to exclude myself from future happiness.
But it may be that your most express wish is to prevent such happiness coming the way of your wife.
Elaborate.
If you seek the greater scope for punishment, then your wife will find herself in a ruinous state of limbo, where she is neither respectably married nor free to remarry and salvage her reputation.
Disgraced, she would have to rely on the charity of the third party - Mr Garrow.
Thank you, Mr Farmer.
I shall, er I am at your service.
Lady Sarah Hill? You have identified me, may I ask the same of you? You are served with a citation from the Court of Doctors' Commons.
Negligence.
Collingwood was negligent.
Not evil, not a murderer, not cruel, and if you can prise Kelsall apart on the cause of the dispute, that may answer to it.
I wish to introduce another stratagem.
You will enlighten me? Gustavus Vassa.
What evidence can HE provide? You did say yourself, this case was about more than insurance.
There may be consequences, is what I meant.
But I will not have this prosecution sabotaged by pamphleteering and agitation.
And I will not have this prosecution ignore murder! KNOCK AT DOOR Sarah.
I apologise for any intrusion.
I did not have the wits to consider where else I may seek help.
Help? Mr Southouse.
If he means to dissolve the marriage, I cannot say I am surprised by it, but I must confess myself ignorant of the nature of it.
This means of action, it is a sad thing.
I do not wish delicacy, Mr Southouse.
Enlighten me.
He means to cut you off financially.
What has provoked him in this way? The session begins early.
So? You'll tell me why your husband seeks to disown you? He is in the grip of an idea that Samuel is not his, that I am not faithful, but most of all .
.
he insists that I love you.
Despite how you must have refuted every accusation? His fancies have pushed me here.
But from such fancies, a truth comes, Will.
I asked you once in vain to leave him.
Your refusal exhausted every hope I ever had of you.
Now, you declare your love for me as Hill seeks to banish you.
I do not come to you seeking refuge, to hide from the disgrace he is determined to put upon me.
In fact, I have come to say I will own it.
You must not.
I hope you've made arrangements to live elsewhere.
I attend the Old Bailey today and I think upon my return it is as well you were no longer here.
Why does your instigation of the end of our marriage require only my punishment? Well, if I'm amicable, I collude in my own dishonour.
Gustavus.
What do you think induced Captain Collingwood to mistake Jamaica for Hispaniola? He identified it at nine leagues out.
Nine leagues? 27 miles.
27 miles! CROWD MURMURS Captain Collingwood made a wrong identification from a distance of 27 miles.
No more questions, My Lord.
Mr Stubbs, why is your account of the journey incomplete? I was taken ill.
Ah.
Were you ill while you were writing your journal? I had a fever.
Would that explain why your handwriting deteriorates page by page while your sentences cease to hold together in any way that is sensible? The pen shook in my hand, is all.
And your judgement, Mr Stubbs? Was that very shaken also? CROWD LAUGHS Mr Stubbs, why were you a passenger on the Zong? I was in need of passage.
Why? I had been appointed Governor of the Annamboe by the African Company, but I had left there.
Why? Well, um You are under oath, Mr Stubbs.
I was suspended.
CROWD MURMURS Why? Abusing my position.
Abusing your position?! In what way? Seeking to make private profit.
CROWD LAUGHS So you found yourself dumped on the coast of Guinea, until you were picked up by the Zong, and then picked up once more by the insurance company as a witness! Thank you.
Ma'am! We shall be reunited yet.
My Lord, I call Gustavus Vassa.
HUBBUB CHAINS RATTLE Do not be dissuaded by the hostility of their reaction.
Now is your time.
The whole ship's cargo is confined together in the hold.
So many that there is no room even to move your head.
You cannot breathe.
You would not wish to.
The smell of perspiration is only outdone by the stench of the latrines.
It is unforgettable.
Children fall into the tubs of excrement.
They suffocate in it.
In this pestilential stew, if you are fortunate, you succumb to smallpox or gaol fever.
My Lord! Why is this testimony relevant in a prosecution for insurance fraud? This fraud involves a journey across the Middle Passage.
You would not wish a narrative upon it? Only if it relate directly to the indictment.
Slaves thrown overboard, necessity or not? It is never a necessity to murder us! Mr Vassa! You will curb your temper! If I am angry, I am a savage.
If I am sanguine, I am not a man.
Yes.
Quite possibly.
Mr Vassa, will you please give us some idea of your experience at sea? I served in the British Navy for seven years with my master.
I've worked on merchant ships on voyages to North America, the West Indies and the North Pole.
And as such a veteran of the seas, you are familiar with the notion of a ship rendered "foul and leaky"? Zong itself described and claimed so.
"By perils of the sea and contrary currents, the ship was rendered "foul and leaky, and therefore retarded in her voyage.
" Captain Collingwood and the ship's owners claim this was because there was crippling worm damage to the bottom of the boat.
Can you comment? Shipworm.
Teredo worms.
In fact, saltwater clams.
They bore into the submerged timber.
And if I tell you that the Zong was copper-bottomed, what say you then? Any ship that is lined with copper plating on the underside of its hull is impervious to Teredo worms.
So the claims, by Captain Collingwood and the ship's owners, that the ship was rendered foul and leaky? Impossible.
CROWD MURMURS LOUDLY Thank you, Mr Vassa.
No more questions, My Lord.
Garrow excels himself with the negro.
Captain Collingwood, I am sure that you are as distressed as I am that this case has been represented in some quarters as murder.
A policy no doubt intended to inflame a jury.
But let us be clear, so that emotions do not undermine deliberation.
Let us part company with any claim that actual persons were thrown overboard.
This is a case of chattels and goods.
Blacks be goods and property.
This case is the same as if horses had been thrown overboard.
My Lord, my learned friend is not allowing the prisoner to speak, but addressing the jury in how they should feel! Mr Silvester, refrain.
Captain Collingwood, if you will.
It is not the case that the slaves were thrown overboard in order to throw the loss onto the underwriters.
Do you not think the apprehension of necessity justified when my crew themselves suffered such severity? Seven out of 17 died on their way to Jamaica, or after their arrival there.
The ship's cargo and the crew died from want of sustenance.
They did not die from want of a commander.
Hear, hear.
Mr Garrow? Captain Collingwood, you were, until you took this command, a slave ship surgeon.
11 voyages as doctor.
But none of them as captain of a slaver? No.
Your inexperience did not trouble you? Nor the owners of the ship.
In fact, they were reassured that the welfare of those on board ship would be safeguarded by my previous experience.
"The welfare of all those on ship.
" After your wrong identification of Jamaica for Hispaniola and the necessity of sailing back 300 miles to the windward, what did you do? I chose to hold a consultation with the crew subsequently.
And what decision taken? To destroy part of the slaves and put the rest and the crew to short allowance.
That was how you rectified your mistake? To save the ship! Because the situation had become catastrophic.
Yes! The ship retarded by perils of the sea.
The strong current hindering your already belated journey to Jamaica.
A state of emergency, no less? Sufficient for the throwing over to be a necessity.
So, presumably, you seized the goods nearest to hand? I beg your pardon? In the dire circumstances in which you found yourself, you jettisoned at random? No.
Then who did you choose first? The women and children? The sick? Those who would sell for least money? We were in want of water! The healthiest would need least, would survive best, on short allowance.
The healthiest also fetching the best price at market, was that not the only real necessity? Not that you were in want of water, but that you were in want of the market! You decided, as the fastidious servant of your shareholders, to get rid of any slaves you deemed to fetch a price of less than the cost of insuring them.
I am a fastidious servant, sir, of my ship.
If you are so fastidious, then what became of the ship's log? Left with the agent in Jamaica, now lost.
CROWD EXCLAIMS ANGRILY How convenient.
Anything else, Mr Garrow? No, My Lord.
Good, then we shall adjourn until tomorrow.
Court shall rise.
It may be possible that you have it in your power to ruin the preening Garrow entirely.
I may employ a pistol.
Oh, you do not need to challenge him a duel to seek your satisfaction.
Aim at him in another way.
Undo Garrow the man and we shall see the noisome barrister removed from the Old Bailey.
THUNDER ROLLS Mr Farmer.
The writ is already drawn.
On your behalf, I took that liberty.
And so it merely needs serving? Oh, foul weather.
I could not hope for better.
Who is the man with Hill and Melville? It is of no matter.
You know you are not bound to be character witness for Captain Collingwood.
I know, I choose it.
Oh, come, be honest.
The owners of the Zong choose it.
The muster roll of the ship.
It was your late nephew's name alongside you.
Daniel, was his name? I had made assurances to my sister of his welfare.
And hard to bear knowing he may still be alive, but for Collingwood's command.
Was that the cause of your dispute? No.
No? Daniel's unnecessary death did not distress and vex you? Or was it that there had already been so many unnecessary deaths? I cannot answer you.
I was not in attendance when my wife died.
I should have been at her bed, but she left this place alone.
But, Mr Kelsall, you have an opportunity to attend to your nephew again, if you think the truth to suffice.
Kelsall is in some difficulty.
And are you, Mr Southouse? The court session is resumed! Come.
I have served with Mr Collingwood when he was ship's surgeon and under him when he was Captain.
And your opinion of him, Mr Kelsall? Captain Collingwood is an able man and a good commander.
And an honest one? I'm sure of it.
My Lord, if I may? An honest man? As you are, Mr Kelsall? I should like to think so.
Did you have cause to dispute with Captain Collingwood on any occasion? There was none.
I remind you, you are under oath, Mr Kelsall.
Did you think Captain Collingwood's misidentification of Jamaica for Hispaniola a mere mistake, an unavoidable accident? My Lord Mr Kelsall is here to bear witness to Captain Collingwood's character! This is pertinent, My Lord.
Allowed.
Answer the question.
The mistake having been made, Captain Collingwood took measures as Commander.
There were only five-and-a-half Dutch butts, three full of sweet water, enough for four days.
Hence the jettisoning and everyone put on short allowance.
And for some sickly members of the crew, like your nephew, that proved a fatal development? My Lord, what is this to do with the character of Captain Collingwood? I'm trying to get at Mr Kelsall's proper estimation of the man! Then ask a question which demonstrates it! Did you feel that Captain Collingwood's actions were ultimately responsible for the death of your nephew? Was that the reason for the dispute that you will not own to, and why you were suspended as first mate? It was none of that! Then what was it you found so hard to take, that you could not contemplate?! Sir Some change, Mr Kelsall, some change that made all the difference.
It rained, sir.
CROWD MURMURS It rained.
A heavy downfall on 30th November.
We collected hundreds of gallons of rainwater.
HE BREATHES HEAVILY CROWD REACTS ANGRILY But despite this, on 1st December, more slaves were thrown overboard.
That was why Captain Collingwood suspended me as First Mate.
Because I would not go along with it.
There was no need to throw over any more blacks.
There was no want of water.
My Lord, I wish the jury and the Court to note that the witness may have perjured himself, and therefore any evidence How so, Mr Silvester? He describes Captain Collingwood as an able commander, then condemns him.
My Lord, I would submit that Mr Kelsall does not perjure himself.
Captain Collingwood IS an able commander.
If, as captain of a slaver, his duty is to make a profit .
.
he did so, by ridding himself of slaves that were unlikely to fetch what they were insured for.
In that, he has been most able.
It is certainly worthy of observation that our legislator can, every ,session find time to enquire into and regulate the manner of killing a partridge, that no abuse be committed, that he be shotfairly Wellwe shall let that be.
I am not required to direct you on slaves as goods, but merely whether these goods were jettisoned voluntarily or in necessity.
The claim of necessity was false and fraudulent if they were thrown over after the rain, about which you now must decide.
HUBBUB You have reached a verdict? We have.
How do you find the prisoner charged with this indictment? Guilty or not guilty? Guilty.
HUBBUB But we humbly make recommendations for mercy.
MEMBER OF CROWD: Whoa-ho! My Lord! We also wish to make a recommendation to mercy.
Liverpool Assurance do not wish to take a moral position in this action.
Very well.
Captain Collingwood, I sentence you to two years' imprisonment.
You will be put on a hulk ship.
Court shall rise! Do you mock me, Buller? The law will not do your bidding, nor confound Mr Garrow for you.
I do not need the law when I have the consent of decent Englishmen.
A man who showed no mercy receives the mercy of his English peers? There were but 12 men there, not a country, and I hope the country will make its own verdict.
Very satisfactory, Mr Garrow, very satisfactory.
You are very easily satisfied, I think.
Is not fraud discouraged here? And murder also, I would venture.
You are no longer mindful of your opportunities in the North? I am too mindful of how I have scraped, bowed and pleased these last few weeks.
It is even less pretty than when you are curmudgeonly.
Well, I know nothing of that.
William Garrow? You have business with me, sir? You are served with a writ from the Court of King's Bench, in the name of an action for damages by Sir Arthur Hill.
For the act of Criminal Conversation with the plaintiff's wife.
You spin gold from nothing, Mr Jasker.
I do? My reputation in society will be entirely done away with if this accusation prevails.
You must take great pains not to be identified together.
You can contrive to have them so identified? You are intent on avenging a fiction! A dumb show that you have put on! No! No!
It burdens me to see you looking so.
If I could have come back from the northern circuit sooner to keep company with you I'm sure of it.
The life of a widower is not easy.
The loss of heris hard to take.
Mr Southouse, we can remedy this.
Firstly, we will improve your appearance by some shaving to your face.
And I will send out for some coffee, and thus enlivened, you will venture into the world, converse with the merchants and anybody else in need of an attorney.
HE CHUCKLES You did not send word of your return to London.
I did not expect my confinement to last six months.
Bramber is hardly a confinement.
Bramber is not my home, it is your borough and, my dear Arthur, you are never there.
And so, when we are united, it is a happy occasion.
And when we are not, it is a less than happy separation.
Now I'm come home.
To you.
But I'm engaged in parliament.
And at the Admiralty.
You're Second Assistant Secretary there.
How engaged can you be? I must take my leave of you.
You go where? I have urgent business I must attend to.
BABY CRIES HE CLEARS HIS THROA I insisted on knowing what she had in her apron.
There I found two gowns, a scarlet cloak and a sheet.
Were there any other things found but these? This key I found on her, which opens the prosecutor's door.
No more questions, my lord.
Do you have anything to say in your defence? I buy and sell old clothes.
I bought these clothes off a woman.
And as for the key, it is the key of my door.
My lord, as this poor woman has no counsel, will you permit me as amicus curiae to ask Mr Yardley a thing or two? Very well.
Did you ever try this key you say opens the prosecutor's door? No.
Then how do you attempt to identify it as such? Because the prosecutor tells me that her key was eat up with rust.
CROWD MURMURS Is it by a key being worn with rust that you affect to identify it in a court of justice? It's a very unusual key.
Not because it has been "eat up with rust", my lord.
We still have no reliable evidence of who it belonged to.
I have the key to my chambers.
It too has been "eat up with rust"! LAUGHTER Have you finished, Mr Garrow? My lord.
Do you have any witnesses to speak on your behalf? I have no friend in the world but God and you gentlemen.
LAUGHTER And I beg for mercy.
Members of the jury, consider your verdict.
I will speak for her.
Lady Sarah? I do not normally take kindly to being interrupted in my own court, but your appearance gives me an altogether different humour.
I think you are not alone, my lord.
Swear her ladyship.
She was formerly housemaid to me, and I still employ her sister, Mary, as my personal maid.
Lady Sarah, I do not represent the prisoner, but I ask questions on her behalf as amicus curiae, a friend of the court.
Then she is truly befriended.
By you too, I think.
Mr Garrow? Do you have any questions for the witness? You are well, I hope? INAUDIBLE I hope my appearance did not cause you any discomfort.
It was only your previous disappearance that caused me any difficulty.
I will not pity you, especially when I suspect that you have lately met several young women who do walk chaperoned beside you.
And not because good manners demand it, but lest they swoon and are in want of someone to lean on.
Alas, I am only in demand at the bar.
I have been in the country.
I have a son now, Samuel.
I wish you well in your happiness.
Coincidental, Mr Southouse.
Not serendipitous, then? The only good fortune in this is the outcome of the trial.
Do not enquire after my heart.
A lady bears witness at the Old Bailey to a former scullery maid? That does not happen.
You should know of me, I care not for convention.
I do hope you make an exception for the conventions in your marriage.
Who did defend her? It was Mr Garrow.
Garrow? I had no more expectation of seeing him than he had of seeing me.
A ship called the Zong.
The owners claimed for the value of their cargo.
133 slaves thrown overboard on the grounds of necessity.
The captain deemed they were running out of water supplies, the action purportedly taken to save the ship.
Purportedly.
We honoured the loss.
And now you dispute the claim? We do more than that.
We challenge fraud.
This is a diary written by the only passenger on board the ship, Robert Stubbs.
It contradicts the captain's account.
Well, gentlemen, I am very happy to accept the case.
Your engagement is conditional on you instructing Mr Garrow.
Goodbye.
Excuse me sir.
Excuse me.
Excuse me.
The insurance claim declared the ship was rendered "foul and leaky, having been retarded by perils of the sea, "contrary winds and currents and other mistakes".
Affecting the safe passage of its cargo.
440 Africans on board from West Africa to Jamaica.
133 thrown into the sea, 60 dead from fever.
Now, Liverpool Assurance covered the loss of £30 per Negro, because although Captain Collingwood may have been in want of common care, he was not negligent.
However, Robert Stubbs' diary suggests very strongly that the loss arose not from perils of the sea, but from Collingwood's poor judgement.
How so? On the voyage, he mistook Jamaica for Hispaniola.
The journey took 112 days instead of the 60 days of most middle-passage journeys.
As a consequence of which, they ran out of water.
And the slaves jettisoned.
There is an appalling loss of life in this.
54 women and children thrown singly through the cabin windows, one after the other.
The rest from the quarterdeck, shackled together two by two and weighed down with iron.
11 jumped into the water voluntarily.
Death becomes the best friend you have on such a voyage.
You wish its relief.
You should know that I am already requested in this cause.
Liverpool Assurance wish to prosecute the owners of the Zong for insurance fraud.
You are wrong if you think that is the same cause.
That is a mercenary business about the pecuniary value of Negroes, not their right to live.
And in being deprived of their right to live, I intend to prosecute for murder.
Forgive me, Mr Vassa, you were not aboard this ship, you lost no relative on it.
I mean to say that no crime has been committed against you.
Because I was not murdered myself? Because I survived my own passage, must I stand aside and venture only my good fortune? I am them, Mr Garrow.
I am them.
But a prosecution for murder cannot succeed either at the Old Bailey or the Admiralty Court.
Its success will depend upon a jury.
I mean it cannot even be begun, because cargo cannot be murdered.
Africans are viewed as no different from other forms of property like horses and cattle.
If you're an attorney, you should know your law.
The Somerset ruling gave it out that property CAN have rights.
For a freed slave in England like yourself, perhaps, but not maritime cargo.
It is inanimate.
I think we can proceed in a way that will satisfy us all.
If Mr Southouse is to be satisfied, then you will prosecute an insurance fraud.
It will help you in your cause.
Lose a prosecution for murder, and a definitive precedent is set that slaves can be killed at will.
But if I can prove the claim to be fraudulent, if I can prove the plea of necessity for those deaths to be false Then the insurers' interests will be served.
Yes, but more than that.
In future, because of this case, they may find a better way to see those interests served by providing the least possible indemnity for slaves murdered in passage.
Instead of £30 pounds for a Negro's head, they will only pay out £20? That is your idea of progress, Mr Garrow? If it will inhibit the murder of slaves, then yes.
So you will inch towards justice and not demand it? If we go in its direction, then yes.
I cannot allow myself your patience.
I will begin preparation of the case by visiting Liverpool.
I only wish that it were not such a long way to venture.
BABY CRIES I enquire after James Kelsall, first mate on the Zong.
I understand he lodges here.
You have found him.
And who enquires after him? John Southouse.
Attorney.
Your business, sir? I act for Liverpool Assurance.
Then you have no business with me.
You will be called by the defence, and then you shall do business with the prosecution's counsel.
So it may be as well for you to hear what may be put to you.
I have already sworn that there was only enough water for four days, but ten to 13 days would be required to regain Jamaica.
Which knowledge caused Captain Collingwood to call his crew about him to begin the throwing over of the slaves? Women and children first? 29th November.
Eight o'clock in the evening, coinciding with the changing of the watch, when the maximum number of crew members were available for the task.
And how did it feel to perform such an act? I will not reproach myself for my obedience.
And does your conscience reproach you? Well, if the charge were murder, it might be so, but as it is fraud, it does not figure.
Robert Stubbs wrote a journal of his time on the ship.
You know of it? The man was in a fever.
And his view of Captain Collingwood? Did his agitation only come from the typhoid, or from what he had seen? You will not make a case with me.
I must make my living.
From the pushing of slaves into the sea? I have already obtained the muster roll.
There were two Kelsalls on board, yourself and It does not signify! Besides, I know what I must answer.
What you must, not what you ought.
But then, you are first mate, and practised in doing the bidding of Captain Collingwood.
I was not so easily bidden.
I stood by my opinions.
Then you did have disputes with him? Concerning? I admire the way you seek to gain, sir, but you will not profit from me.
As you profit from your silence.
Show as much resolve at the Old Bailey, and you will find no quarrel with me.
Thank you, Captain Collingwood.
Still at your service.
WAVES CRASH THUD! THEY SCREAM MUFFLED SCREAMING Mr Stubbs! I'm indebted that you journey here despite your health.
I think the cause worth any discomfort.
And so in support of your journal, you will testify, Mr Stubbs? As Liverpool Assurance prosecute this case largely on my account, I shall answer to it in court.
God wish you strength.
Do you have a drop of wine, sir? It will indeed fortify me.
He would go no further but that there had been some disagreement.
If the blood was bad between Kelsall and Collingwood, we shall have it out in court.
And Stubbs? Determined to convince a jury.
With yourself to take him through his evidence, certainly.
Lady Sarah.
Mr Southouse.
I have my son, Samuel, to introduce.
Ah! A healthy boy! A cement to conjugal affection.
I mean, further cement.
Mr Garrow, you are mute as a mackerel.
You're not taken with this infant? I stand back merely in order not todistress it.
Or "it" to distress you.
It is your child, Lady Sarah, how could that ever be? You think I would engineer an assignation involving an attorney, a nursemaid and a baby? I said nothing! I have long since relinquished all such feelings on the matter.
Lord Melville You wish me to intervene? I merely ask you to persuade Liverpool Assurance to withdraw.
Unless you wish abolitionists to gain encouragement from this trial? The commander of a British slave ship hanged? And the economies of the French and Dutch much improved.
It is paramount that everybody involved in the slave trade can make assurances that conditions aboard the ships are acceptable.
Who acts for Liverpool Assurance in this prosecution? Mr Garrow.
Garrow! In every case, he smells out a cause and a challenge to our laws.
He is as malignant as any spy that moves in our society.
You wish to have hold of him, sir? No, no, no, no.
Just look upon him.
What do you think of his appearance? Very handsome, sir.
And very much in the way of his father.
Your valet? Hm.
He had occasion to be there in the park .
.
and did report A meeting? I came upon the man.
Then was it hoped for? Did you wish to reunite Garrow with what is his? With Samuel? I have been faithful to you! I cannot believe it to be so.
I have given my thoughts over to this CONSTANTLY.
I shall not condemn you for my spurious offspring.
I will accept the child as my own.
He will inherit my entire estate, my title and my property.
At least I shall keep my dignity in society, with you alongside me.
So you will arrange our marriage according to your own delusion? You will allow me to have deceived you when I have never been anything but constant to you? And all this in the cause of your dignity? You cannot be glad that I forgive you? I cannot be glad that you believe it so.
And you think to tolerate your son as a bastard.
The unsavoury aspect of this case may well lead to pressure in Parliament to regulate slave insurance.
How so? By specifying along the lines that no loss will be recoverable against the throwing-over of living slaves on any account whatsoever.
So underwriters like yourselves will lose business.
We do not intend to sustain or accept any loss in this case by abandoning it.
You deal in risk? How will you underwrite the end of your own business? You are of this trade.
You cannot undermine it.
We do not predict history, we follow policy.
And we are £4,000 out of pocket because of a fraudulent claim.
And slaves overboard or not, Sir Arthur, I'm afraid that is our most grievous discovery.
Good day.
Naturally, we resisted Sir Arthur's wish for us to take a political view.
What view do you take? We wish our money back, and by proving the claim falsely made, you will obtain it.
If Captain Collingwood was not a true commander of his ship, Mr Garrow will have it out, for he can steer the Old Bailey to his will.
"For he can steer the Old Bailey to his will.
" I thought it was suitably maritime.
I shall not tell you what I thought it.
They are clients to us both.
Cargo, Negro, our fellow creatures, it is mere noise to them.
Profit is their trumpet blast and I am to blow it for them.
Will? Does not the meddling of the Admiralty suggest this is about more than mere insurance? I should make it so.
Look, all I ask of you, all I ask is some gesture to me, some thought or word or deed that means that you reciprocate the feeling I have for you.
What can I ever do in such a way that will convince you of my constancy? Mr Garrow.
I am in need of some information about a trial he is prosecuting.
I see.
I am your husband, you can convince me you are really my wife.
If I am truly your wife .
.
then you will believe that Samuel is truly your son.
It is my most fervent wish, Sarah.
It would It would break the spell that I've fallen into.
I had not thought that we would come to be in each other's company again.
Or that you might wish it and request it.
You object to the cause of friendship? I cannot object.
It is a favour you bestow on me and I'm truly grateful.
And that you find time to indulge me, I am also thankful.
You are the scourge of venal prosecutors still? And soon to be their advocate also.
I cannot imagine it.
An insurance fraud Not heard at the King's Bench? It's a criminal trial.
A slave ship threw its captives overboard.
They claim out of necessity.
I must prove negligence.
But there is evidence? Southouse is assiduous.
But enough to prove the claim false? You are curious.
Forgive me, we shall not talk of it.
I've been too long out of society and stilted in conversation.
The case presses me, I must go.
I wish you well.
133 souls should be in this case.
Massacre is not anywhere in the indictment or in Stubbs' journal, but it may come to find itself in the evidence I shall present.
How so? If YOU will appear as a witness.
This is why you have sent for me? Yes.
But I was not there.
Not on the Zong.
But you and those 133 souls may be concealed in another vessel altogether.
Trojan Horse.
HE MUMBLES I will not do it.
I cannot.
"Cannot"? It would be unjust.
A betrayal.
But your loyalty is to me! I must be true to myself.
And true to him, because you love him.
You accused me before of delusion, but now, it's proven.
It's all proven! Your judgement is all wrong.
I see you make your decision.
'Sharks would always accompany the ship,' in expectation of the dead bodies being thrown over.
They were never disappointed.
And you would wish to be thrown over yourself? If I could have gotten over the nettings.
Nettings? The assembly of ropes placed along the sides of the ship to prevent that particular redemption.
And then, we were truly delivered, Mr Garrow.
In Barbados? The merchants and planters came on board and examined us most attentively, and then they made us jump.
Jump? Those who could jump the highest fetched the best price.
A sign of strength and health.
Like this.
Like this.
You see, Mr Garrow, how high? Mr Vassa Like this.
Like this.
Like this Gustavus, please.
You will take your place in the witness box, Gustavus.
You will take your place.
You will initiate proceedings.
At least I shall be master of my fate in that.
A parliamentary divorce would amicably allow both sides to remarry.
No, I cannot think that you could contemplate Garrow as Sarah's new husband.
I cannot think that you would wish it to be amicable.
Well, then, what is there for me to do, Lord Melville? I think you are in want of the services of a particular attorney.
Mr John Farmer.
Separation from bed and board, as a legal dissolution of the marriage, forbids either party from remarrying.
It is not my desire to exclude myself from future happiness.
But it may be that your most express wish is to prevent such happiness coming the way of your wife.
Elaborate.
If you seek the greater scope for punishment, then your wife will find herself in a ruinous state of limbo, where she is neither respectably married nor free to remarry and salvage her reputation.
Disgraced, she would have to rely on the charity of the third party - Mr Garrow.
Thank you, Mr Farmer.
I shall, er I am at your service.
Lady Sarah Hill? You have identified me, may I ask the same of you? You are served with a citation from the Court of Doctors' Commons.
Negligence.
Collingwood was negligent.
Not evil, not a murderer, not cruel, and if you can prise Kelsall apart on the cause of the dispute, that may answer to it.
I wish to introduce another stratagem.
You will enlighten me? Gustavus Vassa.
What evidence can HE provide? You did say yourself, this case was about more than insurance.
There may be consequences, is what I meant.
But I will not have this prosecution sabotaged by pamphleteering and agitation.
And I will not have this prosecution ignore murder! KNOCK AT DOOR Sarah.
I apologise for any intrusion.
I did not have the wits to consider where else I may seek help.
Help? Mr Southouse.
If he means to dissolve the marriage, I cannot say I am surprised by it, but I must confess myself ignorant of the nature of it.
This means of action, it is a sad thing.
I do not wish delicacy, Mr Southouse.
Enlighten me.
He means to cut you off financially.
What has provoked him in this way? The session begins early.
So? You'll tell me why your husband seeks to disown you? He is in the grip of an idea that Samuel is not his, that I am not faithful, but most of all .
.
he insists that I love you.
Despite how you must have refuted every accusation? His fancies have pushed me here.
But from such fancies, a truth comes, Will.
I asked you once in vain to leave him.
Your refusal exhausted every hope I ever had of you.
Now, you declare your love for me as Hill seeks to banish you.
I do not come to you seeking refuge, to hide from the disgrace he is determined to put upon me.
In fact, I have come to say I will own it.
You must not.
I hope you've made arrangements to live elsewhere.
I attend the Old Bailey today and I think upon my return it is as well you were no longer here.
Why does your instigation of the end of our marriage require only my punishment? Well, if I'm amicable, I collude in my own dishonour.
Gustavus.
What do you think induced Captain Collingwood to mistake Jamaica for Hispaniola? He identified it at nine leagues out.
Nine leagues? 27 miles.
27 miles! CROWD MURMURS Captain Collingwood made a wrong identification from a distance of 27 miles.
No more questions, My Lord.
Mr Stubbs, why is your account of the journey incomplete? I was taken ill.
Ah.
Were you ill while you were writing your journal? I had a fever.
Would that explain why your handwriting deteriorates page by page while your sentences cease to hold together in any way that is sensible? The pen shook in my hand, is all.
And your judgement, Mr Stubbs? Was that very shaken also? CROWD LAUGHS Mr Stubbs, why were you a passenger on the Zong? I was in need of passage.
Why? I had been appointed Governor of the Annamboe by the African Company, but I had left there.
Why? Well, um You are under oath, Mr Stubbs.
I was suspended.
CROWD MURMURS Why? Abusing my position.
Abusing your position?! In what way? Seeking to make private profit.
CROWD LAUGHS So you found yourself dumped on the coast of Guinea, until you were picked up by the Zong, and then picked up once more by the insurance company as a witness! Thank you.
Ma'am! We shall be reunited yet.
My Lord, I call Gustavus Vassa.
HUBBUB CHAINS RATTLE Do not be dissuaded by the hostility of their reaction.
Now is your time.
The whole ship's cargo is confined together in the hold.
So many that there is no room even to move your head.
You cannot breathe.
You would not wish to.
The smell of perspiration is only outdone by the stench of the latrines.
It is unforgettable.
Children fall into the tubs of excrement.
They suffocate in it.
In this pestilential stew, if you are fortunate, you succumb to smallpox or gaol fever.
My Lord! Why is this testimony relevant in a prosecution for insurance fraud? This fraud involves a journey across the Middle Passage.
You would not wish a narrative upon it? Only if it relate directly to the indictment.
Slaves thrown overboard, necessity or not? It is never a necessity to murder us! Mr Vassa! You will curb your temper! If I am angry, I am a savage.
If I am sanguine, I am not a man.
Yes.
Quite possibly.
Mr Vassa, will you please give us some idea of your experience at sea? I served in the British Navy for seven years with my master.
I've worked on merchant ships on voyages to North America, the West Indies and the North Pole.
And as such a veteran of the seas, you are familiar with the notion of a ship rendered "foul and leaky"? Zong itself described and claimed so.
"By perils of the sea and contrary currents, the ship was rendered "foul and leaky, and therefore retarded in her voyage.
" Captain Collingwood and the ship's owners claim this was because there was crippling worm damage to the bottom of the boat.
Can you comment? Shipworm.
Teredo worms.
In fact, saltwater clams.
They bore into the submerged timber.
And if I tell you that the Zong was copper-bottomed, what say you then? Any ship that is lined with copper plating on the underside of its hull is impervious to Teredo worms.
So the claims, by Captain Collingwood and the ship's owners, that the ship was rendered foul and leaky? Impossible.
CROWD MURMURS LOUDLY Thank you, Mr Vassa.
No more questions, My Lord.
Garrow excels himself with the negro.
Captain Collingwood, I am sure that you are as distressed as I am that this case has been represented in some quarters as murder.
A policy no doubt intended to inflame a jury.
But let us be clear, so that emotions do not undermine deliberation.
Let us part company with any claim that actual persons were thrown overboard.
This is a case of chattels and goods.
Blacks be goods and property.
This case is the same as if horses had been thrown overboard.
My Lord, my learned friend is not allowing the prisoner to speak, but addressing the jury in how they should feel! Mr Silvester, refrain.
Captain Collingwood, if you will.
It is not the case that the slaves were thrown overboard in order to throw the loss onto the underwriters.
Do you not think the apprehension of necessity justified when my crew themselves suffered such severity? Seven out of 17 died on their way to Jamaica, or after their arrival there.
The ship's cargo and the crew died from want of sustenance.
They did not die from want of a commander.
Hear, hear.
Mr Garrow? Captain Collingwood, you were, until you took this command, a slave ship surgeon.
11 voyages as doctor.
But none of them as captain of a slaver? No.
Your inexperience did not trouble you? Nor the owners of the ship.
In fact, they were reassured that the welfare of those on board ship would be safeguarded by my previous experience.
"The welfare of all those on ship.
" After your wrong identification of Jamaica for Hispaniola and the necessity of sailing back 300 miles to the windward, what did you do? I chose to hold a consultation with the crew subsequently.
And what decision taken? To destroy part of the slaves and put the rest and the crew to short allowance.
That was how you rectified your mistake? To save the ship! Because the situation had become catastrophic.
Yes! The ship retarded by perils of the sea.
The strong current hindering your already belated journey to Jamaica.
A state of emergency, no less? Sufficient for the throwing over to be a necessity.
So, presumably, you seized the goods nearest to hand? I beg your pardon? In the dire circumstances in which you found yourself, you jettisoned at random? No.
Then who did you choose first? The women and children? The sick? Those who would sell for least money? We were in want of water! The healthiest would need least, would survive best, on short allowance.
The healthiest also fetching the best price at market, was that not the only real necessity? Not that you were in want of water, but that you were in want of the market! You decided, as the fastidious servant of your shareholders, to get rid of any slaves you deemed to fetch a price of less than the cost of insuring them.
I am a fastidious servant, sir, of my ship.
If you are so fastidious, then what became of the ship's log? Left with the agent in Jamaica, now lost.
CROWD EXCLAIMS ANGRILY How convenient.
Anything else, Mr Garrow? No, My Lord.
Good, then we shall adjourn until tomorrow.
Court shall rise.
It may be possible that you have it in your power to ruin the preening Garrow entirely.
I may employ a pistol.
Oh, you do not need to challenge him a duel to seek your satisfaction.
Aim at him in another way.
Undo Garrow the man and we shall see the noisome barrister removed from the Old Bailey.
THUNDER ROLLS Mr Farmer.
The writ is already drawn.
On your behalf, I took that liberty.
And so it merely needs serving? Oh, foul weather.
I could not hope for better.
Who is the man with Hill and Melville? It is of no matter.
You know you are not bound to be character witness for Captain Collingwood.
I know, I choose it.
Oh, come, be honest.
The owners of the Zong choose it.
The muster roll of the ship.
It was your late nephew's name alongside you.
Daniel, was his name? I had made assurances to my sister of his welfare.
And hard to bear knowing he may still be alive, but for Collingwood's command.
Was that the cause of your dispute? No.
No? Daniel's unnecessary death did not distress and vex you? Or was it that there had already been so many unnecessary deaths? I cannot answer you.
I was not in attendance when my wife died.
I should have been at her bed, but she left this place alone.
But, Mr Kelsall, you have an opportunity to attend to your nephew again, if you think the truth to suffice.
Kelsall is in some difficulty.
And are you, Mr Southouse? The court session is resumed! Come.
I have served with Mr Collingwood when he was ship's surgeon and under him when he was Captain.
And your opinion of him, Mr Kelsall? Captain Collingwood is an able man and a good commander.
And an honest one? I'm sure of it.
My Lord, if I may? An honest man? As you are, Mr Kelsall? I should like to think so.
Did you have cause to dispute with Captain Collingwood on any occasion? There was none.
I remind you, you are under oath, Mr Kelsall.
Did you think Captain Collingwood's misidentification of Jamaica for Hispaniola a mere mistake, an unavoidable accident? My Lord Mr Kelsall is here to bear witness to Captain Collingwood's character! This is pertinent, My Lord.
Allowed.
Answer the question.
The mistake having been made, Captain Collingwood took measures as Commander.
There were only five-and-a-half Dutch butts, three full of sweet water, enough for four days.
Hence the jettisoning and everyone put on short allowance.
And for some sickly members of the crew, like your nephew, that proved a fatal development? My Lord, what is this to do with the character of Captain Collingwood? I'm trying to get at Mr Kelsall's proper estimation of the man! Then ask a question which demonstrates it! Did you feel that Captain Collingwood's actions were ultimately responsible for the death of your nephew? Was that the reason for the dispute that you will not own to, and why you were suspended as first mate? It was none of that! Then what was it you found so hard to take, that you could not contemplate?! Sir Some change, Mr Kelsall, some change that made all the difference.
It rained, sir.
CROWD MURMURS It rained.
A heavy downfall on 30th November.
We collected hundreds of gallons of rainwater.
HE BREATHES HEAVILY CROWD REACTS ANGRILY But despite this, on 1st December, more slaves were thrown overboard.
That was why Captain Collingwood suspended me as First Mate.
Because I would not go along with it.
There was no need to throw over any more blacks.
There was no want of water.
My Lord, I wish the jury and the Court to note that the witness may have perjured himself, and therefore any evidence How so, Mr Silvester? He describes Captain Collingwood as an able commander, then condemns him.
My Lord, I would submit that Mr Kelsall does not perjure himself.
Captain Collingwood IS an able commander.
If, as captain of a slaver, his duty is to make a profit .
.
he did so, by ridding himself of slaves that were unlikely to fetch what they were insured for.
In that, he has been most able.
It is certainly worthy of observation that our legislator can, every ,session find time to enquire into and regulate the manner of killing a partridge, that no abuse be committed, that he be shotfairly Wellwe shall let that be.
I am not required to direct you on slaves as goods, but merely whether these goods were jettisoned voluntarily or in necessity.
The claim of necessity was false and fraudulent if they were thrown over after the rain, about which you now must decide.
HUBBUB You have reached a verdict? We have.
How do you find the prisoner charged with this indictment? Guilty or not guilty? Guilty.
HUBBUB But we humbly make recommendations for mercy.
MEMBER OF CROWD: Whoa-ho! My Lord! We also wish to make a recommendation to mercy.
Liverpool Assurance do not wish to take a moral position in this action.
Very well.
Captain Collingwood, I sentence you to two years' imprisonment.
You will be put on a hulk ship.
Court shall rise! Do you mock me, Buller? The law will not do your bidding, nor confound Mr Garrow for you.
I do not need the law when I have the consent of decent Englishmen.
A man who showed no mercy receives the mercy of his English peers? There were but 12 men there, not a country, and I hope the country will make its own verdict.
Very satisfactory, Mr Garrow, very satisfactory.
You are very easily satisfied, I think.
Is not fraud discouraged here? And murder also, I would venture.
You are no longer mindful of your opportunities in the North? I am too mindful of how I have scraped, bowed and pleased these last few weeks.
It is even less pretty than when you are curmudgeonly.
Well, I know nothing of that.
William Garrow? You have business with me, sir? You are served with a writ from the Court of King's Bench, in the name of an action for damages by Sir Arthur Hill.
For the act of Criminal Conversation with the plaintiff's wife.
You spin gold from nothing, Mr Jasker.
I do? My reputation in society will be entirely done away with if this accusation prevails.
You must take great pains not to be identified together.
You can contrive to have them so identified? You are intent on avenging a fiction! A dumb show that you have put on! No! No!