"Stuff, and non-?" Lewrie gawped… aloud, this time.
"Slavery was outlawed in the British Isles nigh fifty years ago, Captain Lewrie, and the condition of slavery is no longer recognised under Common Law," MacDougall was quick to assure him, leaning over to tap Lewrie on the knee, and bestowing on him a very wide grin. "Also, there is the fact that the Committee of Privy Council for the Colonies…, disbanded long ago, by the by…, allowed Jamaica, and certain other colonies and plantations, use of their own local Grant Law, but, such law has no standing in English jurisprudence, d'ye see, Captain Lewrie! Oh, for cases concerning commerce, those presented in Courts of Common Pleas, or Chancery Court should such Grant Law cases concern inheritances and disputed wills, jury decisions or local justices' rulings might stand if appealed in England, but certainly not anent your case, which would go to King's Bench for confirmation, most usually. Ah, the coffee! Capital! Thankee, Sadler."
"So… no one's to snatch me up and march me off to Tyburn?" Lewrie asked, suddenly feeling a lot better.
"Newgate, sir," MacDougall corrected him, with another swipe at his unruly locks, and yet another of his disarming smiles. "Tyburn's out, and Newgate Prison, near the Old Bailey, is London 's new site of executions. Closer and more convenient to everyone needful of instruction in the sureness, and majesty, of the law, ha ha! There's nothing finer than a series of hangings to keep our criminal class daunted, ha ha! Well, sometimes in Horsemonger Lane…"
"Beats the theatre all hollow, too, does it?" Lewrie shied away, wondering just what sort of a tom-fool his supporters had engaged.
"Entertainment for some, surely, Captain Lewrie… grim warning to others," MacDougall chummily agreed as he shovelled four spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee and stirred it up. "Ah, just right. Brazilian, and thank God the Portuguese are still neutral in this war."
Lewrie took a sip of his and found it not quite as scalding-hot as he preferred, but it was close, so he dashed two spoonfuls of sugar into his own, stirred it up, and sipped again.
"So…," Lewrie reiterated, "could someone take me up?"
"Oh, there is a remote possibility," MacDougall allowed with a shrug, "very remote, mind. Any fool may lay an 'information' with one of our new-fangled Police Magistrates, but that sort of arrest usually involves petty crimes… or revenge 'twixt thieves who've fallen out. Even were you to be denounced, and the Bow Street Runners come snatch you, you'd be back on the streets, in a trice… or, as my good old granther always said… 'in twa shakes o' th' wee sheep's tail, an' th' feerst ain a'ready been shook,' ha ha!"
"Uhm… why?" Lewrie had to ask, not reassured a whit.
"Fear, sir! Fear!" MacDougall told him with a great chortling laugh. "Now, 'tis a crime the Runners are already pursuing, yes, they would hold you 'til trial… one of those King's Bench 'justice mills' that prosecutes twenty or thirty cases a day. But, you, sir! Ha! We do not treat our well-born, or our heroes, in such a fashion. Most of the criminal class, the lower classes, well… their crimes are evident, as usually is their guilt, God help them. But for a gentleman, a member of the landed gentry and the well-to-do, most of the magistrates start to tremble in their boots! Deference to the 'better sorts,' and members of the nobility, would result in a quick remand to higher authorities, and, with the presence of legal counsel at your side upon such remand, would have you free in an eye-blink.
"Unless you had committed a heinous crime here in England, sir," MacDougall cautioned in a (rare) sober moment, then not a second later guffawed and slapped his knee. "And, of course we both know that you didn't, and any Police Magistrate would drop you like red-hot shot and not care a fig what transpired on Jamaica, unless told to do so."
"I may safely walk the streets of London, then?" Lewrie asked.
"No one walks London streets in perfect safety, given how many criminals we have abouts, Captain Lewrie," MacDougall said, finding a new cause for amusement, "but, in your case, such a taking-up, as I've already said, would be a very remote possibility."
"Well, that's something, then," Lewrie said with a relieved sigh.
"There is also the commonly held fear of the old 'Star Chamber' tyranny and official oppression, Captain Lewrie," MacDougall told him as he rose to liven the fire in the grate with a poker, then sat back down. "You are aware that there are no government prosecutors under Common Law? Every person put on trial, whether in King's Bench for criminal cases, in Common Pleas or Chancery Court, is prosecuted by an objective attorney engaged by the aggrieved party. And every person brought to court is supposed to be represented by yet another objective attorney engaged by the accused, his family and supporters, or, in some cases by a barrister, sarjeant, or advocate appointed by the Lord Justices should the accused be indigent."
"As I supposedly was back in Kingston?" Lewrie charily asked.
"The conduct of your trial in absentia on Jamaica, I tell you, sir, was the very epitome of the worst abuses of Star Chamber proceedings!" MacDougall intoned in a sudden pique. "From what I was able to gather from friends and allies of yours in the West Indies, your legal counsel, a locally schooled 'Johnny New-Come' to the Jamaican bar, was whistled up from a tavern cross the street from the courthouses, given but half an hour to familiarise himself with little more than your name and background, and presented no witnesses on your behalf, not even any witnesses who might attest to your character or qualities, before your trial began. Oh, there's a whole host of irregularities which I have gleaned from the transcript of your trial, sir… rather a short one, given the fact that the entire proceedings did not last much more than three hours, from 'Oyez' to verdict, to sentencing, and the justice's 'God have mercy on his soul, wheresoever he may be at this moment'!"
"Three… hours?" Lewrie blanched, that wonderful coffee curdling in his stomach. "Three bloody hours?"
"Not as odd as you'd think, sir," MacDougall replied, laughing again. "Why, the first complex criminal case in King's Bench, with a slew of witnesses on both sides, that actually lasted more than a lone day, did not occur 'til 1794! Sat in on it, whilst I was 'eating my terms' at Grey's Inn, and what a show it was, ha ha! Fascinating!"
"Oh, Christ," Lewrie weakly croaked.
"Nought to fear, Captain Lewrie," MacDougall soothingly said. " 'Eating my terms' was not all I did before being called to the bar."
MacDougall then proceeded to lay out the usual cursus lex that most aspiring attorneys were required to pursue… which did nothing much to reassure Lewrie that any lawyer was worth a pinch of pig shit.
A first or second son, usually from a well-to-do family, might attend university for a decent grounding in a gentlemanly education in rhetoric, Latin, and Greek. Whether graduate or not, anyone wishing to become a proper lawyer would approach one of the great Inns of Court-Lincoln's Inn, Grey's Inn, Middle Temple, or Inner Temple-whichever suited his tastes, and where the members seemed more of a like mind to his than any of the others, then ingratiate himself by merely hanging about, reading precedent from past proceedings on his own time with no real schedule of instruction, and dine-in often enough for the elder members-those called "Benchers" who had already earned their honourifics of "King's Counsel"-to "vet" them and decide, usually after a period of three years of social dining "in hall" with other members, whether they should be "called to the bar" or not! Oh, some more aspiring might spend their time as "special pleaders," the ones who wrote up presentations to be submitted to court for their elders, but it wasn't really all that necessary, after all. There were many well-born aspirants who avoided the drudgery of such menial work, but became lawyers on the strength of their supper conversation, and their ability to look sober after those communal dinners!