1 Flying jib

      2 Jib

      3 Fore topmast staysail

      4 Fore staysail

      5 Foresail, or course

      6 Fore topsail

      7 Fore topgallant

      8 Mainstaysail

      9 Main topmast staysail

      10 Middle staysail

      11 Main topgallant staysail

      12 Mainsail, or course

      13 Maintopsail

      14 Main topgallant

      15 Mizzen staysail

      16 Mizzen topmast staysail

      17 Mizzen topgallant staysail

      18 Mizzen sail

      19 Spanker

      20 Mizzen topsail

      21 Mizzen topgallant

      Illustration source: Serres, Liber Nauticus. Courtesy of The Science and Technology Research Center, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundation

      Author’s Note

      Those who have read any of the scores of books about Lord Cochrane, or the Earl of Dundonald as he became on his father’s death, will remember that he was tried before Lord Ellenborough at the Guildhall for a fraud on the Stock Exchange and found guilty.

      Lord Cochrane and his descendants always passionately maintained that he was not guilty and that Lord Ellenborough’s conduct of the trial was grossly unfair; and most of his biographers, including Professor Christopher Lloyd, the best of them all, agree. Lord Ellenborough and his descendants, however, took the opposite view, and one of them set about refuting the publications of the tenth, eleventh and twelfth earls in a book devoted to the question. But he found that he was not competent to deal with the legal aspects and he handed over the task, together with his papers, to Mr Attlay of Lincoln’s Inn, a very able lawyer whose long, fully-documented and closely-reasoned book might shake all but the most determined of Lord Cochrane’s supporters.

      Yet the function of Mr Attlay’s book, as far as this tale is concerned, was not to prove or disprove the guilt of either side but rather to show exactly how the trial proceeded, and this knowledge I have used, simplifying the complex legal issues, annihilating scores of witnesses, but carefully retaining the structure of the trial, together with its curious timetable. The reader may therefore accept the sequence of events, almost unbelievable to a modern ear, as quite authentic.

       Chapter One

      The West Indies squadron lay off Bridgetown, sheltered from the north-east tradewind and basking in the brilliant sun. It was a diminished squadron, consisting of little more than the ancient Irresistible, wearing the flag of Sir William Pellew, red at the fore, and two or three battered, worn-out, undermanned sloops, together with a storeship and a transport; for all the seaworthy vessels were far away in the Atlantic or Caribbean, looking for the possible French or American men-of-war and the certain privateers, numerous, well-armed, well-handled, full of men, swift-sailing and eager for their prey, the English and allied merchant ships.

      Yet although they were old, weather-worn and often iron-sick they were a pleasant sight lying there on the pure blue sea, as outwardly trim as West Indies spit and polish could make them, with paint and putty disguising the wounds of age and their bright-work all ablaze; and although some of them had suffered so from fever in Jamaica and on the Spanish Main that they could scarcely muster hands enough to win their anchors, there were still plenty of men, both officers and foremast-jacks, who were intimately acquainted with the ship that was beating up against the steady breeze and