When Vice Admiral Maxwell arrived in St. Augustine with his paroled troops, he expected to find himself celebrated. What he found was something different. Not long after he arrived in town, he found himself with a visitor from among the better classes of the city.

Lady Martin gave him a look that he was sure he had seen before. “Where is my son?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” the admiral said, truthfully.

“My son, Robert Woods, was brought to South Carolina on royal business, and then he arrived in Nassau. I have his letters. You have come with troops and other government personnel. Where is he?”

The admiral hoped his sinking feeling was not visible.

“I see you no longer pretend not to know who I am talking about,” Lady Martin commented.

“Your son looks nothing like you do,” the admiral sputtered.

“He and I think alike, though,” Lady Martin answered.

The Vice Admiral wanted to keep this thought to himself, but it was definitely not a good thing if the lady and her son thought alike, from what she knew of the son. It was a surprise to him that Mr. Woods had come from the better class of a nearby colony, but he could not account for never having heard of him before. “I am, regrettably, familiar with your son.”

Lady Martin gave him a withering look. “Where is he?”

“I last saw him in Nassau,” the Vice Admiral replied truthfully.

“And why did you not bring him with you back to his home, at least?” Lady Martin asked sensibly.

“We had a disagreement about my defense of Nassau,” the Vice Admiral said somewhat testily. “And so he remains there now.”

“Where did you leave him?” Lady Martin asked.

“In prison,” the admiral said.

“London will hear about this,” Lady Martin said angrily. As she got up and turned away from him, the admiral thought he could hear something like, “I feel a letter coming on.” Vice Admiral Maxwell just shrugged his shoulders, though.

Not all of Vice Admiral’s guests were as angry as Lady Martin, much to his pleasure. He found himself talking with a young man who he very much found to be pleasant, who also came from the Bahamas after the Spanish had taken over there.

“What is your name, my good sir?” the admiral asked.

“My name is John Temple,” he replied. “My father is the Lieutenant Governor of the Bahamas.”

The admiral looked at him closely. “I don’t believe I have ever made your acquaintance.”

“No, but you sent many letters to my house, and I answered them,” John replied.

“I sent the messages to Mr. Temple in Freetown,” the Admiral said.

“And I am Mr. Temple. My father authorized me to read and answer all of his mail to the best of my abilities, and I trust you did not find any of the information or style defective,” John answered.

The admiral had to admit to himself that he did not find the style defective at all, even if Mr. Temple was a lot younger than he had expected.

“I have something that has been bothering me,” the admiral asked, “and perhaps you might be able to help me out.”

“No problem, what is your difficulty?” John asked.

“Are you familiar at all with the gentleman Robert Woods?” the admiral asked. “I believe he spent a day or so in Freetown, but I’m not sure you would have met him there.”

“No, I met him. We enjoyed a lovely conversation and he spent the night at my home,” John replied.

“He did?” the admiral asked. “I believe I had instructed the government house to give him a tent, since he did not know anyone in town.”

“He chose to make a new friend who lived in a house,” John said.

“And did you find him to be pleasing company?” the admiral asked.

“I did indeed,” John answered.

“Did you find him to be sufficiently gentlemanly?” the admiral asked. “I have always thought he seemed a bit too low-born for my own tastes.”

“What is your own background?” John Temple asked.

“I come from a baronet’s family from Scotland,” the Vice Admiral said sharply.

“And he comes from a Viscount’s family in Yorkshire,” John replied.

“He what?” the admiral asked.

“Yes, I have had a chance to look over the Peerage of Great Britain, and as I understand it, he seems to be the heir to Viscount Lipton,” John said.

“This is indeed a horrible mistake,” the admiral said.

“What do you mean? You did not find him to be a thoughtful and well-spoken and brave man, fit for command?” John said. “He seems to me to be just the sort of man who is well-suited to speak up in Parliament in the House of Lords.”

“I was offended by some advice he gave me,” the admiral admitted. “And I did not have any use for him. I thought he was a bit big for his breeches when he suggested he sit on my governing council.”

“That is a terrible mistake indeed,” John Temple said. “What did you do with the man? I was hoping to see him here.”

“I put him in prison in the fortress before surrendering it to the Spanish,” the admiral confessed.

“They will not like hearing about this in Whitehall,” John Temple noted. What had seemed like delightfully company to the admiral ended up as anything but.

Before too long, as soon as news had traveled to London about his shameful surrender without demanding any effort on the part of the Spaniards, he received a not entirely unexpected summons to a court-marshal in Portsmouth. He was told to prepare for it and to bring any witnesses that he could in order to back up his side of events, and it did not take him too long to decide on who to bring with him. He got on a ship that was to take him to Portsmouth and was somewhat surprised to see John Temple there.

“Fancy seeing you here,” John said to the surprised admiral.

“What accounts for your presence?” the admiral asked.

“I have been asked to report to Whitehall concerning the late business in the Bahamas,” John said. “I believe I have some questions to answer in Parliament,” John said.

Whatever this had to do with events in Bahamas, Vice Admiral Maxwell figured it had nothing to do with him personally, and he did not wish to volunteer what he was about, so he let the interview end with friendly pleasantries, and nothing more substantial.

There are some writers who fancy themselves to be experts on the way of the sea, and are willing to and interest in conveying all kinds of spurious details about an ordinary journey from the coast of Florida to the coast of England. To be sure, sometimes such travels can be dramatic, especially in times of war, but that was not the case here. The ship that carried Vice Admiral Maxwell and Sir John Temple, Esquire, to their respective interviews in England did not run into any hurricanes in the Atlantic. Some travelers may find this odd, as if they expected a guilty man like the admiral to attract divine disfavor in the form of at least a tropical storm that might lead him to puke his guts out into the Gulf Stream and confess before heaven his cowardice and pride that led him to such a shameful state as he found himself in. But there was nothing of the kind, instead the weather was sunny and warm, but not overwhelmingly so, and there were no privateers or hostile fleets who molested their journey or threatened their safety along the way. Indeed, the Gulf Stream practically sped the ship on to England, making it a fast journey and one where little time was waste in being becalmed by the winds or threatened by being stalled in the horse latitudes. Instead, the ship seemed to race on its way to the coast of England, it was not too long before Sir John Maxwell, Vice Admiral of the British Fleet, found himself at Portsmouth to handle his court of inquiry.

Nor is it any part of my own intentions to bring the reader into the private and not very interesting space of a court of inquiry, or what the Americans call to be a court-marshal. Not being an expert in naval law, and not wishing to detail all of the tedious argumentation that is involved in such a trial, which is even more tedious than the usual trial, I would have happily skipped straight to the conclusion of such a court of inquiry, but it must be fairly noted that it did not take very long into the court of inquiry before the proceedings were suspended, much to the relief of everyone involved, including this writer, when it was determined that the Vice Admiral was wanted to explain other aspects of his actions in Nassau before the House of Lords. Admittedly, the Vice Admiral did not find this new summons to be to his tastes either, but at least he knew that his life would not be at stake when talking to the Lords assembled in Westminster, and he figured that he could explain himself that he was unaware of John Woods’ background when he clapped him in irons and left him to the tender mercies of the Spanish. He did not really intend that the heir to a Viscountcy should be endangered in such a fashion, and would happily go back and undo things if he could, but he did not think that the Spanish should know that they held such an important hostage, as it might make things more difficult for the British in general. He hoped, at least to himself, that he would be able to persuade the House of Lords that it had all been a terrible mistake and he had been duped by Robert Woods into judging him as a nobody, a mere cipher, and not an important person whose fate was of interest to the nation’s leaders.

Meanwhile, at Lipton House in Yorkshire, an old man was slowly dying. Try as he might to fortify himself with eggs, toast, and orange juice, day by day he found his energy failing. He had hoped to see his grandson one more time before he left, but he found, much to his alarm, that his daughter-in-law reported that his grandson was in a Spanish prison because he had been left there by Vice Admiral Maxwell. He was sure that no heir of his could deserve such shabby treatment, and he had dictated a letter to his business manager to send to the House of Lords expressing that while Viscount Lipton was ill and largely bedridden at this point, that he wanted to make sure that everything possible was done to bring his grandson to safety once again. It was perhaps unsurprisingly this message that soon had its desired result in leading to the suspension, at least temporarily, of the court of inquiry into how Sir John Maxwell had handled the surrender at Nassau, and to bringing him to Westminster to answer for his treatment of the heir to Viscount Lipton.

Meanwhile, at the fortress in Nassau, Robert Woods, the subject of so much concern from others, was not aware at all of what was going on. He had, of course, been able to befriend some of the rats that were to be found in the dungeon of the fortress. Robert was not such an unlikeable fellow that he was beyond making friends wherever they were to be found, and as there were no other prisoners there with him, and as the Spaniards did not soon return, because they could find no reason why he should be imprisoned, but also no particular reason why he should be let go to regain some amount of liberty again, it was the rats of the dungeon that Robert was left to befriend. Robert confessed to himself that he was not particularly fond of rats, but these rats did not seem particularly unfriendly to him, and they recognized that he was a kind soul who took at least some interest in their well-being, so they made sure not to bother him or trouble him, for even a rat, it could be said, had some idea as to the sort of people who troubled and tormented them, and he was not that sort of person himself, whatever the admiral had thought of him.