It was not too long before the House of Lords convened again, with another baronet in the dock.

“What is your name?” Viscount Montgomery asked the Vice Admiral.

“My name is John Maxwell,” the admiral replied.

“Do you know why you are here?” Montgomery asked.

“I have some idea why I am here,” Maxwell answered.

“Why did you leave Mr. Robert Woods in chains in Nassau rather than in having him paroled and bringing him back to St. Augustine,” Montgomery asked.

“I have thought about that and I have not found an answer that you would accept,” Maxwell answered.

“It is no light thing to leave someone in chains in a dungeon,” Montgomery said.

“I was upset when he questioned my courage when I surrendered Nassau without a fight,” Maxwell admitted.

“He was right to question your courage. I am sure your court of inquiry will do the same when you get back to it,” Montgomery responded.

“I do not think it would have been worth the injury or death of any British servicemen to fight a hopeless battle,” Maxwell said.

“It is not the point of this court to argue whether a battle was hopeless. You had a fortress and brave British soldiers defending it, so it could not have been entirely hopeless,” Montgomery answered.

“I was there and you were not, so you really don’t have any insight to provide on the matter,” Maxwell stated.

“Mr. Woods thought that an effort should have been made and he was there too,” Montgomery pointed out.

“You are right about that,” Maxwell said. “I did not think his advice worthwhile, though.”

“Did you know who Mr. Woods was when you were speaking to him?” Montgomery asked.

“I found out later on, after we returned to East Florida, that he was from a family that held the title of Viscount, but he did not strike me as a titled gentleman. I thought him a person of very low esteem, a mere factotum of the court, and no one of any particular importance,” Maxwell stated.

“You did not ask him who he was?” Montgomery answered.

“I did not think it would be worthwhile to gratify any idle curiosity in my part or give credit to one I considered to be of such obscure birth and connections as to be unworthy of seeking out,” Maxwell answered.

“Do you believe that you were mistaken in this view?” Montgomery said.

“I believe that it was an error on my part not to have verified what his background was nor to have inquired about it. It is my understanding, based on talking with Sir John Temple, that he would have been honest and forthcoming with me about his background had I asked. It was his natural modesty and his unwillingness to push himself forward that led me to believe that he was of obscure parentage and of no particular importance,” Maxwell admitted.

“So you are telling this body that it is your habit to judge those who do not push themselves forward as being unimportant people, and of feeling free to chain up those you consider to be of no importance without having determined, or even inquired, about their identity? It is not enough that someone is an Englishman and an obvious servant of the crown for their life and freedom to be worth protecting?” Montgomery asked.

“I would not phrase it that baldly,” Maxwell responded. “I did believe that the lives of the servicemen under my command were worth a great deal. I just did not think that a man of no particular background or importance should have the cheek to contradict an officer of such rank as my own.”

“Do you believe that the heir of a Viscount who is on confidential service to His Royal Majesty is of sufficient status to question a Vice Admiral if indeed something goes on that is worthy of being questioned?” Montgomery asked.

“Had I known then what I know now, I would have disagreed with him, but with politeness and respect, and while I may have confined him to quarters while negotiating the surrender, I would not have put him in chains nor left him to the Spaniards,” Maxwell said.

“How many times did you speak with Mr. Woods?” Montgomery asked.

“I spoke with him twice. The first time is when he arrived in Nassau after having been told to get out of Charleston, South Carolina, on account of his defense of a black loyalist there. I was offended that such an obscure person who was totally unknown to me would feel himself qualified to call me without being invited, and I sent him on a task simply to get him out of my hair. He then spoke with me upon his return from Freetown, after which he was thrown into prison,” Maxwell responded.

“And at no point during either of those interviews did you feel it necessary to ask him who he was?” Montgomery asked. “Sir John Temple, with whom we have already spoken, says that while he was a modest man, he had no problem whatsoever talking about his family background to him as a perfect stranger seeking a place to stay for the night in Freetown.”

“Again, I have expressed my regret at judging him false,” Maxwell said. “I am not sure what else I could do at this point.”

“Did you make any written charges against Mr. Woods for what you viewed as his insubordination to you?” Montgomery asked.

“No, he was never formally tried, as such,” Maxwell answered.

“Did you give any written communication to the Spaniards about why he was in chains?” Montgomery asked.

“No, I did not leave any correspondence or information whatsoever about him or what he had done to deserve his fate,” Maxwell said.

“Is it your habit to deny British citizens, of noble connections no less, of the rights of habeus corpus?” Montgomery asked.

“It is not my habit to deny the fundamental rights of Englishmen, no,” Maxwell replied.

“But you denied those rights to him,” Montgomery stated.

“I have already admitted this error,” Maxwell said. “I do not know what I can do at this late hour to remedy the situation at all.”

“You did not think to inform the Spaniards of the prisoner or what he had done, or even that you had left a prisoner in the dungeon rather than take him with you back to East Florida with the other servants of the crown who were paroled?” Montgomery said.

“I did not think he was worth paroling. The surrender documents were already lengthy with twelve terms, and regrettably he was not included in any of them. Nor did I think it would be worthy of my dignity to address the Spanish as if I had made a mistake, and to humiliate myself seeking for him to be removed from imprisonment,” Maxwell said.

“Even knowing what you know now, you have no interest in corresponding with the Spaniards to let them know that you made a mistake by imprisoning the scion of a noble house without a trial or even a formal accusation and then not informing them about why he was in a dungeon when they arrived?” Montgomery asked.

“I did not think that there would be any practical benefit to humiliating myself in such a fashion,” Maxwell responded in a prickly manner. At this response there was angry murmuring from the peers.

“I believe that this body strongly disagrees with your statement as well as with your general standard of behaving,” Montgomery said. “However you may have justified this to yourself, it seems a poor justification of us that you would leave one of our own chained in a dungeon without any charge or without any documentation, for the sole reason that you were upset that they were bold enough to seek your audience without parading themselves as a member of a noble house, and because they were further bold enough to tell you of your lily liver when you refused to defend a British fortress in a British colony from an attack.”

“I must stand secure in my own moral rectitude,” Maxwell replied.

“You have no rectitude to stand in,” Montgomery responded. “You are an embarrassment to the realm.” There was a bit of silence after this statement, as Montgomery and Maxwell were both too angry to speak immediately. During this silence, the door of the chamber of the house of Lords opened and a young man came in with news.

“Honored peers of the realm. I have come here delivering sad news. It has just been reported that Viscount Lipton has died, leaving his estate and his title to his only surviving grandson, the Honorable Mr. Robert Woods, Esquire, who is to take up his title as soon as he is able,” the messenger said. This news prompted more murmuring within the House.

After a bit of time to collect his thoughts, Viscount Montgomery spoke up again. “The House moves to adjourn for the day and to recommence business on Monday morning.”

“I second that,” one Lord called out. “Request for a voice vote,” another one called out. Viscount Montgomery called for ayes and the house responded with unanimity. “The ayes have it,” Montgomery said, before dismissing the court.

After leaving the courtroom, Vice Admiral Maxwell spoke to someone that he had hired for his defense. “How do you think this looks, barrister,” he said.

”What did you expect?” the barrister replied.

“I mean, I expect that this House will be upset with me, but what can they do? They cannot jail me, it is not a court of law,” Maxwell said.

“I think that, with regards to your freedom and life, you have more to be concerned about with regards to the court of inquiry. The admiralty may decide that you would be worth condemning fairly harshly to encourage a more bellicose attitude among other admirals,” the barrister said. “But here, I think they will content to pass a motion urging that your baronet title be stripped from you and that you be subject to pay damages to the crown and to the estate of the new Viscount Lipton.”

“That was a very unlucky break,” Maxwell stated. “If I had known that the man was the heir to a title instead of just being an overly presumptuous royal servant, all of this trouble could have been avoided.”

“As you stated repeatedly, it is too late now to do anything about it,” the barrister said, sighing a bit.

“Do you think that I should have written a letter to the Spaniards informing them of Mr. Woods and the fact that he did not have a formal charge, and thus should be freed at their earliest convenience?” Maxwell asked.

“That would have been a great thing to ask as soon as you had heard about his identity,” the barrister said. “I am not sure how much good it will do at this point.”

“Who would I even write to?” Maxwell said.

“Are you telling me that you have never written a To Whom It May Concern letter?” the barrister said. “As a British governor I am sure that you have written to people you did not know were holding various titles.”

“I am concerned that if I did such a thing with the Spaniards that there would be arguments over protocol,” Maxwell replied.

“I think that when one is dealing with a peer of the realm in a dungeon, that protocol should be the least of your concerns,” the barrister said. “Do you think that the House of Lords or any body of British politicians or administrators would be happy to hear about the way that you treated one of their own, without even bothering to ask who he was or who he was connected to?”

“In my line of work, people always had titles to work with. We could know if a man was worth listening to because he had some sort of rank that we could recognize, to place everyone, no matter how obscure or notable, into the chain of command. How was I to know that a mere Mr. Robert Woods would be a person of importance to the realm?” Maxwell stated.

“There is a Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy who owns about half of Derbyshire,” the barrister said. “And he is the grandson of an earl, as far as I can tell, on his mother’s side.”

“Yes, but Mr. Darcy, young though he is, travels in style, and owns estates and a house in London, and probably spends time with the Crown Prince and his associates. He is known to be a man of importance. He went to Oxford. This Mr. Robert Woods is a mere provincial, or so I thought. He was serving as a barrister in a colonial court, for heaven’s sake. How am I supposed to consider anyone who works in such a fashion as a gentleman?”

The barrister had nothing to say to this. Whatever people like Vice Admiral John Maxwell might say or think, those who served in honorable professions that required a high degree of education like the clergy or the law did consider themselves to be gentlemen. Maxwell, as a naval officer, might have done well to realize that the navy regularly served to uplift those meritorious scions of less notable houses who nevertheless conspicuously served the crown, and might have figured that he ought to be more understanding of others in a similar position. Unfortunately, the admiral appeared to be someone of great foolishness, which made him difficult as a client. Well, it just meant that the barrister should charge more on account of rudeness and the difficulty of defending such a client.