James Stout

It finds out, because they're talking to Stubbs, and they're talking to his first mate.

And Stubbs admits, like, a bunch of shit he shouldn't on the stand, including that, like,

wait, wait, you guys, you guys sailed past other islands that had water, but didn't.

Cause you were like worried that they might've been taken by like an enemy who would take your boat, but you didn't know.

And you just went past the islands that were full of water.

And then he admits that like, well, we thought we had enough water when we passed those islands, but then we looked inside and realized that the water barrels weren't as full as we thought.

And it's like, you didn't check on your water.

You didn't check to see if you had enough water.

Yeah.

Seems like a pretty important thing to check.

Yeah.

Likewise, the lawyers point out that the Gregson syndicate had a responsibility to hire a competent captain.

Not only was Collingswood not that, but when he got sick, he passed on command to a demonstrably incompetent man when a skilled sailor and navigator was locked in his room forbidden from doing his job.

It was not the sea's fault or the underwriter's responsibility if the syndicate hired a captain who couldn't, and this is a line from the court case, tell Hispaniola from Jamaica.

Wow.

Real burn on the dead guy.

That's a burn in the 18th century.

Now, much of the case came down to the fact that further interrogation of the ship's stores and the actual documentation of their journey showed that when they landed in Jamaica, they had days of water left.

And if they'd been close to running out, there were again multiple islands they could have gone to to get their water within a day or so.

In addition to that, on the stand, Stubbs revealed that it had rained several times near the end of the journey, and he'd failed to have the crew collect rainwater.