'Not really,' Hooke said. 'Suppose I testified that this bag contained powder that was too fine. What would it boot him? Anglesey – for make no mistake, that's who's behind this – would reply that Comstock had made up this bag in his own cellar, as false evidence to exonerate himself and his faulty cannons. Comstock's son is the only man who could testify that it came from a ship's magazine, and he's dead. There might be other such bags in other magazines, but they are mostly on the bottom of the sea, thanks to Admiral de Ruyter. We have lost the war, and it must be blamed on someone. Someone other than the King and the Duke of York. Comstock has now come to understand that it is being blamed on him.'