Jury of their peers

Post date: Apr 9, 2009 6:55:55 PM

The St. Johns and the Lowthers would have known each other from at least the end of the seventeenth Century, when William and Anne were on the throne and the St. Johns (Jean’s St. John’s white ancestry) and the Lowthers (my white ancestry) shared Queen Ann - in common.

Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbrook, an ancestor out of whom a branch of the black St. Johns came, was married to Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who was the closest and childhood friend of Anne. Sarah even accused Ann of being a lesbian but that for Ann could have been difficult because she had eighteen miscarriages and a number of children.

The Navigation Act instituted by Charles II so that he could get money to finance his whores meant that all cargo to England from the colonies was supposed to be shipped in British bottom - British ships - a St. John, Lord Bolingbrook’s family was in Barbados at that time running up and down the Caribbean and out of Nantes, West Coast of France by Biscayne and before Brittany, France, trading illegally. The British would have blown French boats out of the water but St. John traded back and forth, while there were hostility between the two countries going on all the time. The government of France ran piracy and the majority of pirates in the West Indies were French. The British ones were “respectable” privateers licensed from and for the Crown.

At least two notable Lowthers operated from the island at that time and they operated in the same circles.

“The Lowthers are British nobility -Earl of Lonsdale- whose motto is Magistratus indicat virum - the state of magistracy indicates virtue. One of them was Robert, the longest serving, and the worst and most notorious governor. He served at the beginning of the 18^th century. He was appointed by Queen Anne.

Arrogant and tyrannical, he stole land and committed all manners of infelicities, fired elected members on the Executive Council, broke all the rules of the courts, persecuted all who opposed him, threw some in jail on concocted charges and stole their land. He, his nephew, Frere, and three others were ripping off money by the buckets and locking up people without warrants and when Freres needed money Lowther, on pretext, discovered that government house, which he occupied on a beach in Bridgetown, what became the Royal Barbados Yacht Club, was unsafe because of pirates and out of government money he bought a house, which Freres owned called Pilgrims as the new Governor’s residence. Today it is still the official Governor General’s resident. He was called back to London, Queen Anne died and George I reinstated him and sent him back.

On Robert’s return he overstepped his instructions and became both prosecutor and judge of those, who were responsible for his recall. Finally he was shipped back where he was prosecuted and found guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours and sentenced to death. He survived only because of a general amnesty at the death of King George.

St. Johns were pirating and so was another infamous Lowther, a pirate called George and a terror of the sea. His partner, Captain Massey, when the two fell out with each other, wrote a narrative of Lowther’s piracy.

Lowther eventually committed suicide.

He and his pirates were careened at an uninhabited island, Blanquilla, off South America, when they were surprised and attacked by a British ship. Lowther’s men surrendered. He escaped but was soon found dead, his pistol at his side. Lowther was a mariner, who became a con artist and when that failed a pirate. He plundered ships and sank them with all crew on board.

He had sailed from London as second mate on board a ship, which belonged to the Royal African Company. Over time and through craft, he seized the ship changed its name to the Delivery and began pirating throughout the Eastern Caribbean with the crew. His first prize was a brigantine, captured 70 miles off Barbados. Days later he plundered a French sloop off Western Hispaniola. Soon he had a fleet of four vessels, when he arrived in Virginia.

Puerto Rico, St. Christopher (St. Kitts) he sailed “with debaucheries, with drinking, swearing and rioting, resembling devils rather than men; striving to outdo one another in new invented oaths and excerations.” From the Bay of Honduras to Grand Cayman Island he whipped, beat, cut up his victims, put them on board ships and set themon fire.

He captured everything in sight; ships on route from New England even fishing boats were not spared. He hit the Grand Banks of New Foundland before he returned to the Caribbean and made his last capture; a ship out of Guinea, the Princess, off Barbados from which he took fifty-four ounces of gold dust, the ships gun powder, small arms and the cargo.” Adapted fromREFLECTIONS – Modern Politics – The Caribbean, Africa and Asia Minor by Angela Cole and Gary Cole 1,200 Pages.

Such men in England would be judged by a “jury of their peers” in the House of Lords and not by the customary ordinary man’s “jury of their peers,” i.e. the regular person.

Where an unenlightened judiciary is oblivious to certain understandings and where there is no fear of judge, police, politician and citizens the only fear is exposure - shining a light on dark deeds. Dark because the design of the plan has a short life and will always fall and give way to truth.

Many times, as Jean St. John became more bent, I had held her hand to support her as she walked.

The back of a woman in the supermarket was Jean’s. “Jean St. John!” I said to the back but when the woman turned she was taller and her gait and silhouette was not that of Jean.

“But she is in a home.” I said and at the same time the woman asked: “Is she in a home?” Our voice met on “home.” Then we echoed each other: “You know Jean St. John?” Our paths had never crossed still we did not pass by each other - she did not know about Jean and me and I did not know about Jean and her. She was Jean’s age, about fifteen years older than I am.

I am a skeptic so I say a force came in – like some, who can push an object without touching or conjurer up one. Jean shape shifted and did so to communicate. A friend, believes that shape shifting is occulting and what we experience is called superimposition – alternative manifestation - one body’s likeness over a next to send a message to the intended receiver from the person that has left. He tends to say that we will never see Jean again.

Its effect has been a returned to what I had written about Jean’s situation. She and Jean had been friends for life and she had telephone her home so many times and did not get her. She had heard that she was in the hospital and was now out and in some nursing home.

“Jean is hard ears, everyone has two eyes, two ears and one mouth; she speaks too much.” She said.

“You mean she speaks the truth?”

The motto is - speak the truth and thy shalt suffer persecution. Sordid history corrupts and gives way to wickedness and those who do not think right are blind to the light of the truth, cannot see or help what they are doing so everything is O.K.

Dominance lieth over the wicked, who turn themselves crazy as they watch the impotence of money that is worth nothing against the riches of the world, and heads become evil and cruel through and through.

There is a way to keep wealth in a good way; it is not how much money but how: let it be put to good use and not used for lust.

“I telephone Jean’s home but I never got an answer and I did not want to call William because he got his troubles.” William is Jean’s brother and his wife had a stroke a few months ago and needs three people to attend to her. Prime Minister Tom Adams’ death certificate is signed by one doctor only, William, a surgeon, and he wrote the cause as related to a heart problem.

“God does not sleep.” She said.

We spoke about the 19^th Century act of piracy in these families and she said she had heard about it and wondered it its was true and I assured her that it was that I had researched it with Rocky Walcott and told her how I had come to do so.

The Bible says they love not blessing, they are foolish and cursing comes into their mouth and so let curses fill their mouths leven into their bowels and every word they speak shall be cursed and when they arise let them be ashamed and let them be vagabonds and eat their bread from desolate place: in other words they will gain from theft and murder, and will be deceitful, seek the wicked to control and that Satan/Set stands at their right hand side.

Jean’ situation occupied my mind for the past few weeks and my decision was not to get involved with beasts and creeping thing.

We spoke of Jean’s living conditions: “I cannot believe that Jean had to leave Salters when she looked after Daisy.” Daisy was their mother. “They know she live like that ever since. I hear a cousin come in. They will find what she has and it will end up with the strongest one.”

I called a name and she agreed and she solicited a promise to call her with Eric’s number. I read her this letter although I left out the thing about the vampire.

The Truth is an Absolute Defence

“My mother does not want to hear anything about the curse, no matter if everyone knows, she wants to stay oblivious to the sound of the flute and does not want to get to the bottom of the problem.” Excerpt from REFLECTIONS – Modern Politics - The Caribbean, Africa, Asia Minor by Angela Cole and Gary Cole 1200 pages available April 2009

Some interesting developments over the last two weeks have put some dark issues into perspective.

Jean, in her seventies, sells in the Cheapside Market on Fridays and that is where I stop usually to see her, drink a beer in a paper bag with her and chat with the hawkers around, some of whom come from under the hill at Hackelton Cliff and a few older ones remember Miller Austin, her grandfather.

Jean had been hospitalised with asthma and respiratory problems and the doctors asked how could she have been left so long. The problem is her toxic, living conditions and she has to spend time in a nursing home until her house could be cleaned.

While she was in the home I went inside her house for the first time, to find that she had been living in worst condition than a dog would. Nowhere, rich or poor have is seen such smut; it is like living in a cellar. There were beds but they were full of things that were covered in dust. She slept in a chair with grubby covers. Nothing had been cleaned for decades and she seemed to eat mainly from cans.

“All the families’ prestige means nothing if they could allow one of your own to live worst than an animal.” I thought. “What is the meaning of this. Why would she live like this?” Realization came that she found ways to keep people out of the house but some of her family had visited.

“I not asking any questions.” The issue was evaded by Eric, her cousin, who is old now. He is twenty years older than I am, and as we reach old age they slay the broken in heart manage to wear down the spirit, and oppress it when it is weakened. So many times we have asked the question how can families treat each other in such ways?

We are not blood related but form a linked through blood relatives and unfortunately these relations and their associates were the only relatives allowed and they have come to dominate in the family and the society.

“The family do not like me.” Jean, beautiful, intelligent and full of joie-de-vivre used to say. “I speak my mind and they do not care about me.” And so she must have decided that the family did not mean anything to her and then, it seemed, nothing meant anything.

That is a technique - total isolation for those, who do not share their values and morays. It is social death – treatment not fit for a human being - slay off image and destroy in an emotional and spiritual way - not in the sense of to take a knife and stab but to kill in ingenious and clever ways. Nothing is done to assist but if hospitalised there are visits and when dead a gathering sits, talks, shows off, gloats are gleeful and sated in victory.

“Not one of your family wants you around them.” My mother boasted. “You cannot pull any of your families’ doors and go in.” Of course I would not know about the other side of my family from whom she isolated me in order to control. Animals if they do not want to care for their young they kill them; they do not torture them for years.

It is a phenomena – abnormal human behavior - a mental disorder bound up in genetics. Genetics is not only to do with molecular theory – a gene is several protein molecules arranged in a certain order, which predisposes to a certain attitude in reaction to living. In the same way there is mutation, what Darwin called adaptation. This is in-born cruelty like female mutilation, most of those tribes in Central and North Africa do not consider it barbaric.

Some were born into this life but some adopted it, satisfied themselves, are protected and helped with good jobs; they get on the boat and when they get on the boat they take their children and grandchildren, they get their houses and they cock-up and say:- “Oh I have lived a good life and now I am ready to die,” but most have not accomplished an understanding of any thing about life. All they have done is just follow the systems.

They do not think any different from their fore parents and the time warp cannot be got out of - it has been so, no other way is known and it cannot be seen and since no one in the household or the society comes out and says that is cruel it continues. It is like what they do when their backs are against the wall like Abraham:-

“Thou are about a man of ability, so why would you tell me that Sarah was your sister?” The King asked Abraham for Abraham had nearly made him sin his soul. Abraham used to claim that Sarah, who was supposed to be blonde, was his sister, when other men were around, whom he thought might kill him and try to take Sarah away. Every time he got into the same circumstance and was afraid he operated and thought in the same way. And Isaac, his son, who was not even conceived, when Abraham did these things, went and did the same.

My mother sneers that I do not have much sense that she treats me badly and I still always come back for more. This is called being human and the only reason that she can hurt me is because she is my mother, a naval string connects the two of us and there is a need to be validated that cannot be avoided; everyone wishes for it. It is a need at the core of the heart.

These people are family; nobody else outside can hurt us as they have done. It is not about sense - it is like sometimes children are taken from parents that burn them with cigarettes and put in with lovely foster homes and they still runaway back to their parents because of a sense of belonging – to be considered one of us. Counseling or pills cannot get rid of it; it has to be converted to love towards somebody else.

Life is a struggle and Jean has had something happened in her life to make her surrender, something paralysed her to the point, where she refused to resist any more and just fell into total degradation, where resistance is lowered to spinelessness and ineffectualness, when a difference cannot be made. There is no middle ground; life or death, light or darkness, up and down and according to the Bible this is the valley of decision, no man’s land, where the battle goes between good and devil for the soul, heart and the mind.

As I walked through the decades of garbage, where cockroaches and rats ran freely I looked for a bat hanging upside down and I remembered that the white St. Johns out of which the black St. Johns came are also Draxes and the Draxes were vampires and that the state of un-dead is, when the life-blood is sucked and blood pressure is lowered, anaemia occurs, a pallor and lethargy sets in and movement slows. A state, where the pulse is at the point just before death – living death.

Many of those plantations along the St. George valley near Drax Hall are haunted also; one or two even brought in priests to do exorcism but some white people hide that fact.

In the biblical definition the life substance whatever constitutes the life of the soul or from the Chinese the Chia.

The Hebrews say that there are three souls: the Nephesh is the worldly that feels hunger, thirst, pain and can die - animals like man have Nephesh - homo erectus - ignorant man, walking on two feet, had it. Added to this there are those that distinguishes man – homo sapiens, homo meaning man, sapiens meaning wise - from all other life forms: the Ruach, the middle soul - moral virtues, consciousness, which is to do with personality and the ability to understand good and evil, then there is even a higher, never-dying soul/spirit, the afterlife, the Neshaman, that at death returns to the source that created it.

“There is nothing inside there that is good.” Said the shopkeeper, who saw the disaster at Jean’s.

“Yes you are a carpenter’s son and we are the grandchildren of plantation owners.” But they leave out, whose great grandfathers were pirates.

“Monica says,” Monica is Jean’s double cousin – two Miller Austin daughters married two St. John brothers and Eric’s sister “that she does not want anybody in Jean’s house till she clean it up because she does not want anybody walking around talking shit. She says that Jean is a hoarder and I am one not as bad as Jean, and she has a daughter like that.”

This should be translated by the society as pretence and means: “how would we look if everybody walk around and say the truth.” It is rooted again in piracy, which is greed - gain received without merit.

Genuine family would not leave a sister or a cousin in these conditions and only close to the end move in from overseas to clean up something they knew for decades and claim: “I was the one to come in here and clean out in here.” Jean’s land, which she needed some assistance with, and got none, she struggled alone, to subdivide and create her wish to build a small wooden house and sell the rest in order to do so is worth in hundreds of thousands of dollars and her inherited shares, 1/27 shares, in the Malvern Trust is worth a wonderful amount if it can ever be got together as it seems not to be to anyone’s benefit except as a control mechanism – they own nearly all of Hackleton Cliff and in an act of sacrilege, the wonderful plantation house was sold for a paltry amount.

“I was the one that sleep there.” Monica sleeps in a grubby chair at Eric in order to create a further image. She does not help her brother, who has been reduced by: “Eric mad,” and “do not let Eric get money for when he talks people listen and he would turn this place upside down.” And this is the reason that Eric is not to be paid for his knowledge and the island’s farmers do not know how to cure rot in onions and it is also one of the reasons that agriculture is in disarray. Reduce Eric to nothing and do not mind the effect on the island.

Jean’s niece called at Jean’s house and Monica, who has ignored her from birth, asked her, in this their first conversation, if she is hoarder like Jean. That statement is to prevent exposure and save reputations. Farce is what the outside world sees but the internal reality is dysfunctional and in shambles.

“Jean only sells in the market to embarrass us.” They used to say.

A few, the still hungry, who have never been satisfied with the level of experience of our mothers, fathers and the families and search for something deeper are gained and gleamed from the dialectics of certain understanding but connections and affiliations at different levels bear down, caution creeps into the activity and nothing can be done but observe, poisoned by whatever information that is fed around the circuit.

Next stop was Jean’s locker in the market. For the first time there was chatting with the hawkers. “Eric is the only one that can stop Jean from selling in here.” This statement would demote creditability so that nobody listens. These hawkers appreciate Jean and cannot be fooled.

“But Eric sells in Oistins on Friday nights.” They say to themselves. “Jean is a genuine person.”

There are different types of enemies, who have their agendas and obsessions that come at times and for different reasons and different needs and with credibility lost others see value and are out for profits.

“The authorities believe that I have no right to sell in the market because I am a St. John.” Some people do not think I have a right to a stall at Oistins because I am a St. John.”