Once upon a time, in 1749 in fact, the governor of Jamaica wrote a 10-page letter to his majesty the King of England. Now this governor repeated himself a lot (and I mean a lot!) which caused the letter to be so long when it could have easily been 3-pages or less.
(My favorite phrase was "...fraudulent and clandestine..." Well, one time it was clandestingly and by fraud)
You may be asking yourself, "What was so clandestine and fraudulent?" That is a great question!
You see, this governor caught a ship from Rhode Island (yes, Rhode Island!) smuggling French sugar, rum, and molasses. He was very upset, which is probably why he kept repeating himself, about the "daily breaches of that law".
Now kids, this is right before the French and Indian War (also known as The Seven Year's War) so I'm guessing there was a law about importing French sugar, rum and molasses into the colonies.... think Cuban cigars.
And the best part of the story is that the ship was called the Enterprise. Doesn't that make your inner trekie squeal with delight and laughter?!
On another note, I wonder if this was his real name?
Arresting officer: "Can I have yer name mate?"
Offender: "uh... yeah.... John..... Smith" *shifty eyes*
I think I'm easily amused.
I haven't found anything to help my search for my 4th great grandpa but I've been having fun! I've been looking through books and documents (originals) that are older than the United States of America!
(PS - I should have posted this tomorrow instead of tonight, but it makes me laugh and I wanted to post it now. LOL)
4 comments:
This sounds like a good bit of history, I like that it is so personal ("I am not a crook") to him. ;)
It's understandable that it's personal to him because Jamaica is loosing money from the smuggling by the Northern colonies. LOL
That is awesome! Remember that one film strip we were looking at that had EVERYTHING recorded by the priest. Love old documents that show such personality and passion! ESPECIALLY when it's funny :-)
I love your passion. Love you.
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