"I will tonight"
"Learn how value poetry.When she fled the island of St.Croix and met her new spouse James Hamilton who was confronted with similar misfortune her future took a new dimension . James was born in 1718 to a family of eleven ,9sons and 2 daughters and was fourth in the pecking order.The fourteenth Laird in the Cambuskeith line of Hamiltons Alexander Hamilton was married to Elizabeth Pollock the daughter of Baronet.The opulent lineage possessed coat of arms and for centuries owned a castled Grange near Kilmarnock.In the genealogical tables were traced back to the fourteenth century and were links to a Scion of a blue ribbon Scottish family.The ivy encrusted Castle situated on windswept hills over adjoining little town of Stevenson was purchased in 1685.James grew up in this Castle a huge family estate that traversed beyond Stevenson and covered half of Parish arable land as occupants reveled a fogbound view across the firth of Clyde on the Island of Arran.
Underprivileged besides Cottage Weavers and miniature league of artisans scrabbled for a living under Hamilton as tenant farmers and subsisted on oatmeal diets . However this highborn pedigree did not endure James with no tertiary education regarded as black sheep of the family faced with humuliated prospects in life and was caught for mediocrity."
"Was he that bad?Poor James"he stood up and sat beneath his father perpetually engrossed on a broken little dreg.The Sun had gone down as they moved From the seaside and closer home."He was unlucky could not hold for long unlike brother John an industrialist and underwriter .Two brothers attended University of Glasgow.Most siblings found comfortable niches like brother William , a tobbaco planter and Walter apothecary and doctor , Alexander turned a surgeon.Sister Elizabeth married custom purveyor at Port Glasgow.You see that poor chap!"
"Maybe he was unlucky."
"No in the first place there was no plan.I wasnt surprised when Hamilton was fond of comparing himself to his strong willed mother but of father's opulent background. His enterprising brother was a banker ,textile tycoon and a shipping magnate who revolutionised Glasgow.And it was no mean feat when in 1720sDaniel Defoe was forced to pour encomium on the city when he said "the most beautiful little town in Britain."This Checkered antecedence became the most enthralling muse that appealed the most to Alexander Hamilton when he founded America and made it world power posthumously ninety six years after.When there was Union with England in 1707, Scotland grew in prosperity in the commerce with North America and colonies of west Indies boomed."
"How".
"Because merchant princes became prosperous by venuring into sugar, tobacco and coffee trafficking.So to empower his brother James John enrolled him in a four year Prenticeship with Richard Allan a rich Tycoon in Glasgow who aided the pioneering of Scottish linen industry with his Harlem Linen and Dye manufacturing company .This was emulated later by Hamilton when he brought manufacturing to Patterson, New Jersey ,to kickstart the real sector industry in America.He had Dutch industrial trade secrets which he clandestinely procured either by ruse or copy through self sponsored raid.Reckless James entered into patnership with Allan and other patners John Glass,James Dechman and Archibald Ingram and they formed Glasgow Inkle factory.They produced linen tapes or inkles which were used and consumed in lace production.They were Glasgow's commercial royalty controlled landed estates drove in ostentatious coaches and traded River Clyde with ocean going vessels and decked with opulence."
"Did that tell on brother James too?"
"No,his position was bleak at the mercy of profligate patners as the nicknamed black sheep."
"That was quite unfortunate."
"Guess what?"
"What !"
"They tirelessly bailed him out of financial trouble for many years in reckless affront to their elite status.Ominous Prenticeship signed in 1737 was a legal bondage for feckless James groaning in debilitating scrapes of recurrent financial haermohage.
Allan was paid forty five pounds by John to groom his affable brother in textile trade.He had no guaranteed holiday nor a free weekend although he was to receive from Allan household work incentives like a room ,a board and new linen.The startup period was hectic and drained or guzzled capital recklessly to later become profitable and was satisfied to have mentored his brother into a promising career .When the contract expired in 1741,James ventured overseas and precisely West Indies was the darling Bride."
"Why west Indies? Reiterate "
"Because it was the center of white gold and sugar plantation.This kickstarted Industrial revolution .Many young Noble men with same notion of get rich syndro. syndrome were seduced to the sugar islands.
Merchants desired to amass quick fortune and then return to Europe with stashed funds and snap luxurious estates.Huge shiploads of sugar flocked to maritime corridors of Glasgow from West Indian vessels.
They included boiling distilleries, refineries, sugar produced brandies and they also sold provisions alongside plantation produce.Assorted European and North American goods were stored by the Scots in the bonded warehouses.
We quite agree James was quite unlucky and much more generally due to poor planning than for mere Blizzard of nature that plagued a merchant in the exportimport trade of produce across the Atlantic . When he went into the trade in the capacity of merchant from St.Croix he couldn't manage his temper at indigent circumstances and had to be rescued by his brother.What an unfortunate paradox for estranged child from the family and in most cases seemed to have hidden extent of his financial trouble.The future prospects of Fortune hunting commerce had turned into permanent financial trap,by the time he met Rachel Faucette Lavien.Afflicted by this trauma common among young fortune hunters to take a mongrel or mullato lady or put off marital esteem until they return home he was forced to consider one.
Now he fell luckily I to the palms of highly educated but also distressed European woman.They met in 1750s in St.Kitts also known as St.Christopher in the Leewards Island where the Scots were awarded more than half of the island's original land grants.
They had had same story to tell better defined by this symmetry fell in social standing experienced monumental set backs and terrorised by the trauma of economic dejection.
Poor choices had given way to advanced relationship, learning and critical thinking.
Little wonder were able to produce hypercompetitive, hypertensive, and hypersensitive lad who was learned about class and venom of social hierarchy that ruled the world .
How much more in an age when divorce was a novelty and sometimes more expensive to obtain in crown colonies.This unborn Alexander to lifelong tag of birthright illegitimacy.After they visited St.Kitts and perfected the relationship got married as common law couple produced seven children.It lasted fifteen years."
"What ?Just fifteen years?Why?"
"It maybe because of the tussles in the legal technicalities involved and James own failure as merchant.You know nine years after she fled St.Croix,Lavien resurfaced to .."
"That wicked man"
"Now to unleash a final havoc in recompense and to obtain by force divorce from her."
"Did Rachel show up in court?"
"No,but he did submit through smear campaign and got a divorce that permitted him and Rachel couldn't "
"That was quite cheating."
"Danish authorities took up the matter and forbade clergymen or risk dismissal should they be found wanton in defiance of such decision.On the hand Peter Lavien was given the inheritance and safeguarded while two honest boys were doomed to illegitimacy forever nor any luck to mitigate the detestable stigma."
"You mean hamilton got no inheritance?"
"He was empty as the grave".
"Uhmm......"
"Peter ventured into real estate and moved on with life into South Carolina.
This happened in early 1760s when Laviens moved from Christiansted to Fredericksted on the far side of St.Croix a journey that Rachel was shortly forced to take."
"Did peter succeed at South Carolina?"
"Oh Son of a fiend most history was silent about him.Now James who had been living off family connection after he succeeded in debt recovery mission an assignment given him by brother John now the new Laird who took over title from father Alexander from Alexander moir.while Rachel and two boys lived in Christiansted,he later fled and abandoned his family forever."
"Jesus!"
"It was probably due to dread of same court divorce wrangling and related threat he might have heard across the land with lies that Rachel was a notorious woman."
"Yet illegitimaye children turned the world around and made it a better place forever".
"He left the island forever the moment he succeeded in the Moirs case and Rachel haunted by stigma of earlier marriage . Eventually became the breadwinner in the face of daunting odds she had to endure sometimes through aimless wandering on the island.They lived on wealthy relations with their people the Lyttons.
Could you another bad tales?"
"Like seriously?"
"The sustenance of the Lyttons was short-lived when badluck Investment fell upon them within short period a month of her arrival at St.Croix,Ann Lyttons was dead too.She was thirty six by the time she took over a house on 34 Company Street and became a storekeeper."
"I read white ladies were lazy in those days."
"Exactly.The period was dominated by lazy white women destined as domestic rats, pleasure inside drink tea make coffee,make falls and play cards sometimes industrious sew abit.With merchandise purchase from her landlord kept a goat to give boys milk in her backyard.With the two New York merchants Nicholas Cruger and David Meekman who just started a trading firm where the career of claustrophobic Hamilton was later transformed provided the rest of the family needs."
"Thought you said she died at 35?"
"In 1767 at age 38 she succumbed to debilitating disease like Hamilton and a woman Ann McConnell and Dr Herring on February 17 attended to her.They were treated with medieval purgatives common in the 18th century medicine.Hamilton was lying close to her mother when she died on February 19.Hardly had gained sufficient strenght with his brother James jnr to attend funeral that he was bombarded with another sorrow to ardently grief his mother s death.He was 38 not 35.
Sorry for the slip of tongue . Landlord Dipnall donated food cakes ,bread and eggs to mourners and Peter Lytton donated 11yards of black materials for coffin drapping .With the stigma of a divorcee she was denied of a burial at St.Anglican church.She was buried beside Grove of mahogany trees on a hillside"
"And so that was the dirty end of the world greatest super mother ?"
"Tragicomedy.Still the crazy bills poured in.
"What a long story?"
Yeah,stand up let's go in.Your siblings are crying your mother away in Detroit.Take care of them.We re still at the preparation stage sequel to emigration to new world."He stood up and yawned as they walked from the forest into the elegant front porch and greenish lawn.
"Dad 6 on the dot"
"Babies are crying"
Elijah is twelve should be competent enough to take care of his siblings."
"And you think is not sleeping in the library like u."
He understands.Mum taught him the routine"
"And the babies are crying are you sure ?"perplexed and worried
He ran upstairs leaving his father behind.
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