I welcome members to the eighth meeting in 2016 of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. I ask members to switch off mobile phones, please, and I note that we have apologies from John Scott. Gender item one is instrument subject to negative procedure. The police pensions of the Salaneous Amendments, Scotland Regulations 2016, SSI 2016-75. The instrument contains a drafting error. Regulation 18 of the instrument substitutes a new regulation 11, retirement pensions for existing regulation 11 of the police pensions, additional voluntary contributions regulations 1991 and 1991 regulations. Regulation 3-4 of the 1991 regulations provides that a pension election under regulation 11-2, made after retirement, may be accepted only if the police authority is satisfied, as mentioned, in regulation 11-2. Prior to its substitution by this instrument, regulation 11-2 made provision for pension elections, but it no longer does so. The Scottish Government acknowledges that regulation 3-4 of the 1991 regulations ought to have been revoked, and it indicates that revocation will be given effect in a future amending instrument. Does the committee agree to draw the instrument to the attention of the Parliament under the general reporting ground in respect that it contains a minor drafting error? The country of origin of certain meets, Scotland Regulations 2016, SSI 2016-84. The terms batch, batch code, mass caterer and trimmings defined in regulation 2 interpretation are superfluous, because they are not used elsewhere within the short instrument. Does the committee therefore agree to draw the instrument to the Parliament's attention under the general reporting ground in respect that certain terms should have been omitted? Does the committee content to note that the Scottish Government has not taken to amend the provision to remove the definitions at the next convenient legislative opportunity? The act of sederant, fees of sheriff officers 2016, SSI 2016-100. The preamble to the instrument is incorrect and contains words in square brackets that should have been removed prior to laying. The wording is, with such modifications as it thinks, appropriate. The committee may consider the inclusion of superfluous wording gives rise to a risk at the preamble, may be misinterpreted, as it currently indicates that modifications were made to draft rules submitted to the Court of Session by the Scottish Civil Justice Council when it appears that no such modifications were in fact made. The committee may wish to note that the Lord President's private office has requested a correction slip from the statutory instrument registrar to remove these words and the brackets surrounding them from the preamble. Does the committee agree to draw the instrument to the Parliament's attention on the general reporting ground, as the preamble to the instrument contains superfluous words? The act of sederant, fees of messengers at arms 2016, SSI 2016-101, this instrument contains the same error as SSI 2016-100. Does the committee agree to draw the instrument to the Parliament's attention on the general reporting ground? No points have been raised by our legal advisers on the national health service pension scheme Scotland amendment regulations 2016, SSI 2016-97, nor the national health service superannuation scheme miscellaneous amendments Scotland regulations 2016, SSI 2016-98, nor the common agricultural policy, direct payments etc. Scotland amendment regulations 2016, SSI 2016-104, nor the non-domestic rates Scotland order 2016, SSI 2016-113, the non-domestic rates living Scotland regulations 2016, SSI 2016-114, a conservation of salmon Scotland regulations 2016, SSI 2016-115, the salmon carcass tagging Scotland regulations 2016, SSI 2016-116, the tweed regulations salmon carcass tagging order 2016, SSI 2016-117, tweed regulations salmon conservation order 2016, SSI 2016-118, the non-domestic rates enterprise areas Scotland regulations 2016, SSI 2016-119, the non-domestic rates steel sites Scotland regulations 2016, SSI 2016-120, the non-domestic rates telecommunication installation Scotland regulations 2016, SSI 2016-122, nor the concession contract Scotland amendment regulations 2016, SSI 2016-125, the national health service optical charges and payments Scotland amendment regulations 2016, SSI 2016-127, nor the non-domestic rates telecommunications and canals Scotland amendment order 2016, SSI 2016-129, is the committee content with these instruments please? Gender item two is instruments not subject to any parliamentary procedure, no points have been raised by illegal advisers on the act of a journal criminal procedure rules 1996 amendment, miscellaneous 2016, SSI 2016-103, nor the human trafficking and exportation Scotland act 2015 commencement number one in transitory provisions regulations 2016, SSI 2016-128, is the committee content with these please? Gender item three is the health, tobacco, nicotine etc and care Scotland bill, the item is for the committee to consider the delegated powers provisions in the bill as amended at stage two, there is one new power in the bill after stage two, does the committee agree to report that it is content with that new power, delegated power as amended, sorry as added at stage two of the bill? Gender item four is the lobbying Scotland bill and again this item is the committee to consider the delegated powers provisions in the bill as amended at stage two, again there is one new power in the bill, does the committee agree to report that it is content with the new delegated power as amended as added at stage two of the bill? Having separated my added from my amended, I think that completes the agenda and I close the meeting.


now discuss is the so-called V model. The V model is an adaptation of the waterfall process which is still reasonably popular especially if you go into systems engineering so parts where you develop software together with other components like hardware electronics and what you have is you have the so-called or you have the left side of the V which is pretty much like the waterfall so you have specification activities you have design activities and you have implementation activities and they are sequential they are thought to be sequential so you finish the specification you finish the design you finish the implementation but then you have corresponding things on the right side of the V model and that's why it's called the V model because the shape if you draw it properly resembles the letter V. So what happens here is we implement small units at a time so we test them here and that is unit testing then we have the design and that has to do with breaking down the system into smaller components so what we do here is we integrate so we do integration testing so instead of having just a small part of the system and we test we put several components together and we test them together and at the end we have the entire system and we do system testing what is often also included here I'll just write it over is acceptance testing more on that will come in the testing lectures but essentially this test the entire system acceptance testing is testing that is done with or by the customer so it has much more to do with is this acceptable whereas the system is much closer to the requirement statements that we have and there is one thing in the V here that is special in terms of the timing it looks like we start specification then we do design then we do implementation then we do this and so on but what happens is as soon as the specification is done we have this corresponding step on the testing side so what happens then is actually that the planning of the system testing is starting already when this is done so the design is not there the implementation is not there but you can already plan and maybe already implement some kind of tests very often we do manual testing here for example you develop a car you drive the car around and test it according to a plan so you can start doing this plan here and the same goes for the other steps and well as soon as you have done the implementation you can directly start testing so this arrow here is still in place but essentially these testing activities are often very very time intensive so it's good that as soon as the specification is done you can already start setting this up planning this essentially so this is a model that is very much still used in practice there are of course sometimes adaptations because of the same issues we had before so maybe sometimes you want to go back here but you should be aware that if you go back this actually affects these arrows as well so if you decide to change a spec you also have to go back and change the testing plan so that's the V-Model


Didi what's going through your mind when you see Aaron judge hit one out in the first? I mean it's something we needed you know you know McCutcheon got a really good at bad You know first of all you know got a walk and when judge hit that home And that's what we need we need that lift to get on going so it was unbelievable Just get up to nothing and then to see savvy bitches really good after that too Was it a spark to in the top of the inning savvy ways did no time one two three Yeah, definitely like I was telling everybody you know he came out firing you know just Commanding the strike zone getting the guys out you know and we kept the team Manage eyes and assuming went there and to go hit it would just went off for everybody And that's how we keep feeding up feeding off after your bullpen as a whole has been a strength pretty much all season long To see them do it again tonight. Is that just what you've come to expect from them?   Keep it fun.  He came out running on me. It's hard to jump You know, it's just funny to chose emotion stuff You don't get to see every time you played him a lot this season But how do you think you match up right now with the healthy team with the Boston Red Sox?   How have you dodged this champagne? I'm not dry. All right. All right, I take it back. Thanks, Jeannie. No problem


I am, well I was, the first 3MT finalist to stand on this stage in three years. The reason we can do this again is because of a little miracle molecule called mRNA. The COVID mRNA vaccines might look like they appeared overnight, but they are actually built on years and years of scientists trying to discover every little feature of mRNAs themselves. We need to know more about mRNAs so we can do even more with it, including making cheaper vaccines more quickly. Very simply, the job of mRNA is to be a template from which our bodies make proteins, proteins through all the important work in ourselves. Let's think of this process like a car race, picture a piece of mRNA as being the racetrack, and in this case the car is a particle called a ribosome. The ribosome races across the mRNA and reads the mRNA like a sentence, turning that information into a protein after every full lap. Now you can imagine if the track is straight, then every time the race car gets to the end it has to stop and turn around. But if the track is circular, then it can go round and round really fast. So likewise, when a piece of mRNA loots back on itself, ribosomes can make proteins from them much faster. Well, that's a theory anyway, but I want to know if this is really the case. So I start with some yeast cells because they are very simplified versions of human cells. I grow them up and I add a chemical to freeze the car race process at a moment in time. Then I take a snapshot of the thousands and thousands of mRNAs in the cells and I look at their shapes. Are they linear? Are they looped? Is it a mix? This takes me ages, but spoiler, I found that it's a mix. Now we're in the process of figuring out whether the mRNAs that like to form loops also make proteins more efficiently. At this point you may be wondering why any of this matters. You may even be thinking that I'm starting to sound a little loopy myself. Why should we care? The thing is, if the looping racetrack theory is correct, then we can use this to our advantage when designing the next mRNA vaccines. If we can change the structure of the mRNA in the vaccines to form more loops and therefore make more protein from each individual mRNA, then maybe we could halve the amount of mRNA we need to make in the first place. Half the production time, half the cost, half the time spent in lockdown pretending to your boss that you're working when you're actually killed up in bed. Double the lives saved, all from tweaking the structure of a single mRNA. I might not be able to promise you these things just yet, but what I do know is that if we want to solve the big problems in the future, we have to start small now. Every bit of knowledge about mRNA could just help us avoid the next pandemic.


Hello and welcome to another episode of Stepping Up, where we explore the world of innovation, creativity and advocacy to aspire to greater and new things. I'm your host, Daniel Dubois. Did you know that St Lucia has the capacity to make prosthetic legs? Did you know that St Lucia is the only English-speaking Caribbean island who has the capacity to do so? And did you know? And we all know. St Lucia has sons and daughters of the soil in every corner of the world, well-planted, thriving and flying our St Lucia flag high. Well, this week for LinkUp, we switch it up a bit and chat with one of our nationals overseas, making us proud. This week we feature the National Council for and of persons with disabilities and the amazing work they continue to do. Mofilus James has been the president of the NCPD for almost five years and in this first segment, we have a candid discussion about their work and the national mandate and how the council continues to navigate through these challenging times. Later, we meet one of the technicians who will give me a tour of the lab and share with us his personal story. Let's take a look. Today we are in Carolee at the headquarters for the National Council of and for persons with disabilities and we are going to have this amazing discussion with the president and Mr. James. Everybody knows Mr. James. He is the person who is the face for everyone right now, especially with the NCPD and I just want to welcome him and thank you so much for saying yes to being featured on the show this week. Thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Let us know a little bit more about the council in terms of the history and you know the genesis of it all and you know the rules that you guys play nationally. I came into this organisation about five years ago and what I learnt of the history is one of very rich advocacy. The NCPD was established in 1981. At that time, there was a need in St. Lucia for an umbrella organisation to champion the rights of persons with disabilities. Understanding that disability is so diverse, it is not just one category.  There was a need for an umbrella organisation to represent all of these disabilities and to speak on their behalf. So the NCPD came about in 1981 and we are here continuing the good fight. Continuing the good fight. Yes. Let us know recently you guys received financial support from procedures from the officers, the Prime Minister's ball. Let us know how you felt about being selected to be able to receive those funds and what plans you guys have in terms of how you are going to use it to continue your mandate. We were very thrilled to be identified as a recipient from the office of the Prime Minister and not just for any amount, for a significant amount of $25,000. In our organisation where our needs are so diverse, where it is difficult to say that this amount is going to go towards helping persons who are physically challenged or persons with intellectual challenges, it requires us to be very creative to know how we spread this amount to impact the most number of persons with disabilities in St. Lucia. So we have already identified that our prosthetic rehabilitation and repair centre, which we establish here, will be one of the areas that we will be expanding our services to make high quality, modern artificial legs even more affordable to St. Lucia. We are going to provide support to farmers with disabilities in sustainable initiatives. We have great respect for agriculture. Over the past years we have recognised that many persons with disabilities, especially those who were isolated in rural communities, who were not encouraged to go out, to be educated. What they had, the resource they had at their disposal was land. So in cases where persons with disabilities have land, agriculture is always an exciting area where they can earn meaningful money. Has that been something that you guys have advocated? Well I guess so, in terms of the opportunity farming and access to the land helps and gives them as an opportunity. So do you have any other examples in terms of persons with disabilities who have had issues with integrating normally into society? How does the NCPD support them and give them avenues for them to be able to work and to make a living? So in the area of agriculture it's very exciting that we have our Farmers with Disabilities Beekeeping Association. This organisation came about, yes and you'll learn it now and it's very excited about this. There are subsidiary of ours. They came from a proposal, a collaboration between the NCPD and the SSDF, where we received funding to empower farmers with the skills required to successfully produce honey and buy products of honey. So they're based in the South, in Balambush and we're very proud of this organisation. And we believe in development, in always taking things further. So though they were first started as a beekeeping organisation and producing honey and buy products of honey, they also went into greenhouse farming, into aquaculture. We reached out to other donors to assist in this. So we believe in the beauty, the power of agriculture to empower our people. But also we know that persons with disabilities over many years, different programs and various proposals were only limited to programs such as handicraft. Having persons with disabilities do arts and craft and things like that, to the point that donor agencies are now shunning such proposals. They'll tell you they don't want to see that, they don't want to see things like handicraft. I guess it's now our time for the perception to change, that is not the only thing. Exactly, because we have persons with disabilities as university lecturers, as doctors, as lawyers, as professionals in all walks of life and we need to highlight this. So our training programs these days are at IT, identifying persons with disabilities who can be trained in and excel in areas such as IT, in mainstream professions and exciting for us here especially at this council. Is it that we have trained gentlemen who use artificial legs to make artificial legs and this is in keeping with our theme of empowering persons with disabilities to serve persons with disabilities. So as you mentioned, let's zone into the lab and the prosthetics lab.  So I didn't know that we have that capacity here. So why is it that you like to let Shingdusha know about the lab and you said already that the three of them have met them before the show, they have their own legs but they also engage in making it for other persons. So let us know a little bit more about that. So I have used an artificial leg from the age of four and I always had to travel out of Shingdusha to get it done and even then I had to travel an hours journey to get to the hospital. So I know the struggle and when I became president of this organization, I bought this buyer so this preference of mine to make sure that no young person, no person who is in need of an artificial leg has to go through that struggle, that this is a service we need to offer right here in Shingdusha. So are you saying you were the champion one behind bringing that home? Well I'm saying that here, I have a great team, I have a great board and understanding staff who recognize the need for this. But it was a part of your vision. Well, so this is where my journey brought me. My personal struggle and triumph in this area enabled me to make this a success. So we first submitted a proposal to the Australian government in 2015 and we received a grant of about 14,000 EC dollars to start a very modest workshop where we made basic and we advertise it as basic artificial legs and that was in view for it. What we did recognize is that the minute you begin something and something good, other donors will jump on, other supporters, other corporate sponsors will want to be a part of it and this enabled us to highly upgrade from making basic artificial legs in view for to having this modern prosthetic lab right here at our head office in castries. Nice. How has the government supported your endeavours and where are the areas that they support you and you can also speak to the ways that you think that we could do a little bit better. So over the past years government has provided a subvention to our council. We receive a subvention which allows us to pay our staff to rent our office space but beyond that there is not anything really left for actual programs on the ground to be able to go out and serve our people and meet their needs on the ground. So we have to reach out to donors and corporate sponsors for this but we are very grateful for the government subvention. Also concessions, duty free concessions are available to persons with disabilities if they want to import or purchase a vehicle, power chairs, motorized chairs, mobility aids these are available and persons need to just come through our council and we will write the letters of support and help them greatly in that process. The government recently ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This is an international treaty which identifies and defines the rights of persons with disabilities and it is most significant. It's something our council has been advocating for for many years and recently the St. Lucian government ratified it. And what does that mean for persons with disabilities? So for us it means that legislation can now be drafted and passed which enshrines our rights so there will not be discrimination in the workplace and in addition to that in addition to just anti-discrimination there will be the promotion of the employment for persons with disabilities. So it allows for exciting areas for minimum employment quota legislation that businesses of a certain size will be mandated to ensure that a certain percentage of their workforce is qualified persons with disabilities that in terms of our building codes all buildings must be accessible to wheelchair users to persons with visual impairment. It's just an array of exciting possibilities. Congratulations. Thank you.  What do you think the National Council of and for persons with disabilities ten years from now what will be the ideal vision in St. Lucian? What do you think would be if they had to say that they did their best that they've achieved it? What is it that you aspire to? So given the diversity of our sector one of the things that I know is on the national level we would want to know that there would have been a St. Lucia Disabilities Act. There would be law in St. Lucia which protects persons with disabilities identifies their rights protects them from discrimination in the workplace and in all facets of society that more buildings more houses more public buildings would be built to standard which would allow for the ease of access. We realize in the Caribbean people don't really build for disability so with houses upon pillars and so many steps home owners don't even factor that should they themselves have a stroke or be on a wheelchair how difficult it would be for them to access their own home so accessibility is very important for us knowing that on the national scene we have boosted our profile it would be very important that in ten years that there are active functioning district councils all over St. Lucia so that at the local level our people are organized they have their functioning district committees where there will be greater communication collaboration and gives us a better feel of the needs of our people we would expect in ten years that we could boast that more persons with disabilities were employed in all sectors in a number of sectors and hopefully that we would even have persons with disabilities as a dominant force in the Parliament of St. Lucia so these are some of our dreams. Anyone and we want this to be a message to all St. Lucia and anyone who's probably seeing this this show right now assuming that you've lost a leg amputee whatever the reason let us know how the National Council of and for persons with disabilities will assist and let them know what the process would be like. So this program of making prosthetic legs available to St. Lucia's it is something that we want our people to fully take advantage of I have a artificial leg which was made right here so I can attest to the high quality of it and the prices that people pay here are the most reasonable in the region. Prosthetic legs out of St. Lucia would cost tens of thousands of EC dollars for a high quality below the prosthetic leg our price is 8500 dollars for an above me it may range from between 12500 to 15000 EC dollars but bear in mind these are the most reasonable prices usually after an amputation is performed the persons need about three to six months of healing time after which we can then assess them and take their measurements and proceed to making the socket for the prosthetic leg it's very important in that we recently received high quality donations from the UK this was made possible with our link for the Rotary Club of Grosily and these high quality donated components allow persons to save thousands of dollars if they go this way with us it would mean all they have to pay is about 4000 EC dollars that we make the socket it is the part of the artificial leg that you must push your residual limb into and this costs 4000 EC dollars there's no way of avoiding this it must be custom made for everyone so with the stock of donated components that we have and we've seen clients who receive these and these components are worth a lot of money tens of thousands of dollars so to pay 4000 EC dollars and to save tens of thousands it is a great deal that we encourage Saint Lucia's to take advantage of we are happy to serve you please contact our council at 4531539 and we will be happy to assist you thank you so much for stepping up thank you so much for the innovation the creativity and the love and the passion and pride as well Mr. James and I'm sure anyone who is probably newly amputated or going through any kind of physical trauma know that the NCPD is here to support absolutely so thank you very much and with that we'll take our first break rinse properly dry with a clean towel if there is no water do the same washing motions with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer containing at least 70 percent alcohol wash your hands wash them right this message brought to you courtesy the Bureau of Health Education of the Ministry of Health and Wellness welcome back I'm sure you got to understand the work of the NCPD and how their role is so important as they support empower and protect the rights of persons with disabilities in our country the next interview we meet Francis Felix and he's a prosthetic limb technician and wears his own prosthetic that he actually made himself right there the story of the lab is so interesting as all the technicians were prosthetics themselves let's take a look at the interview and the tour of the facility welcome back guys and we continue our feature on the National Council of and for persons with disabilities and as we heard in the previous interview we know that Saint-Ducia has been producing and creating their own prosthetic legs and I'm here with Mr. Francis Felix and he is one of the technicians here at the headquarters in Kareli and he's going to tell us a little bit more about what he does and a little bit more about his story thank you so much mr. Felix I'm Francis Felix a limb technician work for NCPD it's five years in some it's nine years since I lost my leg so I wanted to zone in let's talk about you let's talk about your story because you know he's in very high spirits and as he told me that he was never depressed or never really sad when he had this accident nine years ago so tell us a little bit about your story up until now when I lost my leg nine years ago it was some kind of a sad to know that you lost a leg as a young man but eventually I brought a vision within my own self and to the father I say well I'm not the first or neither the last that lost a leg so I continue moving my life eventually by as you know my last man eventually a vision come to my sight and tell me well take this and do that you have a leg and you'll walk did it it was very successful so you did your own thing yeah and nothing allowed but not have not have so what materials did you use I use pool arm the surgical fiberglass from the hospital that they cast your foot when it breaks and it was very comfortable everything the same with it and I keep on moving bogus NCPD from there we get some support from the church of the latter days the natural national trust so they get someone from Indiana to teach me the version of American vision and free other technicians and now we establish with a workshop a car will be here where we do prosthetics both a k and bk a k and bk what does that mean above me and below me okay nice so you're a below me yeah okay so um since we hang out tell me show me how you get prepared typically on a day a normal day in terms of how you you organize your leg well my legs help it's easy for putting on it's quite reliance like I was silicone or just always clean my silicone on the inside right so that you look the silicone is like a buffer for all the pressure that your weight yes it's a very tenderness to avoid any blistering yeah and it's very easy it's like all people who compete is to be like me I have a leg and to be moving about I think it all I think they just have to come carefully and check your family right there and you can fit them properly and you guys make it yourselves ourselves so let us know what the process is like is there anything that I can do to today what can I be part of like I can say well yeah I made my own prosthetic leg you don't have empathy but if you could still have an idea I'll give you a walk a talk to the workshop show you the basics that we do okay so before we do the tour how proud are you to be part of this process how has the council helped you well I'm very proud a thousand percent proud of who I am and what I am and what I've become now and what do you want Saint Lucians to know about the council and persons who use prosthetics well I would like Saint Lucians to take that opportunity we do prosthetics here instead of going foreign and haven't led to done for them we get it we don't need a much easier cheaper more reliance and the most important part of it we that do the prosthetics we are amputees also we wear prosthetic legs that motivated the people a lot when they come and see we have prosthetics and we do not like for them our mobility we feel in our mobile work with everything freely so I would like everybody to have that same vibes within themselves and like you said in the beginning that some people who who've lost one leg and you see them crying and they want to die don't don't do that yourself you haven't finished life love just begun it's another page just please the father and ask for strength and then I would like everybody to be happy like me you look very happy I need to take a picture of your book so you're ready to show me around the lab yes there part one of the prosthetics plaster of Paris plaster of Paris the one that you do the cast you soak it in water and we take your impression which is your size of your leg so when I wrap it from the leg it will come out exactly like the moon I filled it with powder of Paris plaster of Paris so which mean the first one will be like this that's the measurement and then you cover it I full it okay with the powder come out like this come out like this now from this when I do this a mold then I'll take a plastic from the oven and I burn it and put it over here to create a check socket and that's just one type of yeah one this plastic here see how thick it is place it in the oven with a hole this have a hole so we place it on top of it in the oven from the oven we'll take it and place it over there over the mold we'll dab it in then we'll have we'll get this out of it so we'll cut it off so we'll get rid of that we use this as a check socket so we'll check it on the person for final correction any mistake that we have in here we'll correct it in here before we do the laminating so this is called a check socket when we done this check socket we have to fold it back again when it's complete to get a mold again so we cut it and then we'll go to the laminating room to laminate it to do the carbon fiber so this is the compressor this is our vacuum air to vacuum all oxygen that will be in the mold to avoid no lump this is our oven where we do our baking of the plastic move over to the next room here we have the rock man we do our grinding of the carbon fiber this is the vacuum for the molding of the laminating that same mold out here we place it here that's where we done all the final product of the carbon fiber we use nightglass flexor stretch we have the carbon braids this is the carbon braid so we'll set all these things on here then we mix our reasons pour to laminate the vacuum will vacuum all oxygen will be inside to keep it safe and song and let it dry for at least a day and then you love this out of it a check socket carbon fiber that is the final part of it here then here then we'll leave and we'll go back to the molding table set our pylons our feet then I would ask solution take advantage of it of this project here a whole complete ec leg above me if I any which one is that when you walk you could have your feelings stepping and we are probably good for this one is an ak and this one is a bk so right now I with a bk standing next one ak then this one for brandy so is it anyway also in the region who's currently making prosthetic legs no apart from the French speaking matinee country which we're trying to reach out the whole Caribbean to assist them to do prosthetic legs for them and have people mobile and happy again well guys you saw it for yourself St. Lucia continues to step up and do amazing things who would have known that we would have been able to make our own prosthetic legs and support those persons who have become disabled because of accidents or any kind of natural condition or disease so thank you so much guys and I learned so much about it here today and I'll take you back to the studio thank you meeting the team at the National Council of and for persons with disabilities for me is what I like to call a rich life experience jumping into the shoes of someone else understanding and gaining an appreciation for their daily lived experiences I'm sure St. Lucia's will join me at saying great job guys and thank you so much for allowing us to share your work and stories with the world now it's time for link up Esther Lee Leach is a fashion and lifestyle editor from St. Lucia who has now settled in Cherry Creek after living in San Francisco New York and London she holds a master of arts degree in fashion journalism from the London College of Fashion and has experienced as a journalist fashion editor television host film and television producer formerly the senior fashion editor of she Caribbean magazine Esther worked as a writer and stylist for publications covering fashion beauty lifestyle and entertainment in the Caribbean and the UK this segment we have a very exciting person to interview and for the first time removing away from government removing away from formalities and you know all of our governmental persons representing and we finally touching base with our diaspora who are doing amazing things stepping up throughout the COVID and just living their best life so without further ado Esther Lee Leach good day and how are you I'm great how are you thanks much for having me on you know when you sent me your bio I think I had to take about two days to like really internalize and taking everything that you've done already so let's just take it from the top it's vibe central to Cherry Creek fashion and of course you're based in Denver Colorado and let's just talk about the beginning when you and your sister were ambitious and you all started vibe central and talk about the journey to Cherry Creek fashion today so Davina and I my oldest sister we always wanted to be Oprah we were obsessed with her when we were teenagers and we just went out on TV show and we were always planning writing in our notebooks and one day we just decided why don't we create a teen show so we plan and we plan we looked for advertisers we look for content and like I think a two years later the show was on the air so we started a vibe central and then we went on to access Caribbean which was like a travel and tourism show which was a lot of fun to film because you kind of make up where you want to go and make up what you want to do and then you make it happen so I was doing that and at the time I was also the fashion editor for she Caribbean magazine me and Rick Wayne I had a great experience there learning all about photo shoots being on set traveling to fashion weeks and that was amazing so I always makes like the fashion and the TV so after working with she Caribbean for a while I wanted to do more and I wanted to learn more so I decided to go to London to one of the best colleges in the world calling University of the Arts London London College of Fashion study fashion journalism and I was very ambitious I didn't bother applying for a bachelor's degree I applied for the masters program exactly I'm like why not I've been doing this for years I know a lot about the industry already and then I got in I had my my portfolio and I got to the masters program and it was a fantastic experience learning in London it really encourages you to be creative and to think outside the box and I really appreciated and just use my life's solution this in my Caribbean nest to create work in London so I did that for a while and then I met my British husband in London and then I think a year later we moved to New York supposedly for three months for his work but then that turned into two years and then we never left the US so we went from New York to San Francisco and then we decided to move to Denver now we call Denver home for the last five years so when we got to Denver I took a couple of years off and I had my little son Hunter who's now four and after two years I said that's enough I need to get back to work because I love working and I love producing and creating content so I looked around the market and I decided that it was there was lacking like a magazine covering fashion especially in this area so the area where I live Cherry Creek it's called like the Beverly Hills of the Midwest it's very fashionable there are loads of stores designer stores restaurants here it's all walkable so I thought this would be a great place to base the magazine and then I can grow it out to different parts of Denver so in January 2019 I started my magazine Cherry Creek fashion magazine and it's a fully digital magazine I really wanted to be able to make the content dynamic at video interviews in and just keep it fresh and modern and moving so you can find everything at cherrycreekfashion.com and that's what I've been doing for the last year and a half and anyone can subscribe and get to enjoy the content on the magazine once you email and subscribe or you can just go on cherrycreekfashion.com and read it like the first of every month we have a new issue coming out every month nice on your Forbes feature you know Forbes magazine yes congratulations on that too doing amazing things one of the quotes were community and content are king so what do you mean by that community and content are king so that's Expanded. I learned from St. Lucia that you really have to go into your community find out what's going on find people to help you because you know when you know people you can pick up the phone and say I'm doing this what do you think I'm doing this what do you think and here I've kind of used the St. Lucia way to build my business I really hit the ground running when I started I met lots of people for coffees so walking on the street now you know I stopped every every other block talking to a friend a acquaintance a colleague because I really went out into the community and met everybody and for content it's just creating something valuable and something of good quality that people want to read you know a lot there's a lot of like fast content now but people are still looking for quality content. Authenticity and original stories and you know as you said another part of it too was that you wanted to capture the small business community and to find that niche not what everybody was capturing and in one of your podcasts you mentioned that we're so tired we're overrun with information about Corona and was it difficult for you having to decide that well you know what we're not going to focus on the Corona we're going to continue focusing my head you know how was that and how has COVID you know adding to that question how has COVID changed your programming? Yes it was kind of easy for me to decide because I kind of go on okay what am I feeling what do I want to read now and there was just so much information out there about COVID-19 that I wanted some fantasy again I wanted to open my fashion magazines and see some fashion have an escape from what's going on which is what fashion magazines are about so I thought you know what I'm just going to continue with my scheduled programming and just continue putting the issues out there and giving people an escape and something pleasant to read and interesting stories to read to keep them entertained at home during this time and for COVID like we had we were shooting last year this time but I just continue trying to produce the content that I could. Yeah just stay true to your branding and try not to to move off anything like that. How do you bring St. Lucia? How do you bring your St. Lucia-ness your uniqueness to everything that you do and in doing some more research and you just launched Lee Productions or is it Cherry Creek Productions and all the little things that you continue to do. How has St. Lucia given you that foundation to be doing everything that you're doing today and how do you continue to blend St. Lucia and bring it into everything that you do today? Well my success now is because of St. Lucia because I've grown up there like I learned very early on to do a lot myself so when we did our TV show I took on multiple roles and that was a good trading ground so now I can set up the lights I can run the video I can take the photos because I learned that in St. Lucia and also it's all about an attitude. St. Lucia's can go anywhere in the world and achieve anything that's about attitude like we're so used to talking to anybody anywhere on the street corners to use that St. Lucia-ness and attitude here to talk to anybody and people seem to like that approach and they always say that you're so warm and welcoming and it's because of my upbringing in St. Lucia it's it has been invaluable to my success here. And that aspect of you know we're all people and we all have stories and it's okay to reach out and say hi you're okay and you know it's not the same in the United States where you know they always talk about you know you don't you can't go and just ask your neighbor for sugar and you know we have that communal spirit so I guess as you say you've been able to bring it to all aspects of your work. As we wrap up you spoke about a lot in your in your podcast the importance of the intrinsic motivation and the importance of wanting it to get done. Can you just share your message and let anyone who's probably watching this know how they can continue to work and aspire to what they want to do and you mentioned that formation was your your song right now and it's your mantra right now and that has so much to do especially now. Now more than ever the mental capacity the emotional grip that you need to have and you know we could start off in small spaces but you know we individually have that responsibility to want more and to always want to aspire for more so if we could just speak to that and share share with us. I think one thing we have to realize that we're all so unique and we have we all have a story and we all have something to put out there and if not you then who is going to bring your story forth your ideas forth your content to the world so you really have to realize that you have to get up and do something if it means sending an email to somebody if it means learning a new skill if it means picking up the phone it's kind of all up to you to start the ball rolling and once you start it you realize that other people sort of you know come to you and help you along the way but if you don't do the initial push with your ideas with your new business with whatever you want to do nobody's going to know about it or even know that you need help with it do you know what I mean so you have to kind of push yourself and know okay well it's my job to do it this is my idea and I'm gonna put it forth into the world and yeah Beyonce's Beyonce and Rihanna my ultimate queens to get motivation for I'm always editing in my office blasting them music because you know as Beyonce says just work hard and you grind until you own it until you achieve what you want to achieve and visualize it and move for it and go for it well Astley Leach thank you so much for joining us on link up for this segment of stepping up I'm so happy and I just want to wish you fortune and favors and goodwill and in everything that you do and I know it's not it's just the beginning and you're now on that customer to anything greater greater get greater things so just have my bi-luckiness know how we can reach out to you and any messages you have for your family back home oh hi mommy I just said I miss your booyah and your pigtail so people can just reach me at cherrycreekfashion.com my email is there or you can follow to Instagram at Cherry Creek Fashion or Astley Leach but hi St. Lucia I cannot wait to come back sometime this year hopefully well we St. Lucia we're here waiting for you welcoming you with our warm beaches and our warm weather and by the grace of God that'll be very soon thank you so much thank you so much Esther enjoy the rest of the day and you be safe this week marks our 11th episode and we have covered so many amazing stories this show for me will forever be etched in my mind as an eye-opener and a humbling experience meeting persons striving and stepping up despite the odds and challenges we want to take this time to extend an invitation to anyone in your community or the diaspora who are doing things which are noteworthy positive and commendable shoot me an email at steppingup758 at gmail.com thanks for tuning in and see you next time and until then keep stepping up


then the inside of this toilet looks like a horror movie. I'll show you. Oh my god. Smells like a dead body.


Hi, my name is Eric Dolan. I'm speaking to you from Marblehead, Massachusetts, which is my home And I want to thank the National Archives for inviting me to give this talk today on Rebels at Sea privateering in the American Revolution just a little more background on me I've been a full-time writer since about 2007. Most of my books are in American history Usually have a maritime component I've spoken at the National Archives a number of times in the past some of the books Include Leviathan the history of whaling in America fur fortune an empire a history of fur trade in America Black flags blue waters the epic history of America's most notorious pirates on my last Book a furious sky in the history of American hurricanes, but today I am here to talk about privateering in the American Revolution It was late in the day on june 3rd 1780 when Salem captain Jonathan Harrod in his privateer the pickering were heading for the friendly port of Bilbao, Spain The British privateer Achilles however stood in the way Nobody would have faulted Harrod had he fled in the face of this superior foe While the pickering had a crew of 38 men and 16 cannons The Achilles bristled with 130 men and 43 cannons Hardly a fair fight, but that's not the way that Harrod and saw it He relished the chance to confront the enemy and strike a blow for the revolutionary cause Turning to the British prisoner who had informed him of the Achilles might Harrod and said I shan't run from her And he didn't as the Achilles began its advance Harrod and told his men that though the Achilles appeared to be superior to them in force He had no doubt that they should beat her off if they were firm and steady And did not throw away their fire Meanwhile in Bilbao Word spread that there was about to be a major naval battle offshore Pitting the americans against the british and about a thousand people Wander to the beach to watch this spectacle Booming broad sides and musket fire filled the air one of harrod's crew said that while shot flew around him Harrod in was as calm and steady as amidst the shower of snowflakes The battle raged for more than two hours Then harrod ordered his men to fill the cannons with bar shot, which is essentially two cannon balls connected by an iron bar And when that exits the cannon It starts spinning wildly and it could destroy rigging sails and even masts and it did considerable damage to the Achilles Having had enough the Achilles turned and fled with the rebel commander close behind But even despite but despite its injuries the Achilles was too fast and got away Harrod and spun about to reclaim the golden eagle a british Merchantship that he had captured a few days earlier that the Achilles had briefly Reclaimed all told one of pickery's pickering's crew had been killed his head sheared off By a cannon ball and eight men were seriously wounded The number killed and wounded on board the Achilles is unknown And I just want to tell you a brief story about this picture you're looking at right here This is the top third of a plaque that was placed in Salem, Massachusetts Which is right next door to marble head where I'm speaking to you from It was placed there in 1909 to honor Harrod in's heroics in his battle against the Achilles Now while I was working on the book I read that this plaque was supposed to be on the side of a house Where harrod had lived and it was in Salem and it was right near the witch house So I hopped on my bike. I rode over there. Hopefully to get a picture of the plaque I couldn't find it. So I called the local historian and asked her what had happened to the plaque And she laughed a little bit. She goes. Well, it's on the inside of a korean barbecue restaurant About a block away from where it initially had hung So I went to this restaurant walked in the front door And there was this plaque behind the cash register And I think that that is just emblematic of the way that privateering during the american revolution has been treated in history It's sort of shunted off to the side Now harrod didn't remained in bilbao for two months before heading back to Salem on the return voyage the pickering captured three more british prizes and when uh, the pickering returned to Salem the owners Rewarded or presented their intrepid intrepid captain with a silver tanker shown here With the pickering etched into the side as well as his initials and two Uh mugs to accompany in it Now during his tenure in the massachusetts navy and as a privateer harrod and took many prizes Captured hundreds of cannons and as many british prisoners He died of tuberculosis at the age of 59 In 1803 and his obituary in the Salem gazette Louded him as one of the most able and valiant naval commanders that the war produced The pickering was one of nearly two thousand American privateers and those are the vessels and harrod was one of tens of thousands of privateersmen who manned those vessels during the revolution Privateers were armed vessels owned and outfitted by private individuals that had government permission To attack enemy ships at times of war That permission came in the form of a letter of mark A formal legal document that gave the bearer the right to seize vessels belonging to belligerent nations And claim those vessels and their cargos or prizes as the spoils of war The proceeds from the auction of these prizes were in turn split between the men Who crewed the privateers and the owners of the ship as well as those who had invested in the enterprise Despite the contributions made by harridan and tens of thousands of other privateersmen Many believed that privateering was a sideshow in the war Privateering has long been given short shrift in histories of the conflict general histories as well as maritime and naval histories of the american revolution Rebels at sea fills the void by offering a comprehensive account of privateering that demonstrates that it was critical To winning the war and that's one of the things that got me interested in writing this book Is that I felt that this aspect of the american revolution privateering had been overlooked too long And to really understand the revolution you have to take into account privateering american privateersmen took the maritime fight to the british and made them bleed In countless daring actions against british merchant ships and not a few warships privateers caused british maritime insurance rates to rise Diverted critical british resources to protecting their vessels and to attacking privateers Added to british weariness over the war which lasted nearly eight years And played a starring role in bringing france Into the war on the side of the americans Which was a critical turning point in the conflict On the domestic front privateering brought much needed goods and military supplies Into the nation provided cash infusions for the war effort Boosted coastal economies through the building outfitting and manning of privateers And bolstered america's confidence that it might actually win In this cruxotic attempt to defeat the most powerful nation of the day Thousands of books have approached the revolution from virtually every angle Rebels at sea places privateersmen most of whom were not famous or even well known individuals at the very center of the war effort It demonstrates that when the united states was only a tenuous idea They stepped forward and risked their lives to help make it a reality And fighting against the british on the seas the americans relied on four different maritime forces There were state navies Washington's secret navy which only operated for about a year near the beginning of the conflict The continental navy and privateers Of these four privateers were by far the most numerous And the most effective capturing somewhere in the neighborhood of 1600 to 1800 british ships Worth many millions of pounds Now massachusetts i'm speaking dear from was the first colony to authorize privateering in november of 1775 The importance of the massachusetts privateering act and unleashing The privateering in the colonies became even clearer in hindsight Some 40 years later john adams who is a big proponent of privateering as well as the continental navy Wrote that the passage of the massachusetts act is one of the most important documents in history The declaration of independence is a trifle In comparison with it and just consider that the declaration of independence which everybody knows about Adams felt that the massachusetts privateering act was much more important New hampshire and rhoda island followed suit in early 1776 with their own privateering statutes At the same time pressure was growing for the continental congress to come up with an umbrella program for privateering That would apply to all of the colonies instead of pursuing this piecemeal approach where individual colonies Decided on their own schedule to pursue privateering in his letter to and oh And the continental congress went ahead and on march 23 1776 They established a privateering law and the regulations about privateering were issued just a couple of weeks later In his letter to the colonies Announcing the law and the regulations john handcock president of the continental congress said It is necessary in conducting the warlike operations on the part of america To meet our enemy on every ground and defend ourselves in the best manner we can Against all attempts in whatever shape to deprive us of either liberty or property Privateers were to be a major part of the colonial war effort With their capital tied up at the docks merchants And ship owners eagerly pursued privateering The prizes brought in provided goods and ships that they could sell and alias haska derby shown here Out of salem. He owned 39 privateers He is reportedly the first millionaire in america, although i think john jacob aster Gives him a run for his money Now many invested in privateers indeed privateering spurred a speculative frenzy Across the colonies it was sort of like a mini Stock market where people took out shares in privateers and their expected success Among the more illustrious speculators was general george washington Who invested in at least one privateer appropriately enough called the general washington General's nathaniel green and henry nox as well as paul revere also invested in privateers Now privateer captains were typically known by the ship owners and they were contacted directly to take over The privateers alias davis senior shown here a fascinating character He was issued the last letter of mark in the entire american revolution in march of 1783 Well, the other story i want to tell about alias is when i was writing in this book. It was during covid and my daughter who is now a junior literary agent in new york city was home She was about 22 at the time and she was uh home and when i came across this picture I showed it to lily because i thought he was really handsome and she took a look at it And said you know dad i really could get into privateering So he's he's a fascinating guy. Have you ever come to the k-band museum on glosster? His house is attached to the museum and is well worth Visiting now privateer captains. They got the biggest share of the prizes The crewmen got smaller shares, but they also Benefited mightily now while crewmen were sometimes known by the owners Most of the time they weren't and they had to be found and enticed It was common at the time to see Advertisements like this one in colonial newspapers Where perspective privateers men would be invited to the local pub In what was called a hearty welcome They were applied with liquor Usually enormous quantities of liquor and asked to sign the articles of agreement which is which established their roles and responsibilities On the privateer in the book I have the receipts from one of these hearty welcomes and the amount of alcohol that was consumed is Fat a phenomenal and as people who know about colonial history You realize that Most people were in various states of mild or severe Inebriation during the day because they didn't trust water and they tended to drink alcohol instead Now black men served on many privateers some were freemen One of those was james fortin shown here of philadelphia At age 14 he signed on to the pennsylvania privateer royal lewis And the reason he signed on is because of two documents When the declaration of independence came out on july 8th of 1776 a few days after it was officially Signed it was read allowed in philadelphia and james fortin heard that reading And he took heart in the words the soaring rhetoric of the declaration of independence about men being created equal and thought perhaps that would Uh Would spread to all of his fellow Black men and women who were in the colonies and most of whom were treated horrifically In the practice of slavery Then four years later in 1780 pennsylvania became the first State to pass an abolition of slavery law It was only a gradual abolition of slavery if you were a current enslaved person You didn't get your freedom your children were freed when they reached age 28 But those two documents helped Make james fortin decide that he wanted to throw in his lot With his fellow americans and be a patriot instead of go over to the british side or just sit out the war So at age 14 he signed on to the pennsylvania privateer royal lewis fortin's job was to bring gunpowder to one of the Cannons where the men could prime the cannon and then fire the fire Into another ship Now the cruise was a triumph with the royal lewis capturing seven prizes and bringing them back to philadelphia There were some mishaps a cannon ball ripped through the hull Right where james fortin was and three of the men manning the cannon were killed But fortin survived fortin was so excited about the success of the royal lewis that he signed on for another Cruise he shouldn't have been so eager in hindsight because barely a day out of port The royal lewis was captured by the hms Ampheon whose captain was a guy named john basely fortin as he wrote in his Recollections or memoirs He basically thought that he was in really bad trouble because he said people of his complexion Who were captured by the british? Tended to be sent to the slave marks in the caribbean and he thought that that was going to be his fate But fortunately for him captain john basely had on board A 12 year old son who needed a companion and he chose fortin to be that companion And so for a few weeks fortin developed a strong relationship with basely's son So when basely and the hms ampheon pulled into new york harbor Where they were going to transfer all of the crew of the royal lewis to one of the prison ships there the dreaded jersey He gave fortin an option He said you can go to england and be the ward of my son You'll be free. You'll be educated and you'll have money. You'll have all the good things in life Or i can pass you off to the local prison master and you'll be placed on the jersey like the rest Of the men from your privateer and fortin decided That he would not turn on his country and he told him that i will not go to england I will have to go to the prison ship and he did he lasted for eight months Which is amazing given what i will tell you later about this prison ship And he was released he went back to philadelphia And after the war james fortin became one of the premier Salemakers in philadelphia and when he died in the early 1840s He was worth 70 000 dollars And he continued to hold on to the hope that his new nation Would live up to the soaring rhetoric of the declaration of independence and even won William Lloyd garrison some money just found the liberator uh the premier Anti-slavery publication of the era Now other black men were enslaved persons who ran off and joined privateers in a bid to gain their freedom And many owners also rented out there enslaved persons as a money-making scheme Now this picture is a just fascinating picture. It's contemporary painting in the american revolution And for many years it was thought to be the only non-painting of a black privateersman and as such it was valued at 300 000 dollars And it was also reproduced in a number of books that talked about black men and women's contributions to the revolution Now francis tavern in new york wanted to stage an exhibit many years ago that focused on uh black contributions to the american revolution And they wanted this painting to be the centerpiece of their exhibition So the owner of the painting sent it out to a local art conservator to get it spruced up The art conservator used a solvent to wipe the one of the hands and off came the black paint and revealed a White hand underneath sometime most likely in the mid 20th century Somebody realizing that a painting of a black privateersman of which there were none known Would be much more valuable than a painting of a white Mariner american mariner during the american revolution and he was right Because once this was discovered to be a forgery of a type its value sank to three thousand dollars And francis tavern was forced to withdraw the invitation for it to be the centerpiece of its exhibition Now there were also black men who were treated as transient property when privateers captured british slavers as they did quite often Off the west coast of africa they in turn became slave traders because they didn't free the slaves They sold them in slave marts in the colonies and in the caribbean Now many have argued that privateersmen were motivated more by greed than patriotism Fame naval officer john paul jones shown here believed it was nothing but greed Early on in the war he complained that the common class of mankind are actuated by no nobler principle than that of self interest This and this alone determines all adventures in privateers A less cynical assessment views privateersmen is being motivated by a combination of profits and patriotism And this view is closer to the truth Part of the reason privateering was scorned There was that many believed that the practice undermined the republican ideals of the revolution Which called for the sacrifice of private interests in the pursuit of liberty According to mercy otis warren author of one of the earliest histories of the revolution Privateering had a tendency to contract the mind and let it just shrink into selfless views and indulgencies totally inconsistent with genuine republicanism Many of the founding fathers and mothers and other elites agreed in principle I mean in theory, but in practice However, many elites had a more complex view of patriotism One that wasn't based on hewing to republican ideals above all else The majority of the delegates to congress clearly believed the privateering was a patriotic endeavor that served the public good They made it a major part of america's war effort and strategy fully aware that it was making some including a number of them Very rich had congress deemed the privateering worked against the public good Or wasn't a net benefit to the war effort They could have squashed privateering at any moment and recall all the letters of mark They never considered that possibility and that's because they didn't view patriotism and the pursuit of profit as being mutually exclusive Now the argument the privateers were only in it for the money implies that others engaged in the fight were not And that is absolutely not true While the men who rose up after the battle of bunker hill were burning with patriotic fervor That fire was difficult to maintain for many soldiers by later years of the war The only way that congress could keep some semblance of a strong fighting force was to use cash bonuses and promises of land To keep men on the front lines and even that often didn't work because the money was not forthcoming nor was the land Now the navy was no different The mariners had joined washington's navy as well as those who signed up for state navies And the continental navy were all partially motivated by money Each of the naval services offered officers and crew a cut of the profits in addition to their base salaries Otherwise, they wouldn't have served this recruiting poster Which was put together by john paul jones and was plastered all over the port of portsmouth new hampshire trying to obtain seamen to join the continental navy vessel ranger Could have just as easily been a recruiting poster for a privateer On it or in it They hold out the opportunity for anybody who signs on to distinguish themselves and the glorious cause of their country and To make their fortunes Who knows how many privateer owners and privateers men were moved by patriotic impulses But that percentage was surely in line with the levels of patriotism prevalent in the society at large As privateers men and soldier christopher prince said looking back on his revolutionary career Through the whole course of the war. I've had two motives in view One was the freedom of my country and the other was the luxuries of life Now privateers experienced many triumphs and tragedies during the war the pennsylvania Privateer brig hulker over the span of about four to five years of 11 different captains brought in 71 prizes In its most successful cruise it captured 10 large bridge British merchant ships Which were sold at the docks in philadelphia For two million pounds Newberry port merchant Nathaniel tracy was the principal owner of 47 privateers Which captured 120 bright 120 british ships and realized profits of nearly four million dollars Now one of the worst tragedies to befall privateers occurred during the panopscot expedition The largest american maritime force assembled during the revolution It consisted of 19 warships 12 of which were privateers Their mission was to dislodge british forces that were building a fort on the peninsula on a peninsula and main's Penobscot bay where modern-day castine is today. It's called fort george The expedition sailed from boston on july 19 1779 poor organization and leadership And a critical delay in launching the attack led to a fiasco When the british navy or part of it showed up at the mouth of panopscot bay on august 14th And included among its complement was a 64 gun warship It was a complete route in the end 16 american ships were burned by their own men to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy And the rest were captured or sunk as for the men soldiers and sailors alike They bolted into the woods and tried to find their way back to new hampshire in massachusetts before starving And apparently it was quite an amazing scene because most of the american ships Had cannons on board that had been primed for firing Against the fort But instead when they were lit the the ships were lit the cannons exploded adding to the fireworks How many americans died during the siege of panopscot and their precipitous flight is a matter of dispute With estimates ranging from as few as 33 to a high of nearly 500 And many have labeled this the most devastating naval defeat the united states suffered up until the japanese attack on pearl harbour in december 7th of 1941 Now one of the most important things that privateers did was to help bring france into the war on the side of the americans In the early years of the war france allowed american privateers in the caribbean and in france to use their ports Reprovision and sell prizes All of this was in violation of treaties that france had with great britain And that plus the damage done by the privateers Infuriated the british The continental congress sent william bingen to the french colony of martinique Where a large part of his job was to expand american privateering efforts It worked brilliantly in 1778 it was estimated that american privateers had captured 250 british ships in the caribbean and that trade between great britain and its sugar colonies Had plummeted by 66 So alarming were these figures that the earl of suffolk urged parliament to keep them from the public Pointing out the impropriety of acknowledging what ought not to be acknowledged at so critical a period The weakness of the nation Meanwhile, benjamin franklin who was in france to negotiate a formal alliance was convinced that privateering was helping The american cause with the french while at the same time injuring britain That's that which makes the greatest impression in our favor here franklin wrote is the prodigious success of our armed ships and privateers london's public advertiser asserted that if france continued to allow american privateers to use their ports An immediate war between france and this country will be the inevitable consequence The critical turning point in the war Critical turning point in getting france to ally with the american cause was of course the american victory Over gentlemen johnny bergoyne and his troops at saratoga on october 17 17 77 Just last week my son and i visited the battlefield which was a fascinating thing Now privateering while not causing a sharp turn in american fortunes on its own Help create the situation in which this great american victory Could prove decisive in bringing france into the conflict It did so by greatly increasing the enmity between france and britain and also inflicting serious damage on the british economy Now arguably the most horrific chapter in the american revolution concerned the prisons in england and the british Prisonships off new york city in both places american privateers have been made up the bulk of the prison Population the two main prisons in britain were known as mill and fortan prison and together they held only about 3 000 men during the war and their death rates were about three to six percent Which is not that bad compared to other prisons of this era Now mill and fortan prisons were bad enough however, but by far the worst experience any combatant had to endure Was a stay on one of the british prison ships moored off new york city Between 15 000 and 22 000 men were held on these ships All of the prison ships were horrific, but the jersey was by far the worst Nicknamed hella float the jersey had been a fourth rate 64 gun warship Uh, and it was basically placed in wallow bow bay, which is right near right off brooklyn Where the brooklyn navy yard is you can see the picture of it here. It was this masted essentially and permanently wedged into the Into the bay right there the the keel went into went into the mud and didn't move It was only a couple hundred feet from the shore now at any one time the jersey held between 800 and 50 and 1200 prisoners Between six and 12 men died every day every morning is the sun rose guards would yell rebels bring up your dead And those dead would then be rode to shore and buried in shallow graves That were often uncovered during high tides, uh, stormy conditions So the skeletons are what was left of the their dead comrades would basically roll into the water within sight of the jersey One inmate left the following damning portrait of his time on the jersey There were about 1100 prisoners on board. There were no berths or seats to lie down on not a bench to sit on Many were almost without clothes the dysentery fever frenzy and despair prevailed among them And filled the place with filth discussed and hara the scantiness of the allowance the bad quality of the provisions The brutality of the guards and the sick pining for comforts. They could not obtain All together furnished continually one of the greatest scenes of human distress and misery ever beheld Let's take a look at this side view of the jersey imagine 1200 men being kept on that in such horrible conditions The number of deaths on the jersey alone is shocking The best estimate points to it being roughly 11,500 The vast majority of which were american privateers By comparison in the entire war somewhere between 4400 and 6800 americans were killed in action Now one of the biggest criticisms of privateers is that they siphon valuable manpower From the continental navy and that is absolutely true Many men chose to join privateers rather than the navy in the hopes of earning more money But that doesn't mean that had there been no privateers the continental navy would suddenly have been transformed Into a fearsome fighting machine There are roughly 60 continental navy vessels in the atlantic throughout the revolution Building and assembling a navy from scratch would have been a gargantuan pass for a well functioning Well funded government for the relatively inexperienced poorly staffed and financially strapped Continental congress it was almost insurmountable challenge The continental navy's record in battle is not an enviable one 28 vessels were captured or destroyed and many others were lost at sea sold returned to france or burned To keep them from falling into enemy hands at war's end just a few navy ships were left There were however some bright spots for the continental navy Raids on caribbean munitions depots brought back much needed gunpowder Navy ships did an excellent job of ferrying correspondence and diplomats back and forth across the atlantic And continental navy ships captured Roughly 200 prizes most of which were merchant ships the same kind of prizes that privateers brought back To port and even this is the battle between the navy ship bond home richard john paul jones captain And the hms sarapas while it buoyed hopes And pride in the american colonies was really a period victory Because this the bond home richard ended up sinking more than 100 men were killed And the convoy that jane jones had been in search of got away during the battle Now nevertheless despite the bright sports bright spots of the continental navy in july of 1780 john adams reflecting on the fortunes of the navy wrote In looking over the long list of vessels belonging to the united states taken and destroyed And recollecting the whole history of the rise and progress of our navy It is very difficult to avoid tears The american revolution was the navy's first hour, but not its finest If there had been no privateers there would have been more men for naval ships There would have been more cannons and more ammunition to go on those ships But the absence of privateers would not have meant a larger or more or significantly more effective navy congress would not somehow have had more money to spend on naval vessels While many would have preferred that americans sent forth a powerful navy that was not a realistic option In the absence of such a force america relied heavily on its privateers Under such circumstances that was the best strategy available Whatever the critics said On the home front privateers contributed materially to the american economy Privateering was a great economic boon for coastal towns and cities Keeping many businesses afloat during the war and creating new ones as well as new fortunes And the money that privateers men earn helped them provide for their families and thereby give an additional jolt to local economies Each prize auction delivered a new stream of commodities into the colonies in august of 1779 A philadelphia wrote to congress Saying that privateers have rendered us the most essential services and brought us many articles for public and private use Without which the war could hardly have been supported Privateering also had a psychological in effect on the home front About 30 newspapers across the states Chronicle the revolution they had thousands of articles on privateering and maritime issues A number of those articles were critical of privateering, but most were positive And that caught that coverage gave people confidence that the larger war might still be won Which was particularly important, especially in the first years of the revolution When most of the news for the americans was disastrous or depressing The formal end of the war came on september 3rd 1783 When the treaty of paris was signed Surviving privateers that had been merchant men before the war now reverted to form While those vessels built for privateering were refitted as merchant men These ships now played their part in transporting america's wares to distant ports proudly flying the new nation's flag The men who owned and financed privateers as well as those who had chosen to fight for their country on the decks of these vessels Looked back on their accomplishments with pride and wondered as did all americans What the future would bring for themselves and their new country Now I have my website listed here and the reason I listed Is because there are a number of things on it that might be of interest if you in fact have any interest in this book Or any of my other books If you go to ericjdolyn.com You can read the introduction to all 15 of the books that I have written So you can get a sense of whether you might be interested in reading them The entire book it also lists all the places where I am speaking I've got about another 30 or so talks this summer. Most of them are in person in new england, but as far afield as california and mississippi So please take a look at the website if you want more information on me and my books And I just want to reiterate that part one of the main reasons that I wrote this book Is I felt that privateering had been neglected for too long by history and historians and we needed a book to pull together the entire story To make it clear that as george washington said Winning the revolution was a standing miracle and there were many many elements that went into that success I am not arguing that privateering was the most important But it was certainly critical and I believe without privateering the outcome of the war might have been quite different So with that, thank you for listening to me and I hope you get a chance to take a look at the book chat uh Okay, I've got a couple of questions. Can you comment on the possible existence of american pirates who may have fought with both american Privateers as well as british merchant ships Okay during the american revolution a lot of people have called privateering legalized piracy And that's because for many hundreds of years going back to the 13th century when privateering was first Initiated among european countries many privateers many individuals with letters of mark Actually acted just like pirates. They did not attack the enemies of the nation that had issued them the letters of mark They instead either attack Countries that they weren't at war with Or just other individuals. They basically acted like pirates. So francis draken is an example And during the king williams war in america Late 1600s a lot of american quote-unquote american privateers Instead of attacking the french which they were supposed to went around k-porn into the indian ocean and attack moogal ships Transiting between india and the red sea ports of jeta and mocha bringing that booty back home to the american colonies I talk about this extensively in my book black flags Blue waters the epic history of america's most notorious pirates And I also talk about the fact that the golden age of piracy the second part of it in the 17 teens was partly launched because Many british privateers who had worked and had been privateers during the war the spanish succession When that war concluded in 1713 suddenly they were thrown out of work basically britain was going through a depression So a number of them possibly even blackbeard Took the skills they had learned being a privateersman and applied it to becoming a pirate During the american revolution the american privateers. They were not legalized pirates They had a code of regulations that they operated under and they didn't just attack They weren't enemies of all nations. They didn't attack any ship afloat They attacked british ships or ones that were bringing british munitions to the british military And there was a very formal process. They had to go through and they often treated their prisoners quite well So they were not like pirates enemies of all mankind. They were fighting for a cause They had a profit motive. They acted like pirates in the sense that they captured ships But they also had patriotic motives and they were fighting on behalf of their country not on behalf of themselves only Which is what pirates typically did So that is uh, is there any private privateership in existence today? Not that I know of sort of like I wrote a book called leviathan the history of whaling in america There's only one wooden whale ship that you can still visit. I just visited it the other day when I spoke at mystic seaport That's the charles w morgan. I am not aware of any actual privateering vessel during the american revolution That is still around today There are some reproductions of privateering vessels from the war of 1812 that I know are around but those are reproductions Let's see. Can you comment about french privateering ships big question One of the things I learned in writing this book and I have to add that every book I've written with the exception of one has been on a topic I don't know a lot about before I start working on the book and that's to keep myself excited about the topic for the 18 months to nearly two years that it takes me to research and write these books I had no idea That privateering played a major role in getting the french to join us as allies But also once france joined us As allies they started issuing their own letters of mark and during the last years of the war hundreds of french privateers came out of french ports They often had american captains and some of those american captains performed so well they were given the highest naval awards From the french government after the war How do I compare them? They were very much like american privateers a lot of them were former merchant ships A lot of them were fishing vessels that would be modified to bring on more armaments They may cut some more holes in the bulwark to put more cannons in or down below But they were quite similar to american privateers and operated in a very similar Fashion so I can't answer that question any more specifically if there were some signal differences between french privateers and american privateers Other than the fact that a lot of american privateers had mostly americans on board But before france joined us as allies a lot of the american privateers That were operating out of french ports While captain and sometimes the first mate or second mate would be an american A lot of the men on board were french And that added to the complaints that the british had about the french essentially getting engaged in the war without being engaged in the war and whether they should Be attacked by the british Let me see I can't see Can you comment I think those are all the Question let's see american pirates. Yeah, those are all the questions. So I want to thank you again for taking a little bit of time to listen about Privateers and privateering and I hope you get a chance to read the book. Take care. Bye. Bye


What's up everybody? Jason here for Jasper's casebricks.com. This last random number block sells off Spectre basketball picker team number 10 And again, this is for the Warriors and Mavericks So you get a piece of the Warriors and Mavericks for a fraction of the price you would have paid to grab them in a picker team And again, we go by random number block So random number from 0 through 9 and of course the first number on the left side of the certain number dash will we go by Good luck, everybody. Here's a dice roll. Here's a customer named Shane down to Allen And of course we got 0 through 9. Let's roll the dice and we got ourselves a 5 and a 1 6 times Good luck one two three four five and Sixth and final time. Yeah, Cory down to Andrew and six times here now one two three four five six There you go Four down to zero So Cory have a four Robert seven Allen with three and eight last one was there Shane with two John with five Robert rung with six Andrew Roth with any one of ones would be yours John with nine and Andrew Look at that. What a randomizer. You also have zero any in our redemptions Lulu has live autographs, but he also has redemptions as well. So Good luck, buddy. So there you go guys. Good luck to everybody in the break and coming up next in a separate video It is the break itself


The Offset RDL or an Offset Stance RDL is a good way to turn a bilateral type exercise kind of like a deadlift into something that's a little bit more unilateral. It's kind of the step between a Romanian deadlift and a single leg Romanian deadlift. To set up for this one, you're gonna set the weights up at some sort of elevation so you're not picking them up off the floor and rounding your back every time you set up. You're gonna hinge at the hips, pick them up just like a normal RDL rep, driving through the heels. And then for this one, we're gonna go one foot back behind the other.  It's just the same motion. So my weight is staying on my right leg here just like that. If I go any lower, I'm gonna have to round my back. I don't want to have to do that. I want to keep my back nice and flat the whole time. What you'll notice is you'll probably run out of room.  You want to just make sure you're keeping all the tension on the back hip. If you're getting restricted feeling, especially in the front hamstring, try to shift more weight to that back leg and from the front. The offset I'm doing is just about half the size of my foot. No more than that. Weight stays over here on the back leg and I'm coming up and down like this. So this is just like any other RDL. You want to feel it in the glutes and hamstrings, but specifically you want to feel it on that trailing leg glute and hamstring.


The other. Here's to tens of millions of the others that have been sacrificed for humanity's stupidity.