Note 37 — Chapter VI

This Hon. John Johnson appears to have crept into the government with nothing more than a verbal commission from some great courtier; and it is said that, in order to gain the Antiguans over to his cause, he allowed them to frame and pass what acts they pleased. He was an officer in Colonel Thomas Whetham’s regiment, (the Enniskillen, or 27th regiment of the line,) where he held the rank of brevet-colonel. About the year 1706, after the government had devolved to the captain-general, Colonel Parke, Colonel Johnson had a fracas with a Mr. Poxton, a native of St Christopher’s, which ended fatally to the ex-governor, and for which Mr. Poxton was tried for murder, but acquitted by a jury of his countrymen.