BOOK II. CHAP. VIII. 141 



ns fo much, money. This law, fo favourable to the planters, was 

 likewile highly beneficial to the mother-country, by its confidering 

 the foreign money then current here as mere merchandize, and of 

 courfe leaving it free for exportation to England. 



I am now about to defcribe the iad reverfe of fortune which this 

 town experienced ; but, firft, it may not be improper to mention 

 the ftate of it in the beginning of the fatal year 1692. It con- 

 tained at that period upwards of three thoufand five hundred inha- 

 bitants,, and two thoufand houfes ; the greater number of which 

 were of brick, feveral ftories in height, founded clofe to the very 

 brink of the. water, on a loofe bank of fand. The fort, which 

 then mounted fixty pieces of ordnance, and the reft of the houfes, 

 were founded on the rocky part of the peninfula. On the 7th of 

 June, 1692, between eleven. and twelve o'clock at noon, began 

 that terrible earthquake which, in two minutes time, produced 

 fu.ch a fcene of devaftation [.v]. All the principal fhreets, which 

 were next to the water, funk at once, with the people in them ; and 

 a high, rolling fea followed, clofing immediately over them. Not 

 lefs than fixteen hundred were thus fwallowed up, or fhook into an 



[a] The year began with very hot, dry weather, which continued till May, when there '.vSs 

 much blowing-weather, and a gieat deal ot rain, till the end of the month ; from which time, 

 till the earthquake happened, it was excefiively calm, Jiot, and dry. The yth of June was a veiy 

 hot, clear Uin-fhine da}-, fcarce a cloud appearing, and not a breath of air felt. The earthquake 

 begaii at fortj- mhnttes paft eleven A. M. With -a very fmall trembling. The-fecond fliake was 

 fomewhat ilronger; accompanied all the while with a hollow, rumbling noife ; and, immediately 

 after this fecond ftiake, came on the third, and moft violent, which continued near a minute. 



When Venables took the ifland, the point whereon Port Royal now ftands was almofl; ihfulated, 

 being joined to the Palifadoes only by a ridge of fand, which at that time juft began to appear 

 abqvg, water. When Jackfon invaded St. Jago de la Vega, which was about feventeen years ante- 

 cedent, it was entirely feparated by the fea. On this fandy ifthmus, which the inhabitants en- 

 larged by driving piles, wharfing, i.:c. the greater part of the town was built, extendincr above a 

 quarter ot a mile'; aiid- the weight of fo many large brick-houfes wasjuftly imagined to contri- 

 bute, in a great meafure,- to their downfall;, for tlie grqundgpve v/ay as far as the houfes ered«i 

 on this fanJy foundation flood, and no further. 



So in the great earthquake which happened in Sicily in the followmg year, 1693, it was ob- 

 fer\'ed, that in lefs folid ground, as chdk, fand, or loofe earth, the mifchief was bej'ond compa- 

 rifon greater than in rocky places. And, in Syracufe, the difference was vifible in three places; 

 that is, in the, middle of the city ; in the little illaiid ; :uid In Zaracaiti, where the antient Syracufa 

 Itood ; in all which places, the buildings, being on a rocky foundation, remained for the moft part 

 Untolfched, Of only ftiaken, or at leafl not quite deraoliflied : whereas, on the contrary, in the reft 

 of that territory which is not rocky, a vaft nuniber of noble fttudures nnd towers lay in a heap ef 



rums. 



heap 



