2-i8 HISTORY OF 



more inland, aiid gain gi'ound continually. From the time 

 mentioned above, the sand has buried more than six leagues of 

 the country inward ; and it is now but half a league from t)ip 

 town of St Paul : so that, in all appearance, the inhabitants 

 must be obliged to abandon it entirely. In the country that has 

 been overwhelmed, there are still to be seen the tops of some 

 steeples peeping through the sand, and many chimneys that still 

 remain above this sandy ocean. The inhabitants, however, 

 had suflicient time to escape ; but being deprived of their little 



extended." In the Poultry, where two boys were lying in a garret, a huge 

 «t.u"k of chimneys fell in, which making its way through tliat and all the 

 other floors to tlie cellar, it was followed by the bed with the boys asleep in it, 

 who first awaked in that gloomy place of confusion without tlie least hurt. 



So awful a visitation produced serious impressions on the government, and 

 a day of fasting and humiliation was appointed by authority. The introduc- 

 tory part of the proclamation, issued by queen Anne for that purpose, claims 

 attention from its solemn import. 



" Whereas, by the late most terrible and dreadful storms of wind, with 

 which it hatli pleased Almighty God to afflict the greatest part of this our 

 kingdom, on Friday and Saturday, the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh 

 days of November last, some of our ships of war, and many ships of our loving 

 subjects, have been destroyed and lost at sea, andgreatnumbers of our subjects 

 serving on board the same have perished, and man y houses and other buildings 

 of our good subjects have been either wholly thrown down and demolished 

 or very much damnified and di'faced, and thereby several persons have been 

 killed, and many stacks of corn and hay thrown down and scattered abroad, 

 to the great damage and impoverishment of many others, especially the poorer 

 sort, and great numbers of tiiriber and other trees have by the said 

 storm been torn up by the roots in many parts of this our kingdom : a cala- 

 mity of this sort so dreadful and astonishing, that the like hath not been seen 

 or felt in the memory of any person living in this our kingdom, and which 

 loudly calls for the deepest and most solemn humiliation of us and our peo. 

 pie : therefore out of a deep and pious sense of what we and all our people 

 have suJ:Fered by the said dreadful wind and storms, (which we most humbly 

 acknowledge to be a token of the divine displeasure, and that it was tlie in. 

 finite mercy of God that we and our people were not thereby wholly de- 

 Btroyed,) We have resolved, and do hereby command, that a General Public 

 Fast be observed," &c. 



This public fast was accordingly observed, through(.ut Kngland, on the nine 

 teenth of January following, with great seriousness and devotion, by all or 

 ders and denominations. The protestant dissenters, notwithstanding thei 

 objections to the interference of the civil magistrate in matters of religion, 

 deeming this to be an occasion wherein they might unite with their country- 

 men in openly bewailing the general calamity, rendered the supplication uni- 

 V('r.ia!, by opening their places of wor6h:p ; and every chuich aiid uicetnig- 

 house was crowded. 



