658 ' PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ■ [aNNO 1755. 



bury them, were very alarming : but the fire consumed them, and prevented 

 that evil. 2d. The fears of a famine were very great ; for Lisbon is the store- 

 house for corn to all the country, for 50 miles round : however, some of the 

 corn- houses were happily saved, and though the 3 succeeding days to the earth- 

 quake an ounce of bread was worth a pound of gold, yet afterwards bread became 

 moderately plenty, and we were all happily relieved from our starving condition. 



The 3d great dread was, that the low villainous part of the people would take 

 an advantage of the confusion, and murder and plunder those few who had 

 saved any thing. This in some degree happened ; on which the King gave 

 orders for gallows immediately to be placed all round the city ; and after about a 

 hundred executions, among which were some English sailors, the evil stopped. 

 We are still in a state of the greatest uncertainty and confusion, for we have 

 had in all 22 different shocks since the first, but none so violent as to bring any 

 houses down in the out-skirts of the town, that escaped the first shock ; but 

 nobody yet ventures to lie in houses ; and though we are in general exposed to 

 the open sky for want of materials to make tents, and though rain has fallen 

 several nights past, yet the most delicate tender people suffer their difficulties 

 with as little inconvenience as the most robust and healthy. Every thing is yet 

 with us in the greatest confusion imaginable : we have neither clothes nor con- 

 veniences, nor money to send for them to other countries. All Europe is 

 deeply concerned in the immense riches and merchandises that are lost, but none 

 so much as our own nation, who have lost every thing they had here. Few English 

 lives have been lost in comparison of other nations, but great numbers wounded ; 

 and though we have 3 English surgeons here, but unfortunately without either 

 instruments, bandages, or dressings, to relieve them. Two days after the first 

 shock, orders were given to dig for the bodies, and a great many have been 

 taken up and recovered. Mr. W. lodged in a house where there were 38 in- 

 habitants, and only 4 saved. In the city prison 800 were lost. 1200 in the ge- 

 neral hospital,' a great number of convents of 400 in each lost ; the Spanish 

 ambassador with 35 servants. It fortunately happened, that the King and the 

 Royal Family were at Belime, a palace about a league out of town. The palace 

 in town tumbled the first shock, but the natives insist that the inquisition was 

 the first building that fell down. The shock has been felt all over the kingdom, 

 but along the se -side more particularly. Faro, St. Ubals, and some of the 

 large trading towns are, if possible, in worse situation than here ; though the 

 city of Porto has quite escaped. 



It is possible, that the cause of all these misfortunes came from under the 

 western ocean ; for a captain of a ship, a very sensible man, told him that he 

 was 50 leagues off at at sea ; that the shock was there so violent as greatly to 

 injure the deck of his ship ; it occasioned him to think that he had mistaken 



