WEST INDIES. 513 



no bishop, the bishop of London's commissary being the chief reli- 

 gious magistrate in those parts. 



Jamaica is divided into three counties, Middlesex, Surry, and 

 Cornwall, which contain, in the whole, twenty parishes. The town 

 of Port-Royal, which now has not above 200 houses, was formerly 

 the capital of Jamaica. It stood upon the point of a narrow neck of 

 land, which, towards the sea, formed part of the border of a very 

 fine harbour of its own name. The conveniency of this harbour, 

 which was capable of containing a thousand sail of large ships, and 

 of such depth as to allow them to load and unload with the greatest 

 ease, induced the inhabitants to build their capital on this spot, though 

 the place was a hot dry sand, and produced none of the necessaries of 

 life, not even fresh water. But the advantage of its harbour, and the 

 resort of pirates, made it a place of great consideration. These pi- 

 rates were called buccaneers ; they fought with inconsiderate bra- 

 very, and then spent their fortune in this capital with as inconsiderate 

 dissipation. About the beginning of the year 1692, no place, for its 

 size, could be compared to this town for trade, wealth, and an entire 

 corruption of manners. In the month of June, in this year, an earth- 

 quake, which shook the whole island to the foundations, totally over- 

 whelmed this city, so as to leave, in one quarter, not even the smallest 

 vestige remaining. In two minutes, the earth opened and swallowed 

 up nine-tenths of the houses, and two thousand people. The water 

 gushed out from the openings of the earth, and tumbled the people 

 on heaps ; but some of them had the good fortune to catch hold of 

 beams and rafters of houses, and were afterwards saved by boats, 

 Several ships were wrecked in the harbour ; and the Swan frigate, 

 which lay in the dock to careen, was carried over the tops of sinking 

 houses, and did not overset, but afforded a retreat to some hundreds 

 of people, who saved their lives upon her. An officer who was in the 

 town at this time, says, the earth opened and shut very quick in some 

 places, and he saw several people sink down to the middle, and others 

 appeared with their heads just above ground, and were squeezed to 

 death. At Savannah, above a thousand acres were sunk with the 

 houses and people in them ; the place, appearing for some time like 

 a lake, was afterwards dried up, but no houses were seen. In some 

 parts mountains were split; and at one place a plantation was remov- 

 ed to the distance of a mile. They again rebuilt the city ; but it was 

 a second time, ten years after, destroyed by a great fire. The extra-: 

 ordinary convenience of the harbour tempted them to build it once 

 more; and once more in 1722, was it laid in rubbish by a hurricane, 

 the most terrible on record. Such repeated calamities seemed to 

 mark out this place as a devoted spot ; the inhabitants, therefore, re- 

 solved to forsake it for ever, and to remove to the opposite side of the 

 bay, where they built Kingston, which has become the capital of the 

 island. It consists of upwards of sixteen hundred houses, many of 

 them handsomely built, and, in the taste of these islands, as well as 

 the neighbouring continent, one story high, with porticoes, and every 

 conveniency for a comfortable habitation in that climate. The number 

 of inhabitants is between 26 and 27,000. Kingston now ranks as a 

 city, having been incorporated by charter bearing date January 12, 

 1 803. Not far from Kingston stands St. Jago de la Vega, or Spanish- 

 Town; which, though at present inferior to Kingston, not containing 

 more than 3000 inhabitants, was once the capital of Jamaica, and is. 



