$6 ACCOUNT OF THE ENGLISH COLONY [February, 



On Thurfday the 26th of February, the ifland was vifited by a 

 hurricane, which came on early in the morning in very heavy gales 

 of wind and rain. Several pines of one hundred and eighty and two 

 hundred feet in length, and from twenty to thirty feet in circumfe- 

 rence, were blown down. The gale had increafed by noon to a dread- 

 ful degree, with torrents of heavy rain. Every inftant pines and 

 live oaks, of the largeft dimenfions, were borne down by the fury of 

 the blaft, which, tearing up roots and rocks with them, left chafms 

 of eight or ten feet depth in the earth. Nothing but horror and defla- 

 tion every where prefented itfelf. A very large live oak-tree was 

 blown on the granary, which it darned to pieces, and (love a number 

 of calks of flour ; but happily, by the adivicy of the officers and 

 free people, the flour, Indian corn, and ftores, w T ere in a fhort time 

 collected, and removed to the commandant's houfe, with little lofs. 

 The ftorm now raged with the utmoft violence ; and by one o'clock 

 there were as many trees torn up by the roots as would have required 

 the labour of fifty men for a fortnight to have felled. Early in the 

 afternoon the Swamp and Vale were overflowed, and had every ap- 

 pearance of a large navigable river. The gardens, public and pri- 

 vate, were wholly deftroyed ; cabbages, turnips, and - other plants, 

 were blown out of the ground ; and thofe which withftood the hur- 

 ricane feemed as if they had been fcorched. An acre of Indian corn 

 which grew in the Vale, and which would have been ripe in about 

 three weeks, was totally deftroyed*. 



The people, however, continued to be healthy, and the climate 

 had not forfeited the good opinion which he had formed of it. He 

 acquainted the Governor, that, for his internal defence, he had formed 

 all the free people in the iflarid into a militia, and that a military guard 

 was mounted every night as a piquet. There were at this time 



• The direction of the hurricane was acrofs the ifland from the fouth-eaft ; and, as its fury- 

 had blown down more trees than were found lying on the ground when Mr. King landed on 

 it, he conjectured that it was not an annual vifitant of the ifland. This conjecture feems to have 

 $>een well founded, as nothing of the kind has fmce occurred there. 



victualled 



