C 403 1 
other correfpondents in this place, I doubt not but 
they are able to give you a more fatisfadtory relation 
of it than I will pretend to : but, if you have not, 
fuch an account, as the prefent hurry of my fpirits 
will permit me to fend you, will doubtlefs be more 
agreeable to you, than the uncertain reports, that you 
will find in the news-papers. All that I can pretend 
to at prefent is to communicate to you “ a round un- 
varnifh’d tale’b and that I will do with all the truth 
and candour imaginable. 
It perhaps may be neceffary previoufly to tell you, 
that fince the beginning of the year 1750, we have 
had much lefs rain than has ever been known in the 
memory of man, excepting the lad: fpring, which 
gave fuch a fupply of rain, as has produced very 
plentiful crops : the fummer has been cooler than 
ufual, and for the lad forty days, fine clear weather, 
without being remarkably fo. On the fird indantj 
about 40 minutes pad nine in the morning, was felt 
a mod violent fhock of an earthquake : it feemed to 
lad about the tenth part of a minute, and then came 
down every church and convent in town, together 
with the King’s palace, the magnificent opera-houfe, 
joining to it ; in fhort, there was not a large building 
in town that efcaped. Of the dwell ing-houfes there 
might be about one-fourth of them that tumbled, 
which, at a very moderate computation, occafioned 
the lofs of thirty thoufand lives. The diocking 
fight of the dead bodies, together with the dirieks 
and cries of thofe,who were half buried in the ruins, 
are only known to thofe who were eye-witneffes. It 
far exceeds all defcription, for the fear and con- 
dernation was fo great, that the mod refolute per- 
fon durd not day a moment to remove a few dones 
F f f 2 off 
