Page:Account of a dreadful hurricane which happened in the island of Jamaica, in the month of October, 1780.pdf/16

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disfigured the face of the country? How accoun(illegible text) for the hollow roarings of the ſea, and for the inſtability of the climate for many months before and for the dreadful pauſes that were obſerved to take place, before the buildings were entirely over turned? It can hardly be doubted but that heaven and earth were combined in compleating our deſtruction. One element alone has been hardly ever known to occaſion ſo extenſive a devaſtation; and the ſudden ſwelling and raging of the ſea, we may reaſonably ttribute to the heavings of the earthquake; to which likewiſe the general ruin of our houſes may be in ſome meaſure attributed.

I have ſeen the ruins of Liſbon; and if it would not almoſt amount to folly to compare, in th(illegible text) place, great things with ſmall, I ſhould ſay that the deſtruction there, great and melancholy as it was, could only have been, by compariſon of buildings and extent of population, more dreadful than that calamity which I have now the preſumption to deſcribe. The earthquake at Liſbon happened in the morning; and although it almoſt univerſally affected its buildings, yet the productions of the earth received, in conſequence, but little damage whereas the hurricane in Jamaica continued throughout the night, which has its particular terrors, independently of water, and of wind; and not only blew down every thing within its ſweep, but ſprea deſolation through the country round; and I am apt to believe, that the peculiar diſtreſſes of the unhappy ſufferers of Savanna la-Mar, muſt have equalled every thing (I ſtill mean by compariſon that is to be met with in the moſt melancholy annals of human misfortunes.

To this calamity, another unfortunately ſucceeded; and the conſequences of which were ſtill more fatal to the lives of thoſe who had ſurvived the