Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 6 - Section IV
IV. Galdy.
The Scots Magazine, vol. lxxi. p. 367, states that the following epitaph is on a tombstone at Green Bay, adjoining the Apostles’ Battery, Port Royal, Jamaica:—
“dieu sur tout.
Here lies the body of Lewis Galdy, Esq., who departed this life at Port Royal, the 22d December 1736, aged eighty. He was born at Montpellier in France, but left that country for his religion, and came to settle in this island, where he was swallowed up in the great earthquake in the year 1692, and by the providence of God was by another shock thrown into the sea, and miraculously saved by swimming until a boat took him up. He lived many years after, in great reputation, beloved by all who knew him, and much lamented at his death.”
A midshipman, in 1816, wrote the following notice of the monument in his private journal, from which I extract it:—
“We first touched at Jamaica, where we remained some little time — long enough to look about us, and to go over to Port-Royal and hear all about the earthquake. I remember landing at a place called the Twelve Apostles, to look at a tombstone there, erected to the memory of a man who had been swallowed up by the earthquake at Port-Royal, and thrown up from the sea half-way betwixt that and Kingston; it mentioned (I forget the man’s name) that he married after this, and had a family, and lived to the age of eighty; it did not mention whether he could tell anything about his submarine journey or not.” [Perhaps a wife and family are named in further inscriptions on the stone.]