“ The powers of vegetation appeared to be an on (illegible text) suspended; and instead of Nature and her works, the mind was petrified by the seeming approach of fate and chaos. The country looked as if it had been lately visited by fire and the sword, as if the Tornado had rifled Africa of its sands, to deposst their contents upon the denuded bosom of the hilis; as if Æina had scorched the mountains, and a volcano had taken possession of every height. ”

“ I shall never forget the desolate appearance my house made immediately after this catastrophe, nor the many circumstances of distress and commiseration that alternately shocked and softened the mind. Here a poor infant was seen extracted from the ruins, and its lifeless body confined to the care and lamentations of its desponding parents; there fat a group of negroes bewailing with heaviness of heart, and all the silent eloquence of streaming eyes ”

“ Human strength was mere weakness when opposed to this war of elements. A stout young fellow, who had witnessed the scene in the barn-yard from an apprehension that the house must necessarily be tumbled down, run out for safety. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The darkness of the night, the howling of the winds, the growling of the thunder, and the partial flashes of the lightning that darted through the murky cloud, which sometimes burst forth with a plenitude of light, and at others hardly gave sufficient lamination to brighten the terrified aspect of the negroes; that, with cold and fear, were trembling around; the cries of the children who were exposed to the weather, and who (poor innocents) had lost their mothers in the darkness and confusion of the night; and the great uncertainty of general and private situation combined ”

“ Every thing claims a kindred in misfortune; it feels like death; but death, alas! to some comes too late; and to others it comes too early. In a short time, perhaps, it was the fate of the poor meek creature above discribed, to feel its stroke. ”

“ An act of dire necessity may be certainly excused; but to destroy (for the gratification of an appetite which we have in common with brutes) that which has been used to live in a domestic and in a cherished state around us, would argue an insensibility, from which every feeling mind must naturally revolt: and I should hope, that there are but few people who could eat of that kid, which they had then lick the butcher's hand at the very moment at the knife was about to deprive its innocence of existence ”

“ It will be difficult to conceive a situation more terrible than what my house afforded from four o'clock in the afternoon until six o'clock the ensuing morning. Driven, as we were, from room to room, while the roofs, the floors, and he walls, were rumbling over head, or falling around us; the wind blowing with a noise and violence that cannot even now be reflected upon without alarm; the rain (illegible text) aring down in torrents ”

“ From the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon, the wind continued to blow with increasing violence from the north and east: but from that time, having collected all its powers of devastation, it rushed with irresistable violence from the south ”

“ The horses and cattle upon the farm exhibited the liveliest symptoms of alarm and agitation.
"The dwelling house at Whitelaw, in which a family resided at the time, shook with such violence as to threaten its destruction and theirs. Providentially, however, amidst all the devastation, no person was materially hurt; and, what renders this the more remarkable is, that the tiles which were torn from the surrounding offices fell from an immense height, in vast numbers, among the people exposed to the storm. ”

“ A more general destruction in the extent of a given proportion of land, hath rarely happened; and the hurricane of 1780, will be ever acknowledged as a (illegible text) tation that descends but once in a century, and that serves as a scourge to correct the vanity, to humble the pride, and to chastise the imprudence and arrogance of men. ”

“ So sudden an alteration, is enough to shake a philosophy that has not before been tried; and such a change is sufficient to excite those complaints which are caused by disappointment, but which may be born with patience, and finaly overcome by calmness and resignation. ”

“ The situation of the unhappy negroes who poured in upon us so soon as their houses were destroyed, and whose terrors seemed to have deprived them of sense and motion, not only very particularly augmented the confusion of the time, but very considerably added, by their whispers and distress, to the scene of general suspense, and the fluctuations of hope and alarm. ”

“ That the unenlightened negroes should be led to (illegible text) under, when they could it with safety, and without the curbs of morality and religion to restrain them, is a circumstance not to be wondered at, as it is consisent with the common depravity of human nature ”

“ It is unpleasant to speak of public calamities, if those calamities can come home to ourselves; and it is so common for those who suffer but little to complain, that those who suffer much are hardly credited in the enumeration of misfortunes. ”

“ I must therefore from facts conclude, that a reformation in practical manners must begin with the white people in the colonies, before any inhumane institutions for the relief of the slaves can either be carried into full, or even into partial effect ”

“ To this calamity, another unfortunately succeeded; and the consequences of which were still more fatal to the lives of those who had survived the storm. The stench that arose from the putrefacation of the dead bodies, which remained for many weeks without interment (and to numbers of which the rites of burial could not be administered) , occasioned a kind of pestilence, that swept away a great proportion of those who had providentially escaped the first destruction. Almost every person (illegible text) the town and neighbourhood was affected ”

“ When we consider how very soon the gay pursuits and flattering appearances of life are designed; how uncertain are our possessions, and (illegible text) subject to hopes, and how embittered by disappointments, are our pursuits ”

“ When we look around, and see people who thought themselves above the reach of want, and reclining, a (illegible text) a long apprenticefhip of patient industry and persevering toil, upon the lap of late-earned independentcy and honest repose; when we see them (illegible text) the fruits of exertions thus made, and of comforts thus enjoyed, in one fatal and destructive (illegible text) our,—w (illegible text) an awful lesson does this reflection awaken in (illegible text) minds! ”

“ Elizabeth mentioned that the scarcity of provisions for the negroes is so great, in consequence of the last storm, that (illegible text) y of the inhabitants are obliged to purchase (illegible text) at the exhorbitant price of a bit for six ears, (illegible text) ly to keep their slaves from perishing until (illegible text) r provifions can be procured.
(illegible text) is yet impossible to say what number of lives (illegible text) been lost in this dreadful calamity; but they (illegible text) t be numerous; in one plantain boat only, (illegible text) persons perished ”

“ Some, indeed succeeded in their exertions and I should little deserve those comforts I so soon found, in comparison to many others, did I n (illegible text) bear witness to the willing industry and unremitting application of the tradesmen and other negroes who were employed in the reparation of the offices, and in making tight those parts of our temporary dwellings which were destined to the accommodation (illegible text) ourselves and friends. ”

“ Blake and Ingles’s mess houses and stores are thrown down; all the provision and fine crops of corn are destroyed; the canes are all laid flat, and there is hardly an estate (illegible text) Westmoreland but has suffered in buildings. The Ulysses. which came here from Kingston w (illegible text) 20,000!. a part of the parliamentary grant to the sufferers by the storm in October last, has been drove to sea, together with a brig out of Bluefield, and, through the whole parish of St. ”