In the pursuit of this work, I shall divide it into the following chapters or sections, that I may put it into as good order as possible.
1. Of the Damage in the city of London, &c.
2. — in the countries.
3. On the Water in the Royal Navy.
4. — to Shipping in general.
5. by Earthquake.
6. by High Tides.
7. Remarkable providences and deliverances.
8. Hardened and blasphemous contemners both of the storm and its effects.
9. Some calculations of damage sustained.
10. The conclusion.
We had designed a chapter for the damages abroad, and have been at no small charge to procure the particulars from foreign parts: which are now doing in a very authentic manner: but as the world has been long expecting this work, and several gentlemen who were not a little contributing to the information of the author, being unwilling to stay any longer for the account, it was resolved to put it into the press without any farther delay: and if the foreign accounts can be obtained in time, they shall be a supplement to the work; if not, some other method shall be found out to make them public.
I. Of the damages in the City of London, and parts adjacent.
Indeed the city was a strange spectacle, the morning after the storm, as soon as the people could put their heads out of doors; though I believe, everybody expected the destruction was bad enough; yet I question very much, if anybody believed the hundredth part of what they saw.
The streets lay so covered with tiles and slates, from the tops of the houses, especially in the out-parts, that the quantity is incredible; and the houses were so universally stript, that all the tiles in fifty miles round would be able to repair but a small part of it.
Something may be guessed at on this head, from the sudden rise of the price of tiles; which rose from 21s. per thousand to 6l. for plain tiles; and from 50s. per thousand for pantiles, to 10l, and bricklayers’ labour to 5s. per day; and though after the first hurry the prices fell again, it was not that the quantity was supplied; but because,
1st. The charge was so extravagant, that an universal neglect of themselves, appeared both in landlord and tenant; an incredible number of houses remained all the winter uncovered, and exposed to all the inconveniences of wet and cold; and are so even at the writing of this chapter.
2. Those people who found it absolutely necessary to cover their houses, but were unwilling to go to the extravagant price of tiles; changed their covering to that of wood, as a present expedient, till the season for making of tiles should come on; and the first hurry being over, the prices abate: and it is on this score, that we see, to this day, whole ranks of buildings, as in Christ Church Hospital, the Temple, Ask’s Hospital, Old street, Hogsden squares, and infinite other places, covered entirely with deal boards; and are like to continue so, perhaps a year or two longer, for want of tiles.
These two reasons reduced the tile merchants to sell at a more moderate price: but it is not an irrational suggestion, that all the tiles which shall be made this whole summer, will not repair the damage in the covering of houses within the circumference of the city, and ten miles round.
The next article in our street damage was, the fall of chimnies; and as the chimnies in the city buildings are built in large stacks, the houses being so high, the fall of them had the more power, by their own weight, to demolish the houses they fell upon.
It is not possible to give a distinct account of the number, or particular stacks of chimnies, which fell in this fatal night; but the reader may guess by this particular, that in Cambray house, commonly so called, a great house near Islington, belonging to the family of the Comptons, Earls of Northampton, but now let out into tenements, the collector of these remarks counted eleven or thirteen stacks of chimnies, either wholly thrown in, or the greatest parts of them, at least, what was exposed to the wind, blown off. I have heard persons, who pretended to observe the desolation of that terrible night very nicely; and who, by what they had seen and inquired into, thought themselves capable of making some calculations, affirm, they could give an account of above two thousand stacks of chimnies blown down in and about London; besides gable ends of houses, some, whole roofs and sixteen or twenty whole houses in the out-parts.
Injury and loss of life.
Under the disaster of this article, it seems most proper to place the loss of the people’s lives, who fell in this calamity; since most of those, who had the misfortune to be killed, were buried, or beaten to pieces with the rubble of the several stacks of chimnies that fell.
Of these, our weekly bills of mortality gave us an account of twenty-one; besides such as were drowned in the river, and never found: and besides above two hundred people very much wounded and maimed.
One woman was killed by the fall of a chimney in or near the palace of St. James’s, and a stack of chimnies falling in the new unfinished building there, and carried away a piece of the coin of the house.
Nine soldiers were hurt, with the fall of the roof of the guard house at Whitehall, but none of them died.
A distiller in Duke street, with his wife and maid servant, were all buried in the rubbish of a stack of chimnies, which forced all the floors, and broke down to the bottom of the house; the wife was taken out alive, though very much bruised, but her husband and the maid lost their lives.
One Mr. Dyer, a plasterer in Fetter lane, finding the danger he was in by the shaking of the house, jumped out of bed to save himself; and had, in all probability, time enough to have got out of the house, but staying to strike a light, a stack of chimnies fell in upon him, lulled him and wounded his wife.
Two boys, at one Mr. Purefoy's, in Cross street, Hatton garden, were both killed, and buried in the rubbish of a stack of chimnies; and a third very much wounded.
A woman in Jewin street, and two persons more near Aldersgate street, were killed; the first, as it is reported, by venturing to run out of the house into the street; and the other two by the fall of a house.
In Threadneedle street, one Mr. Simpson, a scrivener, being in bed and fast asleep, heard nothing of the storm; but the rest of the family being more sensible of danger, some of them went up and woke him; and telling him their own apprehensions, pressed him to rise; but he too fatally slept, and consequently unconcerned at the danger, told them he did not apprehend anything; and so, notwithstanding all their persuasions, could not be prevailed with to rise: they had not been gone many minutes out of his chamber, before the chimnies fell in, broke through the roof over him, and killed him in his bed.
A carpenter in Whitecross street was killed almost in the same manner, by a stack of chimnies of the Swan Tavern, which fell into his house; it was reported, that his wife earnestly desired him not to go to bed; and had prevailed upon to sit up till near two o’clock, but then finding himself very heavy, he would go to bed against all his wife’s entreaties; after which, she waked him, and desired him to rise, which he refused, being something angry for being disturbed, and going to sleep again, was killed in his bed: and his wife, who would not go to bed, escaped.
In this manner, our weekly bills gave us an account of twenty-one persons kilted in the city of London, and parts adjacent.
Some of our printed accounts give us larger and plainer accounts of the loss of lives, than I will venture to affirm for truth; as of several houses near Moorfields levelled with the ground: fourteen people drowned in a wherry going to Gravesend, and five in a wherry from Chelsea. Not that it is not very probable to be true; but as I resolve not to hand anything to posterity, but what comes very well attested,