A.D. 1681, there was a great fire in Southwark, on the Surrey side of the Thames, and 600 houses were destroyed. Bronchial disease was prevalent in England: a mortal angina, which caused death in twenty-four hours, raged in Italy, Poland, Switzerland, and Germany; and at the same time a petechial fever prevailed in Dublin and in other parts of Ireland: pestilence was rife in the island of Sardinia and in different parts of Castile; it also broke out in the city of Esmirna, and extended to Carthagena, Murcia, and Oran, and soon after to Malaga, Antequera, Granada, Moron, Ronda, Lucena, Andujar, and other districts; and thence to Xeres, Santa Maria, and Cadiz.
A.D. 1682, there was an eruption of Vesuvius, and the city of Catania was destroyed by an earthquake; there was also an eruption of Etna, which destroyed 60,000 of the inhabitants. A comet was seen this year.
A.D. 1683, there was a comet seen, and earthquakes were felt in many parts of England. The winter was very inclement; and the frost was so severe at Christmas, that the river Thames was frozen over below Gravesend for thirteen weeks. Epidemic pestilence broke out in Argel and other parts of Berberia. The winters of this year and the following were the coldest ever experienced by the oldest inhabitants in Europe; the summers were rainy, and the autumns cold: epidemic disease spread over both continents—Europe and America. Pestilence, say Drs. Sastre and Puiz of Spain, prevailed over nearly the entire world; the city of Vich was greatly afflicted. Epidemic pestilence also prevailed with the greatest violence on the coasts of Spain; the Hungarian fever did much mischief in Leyden. The three following years the summers were hot and dry; grasshoppers overspread Languedoc in France, the subsequent autumn being cold and wet. Malignant fevers were very destructive in Europe and America.
A.D. 1686, Friesland was inundated, and thousands of men and cattle were drowned. The following year, an earthquake shook the island of Jamaica and Lima. There occurred also an inundation in Yorkshire; a rock opened visibly, and water was thrown into the air to the height of an ordinary church steeple: a comet was observed. Yellow pestilence caused great mortality in the West Indies, especially in the island of Martinique, where it was called ‘Maladie de Siam,’ from the supposition that it had been imported from that country.
A.D. 1688. Catarrhs, pleurisies, and dysentery were epidemic, this year, both in Europe and America; and during the following years, 1689–90 and 1691, pestilence prevailed with great severity in Germany, Italy, various parts of Spain, and in the United States of America: it was preceded in America by hot and moist weather.
A.D. 1690, about the beginning of June, all the legumina and springing corn were spotted with mildew; grapes and other fruits were destroyed, or rendered unfit for use, and the leaves of herbs, shrubs, &c., were eaten to the stems by various insects. Much rain fell during the first seven months of the year and after the autumnal equinox in Lombardy. “All the animals suffered,” observes Ramazzini; “even bees and silkworms perished; and the cicadæ did not sing this year; swine died of suffocation,—but the greatest destruction was among cattle.” He applies the title ‘pestilential’ to the disease affecting men in the season which proved so fatal to cattle. Miliary or sweating pestilence committed great ravages in Stuttgart, Dusseldorf, Erfurt, and Jena. Bilious remittent or yellow fever was prevalent in the United States of America; it raged with great violence in Charleston. Various parts of Spain, about this period, suffered from epidemic pestilence, especially Perpignan and Bellagardi; disease was also rife in Italy. A severe earthquake was felt this year all over Ireland.
A.D. 1692, the summer was hot and dry, and on the 7th of June an awful earthquake swallowed up Port Royal, Jamaica; Lima also suffered from a similar shock: 2000 citizens were drowned in the former place:
“Earthquakes, Nature’s agonizing pangs,
Oft shake th’ astonish’d isles.”
Mosquitoes and flies were generated in great numbers, and yellow malignant or bilious remittent fever carried off 3000 of the inhabitants of Port Royal, Jamaica. The same year, yellow fever was also very fatal at Barbados, and continued to be so for several years.