[XXXVII‑56] Juarros, Guat. (ed. Lond., 1823), 154. According to Cadena, Breve Descrip., 11, the two shocks in 1765 occurred on June 21st and October 24th, respectively.
[XXXVII‑57] Arévalo, Col. Doc. Antig., 157-9.
[XXXVII‑58] During the alarm caused by the threatened outbreak the authorities of Santiago armed a force, and the royal officials had their valuables removed to one of the churches for safety. Before this excitement had subsided a Jesuit priest was cruelly murdered in the jail by three negro criminals whom he was confessing. The jailer gave the alarm by ringing the bell of the jail, and thereupon the people, in the belief that a riot had broken out, seized their arms and hastened to the principal square, even the women flocking thither with stones. The three negroes were captured after a determined resistance, and one of them having been killed in the scuffle the other two were hanged the same afternoon. A few days later a Dominican was found murdered in his cell. Escamilla, Not. Cur. Guat., MS., 18-19.
[XXXVII‑59] Iturriaga, El Dolor del Rey.
[XXXVII‑60] Batres, Relacion de las Fiestas.
[XXXVII‑61] Juarros, Guat. (ed. Lond., 1823), 153-4.
[XXXVII‑62] From the incidents narrated by old residents, eye-witnesses of the event, and the appearance of the city in his time, Juarros, Guat., ii. 266-8, concludes that even the official reports of the effect of this earthquake were grossly exaggerated, probably owing to the interested reports of engineers, architects, and notaries. He quotes from two pamphlets published at Mexico in 1574, to show instances of exaggeration in the details of this calamity. In one that appears in Cadena, Breve Descrip., 40, the statement is made that trustworthy persons affirmed that during the earthquake they saw the mighty Volcan de Agua opened from cone to base by the first shocks, and again united by those that succeeded. This and other vagaries equally absurd, the effects only of a terrified imagination, form part of every description of this disaster, but do not necessarily impair the truthfulness of the account as a whole. The work of Cadena here quoted has been used as the base of the present account, and from the fact that its author was a prominent churchman, an eye-witness of the events related, and that his book, which received the sanction of superior authority, was published within a year of the occurrence, its trustworthiness can hardly be doubted. The work, a reprint of the original made in Guatemala in 1858, is a small 12mo of 56 pages, and describes the events of the period extending from June 11, 1773, to March 10, 1774, including a detailed description of the city of Guatemala, its destruction, and the measures for its removal up to the last date. It is written in the usual inflated religious style. The author, Fray Felipe Cadena, was a Dominican, professor of theology in the university of San Cárlos, synodal examiner of the archbishopric, and secretary of his order in Guatemala. There are other accounts, however, whose exaggerations are gross, and whose narrative could not have been obtained from any reliable source. According to Russell's Hist. Amer., i. 390, the city of Guatemala, with 40,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, and nearly 15,000,000 pesos in treasure and merchandise, was so completely swallowed up in April 1773 that not even a trace was left of it. Flint's Hist. and Geog. gives the date of the earthquake as 1779, and says that it was accompanied by terrific and destructive phenomena; the sea rose from its bed; one volcano poured out boiling water, another waves of blazing lava; and 8,000 families were swallowed up in a moment.
[XXXVII‑63] According to Escamilla, Not. Cur., MS., 25-7, the soldiery were guilty of pillaging the convents. Succecion chronologica de los Presidentes que han governado este Reyno de Goatha. Obispos de Goathemala y Noticias Curiosas Cronologicas destas Indias is the title of a manuscript volume in folio of 78 pages, usually attributed to José María Escamilla. It was begun in 1777. It opens with a list of the governors up to that date, taken from the cabildo records of the city of Guatemala. This is followed by a list of bishops and archbishops, though from what source is not stated. Beginning with the dates of the discoveries of America and the South Sea and with the conquests of Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru, a brief chronological list is given of the more important events in Guatemala and its dependent provinces from 1525 to 1762. From the latter date until 1779 the events are described with more fulness, especially the account of the destructive earthquake in 1773, the consequent removal of the city, and the bitter controversy to which it gave rise. It is uncertain whether the author was in Guatemala previous to 1777, as the minuteness with which he describes the events of the preceding four years may have been the result of information obtained from the residents of the city. Nor is there anything to indicate the name of the compiler. The manuscript was presented to the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg in 1856 by Escamilla, according to notes in the handwriting of the abbé on the title-page, and at the end of the volume, and in his Bibliothèque Mexico-Guatemalienne, p. 60. Its chief value is the account of the destruction and rebuilding of Guatemala City.
[XXXVII‑64] Juarros, Guat. (ed. Lond., 1823), 157.
[XXXVII‑65] Arévalo, Col. Doc. Antig., 160-71.