[1755 A.D.]
Denis[g] quotes a letter from Pedegache, who was an eye-witness of the horror: “On the 1st of November, 1755, with a quiet atmosphere and a very clear sky, the earth shook, but so slightly that everyone fancied the vibration was due to some rapidly moving vehicle. This first trembling lasted two minutes; after two minutes’ interval there was a repetition of the trembling, but so violent a one that the greater number of the houses began to crack and to fall down: this second trembling continued for upwards of ten minutes. By that time the dust was so great as to obscure the sun. Then came a shock so awful that the houses which were still standing fell with a deafening crash. It seemed as if the earth were returning to chaos. The tears and cries of the living, the sighs and groans of the dying, the shuddering of the earth, the total darkness, all added to the horror of the scene. But at last, after twenty minutes, all became quiet. One thought then filled every mind—flight, and a refuge in the country. But our cup of misery was not yet full. Scarcely had we begun to breathe again when fire broke out in different parts of the town.[175] The wind, which was very boisterous, fanned the flames and left no room for hope.
“Possibly something might have been done to check the fire had not the town been threatened with wide submergence by the sea; at all events the terrified inhabitants easily persuaded themselves that this danger was in store for them, seeing waves breaking furiously over places far removed from the shore. Several people believing that they would find a certain amount of safety on the water ventured on it; but the waves drove the vessels on shore, grinding them one against another, then drawing them seawards with merciless violence as though they would swallow them and the miserable beings clinging to them.
“During all these days our terror has never abated, for the shocks are incessant. On Friday, November 7th, at five o’clock in the morning, there was a shock so violent we imagined our troubles were about to recommence; but happily it was followed by no disastrous consequences. The movement was regular, like that of a rolling vessel. What caused such devastation on the first day was that all the movements were contrary and so exactly opposed to each other that the walls parted with the utmost facility. I have noticed that the strongest shocks are always at daybreak. They say that the sea came up nine feet higher than the highest tide ever remembered in Portugal. On Sunday morning, November 2nd, I saw with the utmost amazement the Tagus, which in some reaches is more than two leagues wide, almost dried up on the city side; the other side was a feeble little stream through which one could see the bed. Almost the whole of Portugal has felt this scourge; the kingdom of Algarve, Santarem, Setubal, Oporto, Mafra, Obidos, Castanheira—indeed all the towns within twenty leagues are destroyed. I write to you from the depths of the country, for there is not a habitable house left. Lisbon has vanished!”
Everyone, from the monarch down to the meanest beggar, had something to deplore. In the town of Lisbon alone thirty thousand persons had perished, and, if one can trust the calculations which were made later, the losses in valuable furniture and in hard cash reached the enormous total of £91,360,000 or $456,800,000. In short, such were the results of this terrible catastrophe that more than twenty years after Dumouriez[k] was still able to say: “Lisbon is an appalling agglomeration of overturned palaces, burned churches, of rubbish such as one sees when a fortification has been blown up. In many places one walks over the sites of houses, in streets contrived on the rubbish thrown up on either side to allow of roadway being made. Here and there one sees reared up isolated houses, and ruins as grotesque, as grimly beautiful, as the remains of Greek and Roman buildings.”[g]
[1756-1757 A.D.]
The whole population of Lisbon continued throughout the winter in tents or huts in the fields. The distress was extreme in every part of Portugal, and called forth, as has been already stated, the pity of all neighbouring nations. In Spain, Ferdinand deeply sympathised in his queen’s sorrow for her countrymen, and repealed the existing prohibitions of exporting some of the necessaries of life, and the heavy duties imposed upon the export of others, as related to Portugal. In England, though the claim might be less, more was done. George II applied to parliament for the means of relieving a people so severely afflicted; and the sum of £100,000 [$500,000] was immediately granted for that purpose. The ministers expended it in corn and other articles of provisions or indispensable necessaries, which were shipped off without a moment’s delay to the desolated city. The Portuguese felt gratitude both for the benefits conferred and for the kindly fellow-feeling that had prompted the act; and the old ties of friendship between England and Portugal seem to have regained much of their previously decaying strength.[b]
Pombal and the Jesuits
The measures which Pombal adopted on account of and after the earthquake, although in themselves prudent and humane, were enforced in a severe and arbitrary manner. He caused the public granaries to be thrown open, because hundreds of persons who had not been buried under the ruins, or killed by the falling buildings, were wandering about like ghosts and dying from hunger. He adopted measures for the immediate import of grain from all quarters, abolished the duties on corn, and strictly forbade the export of provisions of any description. The water-conduits which had been destroyed were also immediately restored and carefully maintained.[176] The indescribable misery which resulted from this calamity gave occasion to murders and plunder in such a country as Portugal. Pombal applied remedies for this evil also, but by the use of most horrible means. Thieves and robbers, regardless of the most imminent dangers, and urged by their covetousness, ventured into streets which were masses of ruins, and carried away property from churches, palaces, and private houses before the very eyes of the inhabitants, who were trembling for their lives. To put an end to this fearful system of plunder, the minister ordered guards to be placed at all the outlets from the city and in every street, and summary justice to be executed upon everyone who either refused or was unable to give a satisfactory account of what he was carrying. Hundreds of gallows were erected around the circuit of the city which was filled with the dead and the dying, and with persons robbed of all their property and means even of present existence; and on these gallows 350 people were hanged within three days.