November 27.
St. Maximus, Bp. of Riez, A. D. 460. St. James, surnamed Intercisus, A. D. 421. St. Maharsapor, A. D. 421. St. Virgil, Bp. of Saltzburg, A. D. 784. St. Secundin, or Seachnal, Bp. of Dunsaghlin, in Meath, A. D. 447.
ANNIVERSARY OF
The Great Storm
IN ENGLAND.
In Little Wild-street chapel, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a sermon is annually preached on this day in commemoration of the “Great Storm” in 1703.
This fearful tempest was preceded by a strong west wind, which set in about the middle of the month; and every day, and almost every hour, increased in force until the 24th, when it blew furiously, occasioned much alarm, and some damage was sustained. On the 25th, and through the night following, it continued with unusual violence. On the morning of Friday, the 26th, it raged so fearfully that only few people had courage to venture abroad. Towards evening it rose still higher; the night setting in with excessive darkness added general horror to the scene, and prevented any from seeking security abroad from their homes, had that been possible. The extraordinary power of the wind created a noise, hoarse and dreadful, like thunder, which carried terror to every ear, and appalled every heart. There were also appearances in the heavens that resembled lightning. “The air,” says a writer at the time, “was full of meteors and fiery vapours; yet,” he adds, “I am of opinion, that there was really no lightning, in the common acceptation of the term; for the clouds, that flew with such violence through the air, were not to my observation such as are usually freighted with thunder and lightning; the hurries nature was then in do not consist with the system of thunder.” Some imagined the tempest was accompanied with an earthquake. “Horror and confusion seized upon all, whether on shore or at sea; no pen can describe it, no tongue can express it, no thought can conceive it, unless theirs who were in the extremity of it; and who being touched with a due sense of the sparing mercy of their Maker, retain the deep impressions of his goodness upon their minds though the danger be past. To venture abroad was to rush into instant death, and to stay within afforded no other prospect than that of being buried under the ruins of a falling habitation. Some in their distraction did the former, and met death in the streets; others the latter, and in their own houses received their final doom.” One hundred and twenty-three persons were killed by the falling of dwellings; amongst these were the bishop of Bath and Wells (Dr. Richard Kidder) and his lady, by the fall of part of the episcopal palace of Wells; and lady Penelope Nicholas, sister to the bishop of London, at Horsley, in Sussex. Those who perished in the waters, in the floods of the Severn and the Thames, on the coast of Holland, and in ships blown away and never heard of afterwards, are computed to have amounted to eight thousand.
All ranks and degrees were affected by this amazing tempest, for every family that had any thing to lose lost something: land, houses, churches, corn, trees, rivers, all were disturbed or damaged by its fury; small buildings were for the most part wholly swept away, “as chaff before the wind.” Above eight hundred dwelling-houses were laid in ruins. Few of those that resisted escaped from being unroofed, which is clear from the prodigious increase in the price of tiles, which rose from twenty-one shillings to six pounds the thousand. About two thousand stacks of chimnies were blown down in and about London. When the day broke the houses were mostly stripped, and appeared like so many skeletons. The consternation was so great that trade and business were suspended, for the first occupation of the mind was so to repair the houses that families might be preserved from the inclemency of the weather in the rigorous season. The streets were covered with brickbats, broken tiles, signs, bulks, and penthouses.
The lead which covered one hundred churches, and many public buildings, was rolled up, and hurled in prodigious quantities to distances almost incredible; spires and turrets of many others were thrown down. Innumerable stacks of corn and hay were blown away, or so torn and scattered as to receive great damage.
Multitudes of cattle were lost. In one level in Gloucestershire, on the banks of the Severn, fifteen thousand sheep were drowned. Innumerable trees were torn up by the roots; one writer says, that he himself numbered seventeen thousand in part of the county of Kent alone, and that, tired with counting, he left off reckoning.
The damage in the city of London, only, was computed at near two millions sterling. At Bristol, it was about two hundred thousand pounds. In the whole, it was supposed that the loss was greater than that produced by the great fire of London, 1666, which was estimated at four millions.
The greater part of the navy was at sea, and if the storm had not been at its height at full flood, and in a spring-tide, the loss might have been nearly fatal to the nation. It was so considerable, that fifteen or sixteen men of war were cast away, and more than two thousand seamen perished. Few merchantmen were lost; for most of those that were driven to sea were safe. Rear-admiral Beaumont with a squadron then lying in the Downs, perished with his own and several other ships on the Goodwin Sands.