commences thus: “_Et Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis_.”
The bell also bears a cross made of a series of stars, and two small
designs in relief placed in duplicate on opposite sides, representing
the one the Virgin and Child, and the other, a saint, probably St.
George or St. Michael.
The bell, in the opinion of an expert to whom a photograph was sent, is
certainly Spanish; the cross and letter are from fifteenth-century
moulds, but the small designs are later, probably sixteenth century. In
casting, old moulds were frequently used. The cross is decidedly
Spanish.
In September 1692, the Council wrote home, “Port Royal which was our
chief stay and where we could muster two thousand effective men is,
since the earthquake, reduced to about two hundred men.”
The old plan of Port Royal which was reproduced on page 442 of the “West
India Committee Circular” of September 23, 1913, was formerly in the
Dockyard there, having been presented to that office by Commodore the
Hon. W. J. Ward, in August 1880. It was handed over to the Institute of
Jamaica by the last commodore after the dockyard was given up. It is
obviously a copy of an older plan in the Colonial Secretary’s office. In
mistake it is stated on it that the original plan was surveyed in June
1857. It should have been 1827.
The wording on the original plan is as follows: “A general plan of the
town, forts and fortifications, etc., of Port Royal, performed by an
order from His Grace William, Duke of Manchester, Captain-General and
Governor-in-Chief of His Majesty’s Island of Jamaica and the territories
thereon depending in America, Chancellor and Vice-Admiral of the same.
Surveyed in June 1827 by Philip A. Morris, Crown Surveyor.”
On the original plan are the following notes: “All within the yellow
lines is Crown property.” “The blue lines represent the town of Port
Royal before the great earthquake of 1692.” “The red line is what
remained of the town after the earthquake.” “The ochre colouring
represents the town as it now stands.” “True copy from Morris, original
Survey. The blue, red and yellow lines added by me.” (Signed) Thos.
Harrison, Govt. Surveyor, 20th September, 1870; (Signed) J. R. Mann, D.
of Rds. and Surveyor-General, 24th October, 1870.
The following interesting experience of a diver during his visit to
submerged Port Royal, appeared in the “Falmouth Post,” of October 7,
1859.
SIR,—Being aware that many erroneous statements regarding my
explorations of old Port Royal have been circulated, I beg to offer
the public, through the medium of your valuable journal, the following
statement, should you deem it worthy a place in your columns.
I first went down on the remains of the old Port Royal on the 29th
August, and found that what I had heard with regard to some of the
buildings being seen when the water was clear was correct. I landed
among the remains of ten or more houses, the walls of which were from
3 to 10 feet above the sand. The day was rather cloudy and I could
only get a view of a small portion at a time.
After repairing H.M. Ship _Valorous_, I went down again on the 9th
instant, at what is called at Port Royal, “The Church Buoy,” but which
ought to be called the “Fort Buoy,” it being placed on the remains of
old Fort James; but the day was unfavourable, the water being muddy—so
that I could not see much; and being impressed with the idea that it
must have been the remains of the church on which I was, my
explorations that day were not satisfactory. About 12 o’clock (being
then down four hours) the water cleared a little, and getting a better
view I concluded that the ruins which I was on must have been those of
a fort. But soon after I found a large granite stone somewhat the
shape and size of a tombstone, which was covered with a coral
formation, so that I could not tell whether it had an inscription or
not. Fancying this stone to have been a tombstone, thereby indicating
the vicinity of a churchyard, I was not satisfied what the character
of the building could have been. I came to the surface about 1 o’clock
determined to wait a more favourable day. In the meantime Mr. de Pass
was so good as to obtain for me, from the collection of Henry
Hutchings, Esq., a map of the old town as it stood before the
earthquake, by which I learnt that the ruins, of the nature of which I
had all along my doubts, were in fact the ruins of old Fort James, and
that the Church stood about the east end of the present dockyard.
Monday, the 19th instant, being a very clear day, I went down about 2
o’clock, and had a very good view of the Fort. At times I could see
objects 100 feet each away from me. The Fort forms an obtuse angle to
the west, on a line with the north end of the hospital—the wall of the
angle runs in a N.E. direction, the other in a S.S.E. The walls are
built of brick, and are as solid as so much rock. I have traced and
examined several of the embrasures and have no doubt but that the guns
in them are covered with coral; that known as “brain stone,” being
large and numerous on the fort. After being down about two hours, I
found an iron gun in one of the embrasures almost covered in the
ruins, with a heavy copper chain to the breech. After sending up the
gun next day, I found the end of another chain not far from where the
gun lay. On heaving it out of the sand and mud, I found it was
attached to a granite stone similar to the one I had seen before. I
have no doubt these stones were part of the embrasures and that the
copper chains were used for slinging the guns. The gun which I found
had no trunnions to it, and therefore could not have been used on a
carriage.
I am of opinion, from what I have seen of old Port Royal, that many of
the houses remained perfect after the earthquake, though sunk in the
water, and that the sand has been thrown up, and the mud settled
around and in them from time to time, until all the largest buildings
are covered over, so that the remains of the houses which I have seen
may have been the top part of the highest buildings; which is
apparently the case from the irregularity of the heights.
I intend paying another visit to the ill-fated town, in a week or two;
and I will take the first opportunity of informing you, and through
you the public, of anything new that may come to my notice.
I remain, Sir, &c.,
(Sgd.) JEREMIAH D. MURPHY.
It would be interesting to know what became of the gun referred to.
Port Royal as a town, never recovered from the effects of the earthquake
of June 17, 1692.
Shortly after, the town of Kingston rose on the mainland across the
harbour, and thither much of the wealth of Port Royal went, and the
principal commercial and shipping street was not unnaturally called Port
Royal Street.
In August 1702, brave old Benbow sailed into Port Royal after his fight
with Du Casse off Santa Marta, extending over five days (a fight which,
thanks to his cowardly captains, was one of the darkest blots on
Britannia’s shield) only to die here of his wounds two months later....
He was buried in Kingston parish church.
In 1703 arrived from Massachusetts one good foot company of volunteers,
“the first men in armes that ever went out of this Province, or from the
Shoar of America”: they were intended for a further expedition.
In January 1703–04, a fire destroyed that part of Port Royal which the
earthquake had spared. The occurrence is thus described by Christian
Lilly: “Between 11 and 12 of the clock in the morning a fire hapn’d thro
carelessness to break out in a warehouse at Port Royall which before
night consumed all ye Town, and left not one house of it standing, by
which meanes a great many people, especially merchants are ruin’d. For
this Town being scituated upon a small Cay, now, of about Thirty Acres
of Land surrounded with the sea, and the whole place taken up with
houses and the streets and lanes extreamly narrow, the poor people had
not that conveniency of saving their goods as might have been expected
in a place where they might have been more at large.”
In 1708, Admiral Sir Charles Wager, commander-in-chief of Jamaica, met
and conquered a Spanish treasure ship, and though, owing to the
cowardice of two of his captains, much of the treasure (said to have
been worth from four to ten millions) was lost, Wager became a wealthy
man. During his command (1707–9), a greater number of prizes were taken
than at any former period of like duration.
On March 23, 1692–93, Beeston, in writing home, had said: “But there is
little of Port Royal left, being now a perfect island of about
twenty-five acres and too small to hold the trade and people.” After the
fire a bill was passed in the Assembly to prevent the re-settling of the
town, but this was warmly opposed and in October 1703 another bill was
passed entitled “an Act for making the Key, whereon Fort Charles and
Fort William are erected, a port of entry”; and in a letter written from
Jamaica in 1712, Port Royal is referred to as a “small island about
fourteen miles from Spanish Town”: In 1716, William Wood, in his preface
to “The Laws of Jamaica” says, “The Town of Port Royal, formerly much
larger and very populous, is built on a key, which before the great
earthquake, joyned to an Isthmus of Land that divides the sea and the
Harbour of Kingston,” and there is additional evidence that, at various
stages in the history of the Palisadoes, channels were formed by the sea
across what is, after all, nothing but a string of islands more or less
closely connected by drifted sand and stone. And an engraving, in Long’s
History, as late as 1774, shows it as an island.
A manuscript chart, in the Institute of Jamaica, entitled “A plan of the
Harbour of Port Royal in Jamaica, survey’d in the year 1724, and
carefully examin’d in the year 1728, by Capt. John Gascoigne,” tells of
the severe shocks which the town and harbour have received within
historic times. As we see by the map, the hurricane of 1722 once more
cut it off from the isthmus to which it is now connected, if, indeed,
the passage existing ten years before had silted up.
Professor Robert T. Hill, in “The Geology and Physical Geography of
Jamaica,” writes:
The Kingston formation is the oldest of the formations of old gravel
and other alluvium occurring upon the plains of the Liguanea type.
This is the formation upon which the city of Kingston and suburbs are
built, including the strip of land known as the Palisades, and the
plain extending back of Kingston to the foot of the mountains. The
material consists of boulders, gravel, and pebble of varying sizes,
usually very angular, and representing every known material of the
Blue Mountain series. These are embedded in a matrix of dull red
arenaceous clay, producing a chocolate soil and derived from the Minho
beds so completely exposed _in situ_ in the mountains north of
Kingston.
With reference to the chart, Mr. Charlton Thompson, R.N., the harbour
master, wrote in 1907 as follows:
“I have always been of opinion that the Palisadoes were originally
coral cays joined gradually by sand-spits. To my knowledge of Port
Royal Point (thirty-one years), I am sure it had grown out about 50
feet during that time, which portion sank during the last earthquake;
and the depressions or subsidences which took place then were all
made-up land. There were also subsidences in the Palisadoes.”
The following account of the hurricane of 1722 above referred to is from
“A Voyage to Guinea, Brasil, and the West Indies; in His Majesty’s ships
the _Swallow_ and _Weymouth_” by John Atkins, a naval surgeon (2nd
edition, London, 1737).
The present hurricane was a week after our arrival; began at eight in
the morning, two days before the change of the moon, gave at least
forty-eight hours notice, by a noisy breaking of the waves upon the
kays, very disproportioned to the breeze, a continued swell, without
reflux of the water; and the two nights preceding, prodigious
lightnings and thunder; which all the old experienced men foretold
would be a hurricane; or that one already had happened at no great
distance. I was ashore at _Port Royal_ and found all the pilots
returned from the windward part of the island, (where they customarily
attend the coming down of ships,) and observing upon the unusual
intumescence of the water, so great the day before, and beat so high,
that our boats could not possibly put on shore at _Gun Kay_ to take
the men off that were set there, to the number of twenty, for trimming
up our cask; themselves making signals not to attempt it. Betimes next
morning, the wind began in flurrys at N.E. and flew quickly round to
S.E. and S.S.E. where it continued the stress of the storm, bringing
such quantities of water, that our little island was overflowed 4 foot
at least; so that what with the fierce driving of shingles (wooden
staves used instead of tiling upon their houses) about our ears, and
the water floating their boats, empty hogheads, and lumber about the
streets, those without doors were every moment in danger of being
knocked on the head, or carried away by the stream. Within it was
worse, for the waters sapping the foundations, gave continual and just
apprehensions of the houses falling, as in effect half of them did,
and buried their inhabitants! Nor indeed after the storm had began,
was it safe to open a door, especially such as faced the wind, lest it
should carry the roofs off; and escaping thence, there was no place of
retreat, we remaining in a very melancholly scituation, both from wind
and water. _The perils of false brethren was nothing to it._ It may be
worth notice, what became of the purser in this common danger; I was
regardless at first, as suspecting more of timidity in the people,
till finding myself left alone proprietor of a shaking old house, the
streets full of water and drift, with shingles flying about like
arrows; I began to meditate a little more seriously upon my safety,
and would have compounded all my _credit_ in the victualling, my
hoops, and bags, for one acre (as _Gonzalo_ says in the _Tempest_) _of
barren ground, long heath, or brown furze_, to have trod dry upon. Our
neighbours had retreated towards the church, as the strongest
building, and highest ground, which I was luckily too late to recover;
but endeavouring to stem upwards for a safer station, was taken into a
house in the lower street, with an old woman wading in the same manner
from her ruined habitation. We were no sooner in, but new fears of
this also falling, thrust us into the yard (the water then at eleven
o’clock, breast high) where we helped one another upon a low
brick-built outhouse, that being more out of the wind, and surrounded
with others, kept the water still. The unhappiness of those who
suffered in stronger, was their facing the wind, which brought the sea
upon them with violence. A platform of one and twenty guns and mortars
were drove some of them to the market-place; the two lines of houses
next the sea, with the church, was undermined and levelled with the
torrent, and in their ruin was our safety; for altho’ we had a greater
depth, they were by such a bank made motionless. The whole rise of the
water was computed at 16 or 18 foot, very admirable at a place where
it is not ordinarily observed to flow above one or two. At 5 in the
evening the waters abated, and with so quick a retreat as to leave the
streets dry before 6; when every one was congratulating his own safety
in condolancies upon the loss of their friends. Of 50 sail in this
harbour, only four men-of-war and 2 merchant ships rid it out, but
with all their masts and booms blown away. All the men we left at _Gun
Kay_ were washed off and perished, except one _Indian_ that drove into
harbour upon a broken gallows that had been there erected. Wrecks and
drowned men were everywhere seen along shore; general complaints of
loss at land (least at _St. Jago_) which made it a melancholy scene,
and to finish the misfortune, the slackness of the sea-breezes, calms,
and lightning, stagnating waters, broods of insects thence, and a
shock or two of earthquake that succeeded to the hurricane, combined
to spread a baneful influence, and brought on a contagious distemper,
fatal for some months through the island. There being no volcanos, the
earthquakes felt here are always after great rains, on a parched earth
that admits their penetration; and possibly nigher the coast, as at
_Port Royal_, may be from the sea in a long process of time
undermining in some manner a loose earth, or finding in its deep
recesses new caverns; or subterranean heats working towards them, the
dreadful contest shocks.
The hurricane occurred on the tenth anniversary of one that visited
Jamaica on August 28, 1712. In it about four hundred persons perished,
and August 28 was appointed by the House of Assembly as a “perpetual
anniversary fast.”
At this time it was “ordered that all masters of sloops and vessels
employed as sugar-drogers in and about this island, shall before they
are permitted to pass His Majesty’s fort at Port Royal, be obliged to
bring one load of stones each, in order to repair the damages done to
the fortifications by the late hurricane.” The Marquis Duquesne got into
trouble with the assembly owing to the manner in which he enforced the
order, and generally in his duties as captain of the fort, and had to
vindicate his position, in “The Marquis Duquesne vindicated in a letter
to a noble lord,” published in 1728.
In a petition presented by the garrison of Fort Charles to a committee
of the Assembly that was inspecting the fort in September 1725, the
following representations occur:
That abundance of us from time to time have been swept away into our
graves; besides several of us, by reson of divers sorts of lingering
distempers, are rendered incapable of doing further service:
“... You are sensible, sirs, our beds are the hard stones, our
covering nothing but the expanded canopy of the heavens! This
certainly is very grievous, especially when we see the company at
Spanish-Town lie in beds, and having barracks fit for men of their
function. Are they more loyal subjects, or more dutiful soldiers, than
we are? Be it far from us to reflect on them or their happiness! but
with sorrow and regret we behold our own misfortunes.
In 1733 Fort Charles was considered not sufficient protection to
Kingston Harbour and a fort at Mosquito Point was suggested; this was
the origin of Fort Augusta.
In 1734 was passed an act to vest Lands in Port Royal in His Majesty,
His Heirs and Successors for the use of His ships of war. The property
consisted of “Lands, tenements, hereditaments or shoal water.” The act,
in the edition of 1738, is accompanied by a plan of land proposed to be
acquired to the north-east of Port Royal. From this it appears that
there was at the time a town wall on the sea front.
In the first half of the eighteenth century smuggling was prevalent in
the British colonies, and subject to violent repression on the part of
Spain. The well-known case in 1731 of Robert Jenkins, master of the brig
_Rebecca_, who lost his ear on his way from Jamaica to London was not
unique. Rear-Admiral Stewart, who then commanded on the Jamaica station,
saw that the fault lay largely with the Jamaica merchants, but the
English merchants made their wrongs felt in the House of Parliament, and
Vernon was amongst their warmest supporters. He pleaded for the
destruction of Porto Bello (where the Spanish guardacostas fitted out),
and offered to effect it with six ships; which he did to his own renown
and the gratification of the English nation in general and the Jamaica
merchants in particular. While in command on the Jamaica station, Vernon
issued an order, which was quickly adopted by the Admiralty, and made
marked improvement in the discipline and efficiency of the British navy,
and enriched the English language with the word grog. The order was to
the effect that the sailors should qualify their rum with water—a quart
of water to half a pint of rum. The sailors did not like their “grog,”
as they nicknamed the new drink, adopting the nickname of Vernon,
derived, it is said, from his using a grogram boat cloak.
Writing about 1740, Leslie, in his “New and Exact Account of Jamaica,”
says:—“Port Royal was once the fairest seaport in America, it flowed in
Riches and Trade, now it is only a small place, but yet it consists of
three handsome streets, several cross lanes and a fine Church. They have
a Hospital for sick or disabled Sailors, and there is lately built a
Yard for the King’s Naval Stores and conveniency of Workmen employed
about His Majesty’s Ships of War.”
Although doubt had been expressed as to the wisdom of appointing Port
Royal as a rendezvous, “for fear of the soldiers staying too long there,
and getting sickness, by drinking too much rum, as has usually been the
case,” on January 17, 1740–41, by far the largest force that ever
assembled in Jamaica waters was gathered together. On that day
twenty-four ships of the line under Sir Chaloner Ogle, with nine
thousand soldiers under Brigadier Wentworth, reached Port Royal as a
reinforcement for Vernon’s fleet. The attempt on Cartagena was a
miserable failure, owing to divided command, lack of ability on
Wentworth’s part, disease caused by the rainy season, and general
mismanagement, which was exposed by Smollett, the novelist, who was
surgeon’s mate on one of Ogle’s vessels. He married a Jamaica lady (the
original of Narcissa in “Roderick Random”) and lived for a time in
Jamaica.
Ill-feeling also between Vernon and Wentworth was responsible for the
lack of success which attended the attack on St. Jago de Cuba.
During a storm in 1744 the larger part of the fleet was luckily at sea
under Sir Chaloner Ogle, but there were in the harbour nine men-of-war
and ninety-six merchant-ships. One hundred and four were stranded,
wrecked or foundered, so that only the _Rippon_ rode it out with the
loss of her masts. A great number of marines perished.
We learn from a petition from the inhabitants of Port Royal to the
Assembly, in October 1751, that during the hurricane of that year, the
sea “by forcing up the sand to a level with the wall, has rendered it
quite unserviceable, as it gained, by that means, a free and easy
passage into the town, and filled the greatest part of it with such a
quantity of water, that many of the inhabitants, in the extremity of the
weather, were obliged to abandon their houses, and fly for shelter to
places of greater safety.” It then appeared that the law of 1717
arranging for the repairing of the wall had been a dead letter since
1737.
When Rodney assumed command in 1771, he found that apartments only were
provided for the admiral at Port Royal, and it was doubtless due to his
action that “Admiral’s Pen” near Kingston (the present poor-house), was
purchased just before he left in 1774. One of the chief objects to which
he devoted his attention while on this station was the watering of the
fleet—the water having hitherto been purchased by the naval authorities;
and he, after investigation at Kingston and the Rio Cobre, decided on
Rock Fort, Vernon’s old spot, at =Harbour Head= as a source of supply.
The sailors, when they found themselves spared the task of rolling heavy
water casks long distances in the hot sun, said “God bless the Admiral,”
but when they realized that improved methods of watering meant shorter
leave on shore, they changed their tune and said, “The devil take the
Admiral.”
Till about the year 1902, when pipes were laid along the Palisadoes to
Port Royal, that town had its water conveyed to it, from Rodney’s source
at Rock Fort, in a sailing ship fitted for the purpose.
Rodney, in order to get timely notice of the approach of foreign ships,
had a look-out erected on the top of the Healthshire Hills on the
opposite side of the harbour from Port Royal; and on the site of
=Rodney’s Look-out= there is still a mark for navigation.
It is quite likely that during the voyage which Nelson made to the West
Indies in 1771–72 in a merchant ship he visited Jamaica, as the ship
belonged to a Jamaica firm; but no such visit has been recorded.
On September 19, 1771, Rodney wrote from Port Royal: