Chapter IV.

       Of the extent of this Storm, and from what parts it was supposed to come; with some circumstances as to the time of it.

       Table of Contents

      As all our histories are full of the relations of tempests and storms which have happened in various parts of the world, I hope it may not be improper that some of them have been thus observed with their remarkable effects.

      But as I have all along insisted, that no storm since the Universal Deluge was like this, either in its violence or its duration, so I must also confirm it as to the particular of its prodigious extent.

      All the storms and tempests we have heard of in the world, have been gusts or squalls of wind that have been carried on in their proper channels, and have spent their force in a shorter space.

      We feel nothing here of the hurricanes of Barbadoes, the north-west of New England and Virginia, the terrible gusts of the Levant, or the frequent tempests of the North Cape. When Sir Francis Wheeler’s squadron perished at Gibraltar, when the city of Straelfond was almost ruined by a storm, England felt it not, nor was the air here disturbed with the motion. Even at home we have had storms of violent wind in one part of England which have not been felt in another. And if what I have been told has any truth in it, in St George’s channel there has frequently blown a storm at sea, right up and down the channel, which has been felt on neither coast, though it is not above 20 leagues from the English to the Irish shore.

      Storms in Holland.

      Sir William Temple gives us the particulars of two terrible storms in Holland while he was there; in one of which the great cathedral church at Utrecht was utterly destroyed: and after that there was a storm so violent in Holland, that 46 vessels were cast away at the Texel, and almost all the men drowned: and yet we felt none of these storms here.

      And for this very reason I have reserved an abridgment of these former cases to this place; which as they are recited by Sir William Temple, I shall put them down in his own words, being not capable to mend them, and not vain enough to pretend to it.

      “I stayed only a night at Antwerp, which passed with so great thunders and lightnings, that I promised myself a very fair day after it, to go back to Rotterdam in the States Yacht, that still attended me. The morning proved so; but towards evening the sky grew foul, and the seamen presaged ill weather, and so resolved to lie at anchor before Bergen ap Zoom, the wind being cross and little. When the night was fallen as black as ever I saw, it soon began to clear up, with the most violent flashes of lightning as well as cracks of thunder, that 1 believe have ever been heard in our age and climate. This continued all night; and we felt such a fierce heat from every great flash of lightning, that the captain apprehended it would fire his ship. But about eight the next morning the wind changed, and came up with so strong a gale, that we came to Rotterdam in about four hours, and there found all mouths full of the mischief and accidents that the last night’s tempest had occasioned both among the boats and the houses, by the thunder, lightning, hail, or whirlwinds. But the day after, came stories to the Hague from all parts, of such violent effects as were almost incredible; at Amsterdam they were deplorable, many trees torn up by the roots, ships sunk in the harbour, and boats in the channels; houses beaten down, and several people were snatched from the ground as they walked the streets, and thrown into the canals. But all was silenced by the relations from Utrecht, where the great and ancient cathedral was torn in pieces by the violence of this storm; and the vast pillars of stone that supported it, were wreathed like a twisted club, having been so strongly composed and cemented, as rather to suffer such a change of figure than break in pieces, as other parts of the fabric did; hardly any church in the town escaped the violence of this storm; and very few houses without the marks of it; nor were the effects of it less astonishing by the relations from France and Brussels, where the damages were infinite, as well from whirlwinds, thunder, lightning, as from hailstones of prodigious bigness. This was in the year 1674.

      “In November, 1675, happened a storm at north-west, with a spring tide so violent, as gave apprehensions of some loss irrecoverable in the province of Holland, and by several breaches in the great dikes near Enchusen, and others between Amsterdam and Harlem, made way for such inundations as had not been seen before by any man then alive, and filled the country with many relations of most deplorable events. But the incredible diligence and unanimous endeavours of the people upon such occasions, gave a stop to the fury of that element, and made way for recovering next year all the lands, though not the people, cattle, and houses that had been lost.”

      Thus far Sir William Temple.

      Effects of the storm of 1661

      I am also credibly informed that the greatest storm that ever we had in England before, and which was as universal here as this, did no damage in Holland or France, comparable to this tempest; I mean the great wind in 1661, an abstract of which, as it was printed in Mirabilis Annis, an unknown, but unquestioned Author, take as follows, in his own words:—

      A dreadful storm of wind, accompanied with thunder, lightning hail and rain; together with the sad effects of it in many parts of the nation.

      Upon the 18th of February, 1661, being Tuesday, very early in the morning, there began a very great and dreadful storm of wind (accompanied with thunder, lightning, hail, and rain, which in many places were as salt as brine) which continued with a strange and unusual violence till almost night; the sad effects whereof throughout the nation are so many, that a very great volume is not sufficient to contain the narrative of them. And indeed some of them are so stupendous and amazing, that the report of them, though from never so authentic hands, will scarce gain credit among any but those that have an affectionate sense of the unlimited power of the Almighty, knowing and believing that there is nothing too hard for him to do.

      Some few of which wonderful effects we shall give a brief account of, as we have received them from persons of unquestionable credit in the several parts of the nation.

      In the city of London, and in Covent Garden, and other parts about London and Westminster, five or six persons were killed outright by the fall of houses and chimnies; especially one Mr. Luke Blith, an attorney, that lived at or near Stamford, in the county of Lincoln, was killed that day by the fall of a riding house not far from Piccadilly: and there are some very remarkable circumstances in this man’s case, which do make his death to appear at least like a most eminent judgment and severe stroke of the Lord’s hand upon him.

      From other parts likewise we have received certain information, that divers persons were killed by the effects of this great wind.

      At Cheltenham, in Gloucestershire, a maid was killed by the fall of a tree, in or near the churchyard.

      An honest yeoman likewise of Scaldwele, in Northamptonshire, being upon a ladder