down by the fury of the blast, which, tearing up roots and rocks with
them, left chasms of eight or ten feet depth in the earth. Those pines
that were able to resist the wind bent their tops nearly to the ground;
and nothing but horror and desolation everywhere presented itself. A very
large live oak tree was blown on the granary, which it dashed to pieces,
and stove a number of casks of flour; but happily, by the activity of the
officers and free people, the flour, Indian corn, and stores, were in a
short time collected, and removed to the commandant's house, with the
loss only of about half a cask of flour, and some small stores. At noon
the gale blew with the utmost violence, tearing up whole forests by the
roots. At one o'clock there were as many trees torn up by the roots as
would have required the labour of fifty men for a fortnight to have
felled. Early in the forenoon the swamp and vale were overflowed, and had
every appearance of a large navigable river. The gardens, public and
private, were wholly destroyed; cabbages, turnips, and other plants, were
blown out of the ground; and those which withstood the hurricane seemed
as if they had been scorched. An acre of Indian corn which grew in the
vale, and which would have been ripe in about three weeks, was totally
destroyed*.

[* The direction of the hurricane was across the island from the
South-east; and as its fury had blown down more trees than were found
lying on the ground when Mr. King landed on it, he conjectured that it
was not an annual visitant of the island. This conjecture seems now to be
justified, as nothing of the kind has since occurred there.]

His people continued to be healthy, and the climate had not forfeited the
good opinion he had formed of it. He acquainted the governor, that for
his internal defence he had formed all the free people on the island into
a militia, and that a military guard was mounted every night as a picket.
There were at this time victualled on the island sixteen free people,
fifty-one male convicts, twenty-three female convicts, and four children.

The arrival of the _Supply_ with an account of these occurrences created
a temporary variety in the conversation of the day; and a general
satisfaction appeared when the little vessel that brought them dropped
her anchor again in the cove. Lieutenant Ball, having lost an anchor at
Norfolk Island, did not think it prudent to attempt to fall in with the
shoal seen by the _Golde