strong breeze set in from the south-east with drizzling rain, but as
the barometer remained at 29.90, its usual point, and similar weather had
been experienced at the change of the monsoon in 1838, nothing was
apprehended, more particularly as the wind moderated (as had been
expected) at sunset. Between seven and eight o'clock the wind drew round
to the southward, and the barometer began to fall rapidly: at ten it blew
furiously from the same quarter, and the barometer was as low as 29.10;
many of the trees were blown down at this time. At midnight the wind drew
round to the eastward, and blew a perfect hurricane, before which nearly
everything gave way; the trees came down in every part of the settlement;
the marines' houses were all blown down; the church, only finished a
week, shared the same fate: the barometer fell to 28.52.

About two A.M. the wind shifted suddenly to the northward, from which
point for about half-an-hour, its fury was tremendous; the
government-house, built on stone piers, was blown away from them to a
distance of nine feet; the sea rose ten feet and a half, by measurement
afterwards, above the usual high-water mark. H.M.S. Pelorus, having
parted her cables, was driven on shore, and thrown over on her beam ends,
on the north-east point of the settlement, where heeling over 82 degrees,
her starboard side was buried nine feet in the mud, leaving the keel
three feet clear of the ground.**

At daylight the barometer rose slowly to 29.90, the gale moderated, and
the sea went down so fast, that between seven and eight we were able to
send a boat to the assistance of the Pelorus: after eight the breeze
continued to blow strong from the northward for two days, with heavy
rain.

The occurrence of such a hurricane must be very rare, as the natives were
as much astonished as ourselves, and came to beg for shelter: they have
no name for it, and no tradition of anything of the sort having happened
before: the state in which the very extensive fences at Raffles Bay were
in shortly before, must prove that the trees had never been blown down in
the way they were on the 25th of November, since that settlement was
abandoned in 1829.

The extent of the hurricane must have been very limited: at Coepang a
strong gale from the south-west was experienced, and also between Java
and Timor on the 26th, but the wind did not change. Even 18 miles north,
at Vashon Head, the change of wind must have been greater though eq