The Daily Advertiser

RICHMOND, July 31.

Extract of a letter from Norfolk, July 25.

"On the 22d. inst. we had a violent gale of wind at N. E. which continued till 3 o'clock yesterday morning. The houses in town shook as if they would have fallen down. Most of the craft and other vessels were driven from their moorings; some of them into the very streets of Portsmouth. A brig belonging to a Frenchman was driven between the heads of two wharves, with her bow sprit into a warehouse. A craft with 34 puncheons of rum, and a parcel of Madeira wine and sugars (belonging to Mr. M'Dougall) for Richmond, was driven high and dry into Portsmouth, but without receiving any injury. One craft is sunk with tobacco, and numbers of them in the bush, and a great many sunk in the river. The damage done in Norfolk and Portsmouth is very considerable, especially in lumber, corn, salt, and tobacco very wet. Hampton road presented a very dismal prospect; the ship Favorite John parted her cables and drove on shore and bilged, with her fore and mizen masts cut away, also a brig bound for Rotterdam, and three other vessels. A schooner from Barbadoes cut away her masts, and a brig of Mr. Taylor's, loaded with corn for Antigua, with her top gallant yards athwart, rode it out; the only two vessels which were left afloat in the Road. The evening before it came on there was a ship and a brig beating into the Capes, but have not been heard of since. At 3 o'clock in the morning the wind shifted to S. E. and then died away. The tide was not so high as in September, 1785."

On Wednesday evening last, during the severe and tremendous gale, the ship Mermaid, Hunter, of Glasgow, with 355 hogsheads of tobacco on board, drove from her moorings in Hampton Road, and after losing all her masts, she went on shore at Peg Island, in Nansemond. All the crew were saved, and it is thought the ship will be got off without any damage to the cargo.

We hear that a Spanish ship with 4000 barrels of flour on board, was drove ashore on Back River, near Hampton, and totally lost; and that several pilot boats have been seen bottom upwards, and it is supposed the crews must have perished. One pilot boat was run completely over by a large sloop, and all on board perished.