The National Intelligencer And Washington Advertiser

CALAMITY AT MADEIRA:

This extraordinary event, which we briefly noticed in our paper of yesterday, happened on Sunday the 9th of October, at eight in the evening. The day had been previously very cloudy and a continual rain had fallen, accompanied by squalls, which were not violent, until the sun had sunk beneath the horizon, when the sea appeared to be unusually agitated, and such a darkness prevailed, that an object was not discernible at a yard's distance. During this progress, every person remained within their houses, in seeming security, and wholly unconscious of that approaching horror which was destined shortly to sweep them from off the earth!

The clock of the cathedral was striking eight, when an instantaneous storm of terrible lightning and thunder began, and the rain fell in such torrents, that all the cross streets of the eastern part of the city of Funchall, were suddenly filled with mud and water above the first floors of the houses, which was occasioned by its being impeded, in some measure, from its furious descent from the ravines of the mountains into the sea: At this shocking period the stoutest hearts felt appalled; nothing was to be heard but the din of ruin working in every direction: hundreds of huge stones, that had been torn from their quarries on the hills three miles above the town, were tumbling over each other in stupendous concussion, carrying with them, in conjunction with the deluge, churches, convents, streets, trees, bridges, battlements and eight hundred human beings into the bottom of the deep. Whenever a flash of lightning penetrated the gloom, were seen mothers wading through the streets, up to their chins in water, holding their infants on their heads with one hand, and endeavoring to catch security with the other: while those who attempted to assist them, were frequently maimed or killed, by the beams of timber or wine-pipes which floated around them; and the sea, presented a scene not less awful, though less ruinous: most of the vessels lost their cables, anchors, and boats, and many of the seamen were washed overboard. The ships rolled, in some part or another, several feet beneath the water continually, and all the sailors who were there on that dismal night, whether Americans, English, or Portuguese, gave themselves up as lost men.

Thus, in so short a space of time as a few minutes, were many hundred individuals carried to their eternal home, in the very plenitude of an apparent security: and several thousands reduced from affluence to poverty: and many of them, it is probable, in the indulgence of those imperfections, which constitute our criminality or our folly, and went to their account, "unblanched, unanointed, unannealed." Ten thousand pipes of wine and brandy were destroyed, and the sea-shore was skirted on the ensuing morning with millions of fragments, among which the mourning survivors of the calamity were eagerly seeking for the dead remains of their relations or friends.

Several days after, the air of Funchall became so putrescent, from the rotting of the bodies that were buried beneath the congregated mud and filth, that a pestilence was apprehended: but in consequence of burning tar and pitch and other neutralizing combustibles, that scourge was providentially avoided:

It was remarkable that this deluge; in its course, swept away twenty-nine vineyards that were situated on the south west side of the city: and so decisive was the ruin, that it tore up all the trees by the roots, and bore away not only them, but all the cottages, with their inhabitants. the ground, cattle and appurtenances, and left the rocky basis, as bare of vegetation as the cliffs of Norway. All this assemblage of objects, were whirled into the Ribeira Brava, or mad river, and ingulphed nearly the whole of the small town which bears that name.

In this wreck of matter, there was but one human creature saved, and that was an infant in a wooden cradle, which was lodged among some reeds on the side of the declivity, and when discovered, on the ensuing day, was in a profound sleep: This unconscious infant was saved from its ignorance of fear, as it is in the nature of fear, to counteract its own desires.

All the vessels that arrived at Funchall, for several weeks after this miserable occurrence, gave an account of the dead bodies, casks, and boxes which they had seen floating many leagues off at sea; and it is believed that some of the crews were considerably enriched by the contents of many of the trunks.

The small town of Machico, was likewise ruined by this singular tempest. and many lives were lost there also; which leads to a supposition, that the lamented event was occasioned by a water-spout, that had burst against the side of the mountain, and discharging itself adown the gullies, produced those afflictive and sudden disasters, that all feeling persons must deplore: and which, when recollected, should operate to remind us of our frailty and our responsibility, and make us live well that we may die happily.

This is admitted to have been the greatest civic evil, that has happened since the earthquake of Lisbon in 1755, and was the most tragical, of its nature that ever happened. Had the younger Pliny been on the spot, it would have been adequately detailed.

The property destroyed has been estimated at Upwards of a million of pounds sterling.