The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-04-11 00:00:00

yan chapel in St. John's is very seriously in-
jured : the two chapels belonging to th.at persuasion in the

The Wes!

country are totally in ruins : of the remaining six, one only

has escaped without extensive damage

" With one exception, the Moravian churches, which are
principally built of wood, have been less injured.

" In the city of St. John, the destruction of property, both
in buildings and goods, has been general and extensive
One-third'of the houses and stores, and those the most valu-
able, having been the most substantially built, are strewed
upon the ground. A large portion of the remaining houses
are so shattered as to be uninhabitable ; and every building
has sustained more or' less injury. _ _

Not one public building has escaped. The Cathedral, the
Jail, the House of Correction, the Customhouse, the Luna-
tic Asylum, the Fort which protected the harbour, and the
Barracks, are masses of ruins. The walls of the Court-
house are so rent and shattered that it cannot, until re-
paired, be used for any public purpose. These were all
buildings of strong masonry, and most of them have resisted
the hurricanes and tempests of the last century. The Go-
vernment House alone (built of wood) has escaped, with
partial injury to its foundations and offices.
" To these may be added the Barracks and Cantonments
on Shirley Heights' and the Ridge, so much injured as to be
uninhabitable by the troops, who, like those near St. John's,
are obliged to be encamped. Dow's Hill, the property of
the Ordnance Department and the country residence of the
Governor-in-Chief, is nearly destroyed; the dock-yard and
other buildings at English Harbour most seriously damaged,
and the village of English Harbour and the small town of
Falmouth almost entirely in ruins.

On the morning of the eventful day which witnessed this
great calamity, one hundred and seventy-two sugar mills
stood ready to grind the luxuriant crop then nearly ripe for
the harvest. Of these, thirty five are entirely overthrown;

eighty-two are rent from top to bottom, or otherwise se-
verely, and, it is to be feared, irreparably damaged ; fifty-
five are partially injured, but almost all of them require ex-

!ensive repairs to render them .servieeable in saving the pre-

The works, dwelling-houses, and labourers' cot-
tages attached to these mills, have shared their fate in equal
proportion. The numerous free villages are heaps of ruins,
and many a head, which rose from its pillow that morning,
elated by hope and the expectation of future prosperity, at
night was either houseless and homeless, or obliged to take
such temporary shelter as could be erected at the moment
from the fragments of the shattered buildings ; and it is
much to be feared that more than one respectable family still
remains in the same destitute condition and without the
means of repairing their dwelling, so utter and overwhelming
has been the ruin with which they have been so unexpect-
edly overtaken."

sent crop

Nor is this fearful devastation all which the unfortu-
nate proprietors and labourers of Antigua have to
mourn over, for years of uninterrupted prosperity
will not suffice to repair the damage; and how much
of it must to the unfortunate sufferers be altogether
irreparable ! The luxuriant crops of the island still
stand, we are told, in the midst of the ruin, " unscathed
and vigourous, as if smiling in derision at the perish-
able works of man's hands ;" and the bulk of that
valuable crop, reared with such pains, both planter and
labourer are doomed to see rot upon the soil "for want
of the means to convert it to the use of man."

Surely, a calamity, so widely spread in its effects—
so irremediable by the unaided energies of the popula-
tion of Antigua--should call forth the active sympa-
thies of a commercial community such as Liverpool,
and especially of a community enjoying with that
island, as we do, a large and valuable commerce. To
every interest—to the merchant as well as the humblest
trader—such an instance of the visiting of an inscru-
table Providence appeals. To men of every religious
persuasion—to the churchman as well as to the dis-
senter—it appeals ; for the cathedral and churches of
the former are equally in ruins with the chapels of the
latter. To the friends of emancipation, too, it addresses
itself powerfully ; for " the numerous free villages are
heaps of, ruins," and their dispossessed population are
driven houseless by the fate which has converted into
desolation their lately smiling cottages and provision.
The calamity, like death, has presented itself
alike at the doors of the wealthy and of the poor; has
prostrated equally the mansion and the hovel, the tem-
ple and the humble edifice " where two or three are
met together" in God"s name.

ground

We do hope, then, to see in this town an effort
made, worthy of the occasion, to relieve, and promptly
too, the distress which is rife at present in Antigua.
Already the legislatures of the neighbouring West
Indian islands have come forward with all the aid to
be expected from colonies far from being in that posi-
tion of prosperity which would permit their hands to
be as liberal as their wishes. The Colonial Office at
home has consented to aid the planters with tempo-
rary loans to meet their instant emergencies. The
means accruing from these sources, however,:we ob-
serve with regret, are so fearfully deficient that aid can
only be granted to " those persons who are in the most
destitute condition." They are utterly unequal to ena-
ble a single individual in the island to provide for 'more
than his daily and pressing wants of food or temporary
shelter. From the private benevolence of the British
people—so abundantly manifested when the sufferers
from any calamity in foreign countries have appealed to
us—we can alone look for any efficient measure of aid;
and to that benevolence, so far as Liverpool at least is
concerned—we trust that, the prostrated people of
Antigua—a people sharing our own liberty, and wor-
shipping the same God in the same language with our-
selves—will not appeal in vain. Let the effort be
promptly and energetically made ; and it cannot fail
here to be as promptly and abundantly responded to,
unless the people of our good old town have become
more selfish and forgetful of that gratitude which they
owe to the all-wise Disposer of human events—for the
protecting care with which he has hitherto withheld
from this land such awful visitings of his anger—than
we have ever believed them to be !

Since the above was writteu we have received an
advertisement, which appears elsewhere in our publi-
cation this day, by which it will be seen that all who
have an inclination to come forward and lend a helping
hand, can do so—a subscription having been com-
menced, and to which the public of Liverpool are
invited to 'contribute.