Click2Flicks - Pirates of the Caribbean - Chapter 6 - Port Royal Earthquake

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b>PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN</p> <p><font size=4>CHAPTER 6 - PORT ROYAL EARTHQUAKE</p></b></font> </div> <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">It was calm in Jamaica the morning of June 7, 1692. According to Edmund Heath’s eyewitness <a target="_blank" href="images/account.jpg"><b>account</b></a>, "there was no wind stirring" and nothing that made anyone suspicious of the calamity about to befall the island.</p> <p>Suddenly, the earth shook. Within "4 minutes," many Port Royal houses were "swallowed up by the gaping earth." Other homes fell. The church, where Henry Morgan was buried, fell into the sea. (Morgan had died just months before the quake.) At least two-thirds of the pirate’s haven at Port Royal instantly <a target="_blank" href="images/ceased.jpg"><b>ceased</b></a> to exist.</p> <p>The speed of the devastation was shocking. Heath observed:</p> <center><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>I never in my life before saw such a day of terror...</i></b></font></center> <p align="justify"><font face="arial, helvetica">It wasn’t the first time Port Royal residents had felt an earth tremor. In fact, as Heath worshiped in his synagogue, another person tried to calm him by <a target="_blank" href="images/suggesting.jpg"><b>suggesting</b></a> that “after a little shaking it would be over.” When the walls of the synagogue started to fall, however, Heath and his wife tried to flee to Morgan’s Fort where they thought they would be safe. But on the way</p> <center><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>...the Earth opened and swallowed up many People before my face...</i></b></font></center> <p align="justify"><font face="arial, helvetica">When the sea came “mounting in over the wall,” Heath believed he was a dead man. Miraculously, he survived to <a target="_blank" href="images/describe.jpg"><b>describe</b></a> the “sad spectacle” of “the whole Harbour covered” with death and destruction.</p> <p><a href="images/portroyal.gif" target="_blank"><b>Port Royal</b></a>, a town which had prospered on the “booty” of pirates, would never fully recover. Its importance was replaced by Kingston across the bay, which itself was nearly leveled by a <a href="http://www.oas.org/en/cdmp/document/kma/seismic/kma3.htm" target="_blank"><b>terrible</b></a> earthquake in <a href="images/1907.jpg" target="_blank"><b>1907</b></a>.</p> <p>As for <a target="_blank" href="images/kidd.JPG"><b>pirates</b></a> of the Caribbean, their heyday was also approaching its end. Although famous men like <a target="_blank" href="images/eteach.gif"><b>Edward Teach</b></a> (more commonly known as “Blackbeard”) continued to terrorize ships in the vicinity for a time, even he was defeated (in 1718) by the British Royal Navy. He met his <a href="http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/nc/ncsites/bath.htm" target="_blank"><b>end</b></a> at North Carolina’s <a href="images/ocracoke.inlet.jpg" target="_blank"><b>Ocracoke Inlet</b></a>.</p> </div> <p align="center"><font face="arial, helvetica" size="2"><a href="pirates_caribbean_ch5.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>     <a href="pirates_caribbean_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER</a>    <a href="pirates_caribbean_ch7.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p><br> </font> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </body>