The subject of the great earthquake, and the loss met with by Antigua, was brought before the House of Commons on the 14th of March, 1843, by W. A. Mackinnon, Esq., M.P. for Lymington. A meeting was held in London on the 11th of March, for the purpose of taking measures for the relief of the sufferers in Antigua. The agent for the island, Dr. Nugent, presided at the meeting, at which also the bishop, Dr. Davis, was present, and was requested by the meeting to attend Dr. Nugent in his interview with the principal secretary of state for the colonies, for the purpose of soliciting aid from government. Extensive subscriptions have been entered into at London and Liverpool,[73] &c. Her most gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, the Duchess of Kent, and that exemplary and benevolent lady the Dowager Queen of England, with many of the nobility and commoners of England, have all most kindly and liberally bestowed that aid, so truly wanted by the distressed colonists. It must be remarked, that the sufferers by this most awful and unprecedented occurrence are not to be found among the humbler grades of life, but in most instances are those who move in the higher and middle classes—individuals who are, generally speaking, endued with keener sensibilities, and who will thus feel more the change which, no doubt, will reduce many of them from comparative luxury to extreme want, unless most effectual aid be rendered to them. Soon after the earthquake, the Royal Mail Steam-packet Company’s ship Actæon was dispatched from St. Thomas’s, to learn the fate of the colonies. The “Thames,” the Royal Mail Steam-packet Company’s ship, Capt. Haste, was passing Antigua at the moment of the shock. Capt. Haste says, “The Thames was brought up as if on a reef of rocks, to his own dismay, and the dismay of all on board, and continued for a short period to jump and kick as if beating on rocks.” The shock was felt severely at sea. “The brig British Queen, Capt. Kennedy, from Whitehaven, lat. 17° 3′ north, long. 58° 45′, ship going six knots, felt a severe shock of earthquake, which stopped her way when 160 miles due east of the island, on the 8th, which lasted about four minutes.” A French brig coming to St. Thomas’s, “off Tortola, felt the shock so severely, he (the captain) thought that the vessel had struck on a rock.” Soon after the earthquake. Admiral Sir Charles Adams arrived at Antigua, in order to inspect the dock-yard. Before the earthquake, the barometer was noticed to vary from 30° to one-tenth higher; and on the 8th of February it stood at 30·2 in.