June 7, 1692.—This day happened the great earthquake which destroyed Port Royal, and did great injury throughout the island: The Council had previously met in that town, and it is probable were sitting when it commenced, as no adjournment is entered that day in the Journal. This is not correct, as the president was with the rector. The next record we find of a mace is on December 1, 1763, when the house of Assembly resolved: “That the Receiver-General do send to his correspondent in England, to purchase a silver mace gilt, of the same size, for the use of the Speaker of the House, as that used by the Speaker of the House of Commons; and that this or any future Assembly will make the same good.” The older of the two maces at present in the Institute was possibly imported as the result of this resolution. It is silver-gilt, measures 5 ft. 6 in. high and weighs 297 oz. 5 dwt., and is thus both higher and heavier than the mace of the House of Commons. It is surmounted by a royal crown, on the base of which are the British coat-of-arms as used from 1714 to 1801, and the letters G. R. (Georgius Rex). Round the head, in panels divided by caryatides, are the emblems of England and Scotland, Ireland and France, and the arms of Jamaica. It bears the London hall marks and date letter of the year 1753, and the initials M. F. of the maker, Mordecai Fox of London. The other mace evidently came as the result of the resolution of the Assembly of December 22, 1786: “That the Receiver-General do immediately remit to the agent the sum of £300 to be by him laid out in the purchase of robes for the Speaker, and a mace.” Four years later they voted £200 for a coach to be obtained from England. The mace is similar in appearance, but of a little later date, measures also 5 ft. 6 in. high, and is also surmounted by a royal crown on the base of which is the same form of the British coat-of-arms; and round the head are the same emblems of England and Scotland, France and Ireland, and the arms of Jamaica. It bears the London hall marks and date letter of the year 1787, and the initials H. G. of the maker, Henry Green of London, whose initials are on a piece bearing the mark of the same year in the hall of the Clothworkers Company, London, and who also made the Grenada mace, which dates from 1781, and which is almost as massive as the Jamaica mace of 1753. The Barbados mace, which dates from 1812, is 4 ft. 4 in. high. The head of the Jamaica 1787 mace has at some time been bent by a blow, and should stand up in the same manner as that of the older one. This is not to be wondered at when we read of the stormy meetings held in the last century by the house of assembly.