It is certainly a distressing consideration to the community that after the expense of upwards of 16,000_l._ in building the Moles, so much damage has happened to the shipping, within them, and this danger cannot be completely guarded against, so as to protect the whole of the harbour, until the Southern Mole is finished, or nearly joins to the shore; but there is this consideration, that a great number of valuable lives were saved, not a seaman having lost his life, and upwards of 250 negroes being safely landed on Tuesday evening, from the Thomas Guineaman. Reference to the Close Harbour ceases in the Jamaica almanacks after 1848. In 1798 two thirds of the town of Montego Bay was destroyed by fire, the loss being estimated at £500,000. And in 1831–32 the parish was the scene of one of the worst outbreaks of slaves recorded in the island’s history. On one night sixteen incendiary fires took place, and many lives were lost in quelling the outbreak. Martial law was declared, and the commander of the forces, Sir Willoughby Cotton, took the field in person. The foundation stone of the present parish =Church of St. James=, was laid on May 6, 1775, and the building was opened for public worship in 1782. It is Georgian in character, and typical of many churches erected in the West Indies by those who, probably doing the best they could with the money and knowledge at their disposal, considered that a building was rendered ecclesiastical by putting rounded heads to ordinary domestic windows, and did not hesitate to combine the Classic and Gothic styles. In this case, however, the building, which is one of the best of its kind, is helped by a tower, its most pleasing feature. Hakewill called it the handsomest church in the island. The church is dedicated to St. James the Great, the patron saint of Spain, whose name was given to the Spanish capital of the island. The parochial seal, or seal of the churchwardens, in establishment days, is—Argent, a palmer’s staff erect; from its rest, dependent by a leathern thong, a gourd bottle, all proper. On a bordure gules, five pineapples of the second. The circumscription is “Sigill Aedilium Sancti Jacobi in Jamaica.” The earliest baptism recorded in the existing register of St. James is dated January 1, 1771; the earliest marriage, May 5, 1774, and the earliest burial July 6, 1774. The rectors have been, so far as they can be traced: