Then came Sir Henry Morgan, the conqueror of Panama, whose deeds of undoubted valour were smirched by cowardly conduct towards priests and defenceless women. In later life he turned respectable, even to the extent of persecuting his former comrades, when he acted as lieutenant-governor. But the old spirit died hard, and we are not surprised when we read that the governor, Lord Vaughan, complained that Morgan made himself “so cheap at the port drinking and gaming at the taverns” that he intended to remove thither himself, from Spanish Town, for the credit of the island. In justice to Morgan’s memory it may be said that some historians hold that Oexmelin’s account of the buccaneers is a libel on Morgan, and that he was not nearly so black as he has been painted: and when we find his methods of warfare, and worse, adopted by a nation that has hitherto claimed to be in the forefront of civilization we are tempted to forgive Morgan much. As admiral of the Jamaica fleet, Morgan at the time commanded twenty-eight English-built ships and eight taken from the French—thirty-six in all, with a tonnage of 1585, the size of a small passenger steamer of to-day. The Council was sitting at Port Royal on June 7, 1692, when by the ever memorable earthquake of that day many important colonists lost their lives. Houses, said to have been as good as many in the city of London, were destroyed; and the part of the town bordering on the sea entirely disappeared, owing to insecure foundations. A century later remains of these houses were still visible. Lewis Galdy, a French immigrant, was swallowed and cast up again, and lived many years. He will be referred to in the chapter on St. Catherine. The mace brought out by Lord Windsor in 1662 (erroneously supposed to have been the bauble which Cromwell ordered out of the House of Commons), was damaged at the time of the earthquake, and repaired after it; but it has since disappeared. The two maces in the Institute of Jamaica are of later date. The principal authorities usually quoted on the earthquake of 1692 are Sir Hans Sloane’s account in the “Philosophical Transactions”; the description given by Long, in his History of Jamaica; and a letter by the rector of the parish which appeared in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for 1750, and was reprinted by Bridges—all of which information was epitomized by Gardner in his history. In addition to these is available a broadside in the British Museum, a copy of which is in the Institute of Jamaica. The key and letter which form part of the broadside appeared in the “Journal of the Institute of Jamaica,” in 1892. The following accounts of the earthquake have also been printed in the “Journal of the Institute of Jamaica”: