Many of the guns of the fortifications are two fathoms under water, and are in danger of being lost. The small arms of the country are generally broke by the fall of the houses, which gives us apprehensions from the slaves. This being the true state of our condition we must humbly beseech Your Lordships effectually to intercede with their most gracious Majesties that we may have a proportionable reliefe in time, and in all humility we think till we shall be able to fortify it cannot be less than three fifth Rates with one or two good fourth Rates for a battery, together with four or five hundred land soldiers and all sorts of arms and ammunition (great shot excepted), and that Your Lordships would procure us such a Governor whose generous care and charity may be equall to the needs of this distressed place, and we humbly take leave to inform Your Lordships that a tollerable choice may be made from amongst ourselves till, by the blessing of God and the just and equal administration of the Government, it may again grow to be fitt reward for greater persons. We humbly beg that this advice sloop may be speedily returned and the master and men protected. All which is humbly submitted. We are, may it please your honours, Your Lordships most humble servants, John White, P.C., John Bourden, Peter Heywood, Samuell Bernard, John Towers, Nicholas Laws, Francis Blackmore, Charles Knight, Thomas Sutton. Postscript—Since the foregoing their Majesties’ ship _Guernsey_ with the sloop which we sent out against the French that had landed on the north side of this island are come into port and have had good success, having burnt the enemy’s ship and taken and destroyed all the men both by land and sea, except eighteen which escaped in a sloop. In all humility we are your Lordships most humble and obedient servants. Jamaica. From on board the _Richard and Sarah_, June the 20th, 1692. The old bell in the Institute of Jamaica, is said to have been sunk originally by the great earthquake, and to have been recovered during some dredging operations off Port Royal. Tradition said that it was given to the old Spanish church at Port Royal, by a convent in Spain, but this is obviously incorrect as the Spaniards had no church, or in fact, any building at the Point. It is, of course, possible that the early English settlers took it from the ruins of some Spanish Town church, for use in the church they built at the Point, or it may have been taken to Port Royal at a later date. In any case it is curious that the only Spanish bell known in Jamaica should have been discovered at Port Royal and not at Spanish Town or at St. Ann’s Bay, where the first Spanish settlement stood. [Illustration: SPANISH CHURCH BELL ]