--- title: Times and Seasons description: Issues of 1842 to 1843. authors: - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints editors: - Ebenezer Robinson - Don Carlos Smith - Smith, Joseph, Jr. - Taylor, John collections: - periodicals tags: - newspaper - times-and-seasons - nauvoo - nineteenth-century periodical: Times and Seasons volume: 4 number: 12 published: 1843-05-01 publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois language: en type: article reference: "“More Particulars of the Earth-quake at Gaudalope [Guadeloupe],” *Times and Seasons* 4, no. 12 (May 1, 1843): 178–179." printed_title: More Particulars of the Earth-quake at Gaudalope [Guadeloupe]. source: url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1843-05-01_4_12 transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v4n12.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair) identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1843-05-01_4_12 start_page: 178 end_page: 179 curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement. rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1843 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1843-05-01_4_12 publication_year: 1843 --- # More Particulars of the Earth-quake at Gaudalope [Guadeloupe] (continued) There was in Saint Pierre but one cry of desolation [desolation]. Terror and consternation were depicted on all faces. All those who had an acquaintance, a friend, a relation, in the unhappy city, inquired after him. Such a one? Dead! Such a one? Dead! such a one wounded, and such a one wounded also. Oh, God! oh, God! what a great crimes had there been committed by this unfortunate city to be so cruelly visited?-When Jerusalem sold our Divine Lord and shed his blood, your anger did not fall so heavily upon that devoted city. The voice of your Prophet had announced her last hour, and she could not save herself from her impending fate. Your vengeance, though slow, was tremendous. You had charged men with the execution of your unalteralabe justice, and the city who had disavowed her God, and had caused the blood of the just man to flow, could redeem herself by her submission; but here, of God! neither submission nor repentance could save her; her hour was marked on the clock of eternity, and her doom must be accomplished. Immediately zeal redoubles; persons run from door to door to ask for clothing; the daily labors are abandoned; the chest of the rich, the trunks of the poor, are emptied; and each one hurries to give all the linen he can spare. This is not all; in every house you may see the women and the children occupied in preparing lint. The exchange soon presents the same spectacle. Every where activity and labor prevails. They fear to lose time. They would say that for each moment lost it is a wounded man that utters his last groan, However, the Mouche had only confirmed the news; the principal details were wanted. Her mission called her to Fort Royal. But some vessels arrived to-day from those places of desolation have told us all! We know but too much!! Our pen refuses to trace the picture of that destruction of a city, in which not a house is standing, not one! * * * * and which the fire continues to consume. The few wooden houses which the scourge had spared are a prey to the flames, which have made as many or more victims than the earthquake itself. Unfortunately people, who found themselves buried under the ruins, not being able to extricate themselves from the vast heaps of rubbish, reached by the fire, saw every chance of rescue vanished. The young girls, old men, women, half bruised between blocks of walls, demanded succors which were impossible; for the fire, advancing like a raging sea, rapidly emgulphed [engulfed] them. The violence of the elements frightened those whose courage and devotedness prompted them to brave all to snatch there unfortunates from their horrible death. Saturday evening the city was still but a burning furnace!!! Finally, to terminate their sad recitals, here is a letter written upon the ruins of Point a Petre, to Mr. Baffin, a merchant of our city. It says more than we can express, all possible narrations. "I have received your letter. Thanks for this remembrance. I am well. All ruined or lost; all! all!! This evening we employ the artillery to finish throwing down the walls in order to save the laborers from their probable crumbling.-Since last night we can no longer take the dead bodies away. There are too many. Yours, Berthmet. February 11th, 1842. P. S. Write to my wife." Three things alone are peering over this vast necropolis. The front of the crumbling church is there standing, with the face of its clock still uninjured, the hands of which point out thirty-five minutes past ten, the hour in which was accomplished the ruin of a city, the annihilation of a whole population. The hour of eternity had struck, and in a shorter time than had been necessary perhaps for the hammer to rise and fall, the work of destruction was accomplished. The silence of death had succeeded the tumultuous noise of life. The poor and the rich, the free and the slave, were lying in the same shroud of stone, and the reddish glare of the fire was lighting the funeral pyre of that annihilated people. As a pendant to this sad spectacle, upon a part of a wall of a house half fallen, a picture was preserved, as by a miracle a picture of the ruins of Babylon. A singular coincidence-the traditions of the past, with the reality of the present; the picture of human devastation, presence in of the divine destruction. And farther along, looking on this scene of desolation, the portrait of the king alone, preserved by a strange fatality, seemed to promise protection and succor to those who have had the good fortune to escape the disaster. Yes, sire! you will come to the aid of that population without an asylum-rich yesterday, and to-day ruined, without bread, without clothing. Sire, God has preserved your image here, as he has preserved your days elsewhere, so that you may send succor to a whole people, as you have brought a remedy to the evils of our country; for God, in his terrible justice, has wished to leave to you the noble mission to relieve so great a misfortune, and your picture, preserved in the midst of this frightful catastrophe, was there to warn the unfortunates that they had not lost their all-that they still had a father. Here I stop. It is still under the deep impression of all those dreadful recitals of calcined bodies, drawn from under the ruins, still smoking, three days after the event; of unfortunate people whose voices are begging for succor that no human power could bring to them, that I write these lines. Pressed to give these details, I do not know how my pen ruus [runs]. Here is no pretensions to the elegance of style; there are still so many things to be said. Must we speak of the admirable conduct of Mr. Barmont, in the midst of this population, without an asylum, and dying with starvation; must we show you some wretch sucking a piece of sugar can to allay his thirst! Shall I retrace the picture of that deputation of Point a Petre, coming to meet that of St. Pierre, the Mayor covered with a sailor's jacket, and in the middle of all this, the Governor in tears, trying to impart to every body a resignation which he himself probably had not; so much he felt the enormity of the evil, and the impossibility of repairing so great a disaster. I shall say nothing either of Rear Admiral De Moges, whose destiny seems to be to carry help to great misfortunes. A singular casuality [casualty]! This same man, who, four years ago, was present at the destruction of the capital of the island of which he was the governor, annihilated by an earthquake, is called on to-day to bring help to another city, overthrown likewise by the same scourge! I cannot describe such scenes. These are only the principal facts that I give you here. Time presses. Another may write a longer article. L. B.