the subsequent wars it was fought over, taken, and
retaken, and in the intervals was sometimes treated
as neutral ground. When Rodney came out in
1782, it alone remained in English hands among the
Lesser Antilles. I t was French again after 1784,
until Sir John Moore and Sir Ralph Abercrombie
recovered it by crushing the combined force of the
French and negroes in I79^> ^or the F rench g ov"
ernor had freed the slaves in I794> and they fought
desperately and vainly to keep their freedom. Sir
John Moore was governor of the island for a while,
— he of Corunna and W o lfe ’s famous dirge. The
French got hold of St. Lucia again in 1802, but it
was retaken in 1803, and has remained an English
possession from that time, though in character and
tradition more French than English, like Dominica.
St. Lucia is in the track of the hurricane, and has
suffered severely from its visitations. T hat of September
11, 1898, was less destructive here than in
St. Vincent and Barbados, but owing to the steep
slopes of the island the heavy rain which accompanied
the furious wind caused landslides that ruined
many plantations, destroyed crops, and buried the
habitations of the people, sometimes with their occupants.
The fact that most of the cultivated land
and of the population is on the western side of the
volcanic ridge saved them from such complete destruction
as was wrought where the tempest had a
less interrupted sweep.
St. Vincent is the smallest of the range of volcanic
islands, being about seventeen miles long and ten
wide, of a generally oval form, and containing one
hundred and thirty-two square miles. I t is traversed
lengthwise by a range of volcanic hills intersected by
beautiful valleys, but there is only one tall cone,
the Morne Garou, 5200 feet in altitude. From the
dark and jagged top, upon which clouds almost
constantly hang, the rich lava soil slopes to the sea,
spreading into green plantations and verdant groves
and gardens toward the coast. The great Soufrière,
the scene of the terrible eruption of 1812, is in the
north-west, flanking the main peak at some distance.
T he volcanic eruption of April 27, 1812, is indeed
the chief event in the history of St. Vincent. There
are inconsistent accounts of a somewhat similar occurrence
in 1718, which tore the mountain to pieces,
and there was some volcanic disturbance in the vicinity
in 1785. But at the beginning of this century
the old crater was quiescent and contained in its
depths what has often been described as a “ beautiful
blue lak e ,” though nobody could get more than
a casual glance at it through the jungle about its
rocky walls. For a year or two before the eruption
of 1812, the earth had been disturbed by internal
convulsions over a broad region. Expanding gases
under tremendous pressure were struggling to escape
and shook the islands and the shores all around the
American Mediterranean. On the 26th of March,
they seemed to gather all their energies under the
foundations of the Venezuela coast, and, with a
gigantic effort to break loose, they shattered the
city of Caracas into a heap of ruins, burying 10,000
of its people in a common grave. Still roaring and
bellowing in the subterranean chambers, they sought