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History of the Reign of Queen Anne (Volume One), A (v. 1)
History of the Reign of Queen Anne A - Volume One - v. 1 Author:John Hill Burton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. domestic Affairs. THE GREAT STORM—DEVASTATION AMONG BUILDINGS—EFFECT ON THE NAVY EVELYN'S EXPERIENCE IN FORESTS —THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE LO... more »RDS AND COMMONS, KNOWN AS THE AYLESBURY ELECTION CASE—ITS GREAT SIGNIFICANCE AS A CONSTITUTIONAL INQUIRY — THE EMINENCE OF THE MEN BROUGHT INTO THE DISCUSSION—ESCAPE OF THE CONSTITUTION FROM THE DANGERS APPREHENDED. The duty of the historian takes its pleasantest shape when he finds a continuous evolution of causation accompany events in their chronological succession. But it is sometimes necessary to drop the chain of causes and effects winding into each other; and so it is when some great event, portentous to mankind, is not the result of man's passions and actions, but a dispensation such as we can neither create nor obviate, and cannot even foreknow. Such was " the storm " of 1703. Its causes are hidden among the undiscovered secrets of the structure and physiology of the universe, and beyond its own immediate disasters, it left no seeds to ripen into like events. It stands alone in history as "The Great Storm." It made itself felt all over Europe, but it especially swept the British Islands on the night of the 26th of November1703. London being the greatest assemblage in the realm of people, edifices, and wealth, gave it the largest surface for attack, and bore the most numerous and emphatic marks of destructiveness. The fragile houses built in the area that had been swept by the fire were tossed about like houses of cards, and caused many cruel tragedies, while there were also soma curious and grotesque escapes of people whose perilous position seemed absolutely to doom them. There were inundations of the rivers, and the Thames swept through Westminster Hall. On the shores of all the roadsteads lay drowned bodies ...« less