( 15 )
'I could never learn, that this terrible fire was owing to any subterraneous eruption, as some reported, but to three causes, which all concurring at the same time will naturally account for the prodigious havock it made; the first of November being All Saints Day, a high festival among the Portuguese, every altar in every church and chapel (some of which have more than twenty) was illuminated with a number of wax tapers and lamps, as customary; these setting fire to the curtains and timber work that fell with the shock, the conflagration, soon spread to the neighbouring houses and being there joined with the fires in the kitchen chimnies, increased to such a degree, that it might easily have destroyed the whole city, though no other cause had concurred, especially as it met with no interruption.
‘But what would appear incredible to you, were the fact less public and notorious is, that a gang of hardened villains, who had been confined, and got out of prison when the wall fell, at the first shock, were busily employed in setting fire to those buildings, which stood some chance of escaping the general destruction
'The fire, by some means or other, may be said to have destroyed the whole city, at least every thing that was grand or valuable in it, and the damage on this occasion is not to be estimated.
‘The whole number of persons that perished, including those who were burnt, or afterwards crushed to death whilst digging in the ruin, is supposed, at the lowest calculation, to amount to more than sixty thousand; and though the damage in other respects cannot be computed, yet you may form some idea of it, when I assure you that this extensive and opulent city, is now nothing but a vast heap of ruins, that the rich and poor are at present upon a level, some thousands of families which but the day before had been easy in their circumstances, being now scattered about in the fields, wanting
