Some Remarkable Effects of a Great Storm of Thunder and Lightning at Portsmouth Oct. 23. 85

Some remarkable effects of a great Storm of Thunder and Lightning at Portsmouth Oct. 23. 85. I cannot omit giving an Account of what hath hapned to us here the 23d. instant between 4 and 5 of the Clock in the Evening in the height of the Storm we had here. On board his Majestys ship the Royal James, a flash of Lightning and Thunder together, took the Mast which was put into her for Careening, being a made Mast, and bound with Iron hoops from one end to the other, and shivered it down to the Deck, breaking one of the Iron hoops in the body of the Mast, so that Splinters are forc't out of the middle of the Mast a foot and ½ long, (and a ball of fire run too and fro on the Deck) in so much that the Mast is wholly unserviceable and must be taken out. On board the Coronation, notwithstanding the Ships head was to windward, a great Ball of fire came into the Gunroom Ports, and threw a Boy out of one of the Ports, and he was drowned; and severall Workmen being on board, as Carpenters, Joyners, and Seamen, were struck down and made senseless for some time, and the Ball of Fire ran up and struck on the Starboard side of the Wardrobe, and left a place scorched round upon the side, and between the two Ring-bolts, as if it had been a shott; and beat the Wainscott over to the other side, all scorcht as it with Fire; and run up against the Doors and Hinges, away; and run into severall Balls of Fire on the Deck amongst the Men; and some part of it broke in at the Windows of the round house, and shivered off a great deal of the Wainscott, and broke the Glasses of a Perspective Glass, and made a hole through a Letter that lay in the Window eight double, the circumference of a Musket Bullet, and no more; it also shivered the Timber that holds the Ensigne-staff on the Poop. Portsmouth October 24th. 1685.