PORT ROYAL

historic harbour town on the southern coast of Jamaica, once the busiest trading centre of the British West Indies and infamous for general debauchery. The town was founded on a natural harbour at the end of a 10-mile (16-kilometre) sand spit between the modern Kingston Harbour and the Caribbean Sea. In the late 17th century it came to serve as the base of operations for buccaneers and privateers who raided the Spanish islands and ships. When the notorious Captain Henry Morgan established his headquarters there, the plundered gold poured in, followed by merchants and artisans who eagerly catered to all the appetites of the pirates. There were more than 8,000 inhabitants living in fine brick houses of two and three stories in this "richest and wickedest city in the New World." Ultimately, however, the government in England and the landowners in Jamaica saw prospects of greater profit in a regularized trade with Spain and a stable economy based on agriculture, and they appointed Morgan the governor of Jamaica, in which capacity he prosecuted his former comrades until his death. An earthquake devastated the city in 1692, sinking much of it beneath the sea. The few survivors rebuilt on the site of the present Kingston, across the bay. In 1735 a naval base was established once more at Port Royal for the British West Indies Squadron in its struggle against the French. Today Port Royal is a quiet little town, with only a few relics of its romantic past: Fort Charles at the entrance to the harbour once under the command of Horatio Nelson, St. Peter's Church, and a museum displaying some treasures resurrected from the sea. Pop. (1982) 1,469. island and town, Beaufort county, southern South Carolina, U.S., at the head of Port Royal Sound on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The island of Port Royal is one of the Sea Islands, and its principal town is Beaufort. The town of Port Royal is on the southern tip of the island, which is about 13 miles (21 km) long and 7 miles (11 km) wide. The area was visited by Spanish explorers early in the 16th century. In 1562 the French Huguenot Jean Ribaut sailed into the sound and called it Port Royal. He then established one of the first European settlements in North America, Charlesfort, probably on southern Parris Island (just to the south of Port Royal Island), and left 30 men there. In 1563 the settlers killed their leader and returned to Europe. The Spanish occupied the area more or less continuously from 1566 to 1650, maintaining garrisons and Indian missions. English claims to Carolina grew with the settlement of Charleston in 1670, and gradually planters moved into the area. In 1710 the present town of Beaufort was established. In January 1779, during the American Revolution, the British occupied the area but were soon dislodged. Early in the American Civil War (November 6-7, 1861), 56 Union vessels and 12,000 men under General Thomas W. Sherman reduced the Confederate fortifications. The port was used as a Union coaling and repair station for the remainder of the war. The economy now depends mainly on light industry, the U.S. Marine Corps installation at Parris Island, and tourism. The town was incorporated in 1874. Pop. (1990) town, 2,985; (1998 est.) town, 3,314.