Dreadful News FROM HACKNEY MARSH, GIVING A True Relation OF THE Blowing up two Powder Mills:  
WHEREIN Were Two Hundred and Sixty Barrels of Gunpowder: And the Occasion of their taking Fire: With a Particular Account of the number of the Men and Women Killed; It's Tearing up of the Earth, and Trees; The Shattering and Damnifying an adjacent Mill, & several other Houses, even to the Town of Hackney: And the great Consternation it put the whole City of London in; As also, a Computation of the General Los● sustained thereby.  
THE General Remarks that are made of those two Elements Fire and Water, that they are good Servants, but bad Masters, may in a great measure be said of that Grand Compound Powder; for tho' it be a good Servant, in all times of necessity, for to serve as a Defence against the Assaults and Designs of our Enemies; yet when it becomes an Instrument of Destruction to Humane kind, when at its own Conduct, nothing is more Detrimental to its Proprietors. A most Dreadful and Lamentable Example of which you have in this following Relation.  
In Hackney-Marsh on the Brinks of the said River, distant three Miles and a half from London, lately stood three Mills, two whereof were for the use of making of Gunpowder, and the other for grinding of Bark for Dying, etc. On Saturday the Nineteenth of this Instant April, 1690. about the Hour of Seven in the Evening, one of the two abovementioned Gun-Powder-Mills took Fire, and in an instant blew up itself, and tearing up the Trees and Earth, reached the other, which likewise blew-up, with several little Weavering Rooms, all which it laid level with the Ground in a moment; it gave but two Reports, but of so extraordinary a nature, that it amazed not only Hackney and other adjacent Towns, but even the whole City of London, a●d Liberties of the same; the●e being scarcely a House, but more or less felt the effects of its shaking them even to that degree, that it has occasioned matter of much Dispute and Observation among the Curious; for tho' the Naturalist do give divers Reasons for Earthquakes, and their strange shaking the Earth for a great circumference, the Chief of which, is its being ledged for a time in the grand Caverns and Channels of the Earth, etc. Yet this last Example is a Matter of more Novelty, and no less dreadful consequence to the poor Inhabitants.  
The Reasons assigned for its taking Fire is variously said, some say, the over-covetousness of the Workmen, in working a longer time than (by their Rules) they ought, to get Money for their Extraordinary Expenses the Week following; but the more considerate Neighbours adjacent do believe, That they were mistaken in their Time about an hour, through their neglect in counting, and forgetting to Turn up their Hour Glasses, by which their Punns, that their Powders beat into over heated, and occasioned the Gunpowder to take Fire, as them Skilled in those Affairs affirm it will.  
There is Six poor Souls killed, Four Men kind, and Two Women, one of which is the Master of the Powder Mills, who lies upon the Earth, another a Minister that Lodged there, whose Head is beaten clear off, and his Entrails hangs out of his Body, a Boys Face and Breast visible, his other parts being buried in the Earth, an Ancient Woman lying with the upper part of her body above, and her lower part under the Ground; another blown into the River, they all lying there to be viewed by the Beholders, as miserable Spectacles of humane misery; several others escaped by leaping into the River.  
There was (in the Storehouse, which was adjoining to the Mills) Two hundred and Sixty Barrels of Gunpowder, the loss of which, with the two Mills, a Dwelling House, two small Houses for weaving of Cloth, being wholly Ruined; also two other large Houses adjoining, with the Dying Mill; all which, though they are still standing, yet miserably Shattered, with other Damage; in all valued at Four Thousand Pounds Sterling.  
FINIS.   

Licenced and Entered according to Order.  
London, Printed for Alex Milbourn at the 〈…〉 Arms of Little Old-Baily, 1690.