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A Journal of the Plague Year

by Daniel Defoe

being Observations or Memorials

of the most remarkable occurrences,

as well public as_ private, which happened in London

during the last great visitation in 1665.

Written by a CITIZEN who continued

all the while in London_.

Never made publick before

It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, among the

rest of my neighbours, heard in ordinary discourse that the

plague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very

violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in

the year 1663, whither, they say, it was brought, some said from

Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were

brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought

from Candia; others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it

came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again.

We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days to

spread rumours and reports of things, and to improve them by the

invention of men, as I have lived to see practised since. But

such things as these were gathered from the letters of merchants

and others who corresponded abroad, and from them was handed

about by word of mouth only; so that things did not spread

instantly over the whole nation, as they do now. But it seems

that the Government had a true account of it, and several

councils were held about ways to prevent its coming over; but all

was kept very private. Hence it was that this rumour died off

again, and people began to forget it as a thing we were very

little concerned in, and that we hoped was not true; till the

latter end of November or the beginning of December 1664 when two

men, said to be Frenchmen, died of the plague in Long Acre, or

rather at the upper end of Drury Lane. The family they were in

endeavoured to conceal it as much as possible, but as it had

gotten some vent in the discourse of the neighbourhood, the

Secretaries of State got knowledge of it; and concerning

themselves to inquire about it, in order to be certain of the

truth, two physicians and a surgeon were ordered to go to the

house and make inspection. This they did; and finding evident

tokens of the sickness upon both the bodies that were dead, they

gave their opinions publicly that they died of the plague.

Whereupon it was given in to the parish clerk, and he also

returned them to the Hall; and it was printed in the weekly bill

of mortality in the usual manner, thus—

Plague, 2. Parishes infected, 1.

The people showed a great concern at this, and began to be

alarmed all over the town, and the more, because in the last week

in December 1664 another man died in the same house, and of the

same distemper. And then we were easy again for about six weeks,

when none having died with any marks of infection, it was said

the distemper was gone; but after that, I think it was about the

12th of February, another died in another house, but in the same

parish and in the same manner.

This turned the people’s eyes pretty much towards that end of the

town, and the weekly bills showing an increase of burials in St

Giles’s parish more than usual, it began to be suspected that the

plague was among the people at that end of the town, and that

many had died of it, though they had taken care to keep it as

much from the knowledge of the public as possible. This possessed

the heads of the people very much, and few cared to go through

Drury Lane, or the other streets suspected, unless they had

extraordinary business that obliged them to it

This increase of the bills stood thus: the usual number of

burials in a week, in the parishes of St Giles-in-the-Fields and

St Andrew’s, Holborn, were from twelve to seventeen or nineteen

each, few more or less; but from the time that the plague first

began in St Giles’s parish, it was observed that the ordinary

burials increased in number considerably. For example:—

From December 27 to January 3 { St Giles’s 16

” { St Andrew’s 17

” January 3 ” ” 10 { St Giles’s 12

” { St Andrew’s 25

” January 10 ” ” 17 { St Giles’s 18

” { St Andrew’s 28

” January 17 ” ” 24 { St Giles’s 23

” { St Andrew’s 16

” January 24 ” ” 31 { St Giles’s 24

” { St Andrew’s 15

” January 30 ” February 7 { St Giles’s 21

” { St Andrew’s 23

” February 7 ” ” 14 { St Giles’s 24

The like increase of the bills was observed in the parishes of St

Bride’s, adjoining on one side of Holborn parish, and in the

parish of St James, Clerkenwell, adjoining on the other side of

Holborn; in both which parishes the usual numbers that died

weekly were from four to six or eight, whereas at that time they

were increased as follows:—

From December 20 to December 27 { St Bride’s 0

” { St James’s 8

” December 27 to January 3 { St Bride’s 6

” { St James’s 9

” January 3 ” ” 10 { St Bride’s 11

” { St James’s 7

” January 10 ” ” 17 { St Bride’s 12

” { St James’s 9

” January 17 ” ” 24 { St Bride’s 9

” { St James’s 15

” January 24 ” ” 31 { St Bride’s 8

” { St James’s 12

” January 31 ” February 7 { St Bride’s 13

” { St James’s 5

” February 7 ” ” 14 { St Bride’s 12

” { St James’s 6

Besides this, it was observed with great uneasiness by the people

that the weekly bills in general increased very much during these

weeks, although it was at a time of the year when usually the

bills are very moderate.

The usual number of burials within the bills of mortality for a

week was from about 240 or thereabouts to 300. The last was

esteemed a pretty high bill; but after this we found the bills

successively increasing as follows:—

Buried. Increased.

December the 20th to the 27th 291 ...

” ” 27th ” 3rd January 349 58

January the 3rd ” 10th ” 394 45

” ” 10th ” 17th ” 415 21

” ” 17th ” 24th ” 474 59

This last bill was really frightful, being a higher number than

had been known to have been buried in one week since the

preceding visitation of 1656.

However, all this went off again, and the weather proving cold,

and the frost, which began in December, still continuing very

severe even till near the end of February, attended with sharp

though moderate winds, the bills decreased again, and the city

grew healthy, and everybody began to look upon the danger as good

as over; only that still the burials in St Giles’s continued

high. From the beginning of April especially they stood at

twenty-five each week, till the week from the 18th to the 25th,

when there was buried in St Giles’s parish thirty, whereof two of

the plague and eight of the spotted-fever, which was looked upon

as the same thing; likewise the number that died of the

spotted-fever in the whole increased, being eight the week

before, and twelve the week above-named.

This alarmed us all again, and terrible apprehensions were among

the people, especially the weather being now changed and growing

warm, and the summer being at hand. However, the next week there

seemed to be some hopes again; the bills were low, the number of

the dead in all was but 388, there was none of the plague, and

but four of the spotted-fever.

But the following week it returned again, and the distemper was

spread into two or three other parishes, viz., St Andrew’s,

Holborn; St Clement Danes; and, to the great affliction of the

city, one died within the walls, in the parish of St Mary

Woolchurch, that is to say, in Bearbinder Lane, near Stocks

Market; in all there were nine of the plague and six of the

spotted-fever. It was, however, upon inquiry found that this

Frenchman who died in Bearbinder Lane was one who, having lived

in Long Acre, near the infected houses, had removed for fear of

the distemper, not knowing that he was already infected.

This was the beginning of May, yet the weather was temperate,

variable, and cool enough, and people had still some hopes. That

which encouraged them was that the city was healthy: the whole

ninety-seven parishes buried but fifty-four, and we began to hope

that, as it was chiefly among the people at that end of the town,

it might go no farther; and the rather, because the next week,

which was from the 9th of May to the 16th, there died but three,

of which not one within the whole city or liberties; and St

Andrew’s buried but fifteen, which was very low. ’Tis true St

Giles’s buried two-and-thirty, but still, as there was but one of

the plague, people began to be easy. The whole bill also was very

low, for the week before the bill was but 347, and the week above

mentioned but 343. We continued in these hopes for a few days,

but it was but for a few, for the people were no more to be

deceived thus; they searched the houses and found that the plague

was really spread every way, and that many died of it every day.

So that now all our extenuations abated, and it was no more to be

concealed; nay, it quickly appeared that the infection had spread

itself beyond all hopes of abatement. That in the parish of St

Giles it was gotten into several streets, and several families

lay all sick together; and, accordingly, in the weekly bill for

the next week the thing began to show itself. There was indeed

but fourteen set down of the plague, but this was all knavery and

collusion, for in St Giles’s parish they buried forty in all,

whereof it was certain most of them died of the plague, though

they were set down of other distempers; and though the number of

all the burials were not increased above thirty-two, and the

whole bill being but 385, yet there was fourteen of the

spotted-fever, as well as fourteen of the plague; and we took it

for granted upon the whole that there were fifty died that week

of the plague.

The next bill was from the 23rd of May to the 30th, when the

number of the plague was seventeen. But the burials in St Giles’s

were fifty-three—a frightful number!—of whom they set down but

nine of the plague; but on an examination more strictly by the

justices of peace, and at the Lord Mayor’s request, it was found

there were twenty more who were really dead of the plague in that

parish, but had been set down of the spotted-fever or other

distempers, besides others concealed.

But those were trifling things to what followed immediately

after; for now the weather set in hot, and from the first week in

June the infection spread in a dreadful manner, and the bills

rose high; the articles of the fever, spotted-fever, and teeth

began to swell; for all that could conceal their distempers did

it, to prevent their neighbours shunning and refusing to converse

with them, and also to prevent authority shutting up their

houses; which, though it was not yet practised, yet was

threatened, and people were extremely terrified at the thoughts

of it.

The second week in June, the parish of St Giles, where still the

weight of the infection lay, buried 120, whereof though the bills

said but sixty-eight of the plague, everybody said there had been

100 at least, calculating it from the usual number of funerals in

that parish, as above.

Till this week the city continued free, there having never any

died, except that one Frenchman whom I mentioned before, within

the whole ninety-seven parishes. Now there died four within the

city, one in Wood Street, one in Fenchurch Street, and two in

Crooked Lane. Southwark was entirely free, having not one yet

died on that side of the water.

I lived without Aldgate, about midway between Aldgate Church and

Whitechappel Bars, on the left hand or north side of the street;

and as the distemper had not reached to that side of the city,

our neighbourhood continued very easy. But at the other end of

the town their consternation was very great: and the richer sort

of people, especially the nobility and gentry from the west part

of the city, thronged out of town with their families and

servants in an unusual manner; and this was more particularly

seen in Whitechappel; that is to say, the Broad Street where I

lived; indeed, nothing was to be seen but waggons and carts, with

goods, women, servants, children, &c.; coaches filled with people

of the better sort and horsemen attending them, and all hurrying

away; then empty waggons and carts appeared, and spare horses

with servants, who, it was apparent, were returning or sent from

the countries to fetch more people; besides innumerable numbers

of men on horseback, some alone, others with servants, and,

generally speaking, all loaded with baggage and fitted out for

travelling, as anyone might perceive by their appearance.

This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to see, and as it

was a sight which I could not but look on from morning to night

(for indeed there was nothing else of moment to be seen), it

filled me with very serious thoughts of the misery that was

coming upon the city, and the unhappy condition of those that

would be left in it.

This hurry of the people was such for some weeks that there was

no getting at the Lord Mayor’s door without exceeding difficulty;

there were such pressing and crowding there to get passes and

certificates of health for such as travelled abroad, for without

these there was no being admitted to pass through the towns upon

the road, or to lodge in any inn. Now, as there had none died in

the city for all this time, my Lord Mayor gave certificates of

health without any difficulty to all those who lived in the

ninety-seven parishes, and to those within the liberties too for

a while.

This hurry, I say, continued some weeks, that is to say, all the

month of May and June, and the more because it was rumoured that

an order of the Government was to be issued out to place

turnpikes and barriers on the road to prevent people travelling,

and that the towns on the road would not suffer people from

London to pass for fear of bringing the infection along with

them, though neither of these rumours had any foundation but in

the imagination, especially at-first.

I now began to consider seriously with myself concerning my own

case, and how I should dispose of myself; that is to say, whether

I should resolve to stay in London or shut up my house and flee,

as many of my neighbours did. I have set this particular down so

fully, because I know not but it may be of moment to those who

come after me, if they come to be brought to the same distress,

and to the same manner of making their choice; and therefore I

desire this account may pass with them rather for a direction to

themselves to act by than a history of my actings, seeing it may

not be of one farthing value to them to note what became of me.

I had two important things before me: the one was the carrying on

my business and shop, which was considerable, and in which was

embarked all my effects in the world; and the other was the

preservation of my life in so dismal a calamity as I saw

apparently was coming upon the whole city, and which, however

great it was, my fears perhaps, as well as other people’s,

represented to be much greater than it could be.

The first consideration was of great moment to me; my trade was a

saddler, and as my dealings were chiefly not by a shop or chance

trade, but among the merchants trading to the English colonies in

America, so my effects lay very much in the hands of such. I was

a single man, ’tis true, but I had a family of servants whom I

kept at my business; had a house, shop, and warehouses filled

with goods; and, in short, to leave them all as things in such a

case must be left (that is to say, without any overseer or person

fit to be trusted with them), had been to hazard the loss not

only of my trade, but of my goods, and indeed of all I had in the

world.

I had an elder brother at the same time in London, and not many

years before come over from Portugal: and advising with him, his

answer was in three words, the same that was given in another

case quite different, viz., ‘Master, save thyself.’ In a word, he

was for my retiring into the country, as he resolved to do

himself with his family; telling me what he had, it seems, heard

abroad, that the best preparation for the plague was to run away

from it. As to my argument of losing my trade, my goods, or

debts, he quite confuted me. He told me the same thing which I

argued for my staying, viz., that I would trust God with my

safety and health, was the strongest repulse to my pretensions of

losing my trade and my goods; ‘for’, says he, ‘is it not as

reasonable that you should trust God with the chance or risk of

losing your trade, as that you should stay in so eminent a point

of danger, and trust Him with your life?’

I could not argue that I was in any strait as to a place where to

go, having several friends and relations in Northamptonshire,

whence our family first came from; and particularly, I had an

only sister in Lincolnshire, very willing to receive and

entertain me.

My brother, who had already sent his wife and two children into

Bedfordshire, and resolved to follow them, pressed my going very

earnestly; and I had once resolved to comply with his desires,

but at that time could get no horse; for though it is true all

the people did not go out of the city of London, yet I may

venture to say that in a manner all the horses did; for there was

hardly a horse to be bought or hired in the whole city for some

weeks. Once I resolved to travel on foot with one servant, and,

as many did, lie at no inn, but carry a soldier’s tent with us,

and so lie in the fields, the weather being very warm, and no

danger from taking cold. I say, as many did, because several did

so at last, especially those who had been in the armies in the

war which had not been many years past; and I must needs say

that, speaking of second causes, had most of the people that

travelled done so, the plague had not been carried into so many

country towns and houses as it was, to the great damage, and

indeed to the ruin, of abundance of people.

But then my servant, whom I had intended to take down with me,

deceived me; and being frighted at the increase of the distemper,

and not knowing when I should go, he took other measures, and

left me, so I was put off for that time; and, one way or other, I

always found that to appoint to go away was always crossed by

some accident or other, so as to disappoint and put it off again;

and this brings in a story which otherwise might be thought a

needless digression, viz., about these disappointments being from

Heaven.

I mention this story also as the best method I can advise any

person to take in such a case, especially if he be one that makes

conscience of his duty, and would be directed what to do in it,

namely, that he should keep his eye upon the particular

providences which occur at that time, and look upon them

complexly, as they regard one another, and as all together regard

the question before him: and then, I think, he may safely take

them for intimations from Heaven of what is his unquestioned duty

to do in such a case; I mean as to going away from or staying in

the place where we dwell, when visited with an infectious

distemper.

It came very warmly into my mind one morning, as I was musing on

this particular thing, that as nothing attended us without the

direction or permission of Divine Power, so these disappointments

must have something in them extraordinary; and I ought to

consider whether it did not evidently point out, or intimate to

me, that it was the will of Heaven I should not go. It

immediately followed in my thoughts, that if it really was from

God that I should stay, He was able effectually to preserve me in

the midst of all the death and danger that would surround me; and

that if I attempted to secure myself by fleeing from my

habitation, and acted contrary to these intimations, which I

believe to be Divine, it was a kind of flying from God, and that

He could cause His justice to overtake me when and where He

thought fit.

These thoughts quite turned my resolutions again, and when I came

to discourse with my brother again I told him that I inclined to

stay and take my lot in that station in which God had placed me,

and that it seemed to be made more especially my duty, on the

account of what I have said.

My brother, though a very religious man himself, laughed at all I

had suggested about its being an intimation from Heaven, and told

me several stories of such foolhardy people, as he called them,

as I was; that I ought indeed to submit to it as a work of Heaven

if I had been any way disabled by distempers or diseases, and

that then not being able to go, I ought to acquiesce in the

direction of Him, who, having been my Maker, had an undisputed

right of sovereignty in disposing of me, and that then there had

been no difficulty to determine which was the call of His

providence and which was not; but that I should take it as an

intimation from Heaven that I should not go out of town, only

because I could not hire a horse to go, or my fellow was run away

that was to attend me, was ridiculous, since at the time I had my

health and limbs, and other servants, and might with ease travel

a day or two on foot, and having a good certificate of being in

perfect health, might either hire a horse or take post on the

road, as I thought fit.

Then he proceeded to tell me of the mischievous consequences

which attended the presumption of the Turks and Mahometans in

Asia and in other places where he had been (for my brother, being

a merchant, was a few years before, as I have already observed,

returned from abroad, coming last from Lisbon), and how,

presuming upon their professed predestinating notions, and of

every man’s end being predetermined and unalterably beforehand

decreed, they would go unconcerned into infected places and

converse with infected persons, by which means they died at the

rate of ten or fifteen thousand a week, whereas the Europeans or

Christian merchants, who kept themselves retired and reserved,

generally escaped the contagion.

Upon these arguments my brother changed my resolutions again, and

I began to resolve to go, and accordingly made all things ready;

for, in short, the infection increased round me, and the bills

were risen to almost seven hundred a week, and my brother told me

he would venture to stay no longer. I desired him to let me

consider of it but till the next day, and I would resolve: and as

I had already prepared everything as well as I could as to MY

business, and whom to entrust my affairs with, I had little to do

but to resolve.

I went home that evening greatly oppressed in my mind,

irresolute, and not knowing what to do. I had set the evening

wholly apart to consider seriously about it, and was all alone;

for already people had, as it were by a general consent, taken up

the custom of not going out of doors after sunset; the reasons I

shall have occasion to say more of by-and-by.

In the retirement of this evening I endeavoured to resolve,

first, what was my duty to do, and I stated the arguments with

which my brother had pressed me to go into the country, and I

set, against them the strong impressions which I had on my mind

for staying; the visible call I seemed to have from the

particular circumstance of my calling, and the care due from me

for the preservation of my effects, which were, as I might say,

my estate; also the intimations which I thought I had from

Heaven, that to me signified a kind of direction to venture; and

it occurred to me that if I had what I might call a direction to

stay, I ought to suppose it contained a promise of being

preserved if I obeyed.

This lay close to me, and my mind seemed more and more encouraged

to stay than ever, and supported with a secret satisfaction that

I should be kept. Add to this, that, turning over the Bible which

lay before me, and while my thoughts were more than ordinarily

serious upon the question, I cried out, ‘Well, I know not what to

do; Lord, direct me !’ and the like; and at that juncture I

happened to stop turning over the book at the ninety-first Psalm,

and casting my eye on the second verse, I read on to the seventh

verse exclusive, and after that included the tenth, as follows:

‘I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God,

in Him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare

of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover

thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust: His

truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid

for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the

destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy

side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come

nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the

reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is

my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no

evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy

dwelling,’ &C.

I scarce need tell the reader that from that moment I resolved

that I would stay in the town, and casting myself entirely upon

the goodness and protection of the Almighty, would not seek any

other shelter whatever; and that, as my times were in His hands,

He was as able to keep me in a time of the infection as in a time

of health; and if He did not think fit to deliver me, still I was

in His hands, and it was meet He should do with me as should seem

good to Him.

With this resolution I went to bed; and I was further confirmed

in it the next day by the woman being taken ill with whom I had

intended to entrust my house and all my affairs. But I had a

further obligation laid on me on the same side, for the next day

I found myself very much out of order also, so that if I would

have gone away, I could not, and I continued ill three or four

days, and this entirely determined my stay; so I took my leave of

my brother, who went away to Dorking, in Surrey, and afterwards

fetched a round farther into Buckinghamshire or Bedfordshire, to

a retreat he had found out there for his family.

It was a very ill time to be sick in, for if any one complained,

it was immediately said he had the plague; and though I had

indeed no symptom of that distemper, yet being very ill, both in

my head and in my stomach, I was not without apprehension that I

really was infected; but in about three days I grew better; the

third night I rested well, sweated a little, and was much

refreshed. The apprehensions of its being the infection went also

quite away with my illness, and I went about my business as

usual.

These things, however, put off all my thoughts of going into the

country; and my brother also being gone, I had no more debate

either with him or with myself on that subject.

It was now mid-July, and the plague, which had chiefly raged at

the other end of the town, and, as I said before, in the parishes

of St Giles, St Andrew’s, Holborn, and towards Westminster, began

to now come eastward towards the part where I lived. It was to be

observed, indeed, that it did not come straight on towards us;

for the city, that is to say, within the walls, was indifferently

healthy still; nor was it got then very much over the water into

Southwark; for though there died that week 1268 of all

distempers, whereof it might be supposed above 600 died of the

plague, yet there was but twenty-eight in the whole city, within

the walls, and but nineteen in Southwark, Lambeth parish

included; whereas in the parishes of St Giles and St

Martin-in-the-Fields alone there died 421.

But we perceived the infection kept chiefly in the out-parishes,

which being very populous, and fuller also of poor, the distemper

found more to prey upon than in the city, as I shall observe

afterwards. We perceived, I say, the distemper to draw our way,

viz., by the parishes of Clarkenwell, Cripplegate, Shoreditch,

and Bishopsgate; which last two parishes joining to Aldgate,

Whitechappel, and Stepney, the infection came at length to spread

its utmost rage and violence in those parts, even when it abated

at the western parishes where it began.

It was very strange to observe that in this particular week, from

the 4th to the 11th of July, when, as I have observed, there died

near 400 of the plague in the two parishes of St Martin and St

Giles-in-the-Fields only, there died in the parish of Aldgate but

four, in the parish of Whitechappel three, in the parish of

Stepney but one.

Likewise in the next week, from the 11th of July to the 18th,

when the week’s bill was 1761, yet there died no more of the

plague, on the whole Southwark side of the water, than sixteen.

But this face of things soon changed, and it began to thicken in

Cripplegate parish especially, and in Clarkenwell; so that by the

second week in August, Cripplegate parish alone buried 886, and

Clarkenwell 155. Of the first, 850 might well be reckoned to die

of the plague; and of the last, the bill itself said 145 were of

the plague.

During the month of July, and while, as I have observed, our part

of the town seemed to be spared in comparison of the west part, I

went ordinarily about the streets, as my business required, and

particularly went generally once in a day, or in two days, into

the city, to my brother’s house, which he had given me charge of,

and to see if it was safe; and having the key in my pocket, I

used to go into the house, and over most of the rooms, to see

that all was well; for though it be something wonderful to tell,

that any should have hearts so hardened in the midst of such a

calamity as to rob and steal, yet certain it is that all sorts of

villainies, and even levities and debaucheries, were then

practised in the town as openly as ever—I will not say quite as

frequently, because the numbers of people were many ways

lessened.

But the city itself began now to be visited too, I mean within

the walls; but the number of people there were indeed extremely

lessened by so great a multitude having been gone into the

country; and even all this month of July they continued to flee,

though not in such multitudes as formerly. In August, indeed,

they fled in such a manner that I began to think there would be

really none but magistrates and servants left in the city.

As they fled now out of the city, so I should observe that the

Court removed early, viz., in the month of June, and went to

Oxford, where it pleased God to preserve them; and the distemper

did not, as I heard of, so much as touch them, for which I cannot

say that I ever saw they showed any great token of thankfulness,

and hardly anything of reformation, though they did not want

being told that their crying vices might without breach of

charity be said to have gone far in bringing that terrible

judgement upon the whole nation.

The face of London was—now indeed strangely altered: I mean the

whole mass of buildings, city, liberties, suburbs, Westminster,

Southwark, and altogether; for as to the particular part called

the city, or within the walls, that was not yet much infected.

But in the whole the face of things, I say, was much altered;

sorrow and sadness sat upon every face; and though some parts

were not yet overwhelmed, yet all looked deeply concerned; and,

as we saw it apparently coming on, so every one looked on himself

and his family as in the utmost danger. Were it possible to

represent those times exactly to those that did not see them, and

give the reader due ideas of the horror ‘that everywhere

presented itself, it must make just impressions upon their minds

and fill them with surprise. London might well be said to be all

in tears; the mourners did not go about the streets indeed, for

nobody put on black or made a formal dress of mourning for their

nearest friends; but the voice of mourners was truly heard in the

streets. The shrieks of women and children at the windows and

doors of their houses, where their dearest relations were perhaps

dying, or just dead, were so frequent to be heard as we passed

the streets, that it was enough to pierce the stoutest heart in

the world to hear them. Tears and lamentations were seen almost

in every house, especially in the first part of the visitation;

for towards the latter end men’s hearts were hardened, and death

was so always before their eyes, that they did not so much

concern themselves for the loss of their friends, expecting that

themselves should be summoned the next hour.

Business led me out sometimes to the other end of the town, even

when the sickness was chiefly there; and as the thing was new to

me, as well as to everybody else, it was a most surprising thing

to see those streets which were usually so thronged now grown

desolate, and so few people to be seen in them, that if I had

been a stranger and at a loss for my way, I might sometimes have

gone the length of a whole street (I mean of the by-streets), and

seen nobody to direct me except watchmen set at the doors of such

houses as were shut up, of which I shall speak presently.

One day, being at that part of the town on some special business,

curiosity led me to observe things more than usually, and indeed

I walked a great way where I had no business. I went up Holborn,

and there the street was full of people, but they walked in the

middle of the great street, neither on one side or other,

because, as I suppose, they would not mingle with anybody that

came out of houses, or meet with smells and scent from houses

that might be infected.

The Inns of Court were all shut up; nor were very many of the

lawyers in the Temple, or Lincoln’s Inn, or Gray’s Inn, to be

seen there. Everybody was at peace; there was no occasion for

lawyers; besides, it being in the time of the vacation too, they

were generally gone into the country. Whole rows of houses in

some places were shut close up, the inhabitants all fled, and

only a watchman or two left.

When I speak of rows of houses being shut up, I do not mean shut

up by the magistrates, but that great numbers of persons followed

the Court, by the necessity of their employments and other

dependences; and as others retired, really frighted with the

distemper, it was a mere desolating of some of the streets. But

the fright was not yet near so great in the city, abstractly so

called, and particularly because, though they were at first in a

most inexpressible consternation, yet as I have observed that the

distemper intermitted often at first, so they were, as it were,

alarmed and unalarmed again, and this several times, till it

began to be familiar to them; and that even when it appeared

violent, yet seeing it did not presently spread into the city, or

the east and south parts, the people began to take courage, and

to be, as I may say, a little hardened. It is true a vast many

people fled, as I have observed, yet they were chiefly from the

west end of the town, and from that we call the heart of the

city: that is to say, among the wealthiest of the people, and

such people as were unencumbered with trades and business. But of

the rest, the generality stayed, and seemed to abide the worst;

so that in the place we call the Liberties, and in the suburbs,

in Southwark, and in the east part, such as Wapping, Ratcliff,

Stepney, Rotherhithe, and the like, the people generally stayed,

except here and there a few wealthy families, who, as above, did

not depend upon their business.

It must not be forgot here that the city and suburbs were

prodigiously full of people at the time of this visitation, I

mean at the time that it began; for though I have lived to see a

further increase, and mighty throngs of people settling in London

more than ever, yet we had always a notion that the numbers of

people which, the wars being over, the armies disbanded, and the

royal family and the monarchy being restored, had flocked to

London to settle in business, or to depend upon and attend the

Court for rewards of services, preferments, and the like, was

such that the town was computed to have in it above a hundred

thousand people more than ever it held before; nay, some took

upon them to say it had twice as many, because all the ruined

families of the royal party flocked hither. All the old soldiers

set up trades here, and abundance of families settled here.

Again, the Court brought with them a great flux of pride, and new

fashions. All people were grown gay and luxurious, and the joy of

the Restoration had brought a vast many families to London.

I often thought that as Jerusalem was besieged by the Romans when

the Jews were assembled together to celebrate the Passover—by

which means an incredible number of people were surprised there

who would otherwise have been in other countries—so the plague

entered London when an incredible increase of people had happened

occasionally, by the particular circumstances above-named. As

this conflux of the people to a youthful and gay Court made a

great trade in the city, especially in everything that belonged

to fashion and finery, so it drew by consequence a great number

of workmen, manufacturers, and the like, being mostly poor people

who depended upon their labour. And I remember in particular that

in a representation to my Lord Mayor of the condition of the

poor, it was estimated that there were no less than an hundred

thousand riband-weavers in and about the city, the chiefest

number of whom lived then in the parishes of Shoreditch, Stepney,

Whitechappel, and Bishopsgate, that, namely, about Spitalfields;

that is to say, as Spitalfields was then, for it was not so large

as now by one fifth part.

By this, however, the number of people in the whole may be judged

of; and, indeed, I often wondered that, after the prodigious

numbers of people that went away at first, there was yet so great

a multitude left as it appeared there was.

But I must go back again to the beginning of this surprising

time. While the fears of the people were young, they were

increased strangely by several odd accidents which, put

altogether, it was really a wonder the whole body of the people

did not rise as one man and abandon their dwellings, leaving the

place as a space of ground designed by Heaven for an Akeldama,

doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth, and that all

that would be found in it would perish with it. I shall name but

a few of these things; but sure they were so many, and so many

wizards and cunning people propagating them, that I have often

wondered there was any (women especially) left behind.

In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for several

months before the plague, as there did the year after another, a

little before the fire. The old women and the phlegmatic

hypochondriac part of the other sex, whom I could almost call old

women too, remarked (especially afterward, though not till both

those judgements were over) that those two comets passed directly

over the city, and that so very near the houses that it was plain

they imported something peculiar to the city alone; that the

comet before the pestilence was of a faint, dull, languid colour,

and its motion very heavy, Solemn, and slow; but that the comet

before the fire was bright and sparkling, or, as others said,

flaming, and its motion swift and furious; and that, accordingly,

one foretold a heavy judgement, slow but severe, terrible and

frightful, as was the plague; but the other foretold a stroke,

sudden, swift, and fiery as the conflagration. Nay, so particular

some people were, that as they looked upon that comet preceding

the fire, they fancied that they not only saw it pass swiftly and

fiercely, and could perceive the motion with their eye, but even

they heard it; that it made a rushing, mighty noise, fierce and

terrible, though at a distance, and but just perceivable.

I saw both these stars, and, I must confess, had so much of the

common notion of such things in my head, that I was apt to look

upon them as the forerunners and warnings of God’s judgements;

and especially when, after the plague had followed the first, I

yet saw another of the like kind, I could not but say God had not

yet sufficiently scourged the city.

But I could not at the same time carry these things to the height

that others did, knowing, too, that natural causes are assigned

by the astronomers for such things, and that their motions and

even their revolutions are calculated, or pretended to be

calculated, so that they cannot be so perfectly called the

forerunners or foretellers, much less the procurers, of such

events as pestilence, war, fire, and the like.

But let my thoughts and the thoughts of the philosophers be, or

have been, what they will, these things had a more than ordinary

influence upon the minds of the common people, and they had

almost universal melancholy apprehensions of some dreadful

calamity and judgement coming upon the city; and this principally

from the sight of this comet, and the little alarm that was given

in December by two people dying at St Giles’s, as above.

The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely increased

by the error of the times; in which, I think, the people, from

what principle I cannot imagine, were more addicted to prophecies

and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives’ tales than

ever they were before or since. Whether this unhappy temper was

originally raised by the follies of some people who got money by

it—that is to say, by printing predictions and prognostications—I

know not; but certain it is, books frighted them terribly, such

as Lilly’s Almanack, Gadbury’s Astrological Predictions, Poor

Robin’s Almanack, and the like; also several pretended religious

books, one entitled, Come out of her, my People, lest you be

Partaker of her Plagues; another called, Fair Warning; another,

Britain’s Remembrancer; and many such, all, or most part of

which, foretold, directly or covertly, the ruin of the city. Nay,

some were so enthusiastically bold as to run about the streets

with their oral predictions, pretending they were sent to preach

to the city; and one in particular, who, like Jonah to Nineveh,

cried in the streets, ‘Yet forty days, and London shall be

destroyed.’ I will not be positive whether he said yet forty days

or yet a few days. Another ran about naked, except a pair of

drawers about his waist, crying day and night, like a man that

Josephus mentions, who cried, ‘Woe to Jerusalem!’ a little before

the destruction of that city. So this poor naked creature cried,

‘Oh, the great and the dreadful God!’ and said no more, but

repeated those words continually, with a voice and countenance

full of horror, a swift pace; and nobody could ever find him to

stop or rest, or take any sustenance, at least that ever I could

hear of. I met this poor creature several times in the streets,

and would have spoken to him, but he would not enter into speech

with me or any one else, but held on his dismal cries

continually.

These things terrified the people to the last degree, and

especially when two or three times, as I have mentioned already,

they found one or two in the bills dead of the plague at St

Giles’s.

Next to these public things were the dreams of old women, or, I

should say, the interpretation of old women upon other people’s

dreams; and these put abundance of people even out of their wits.

Some heard voices warning them to be gone, for that there would

be such a plague in London, so that the living would not be able

to bury the dead. Others saw apparitions in the air; and I must

be allowed to say of both, I hope without breach of charity, that

they heard voices that never spake, and saw sights that never

appeared; but the imagination of the people was really turned

wayward and possessed. And no wonder, if they who were poring

continually at the clouds saw shapes and figures, representations

and appearances, which had nothing in them but air, and vapour.

Here they told us they saw a flaming sword held in a hand coming

out of a cloud, with a point hanging directly over the city;

there they saw hearses and coffins in the air carrying to be

buried; and there again, heaps of dead bodies lying unburied, and

the like, just as the imagination of the poor terrified people

furnished them with matter to work upon.

So hypochondriac fancies represent

Ships, armies, battles in the firmament;

Till steady eyes the exhalations solve,

And all to its first matter, cloud, resolve.

I could fill this account with the strange relations such people

gave every day of what they had seen; and every one was so

positive of their having seen what they pretended to see, that

there was no contradicting them without breach of friendship, or

being accounted rude and unmannerly on the one hand, and profane

and impenetrable on the other. One time before the plague was

begun (otherwise than as I have said in St Giles’s), I think it

was in March, seeing a crowd of people in the street, I joined

with them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all staring up

into the air to see what a woman told them appeared plain to her,

which was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in his

hand, waving it or brandishing it over his head. She described

every part of the figure to the life, showed them the motion and

the form, and the poor people came into it so eagerly, and with

so much readiness; ‘Yes, I see it all plainly,’ says one;

‘there’s the sword as plain as can be.’ Another saw the angel.

One saw his very face, and cried out what a glorious creature he

was! One saw one thing, and one another. I looked as earnestly as

the rest, but perhaps not with so much willingness to be imposed

upon; and I said, indeed, that I could see nothing but a white

cloud, bright on one side by the shining of the sun upon the

other part. The woman endeavoured to show it me, but could not

make me confess that I saw it, which, indeed, if I had I must

have lied. But the woman, turning upon me, looked in my face, and

fancied I laughed, in which her imagination deceived her too, for

I really did not laugh, but was very seriously reflecting how the

poor people were terrified by the force of their own imagination.

However, she turned from me, called me profane fellow, and a

scoffer; told me that it was a time of God’s anger, and dreadful

judgements were approaching, and that despisers such as I should

wander and perish.

The people about her seemed disgusted as well as she; and I found

there was no persuading them that I did not laugh at them, and

that I should be rather mobbed by them than be able to undeceive

them. So I left them; and this appearance passed for as real as

the blazing star itself.

Another encounter I had in the open day also; and this was in

going through a narrow passage from Petty France into Bishopsgate

Churchyard, by a row of alms-houses. There are two churchyards to

Bishopsgate church or parish; one we go over to pass from the

place called Petty France into Bishopsgate Street, coming out

just by the church door; the other is on the side of the narrow

passage where the alms-houses are on the left; and a dwarf-wall

with a palisado on it on the right hand, and the city wall on the

other side more to the right.

In this narrow passage stands a man looking through between the

palisadoes into the burying-place, and as many people as the

narrowness of the passage would admit to stop, without hindering

the passage of others, and he was talking mightily eagerly to

them, and pointing now to one place, then to another, and

affirming that he saw a ghost walking upon such a gravestone

there. He described the shape, the posture, and the movement of

it so exactly that it was the greatest matter of amazement to him

in the world that everybody did not see it as well as he. On a

sudden he would cry, ‘There it is; now it comes this way.’ Then,

’Tis turned back’; till at length he persuaded the people into so

firm a belief of it, that one fancied he saw it, and another

fancied he saw it; and thus he came every day making a strange

hubbub, considering it was in so narrow a passage, till

Bishopsgate clock struck eleven, and then the ghost would seem to

start, and, as if he were called away, disappeared on a sudden.

I looked earnestly every way, and at the very moment that this

man directed, but could not see the least appearance of anything;

but so positive was this poor man, that he gave the people the

vapours in abundance, and sent them away trembling and frighted,

till at length few people that knew of it cared to go through

that passage, and hardly anybody by night on any account

whatever.

This ghost, as the poor man affirmed, made signs to the houses,

and to the ground, and to the people, plainly intimating, or else

they so understanding it, that abundance of the people should

come to be buried in that churchyard, as indeed happened; but

that he saw such aspects I must acknowledge I never believed, nor

could I see anything of it myself, though I looked most earnestly

to see it, if possible.

These things serve to show how far the people were really

overcome with delusions; and as they had a notion of the approach

of a visitation, all their predictions ran upon a most dreadful

plague, which should lay the whole city, and even the kingdom,

waste, and should destroy almost all the nation, both man and

beast.

To this, as I said before, the astrologers added stories of the

conjunctions of planets in a malignant manner and with a

mischievous influence, one of which conjunctions was to happen,

and did happen, in October, and the other in November; and they

filled the people’s heads with predictions on these signs of the

heavens, intimating that those conjunctions foretold drought,

famine, and pestilence. In the two first of them, however, they

were entirely mistaken, for we had no droughty season, but in the

beginning of the year a hard frost, which lasted from December

almost to March, and after that moderate weather, rather warm

than hot, with refreshing winds, and, in short, very seasonable

weather, and also several very great rains.

Some endeavours were used to suppress the printing of such books

as terrified the people, and to frighten the dispersers of them,

some of whom were taken up; but nothing was done in it, as I am

informed, the Government being unwilling to exasperate the

people, who were, as I may say, all out of their wits already.

Neither can I acquit those ministers that in their sermons rather

sank than lifted up the hearts of their hearers. Many of them no

doubt did it for the strengthening the resolution of the people,

and especially for quickening them to repentance, but it

certainly answered not their end, at least not in proportion to

the injury it did another way; and indeed, as God Himself through

the whole Scriptures rather draws to Him by invitations and calls

to turn to Him and live, than drives us by terror and amazement,

so I must confess I thought the ministers should have done also,

imitating our blessed Lord and Master in this, that His whole

Gospel is full of declarations from heaven of God’s mercy, and

His readiness to receive penitents and forgive them, complaining,

‘Ye will not come unto Me that ye may have life’, and that

therefore His Gospel is called the Gospel of Peace and the Gospel

of Grace.

But we had some good men, and that of all persuasions and

opinions, whose discourses were full of terror, who spoke nothing

but dismal things; and as they brought the people together with a

kind of horror, sent them away in tears, prophesying nothing but

evil tidings, terrifying the people with the apprehensions of

being utterly destroyed, not guiding them, at least not enough,

to cry to heaven for mercy.

It was, indeed, a time of very unhappy breaches among us in

matters of religion. Innumerable sects and divisions and separate

opinions prevailed among the people. The Church of England was

restored, indeed, with the restoration of the monarchy, about

four years before; but the ministers and preachers of the

Presbyterians and Independents, and of all the other sorts of

professions, had begun to gather separate societies and erect

altar against altar, and all those had their meetings for worship

apart, as they have now, but not so many then, the Dissenters

being not thoroughly formed into a body as they are since; and

those congregations which were thus gathered together were yet

but few. And even those that were, the Government did not allow,

but endeavoured to suppress them and shut up their meetings.

But the visitation reconciled them again, at least for a time,

and many of the best and most valuable ministers and preachers of

the Dissenters were suffered to go into the churches where the

incumbents were fled away, as many were, not being able to stand

it; and the people flocked without distinction to hear them

preach, not much inquiring who or what opinion they were of. But

after the sickness was over, that spirit of charity abated; and

every church being again supplied with their own ministers, or

others presented where the minister was dead, things returned to

their old channel again.

One mischief always introduces another. These terrors and

apprehensions of the people led them into a thousand weak,

foolish, and wicked things, which they wanted not a sort of

people really wicked to encourage them to: and this was running

about to fortune-tellers, cunning-men, and astrologers to know

their fortune, or, as it is vulgarly expressed, to have their

fortunes told them, their nativities calculated, and the like;

and this folly presently made the town swarm with a wicked

generation of pretenders to magic, to the black art, as they

called it, and I know not what; nay, to a thousand worse dealings

with the devil than they were really guilty of. And this trade

grew so open and so generally practised that it became common to

have signs and inscriptions set up at doors: ‘Here lives a

fortune-teller’, ‘Here lives an astrologer’, ‘Here you may have

your nativity calculated’, and the like; and Friar Bacon’s

brazen-head, which was the usual sign of these people’s

dwellings, was to be seen almost in every street, or else the

sign of Mother Shipton, or of Merlin’s head, and the like.

With what blind, absurd, and ridiculous stuff these oracles of

the devil pleased and satisfied the people I really know not, but

certain it is that innumerable attendants crowded about their

doors every day. And if but a grave fellow in a velvet jacket, a

band, and a black coat, which was the habit those quack-conjurers

generally went in, was but seen in the streets the people would

follow them in crowds, and ask them questions as they went along.

I need not mention what a horrid delusion this was, or what it

tended to; but there was no remedy for it till the plague itself

put an end to it all—and, I suppose, cleared the town of most of

those calculators themselves. One mischief was, that if the poor

people asked these mock astrologers whether there would be a

plague or no, they all agreed in general to answer ‘Yes’, for

that kept up their trade. And had the people not been kept in a

fright about that, the wizards would presently have been rendered

useless, and their craft had been at an end. But they always

talked to them of such-and-such influences of the stars, of the

conjunctions of such-and-such planets, which must necessarily

bring sickness and distempers, and consequently the plague. And

some had the assurance to tell them the plague was begun already,

which was too true, though they that said so knew nothing of the

matter.

The ministers, to do them justice, and preachers of most sorts

that were serious and understanding persons, thundered against

these and other wicked practices, and exposed the folly as well

as the wickedness of them together, and the most sober and

judicious people despised and abhorred them. But it was

impossible to make any impression upon the middling people and

the working labouring poor. Their fears were predominant over all

their passions, and they threw away their money in a most

distracted manner upon those whimsies. Maid-servants especially,

and men-servants, were the chief of their customers, and their

question generally was, after the first demand of ‘Will there be

a plague?’ I say, the next question was, ‘Oh, sir I for the

Lord’s sake, what will become of me? Will my mistress keep me, or

will she turn me off? Will she stay here, or will she go into the

country? And if she goes into the country, will she take me with

her, or leave me here to be starved and undone?’ And the like of

menservants.

The truth is, the case of poor servants was very dismal, as I

shall have occasion to mention again by-and-by, for it was

apparent a prodigious number of them would be turned away, and it

was so. And of them abundance perished, and particularly of those

that these false prophets had flattered with hopes that they

should be continued in their services, and carried with their

masters and mistresses into the country; and had not public

charity provided for these poor creatures, whose number was

exceeding great and in all cases of this nature must be so, they

would have been in the worst condition of any people in the city.

These things agitated the minds of the common people for many

months, while the first apprehensions were upon them, and while

the plague was not, as I may say, yet broken out. But I must also

not forget that the more serious part of the inhabitants behaved

after another manner. The Government encouraged their devotion,

and appointed public prayers and days of fasting and humiliation,

to make public confession of sin and implore the mercy of God to

avert the dreadful judgement which hung over their heads; and it

is not to be expressed with what alacrity the people of all

persuasions embraced the occasion; how they flocked to the

churches and meetings, and they were all so thronged that there

was often no coming near, no, not to the very doors of the

largest churches. Also there were daily prayers appointed morning

and evening at several churches, and days of private praying at

other places; at all which the people attended, I say, with an

uncommon devotion. Several private families also, as well of one

opinion as of another, kept family fasts, to which they admitted

their near relations only. So that, in a word, those people who

were really serious and religious applied themselves in a truly

Christian manner to the proper work of repentance and

humiliation, as a Christian people ought to do.

Again, the public showed that they would bear their share in

these things; the very Court, which was then gay and luxurious,

put on a face of just concern for the public danger. All the

plays and interludes which, after the manner of the French Court,

had been set up, and began to increase among us, were forbid to

act; the gaming-tables, public dancing-rooms, and music-houses,

which multiplied and began to debauch the manners of the people,

were shut up and suppressed; and the jack-puddings,

merry-andrews, puppet-shows, rope-dancers, and such-like doings,

which had bewitched the poor common people, shut up their shops,

finding indeed no trade; for the minds of the people were

agitated with other things, and a kind of sadness and horror at

these things sat upon the countenances even of the common people.

Death was before their eyes, and everybody began to think of

their graves, not of mirth and diversions.

But even those wholesome reflections—which, rightly managed,

would have most happily led the people to fall upon their knees,

make confession of their sins, and look up to their merciful

Saviour for pardon, imploring His compassion on them in such a

time of their distress, by which we might have been as a second

Nineveh—had a quite contrary extreme in the common people, who,

ignorant and stupid in their reflections as they were brutishly

wicked and thoughtless before, were now led by their fright to

extremes of folly; and, as I have said before, that they ran to

conjurers and witches, and all sorts of deceivers, to know what

should become of them (who fed their fears, and kept them always

alarmed and awake on purpose to delude them and pick their

pockets), so they were as mad upon their running after quacks and

mountebanks, and every practising old woman, for medicines and

remedies; storing themselves with such multitudes of pills,

potions, and preservatives, as they were called, that they not

only spent their money but even poisoned themselves beforehand

for fear of the poison of the infection; and prepared their

bodies for the plague, instead of preserving them against it. On

the other hand it is incredible and scarce to be imagined, how

the posts of houses and corners of streets were plastered over

with doctors’ bills and papers of ignorant fellows, quacking and

tampering in physic, and inviting the people to come to them for

remedies, which was generally set off with such flourishes as

these, viz.: ‘Infallible preventive pills against the plague.’

‘Neverfailing preservatives against the infection.’ ‘Sovereign

cordials against the corruption of the air.’ ‘Exact regulations

for the conduct of the body in case of an infection.’

‘Anti-pestilential pills.’ ‘Incomparable drink against the

plague, never found out before.’ ‘An universal remedy for the

plague.’ ‘The only true plague water.’ ‘The royal antidote

against all kinds of infection’;—and such a number more that I

cannot reckon up; and if I could, would fill a book of themselves

to set them down.

Others set up bills to summon people to their lodgings for

directions and advice in the case of infection. These had

specious titles also, such as these:—

‘An eminent High Dutch physician, newly come over from Holland,

where he resided during all the time of the great plague last

year in Amsterdam, and cured multitudes of people that actually

had the plague upon them.’

‘An Italian gentlewoman just arrived from Naples, having a choice

secret to prevent infection, which she found out by her great

experience, and did wonderful cures with it in the late plague

there, wherein there died 20,000 in one day.’

‘An ancient gentlewoman, having practised with great success in

the late plague in this city, anno 1636, gives her advice only to

the female sex. To be spoken with,’ &c.

‘An experienced physician, who has long studied the doctrine of

antidotes against all sorts of poison and infection, has, after

forty years’ practice, arrived to such skill as may, with God’s

blessing, direct persons how to prevent their being touched by

any contagious distemper whatsoever. He directs the poor gratis.’

I take notice of these by way of specimen. I could give you two

or three dozen of the like and yet have abundance left behind.

’Tis sufficient from these to apprise any one of the humour of

those times, and how a set of thieves and pickpockets not only

robbed and cheated the poor people of their money, but poisoned

their bodies with odious and fatal preparations; some with

mercury, and some with other things as bad, perfectly remote from

the thing pretended to, and rather hurtful than serviceable to

the body in case an infection followed.

I cannot omit a subtility of one of those quack operators, with

which he gulled the poor people to crowd about him, but did

nothing for them without money. He had, it seems, added to his

bills, which he gave about the streets, this advertisement in

capital letters, viz., ‘He gives advice to the poor for nothing.’

Abundance of poor people came to him accordingly, to whom he made

a great many fine speeches, examined them of the state of their

health and of the constitution of their bodies, and told them

many good things for them to do, which were of no great moment.

But the issue and conclusion of all was, that he had a

preparation which if they took such a quantity of every morning,

he would pawn his life they should never have the plague; no,

though they lived in the house with people that were infected.

This made the people all resolve to have it; but then the price

of that was so much, I think ’twas half-a-crown. ‘But, sir,’ says

one poor woman, ‘I am a poor almswoman and am kept by the parish,

and your bills say you give the poor your help for nothing.’ ‘Ay,

good woman,’ says the doctor, ‘so I do, as I published there. I

give my advice to the poor for nothing, but not my physic.’

‘Alas, sir!’ says she, ‘that is a snare laid for the poor, then;

for you give them advice for nothing; that is to say, you advise

them gratis, to buy your physic for their money; so does every

shop-keeper with his wares.’ Here the woman began to give him ill

words, and stood at his door all that day, telling her tale to

all the people that came, till the doctor finding she turned away

his customers, was obliged to call her upstairs again, and give

her his box of physic for nothing, which perhaps, too, was good

for nothing when she had it.

But to return to the people, whose confusions fitted them to be

imposed upon by all sorts of pretenders and by every mountebank.

There is no doubt but these quacking sort of fellows raised great

gains out of the miserable people, for we daily found the crowds

that ran after them were infinitely greater, and their doors were

more thronged than those of Dr Brooks, Dr Upton, Dr Hodges, Dr

Berwick, or any, though the most famous men of the time. And I

was told that some of them got five pounds a day by their physic.

But there was still another madness beyond all this, which may

serve to give an idea of the distracted humour of the poor people

at that time: and this was their following a worse sort of

deceivers than any of these; for these petty thieves only deluded

them to pick their pockets and get their money, in which their

wickedness, whatever it was, lay chiefly on the side of the

deceivers, not upon the deceived. But in this part I am going to

mention, it lay chiefly in the people deceived, or equally in

both; and this was in wearing charms, philtres, exorcisms,

amulets, and I know not what preparations, to fortify the body

with them against the plague; as if the plague was not the hand

of God, but a kind of possession of an evil spirit, and that it

was to be kept off with crossings, signs of the zodiac, papers

tied up with so many knots, and certain words or figures written

on them, as particularly the word Abracadabra, formed in triangle

or pyramid, thus:—

ABRACADABRA

ABRACADABR Others had the Jesuits’

ABRACADAB mark in a cross:

ABRACADA I H

ABRACAD S.

ABRACA

ABRAC Others nothing but this

ABRA mark, thus:

ABR

AB * *

A {*}

I might spend a great deal of time in my exclamations against the

follies, and indeed the wickedness, of those things, in a time of

such danger, in a matter of such consequences as this, of a

national infection. But my memorandums of these things relate

rather to take notice only of the fact, and mention only that it

was so. How the poor people found the insufficiency of those

things, and how many of them were afterwards carried away in the

dead-carts and thrown into the common graves of every parish with

these hellish charms and trumpery hanging about their necks,

remains to be spoken of as we go along.

All this was the effect of the hurry the people were in, after

the first notion of the plague being at hand was among them, and

which may be said to be from about Michaelmas 1664, but more

particularly after the two men died in St Giles’s in the

beginning of December; and again, after another alarm in

February. For when the plague evidently spread itself, they soon

began to see the folly of trusting to those unperforming

creatures who had gulled them of their money; and then their

fears worked another way, namely, to amazement and stupidity, not

knowing what course to take or what to do either to help or

relieve themselves. But they ran about from one neighbour’s house

to another, and even in the streets from one door to another,

with repeated cries of, ‘Lord, have mercy upon us! What shall we

do?’

Indeed, the poor people were to be pitied in one particular thing

in which they had little or no relief, and which I desire to

mention with a serious awe and reflection, which perhaps every

one that reads this may not relish; namely, that whereas death

now began not, as we may say, to hover over every one’s head

only, but to look into their houses and chambers and stare in

their faces. Though there might be some stupidity and dulness of

the mind (and there was so, a great deal), yet there was a great

deal of just alarm sounded into the very inmost soul, if I may so

say, of others. Many consciences were awakened; many hard hearts

melted into tears; many a penitent confession was made of crimes

long concealed. It would wound the soul of any Christian to have

heard the dying groans of many a despairing creature, and none

durst come near to comfort them. Many a robbery, many a murder,

was then confessed aloud, and nobody surviving to record the

accounts of it. People might be heard, even into the streets as

we passed along, calling upon God for mercy through Jesus Christ,

and saying, ‘I have been a thief, ‘I have been an adulterer’, ‘I

have been a murderer’, and the like, and none durst stop to make

the least inquiry into such things or to administer comfort to

the poor creatures that in the anguish both of soul and body thus

cried out. Some of the ministers did visit the sick at first and

for a little while, but it was not to be done. It would have been

present death to have gone into some houses. The very buriers of

the dead, who were the hardenedest creatures in town, were

sometimes beaten back and so terrified that they durst not go

into houses where the whole families were swept away together,

and where the circumstances were more particularly horrible, as

some were; but this was, indeed, at the first heat of the

distemper.

Time inured them to it all, and they ventured everywhere

afterwards without hesitation, as I shall have occasion to

mention at large hereafter.

I am supposing now the plague to be begun, as I have said, and

that the magistrates began to take the condition of the people

into their serious consideration. What they did as to the

regulation of the inhabitants and of infected families, I shall

speak to by itself; but as to the affair of health, it is proper

to mention it here that, having seen the foolish humour of the

people in running after quacks and mountebanks, wizards and

fortune-tellers, which they did as above, even to madness, the

Lord Mayor, a very sober and religious gentleman, appointed

physicians and surgeons for relief of the poor—I mean the

diseased poor and in particular ordered the College of Physicians

to publish directions for cheap remedies for the poor, in all the

circumstances of the distemper. This, indeed, was one of the most

charitable and judicious things that could be done at that time,

for this drove the people from haunting the doors of every

disperser of bills, and from taking down blindly and without

consideration poison for physic and death instead of life.

This direction of the physicians was done by a consultation of

the whole College; and, as it was particularly calculated for the

use of the poor and for cheap medicines, it was made public, so

that everybody might see it, and copies were given gratis to all

that desired it. But as it is public, and to be seen on all

occasions, I need not give the reader of this the trouble of it.

I shall not be supposed to lessen the authority or capacity of

the physicians when I say that the violence of the distemper,

when it came to its extremity, was like the fire the next year.

The fire, which consumed what the plague could not touch, defied

all the application of remedies; the fire-engines were broken,

the buckets thrown away, and the power of man was baffled and

brought to an end. So the Plague defied all medicines; the very

physicians were seized with it, with their preservatives in their

mouths; and men went about prescribing to others and telling them

what to do till the tokens were upon them, and they dropped down

dead, destroyed by that very enemy they directed others to

oppose. This was the case of several physicians, even some of

them the most eminent, and of several of the most skilful

surgeons. Abundance of quacks too died, who had the folly to

trust to their own medicines, which they must needs be conscious

to themselves were good for nothing, and who rather ought, like

other sorts of thieves, to have run away, sensible of their

guilt, from the justice that they could not but expect should

punish them as they knew they had deserved.

Not that it is any derogation from the labour or application of

the physicians to say they fell in the common calamity; nor is it

so intended by me; it rather is to their praise that they

ventured their lives so far as even to lose them in the service

of mankind. They endeavoured to do good, and to save the lives of

others. But we were not to expect that the physicians could stop

God’s judgements, or prevent a distemper eminently armed from

heaven from executing the errand it was sent about.

Doubtless, the physicians assisted many by their skill, and by

their prudence and applications, to the saving of their lives and

restoring their health. But it is not lessening their character

or their skill, to say they could not cure those that had the

tokens upon them, or those who were mortally infected before the

physicians were sent for, as was frequently the case.

It remains to mention now what public measures were taken by the

magistrates for the general safety, and to prevent the spreading

of the distemper, when it first broke out. I shall have frequent

occasion to speak of the prudence of the magistrates, their

charity, their vigilance for the poor, and for preserving good

order, furnishing provisions, and the like, when the plague was

increased, as it afterwards was. But I am now upon the order and

regulations they published for the government of infected

families.

I mentioned above shutting of houses up; and it is needful to say

something particularly to that, for this part of the history of

the plague is very melancholy, but the most grievous story must

be told.

About June the Lord Mayor of London and the Court of Aldermen, as

I have said, began more particularly to concern themselves for

the regulation of the city.

The justices of Peace for Middlesex, by direction of the

Secretary of State, had begun to shut up houses in the parishes

of St Giles-in-the-Fields, St Martin, St Clement Danes, &c., and

it was with good success; for in several streets where the plague

broke out, upon strict guarding the houses that were infected,

and taking care to bury those that died immediately after they

were known to be dead, the plague ceased in those streets. It was

also observed that the plague decreased sooner in those parishes

after they had been visited to the full than it did in the

parishes of Bishopsgate, Shoreditch, Aldgate, Whitechappel,

Stepney, and others; the early care taken in that manner being a

great means to the putting a check to it.

This shutting up of houses was a method first taken, as I

understand, in the plague which happened in 1603, at the coming

of King James the First to the crown; and the power of shutting

people up in their own houses was granted by Act of Parliament,

entitled, ‘An Act for the charitable Relief and Ordering of

Persons infected with the Plague’; on which Act of Parliament the

Lord Mayor and aldermen of the city of London founded the order

they made at this time, and which took place the 1st of July

1665, when the numbers infected within the city were but few, the

last bill for the ninety-two parishes being but four; and some

houses having been shut up in the city, and some people being

removed to the pest-house beyond Bunhill Fields, in the way to

Islington,—I say, by these means, when there died near one

thousand a week in the whole, the number in the city was but

twenty-eight, and the city was preserved more healthy in

proportion than any other place all the time of the infection.

These orders of my Lord Mayor’s were published, as I have said,

the latter end of June, and took place from the 1st of July, and

were as follows, viz.:—

ORDERS CONCEIVED AND PUBLISHED BY THE LORD MAYOR AND ALDERMEN OF

THE CITY OF LONDON CONCERNING THE INFECTION OF THE PLAGUE, 1665.

‘WHEREAS in the reign of our late Sovereign King James, of happy

memory, an Act was made for the charitable relief and ordering of

persons infected with the plague, whereby authority was given to

justices of the peace, mayors, bailiffs, and other head-officers

to appoint within their several limits examiners, searchers,

watchmen, keepers, and buriers for the persons and places

infected, and to minister unto them oaths for the performance of

their offices. And the same statute did also authorise the giving

of other directions, as unto them for the present necessity

should seem good in their directions. It is now, upon special

consideration, thought very expedient for preventing and avoiding

of infection of sickness (if it shall so please Almighty God)

that these officers following be appointed, and these orders

hereafter duly observed.

Examiners to be appointed in every Parish.

‘First, it is thought requisite, and so ordered, that in every

parish there be one, two, or more persons of good sort and credit

chosen and appointed by the alderman, his deputy, and common

council of every ward, by the name of examiners, to continue in

that office the space of two months at least. And if any fit

person so appointed shall refuse to undertake the same, the said

parties so refusing to be committed to prison until they shall

conform themselves accordingly.

The Examiner’s Office.

‘That these examiners be sworn by the aldermen to inquire and

learn from time to time what houses in every parish be visited,

and what persons be sick, and of what diseases, as near as they

can inform themselves; and upon doubt in that case, to command

restraint of access until it appear what the disease shall prove.

And if they find any person sick of the infection, to give order

to the constable that the house be shut up; and if the constable

shall be found remiss or negligent, to give present notice

thereof to the alderman of the ward.

Watchmen.

‘That to every infected house there be appointed two watchmen,

one for every day, and the other for the night; and that these

watchmen have a special care that no person go in or out of such

infected houses whereof they have the charge, upon pain of severe

punishment. And the said watchmen to do such further offices as

the sick house shall need and require: and if the watchman be

sent upon any business, to lock up the house and take the key

with him; and the watchman by day to attend until ten of the

clock at night, and the watchman by night until six in the

morning.

Searchers.

‘That there be a special care to appoint women searchers in every

parish, such as are of honest reputation, and of the best sort as

can be got in this kind; and these to be sworn to make due search

and true report to the utmost of their knowledge whether the

persons whose bodies they are appointed to search do die of the

infection, or of what other diseases, as near as they can. And

that the physicians who shall be appointed for cure and

prevention of the infection do call before them the said

searchers who are, or shall be, appointed for the several

parishes under their respective cares, to the end they may

consider whether they are fitly qualified for that employment,

and charge them from time to time as they shall see cause, if

they appear defective in their duties.

‘That no searcher during this time of visitation be permitted to

use any public work or employment, or keep any shop or stall, or

be employed as a laundress, or in any other common employment

whatsoever.

Chirurgeons.

‘For better assistance of the searchers, forasmuch as there hath

been heretofore great abuse in misreporting the disease, to the

further spreading of the infection, it is therefore ordered that

there be chosen and appointed able and discreet chirurgeons,

besides those that do already belong to the pest-house, amongst

whom the city and Liberties to be quartered as the places lie

most apt and convenient; and every of these to have one quarter

for his limit; and the said chirurgeons in every of their limits

to join with the searchers for the view of the body, to the end

there may be a true report made of the disease.

‘And further, that the said chirurgeons shall visit and search

such-like persons as shall either send for them or be named and

directed unto them by the examiners of every parish, and inform

themselves of the disease of the said parties.

‘And forasmuch as the said chirurgeons are to be sequestered from

all other cures, and kept only to this disease of the infection,

it is ordered that every of the said chirurgeons shall have

twelve-pence a body searched by them, to be paid out of the goods

of the party searched, if he be able, or otherwise by the parish.

Nurse-keepers.

‘If any nurse-keeper shall remove herself out of any infected

house before twenty-eight days after the decease of any person

dying of the infection, the house to which the said nurse-keeper

doth so remove herself shall be shut up until the said

twenty-eight days be expired.’

ORDERS CONCERNING INFECTED HOUSES AND PERSONS SICK OF THE PLAGUE.

Notice to be given of the Sickness.

‘The master of every house, as soon as any one in his house

complaineth, either of blotch or purple, or swelling in any part

of his body, or falleth otherwise dangerously sick, without

apparent cause of some other disease, shall give knowledge

thereof to the examiner of health within two hours after the said

sign shall appear.

Sequestration of the Sick.

‘As soon as any man shall be found by this examiner, chirurgeon,

or searcher to be sick of the plague, he shall the same night be

sequestered in the same house; and in case he be so sequestered,

then though he afterwards die not, the house wherein he sickened

should be shut up for a month, after the use of the due

preservatives taken by the rest.

Airing the Stuff.

‘For sequestration of the goods and stuff of the infection, their

bedding and apparel and hangings of chambers must be well aired

with fire and such perfumes as are requisite within the infected

house before they be taken again to use. This to be done by the

appointment of an examiner.

Shutting up of the House.

‘If any person shall have visited any man known to be infected of

the plague, or entered willingly into any known infected house,

being not allowed, the house wherein he inhabiteth shall be shut

up for certain days by the examiner’s direction.

None to be removed out of infected Houses, but, &C.

‘Item, that none be removed out of the house where he falleth

sick of the infection into any other house in the city (except it

be to the pest-house or a tent, or unto some such house which the

owner of the said visited house holdeth in his own hands and

occupieth by his own servants); and so as security be given to

the parish whither such remove is made, that the attendance and

charge about the said visited persons shall be observed and

charged in all the particularities before expressed, without any

cost of that parish to which any such remove shall happen to be

made, and this remove to be done by night. And it shall be lawful

to any person that hath two houses to remove either his sound or

his infected people to his spare house at his choice, so as, if

he send away first his sound, he not after send thither his sick,

nor again unto the sick the sound; and that the same which he

sendeth be for one week at the least shut up and secluded from

company, for fear of some infection at the first not appearing.

Burial of the Dead.

‘That the burial of the dead by this visitation be at most

convenient hours, always either before sun-rising or after

sun-setting, with the privity of the churchwardens or constable,

and not otherwise; and that no neighbours nor friends be suffered

to accompany the corpse to church, or to enter the house visited,

upon pain of having his house shut up or be imprisoned.

‘And that no corpse dying of infection shall be buried, or remain

in any church in time of common prayer, sermon, or lecture. And

that no children be suffered at time of burial of any corpse in

any church, churchyard, or burying-place to come near the corpse,

coffin, or grave. And that all the graves shall be at least six

feet deep.

‘And further, all public assemblies at other burials are to be

foreborne during the continuance of this visitation.

No infected Stuff to be uttered.

‘That no clothes, stuff, bedding, or garments be suffered to be

carried or conveyed out of any infected houses, and that the

criers and carriers abroad of bedding or old apparel to be sold

or pawned be utterly prohibited and restrained, and no brokers of

bedding or old apparel be permitted to make any outward show, or

hang forth on their stalls, shop-boards, or windows, towards any

street, lane, common way, or passage, any old bedding or apparel

to be sold, upon pain of imprisonment. And if any broker or other

person shall buy any bedding, apparel, or other stuff out of any

infected house within two months after the infection hath been

there, his house shall be shut up as infected, and so shall

continue shut up twenty days at the least.

No Person to be conveyed out of any infected House.

‘If any person visited do fortune, by negligent looking unto, or

by any other means, to come or be conveyed from a place infected

to any other place, the parish from whence such party hath come

or been conveyed, upon notice thereof given, shall at their

charge cause the said party so visited and escaped to be carried

and brought back again by night, and the parties in this case

offending to be punished at the direction of the alderman of the

ward, and the house of the receiver of such visited person to be

shut up for twenty days.

Every visited House to be marked.

‘That every house visited be marked with a red cross of a foot

long in the middle of the door, evident to be seen, and with

these usual printed words, that is to say, “Lord, have mercy upon

us,” to be set close over the same cross, there to continue until

lawful opening of the same house.

Every visited House to be watched.

‘That the constables see every house shut up, and to be attended

with watchmen, which may keep them in, and minister necessaries

unto them at their own charges, if they be able, or at the common

charge, if they are unable; the shutting up to be for the space

of four weeks after all be whole.

‘That precise order to be taken that the searchers, chirurgeons,

keepers, and buriers are not to pass the streets without holding

a red rod or wand of three feet in length in their hands, open

and evident to be seen, and are not to go into any other house

than into their own, or into that whereunto they are directed or

sent for; but to forbear and abstain from company, especially

when they have been lately used in any such business or

attendance.

Inmates.

‘That where several inmates are in one and the same house, and

any person in that house happens to be infected, no other person

or family of such house shall be suffered to remove him or

themselves without a certificate from the examiners of health of

that parish; or in default thereof, the house whither he or they

so remove shall be shut up as in case of visitation.

Hackney-Coaches.

‘That care be taken of hackney-coachmen, that they may not (as

some of them have been observed to do after carrying of infected

persons to the pest-house and other places) be admitted to common

use till their coaches be well aired, and have stood unemployed

by the space of five or six days after such service.’

ORDERS FOR CLEANSING AND KEEPING OF THE STREETS SWEPT.

The Streets to be kept Clean.

‘First, it is thought necessary, and so ordered, that every

householder do cause the street to be daily prepared before his

door, and so to keep it clean swept all the week long.

That Rakers take it from out the Houses.

‘That the sweeping and filth of houses be daily carried away by

the rakers, and that the raker shall give notice of his coming by

the blowing of a horn, as hitherto hath been done.

Laystalls to be made far off from the City.

‘That the laystalls be removed as far as may be out of the city

and common passages, and that no nightman or other be suffered to

empty a vault into any garden near about the city.

Care to be had of unwholesome Fish or Flesh, and of musty Corn.

‘That special care be taken that no stinking fish, or unwholesome

flesh, or musty corn, or other corrupt fruits of what sort

soever, be suffered to be sold about the city, or any part of the

same.

‘That the brewers and tippling-houses be looked into for musty

and unwholesome casks.

‘That no hogs, dogs, or cats, or tame pigeons, or ponies, be

suffered to be kept within any part of the city, or any swine to

be or stray in the streets or lanes, but that such swine be

impounded by the beadle or any other officer, and the owner

punished according to Act of Common Council, and that the dogs be

killed by the dog-killers appointed for that purpose.’

ORDERS CONCERNING LOOSE PERSONS AND IDLE ASSEMBLIES.

Beggars.

‘Forasmuch as nothing is more complained of than the multitude of

rogues and wandering beggars that swarm in every place about the

city, being a great cause of the spreading of the infection, and

will not be avoided, notwithstanding any orders that have been

given to the contrary: It is therefore now ordered, that such

constables, and others whom this matter may any way concern, take

special care that no wandering beggars be suffered in the streets

of this city in any fashion or manner whatsoever, upon the

penalty provided by the law, to be duly and severely executed

upon them.

Plays.

‘That all plays, bear-baitings, games, singing of ballads,

buckler-play, or such-like causes of assemblies of people be

utterly prohibited, and the parties offending severely punished

by every alderman in his ward.

Feasting prohibited.

‘That all public feasting, and particularly by the companies of

this city, and dinners at taverns, ale-houses, and other places

of common entertainment, be forborne till further order and

allowance; and that the money thereby spared be preserved and

employed for the benefit and relief of the poor visited with the

infection.

Tippling-houses.

‘That disorderly tippling in taverns, ale-houses, coffee-houses,

and cellars be severely looked unto, as the common sin of this

time and greatest occasion of dispersing the plague. And that no

company or person be suffered to remain or come into any tavern,

ale-house, or coffee-house to drink after nine of the clock in

the evening, according to the ancient law and custom of this

city, upon the penalties ordained in that behalf.

‘And for the better execution of these orders, and such other

rules and directions as, upon further consideration, shall be

found needful: It is ordered and enjoined that the aldermen,

deputies, and common councilmen shall meet together weekly, once,

twice, thrice or oftener (as cause shall require), at some one

general place accustomed in their respective wards (being clear

from infection of the plague), to consult how the said orders may

be duly put in execution; not intending that any dwelling in or

near places infected shall come to the said meeting while their

coming may be doubtful. And the said aldermen, and deputies, and

common councilmen in their several wards may put in execution any

other good orders that by them at their said meetings shall be

conceived and devised for preservation of his Majesty’s subjects

from the infection.

‘SIR JOHN LAWRENCE, Lord Mayor.

SIR GEORGE WATERMAN

SIR CHARLES

DOE, Sheriffs.’

I need not say that these orders extended only to such places as

were within the Lord Mayor’s jurisdiction, so it is requisite to

observe that the justices of Peace within those parishes and

places as were called the Hamlets and out-parts took the same

method. As I remember, the orders for shutting up of houses did

not take Place so soon on our side, because, as I said before,

the plague did not reach to these eastern parts of the town at

least, nor begin to be very violent, till the beginning of

August. For example, the whole bill from the 11th to the 18th of

July was 1761, yet there died but 71 of the plague in all those

parishes we call the Tower Hamlets, and they were as follows:—

- The next week And to the 1st

- was thus: of Aug. thus:

Aldgate 14 34 65

Stepney 33 58 76

Whitechappel 21 48 79

St Katherine, Tower 2 4 4

Trinity, Minories 1 1 4

- —- —- —-

- 71 145 228

It was indeed coming on amain, for the burials that same week

were in the next adjoining parishes thus:—

- The next week

- prodigiously To the 1st of

- increased, as: Aug. thus:

St Leonard’s, Shoreditch 64 84 110

St Botolph’s, Bishopsgate 65 105 116

St Giles’s, Cripplegate 213 421 554

- —- —- —-

- 342 610 780

This shutting up of houses was at first counted a very cruel and

unchristian method, and the poor people so confined made bitter

lamentations. Complaints of the severity of it were also daily

brought to my Lord Mayor, of houses causelessly (and some

maliciously) shut up. I cannot say; but upon inquiry many that

complained so loudly were found in a condition to be continued;

and others again, inspection being made upon the sick person, and

the sickness not appearing infectious, or if uncertain, yet on

his being content to be carried to the pest-house, were released.

It is true that the locking up the doors of people’s houses, and

setting a watchman there night and day to prevent their stirring

out or any coming to them, when perhaps the sound people in the

family might have escaped if they had been removed from the sick,

looked very hard and cruel; and many people perished in these

miserable confinements which, ’tis reasonable to believe, would

not have been distempered if they had had liberty, though the

plague was in the house; at which the people were very clamorous

and uneasy at first, and several violences were committed and

injuries offered to the men who were set to watch the houses so

shut up; also several people broke out by force in many places,

as I shall observe by-and-by. But it was a public good that

justified the private mischief, and there was no obtaining the

least mitigation by any application to magistrates or government

at that time, at least not that I heard of. This put the people

upon all manner of stratagem in order, if possible, to get out;

and it would fill a little volume to set down the arts used by

the people of such houses to shut the eyes of the watchmen who

were employed, to deceive them, and to escape or break out from

them, in which frequent scuffles and some mischief happened; of

which by itself.

As I went along Houndsditch one morning about eight o’clock there

was a great noise. It is true, indeed, there was not much crowd,

because people were not very free to gather together, or to stay

long together when they were there; nor did I stay long there.

But the outcry was loud enough to prompt my curiosity, and I

called to one that looked out of a window, and asked what was the

matter.

A watchman, it seems, had been employed to keep his post at the

door of a house which was infected, or said to be infected, and

was shut up. He had been there all night for two nights together,

as he told his story, and the day-watchman had been there one

day, and was now come to relieve him. All this while no noise had

been heard in the house, no light had been seen; they called for

nothing, sent him of no errands, which used to be the chief

business of the watchmen; neither had they given him any

disturbance, as he said, from the Monday afternoon, when he heard

great crying and screaming in the house, which, as he supposed,

was occasioned by some of the family dying just at that time. It

seems, the night before, the dead-cart, as it was called, had

been stopped there, and a servant-maid had been brought down to

the door dead, and the buriers or bearers, as they were called,

put her into the cart, wrapt only in a green rug, and carried her

away.

The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when he heard

that noise and crying, as above, and nobody answered a great

while; but at last one looked out and said with an angry, quick

tone, and yet a kind of crying voice, or a voice of one that was

crying, ‘What d’ye want, that ye make such a knocking?’ He

answered, ‘I am the watchman! How do you do? What is the matter?’

The person answered, ‘What is that to you? Stop the dead-cart.’

This, it seems, was about one o’clock. Soon after, as the fellow

said, he stopped the dead-cart, and then knocked again, but

nobody answered. He continued knocking, and the bellman called

out several times, ‘Bring out your dead’; but nobody answered,

till the man that drove the cart, being called to other houses,

would stay no longer, and drove away.

The watchman knew not what to make of all this, so he let them

alone till the morning-man or day-watchman, as they called him,

came to relieve him. Giving him an account of the particulars,

they knocked at the door a great while, but nobody answered; and

they observed that the window or casement at which the person had

looked out who had answered before continued open, being up two

pair of stairs.

Upon this the two men, to satisfy their curiosity, got a long

ladder, and one of them went up to the window and looked into the

room, where he saw a woman lying dead upon the floor in a dismal

manner, having no clothes on her but her shift. But though he

called aloud, and putting in his long staff, knocked hard on the

floor, yet nobody stirred or answered; neither could he hear any

noise in the house.

He came down again upon this, and acquainted his fellow, who went

up also; and finding it just so, they resolved to acquaint either

the Lord Mayor or some other magistrate of it, but did not offer

to go in at the window. The magistrate, it seems, upon the

information of the two men, ordered the house to be broke open, a

constable and other persons being appointed to be present, that

nothing might be plundered; and accordingly it was so done, when

nobody was found in the house but that young woman, who having

been infected and past recovery, the rest had left her to die by

herself, and were every one gone, having found some way to delude

the watchman, and to get open the door, or get out at some

back-door, or over the tops of the houses, so that he knew

nothing of it; and as to those cries and shrieks which he heard,

it was supposed they were the passionate cries of the family at

the bitter parting, which, to be sure, it was to them all, this

being the sister to the mistress of the family. The man of the

house, his wife, several children, and servants, being all gone

and fled, whether sick or sound, that I could never learn; nor,

indeed, did I make much inquiry after it.

Many such escapes were made out of infected houses, as

particularly when the watchman was sent of some errand; for it

was his business to go of any errand that the family sent him of;

that is to say, for necessaries, such as food and physic; to

fetch physicians, if they would come, or surgeons, or nurses, or

to order the dead-cart, and the like; but with this condition,

too, that when he went he was to lock up the outer door of the

house and take the key away with him, To evade this, and cheat

the watchmen, people got two or three keys made to their locks,

or they found ways to unscrew the locks such as were screwed on,

and so take off the lock, being in the inside of the house, and

while they sent away the watchman to the market, to the

bakehouse, or for one trifle or another, open the door and go out

as often as they pleased. But this being found out, the officers

afterwards had orders to padlock up the doors on the outside, and

place bolts on them as they thought fit.

At another house, as I was informed, in the street next within

Aldgate, a whole family was shut up and locked in because the

maid-servant was taken sick. The master of the house had

complained by his friends to the next alderman and to the Lord

Mayor, and had consented to have the maid carried to the

pest-house, but was refused; so the door was marked with a red

cross, a padlock on the outside, as above, and a watchman set to

keep the door, according to public order.

After the master of the house found there was no remedy, but that

he, his wife, and his children were to be locked up with this

poor distempered servant, he called to the watchman, and told him

he must go then and fetch a nurse for them to attend this poor

girl, for that it would be certain death to them all to oblige

them to nurse her; and told him plainly that if he would not do

this, the maid must perish either of the distemper or be starved

for want of food, for he was resolved none of his family should

go near her; and she lay in the garret four storey high, where

she could not cry out, or call to anybody for help.

The watchman consented to that, and went and fetched a nurse, as

he was appointed, and brought her to them the same evening.

During this interval the master of the house took his opportunity

to break a large hole through his shop into a bulk or stall,

where formerly a cobbler had sat, before or under his

shop-window; but the tenant, as may be supposed at such a dismal

time as that, was dead or removed, and so he had the key in his

own keeping. Having made his way into this stall, which he could

not have done if the man had been at the door, the noise he was

obliged to make being such as would have alarmed the watchman; I

say, having made his way into this stall, he sat still till the

watchman returned with the nurse, and all the next day also. But

the night following, having contrived to send the watchman of

another trifling errand, which, as I take it, was to an

apothecary’s for a plaister for the maid, which he was to stay

for the making up, or some other such errand that might secure

his staying some time; in that time he conveyed himself and all

his family out of the house, and left the nurse and the watchman

to bury the poor wench—that is, throw her into the cart—and take

care of the house.

I could give a great many such stories as these, diverting

enough, which in the long course of that dismal year I met

with—that is, heard of—and which are very certain to be true, or

very near the truth; that is to say, true in the general: for no

man could at such a time learn all the particulars. There was

likewise violence used with the watchmen, as was reported, in

abundance of places; and I believe that from the beginning of the

visitation to the end, there was not less than eighteen or twenty

of them killed, or so wounded as to be taken up for dead, which

was supposed to be done by the people in the infected houses

which were shut up, and where they attempted to come out and were

opposed.

Nor, indeed, could less be expected, for here were so many

prisons in the town as there were houses shut up; and as the

people shut up or imprisoned so were guilty of no crime, only

shut up because miserable, it was really the more intolerable to

them.

It had also this difference, that every prison, as we may call

it, had but one jailer, and as he had the whole house to guard,

and that many houses were so situated as that they had several

ways out, some more, some less, and some into several streets, it

was impossible for one man so to guard all the passages as to

prevent the escape of people made desperate by the fright of

their circumstances, by the resentment of their usage, or by the

raging of the distemper itself; so that they would talk to the

watchman on one side of the house, while the family made their

escape at another.

For example, in Coleman Street there are abundance of alleys, as

appears still. A house was shut up in that they call White’s

Alley; and this house had a back-window, not a door, into a court

which had a passage into Bell Alley. A watchman was set by the

constable at the door of this house, and there he stood, or his

comrade, night and day, while the family went all away in the

evening out at that window into the court, and left the poor

fellows warding and watching for near a fortnight.

Not far from the same place they blew up a watchman with

gunpowder, and burned the poor fellow dreadfully; and while he

made hideous cries, and nobody would venture to come near to help

him, the whole family that were able to stir got out at the

windows one storey high, two that were left sick calling out for

help. Care was taken to give them nurses to look after them, but

the persons fled were never found, till after the plague was

abated they returned; but as nothing could be proved, so nothing

could be done to them.

It is to be considered, too, that as these were prisons without

bars and bolts, which our common prisons are furnished with, so

the people let themselves down out of their windows, even in the

face of the watchman, bringing swords or pistols in their hands,

and threatening the poor wretch to shoot him if he stirred or

called for help.

In other cases, some had gardens, and walls or pales, between

them and their neighbours, or yards and back-houses; and these,

by friendship and entreaties, would get leave to get over those

walls or pales, and so go out at their neighbours’ doors; or, by

giving money to their servants, get them to let them through in

the night; so that in short, the shutting up of houses was in no

wise to be depended upon. Neither did it answer the end at all,

serving more to make the people desperate, and drive them to such

extremities as that they would break out at all adventures.

And that which was still worse, those that did thus break out

spread the infection farther by their wandering about with the

distemper upon them, in their desperate circumstances, than they

would otherwise have done; for whoever considers all the

particulars in such cases must acknowledge, and we cannot doubt

but the severity of those confinements made many people

desperate, and made them run out of their houses at all hazards,

and with the plague visibly upon them, not knowing either whither

to go or what to do, or, indeed, what they did; and many that did

so were driven to dreadful exigencies and extremities, and

perished in the streets or fields for mere want, or dropped down

by the raging violence of the fever upon them. Others wandered

into the country, and went forward any way, as their desperation

guided them, not knowing whither they went or would go: till,

faint and tired, and not getting any relief, the houses and

villages on the road refusing to admit them to lodge whether

infected or no, they have perished by the roadside or gotten into

barns and died there, none daring to come to them or relieve

them, though perhaps not infected, for nobody would believe them.

On the other hand, when the plague at first seized a family that

is to say, when any body of the family had gone out and unwarily

or otherwise catched the distemper and brought it home—it was

certainly known by the family before it was known to the

officers, who, as you will see by the order, were appointed to

examine into the circumstances of all sick persons when they

heard of their being sick.

In this interval, between their being taken sick and the

examiners coming, the master of the house had leisure and liberty

to remove himself or all his family, if he knew whither to go,

and many did so. But the great disaster was that many did thus

after they were really infected themselves, and so carried the

disease into the houses of those who were so hospitable as to

receive them; which, it must be confessed, was very cruel and

ungrateful.

And this was in part the reason of the general notion, or scandal

rather, which went about of the temper of people infected:

namely, that they did not take the least care or make any scruple

of infecting others, though I cannot say but there might be some

truth in it too, but not so general as was reported. What natural

reason could be given for so wicked a thing at a time when they

might conclude themselves just going to appear at the bar of

Divine justice I know not. I am very well satisfied that it

cannot be reconciled to religion and principle any more than it

can be to generosity and Humanity, but I may speak of that again.

I am speaking now of people made desperate by the apprehensions

of their being shut up, and their breaking out by stratagem or

force, either before or after they were shut up, whose misery was

not lessened when they were out, but sadly increased. On the

other hand, many that thus got away had retreats to go to and

other houses, where they locked themselves up and kept hid till

the plague was over; and many families, foreseeing the approach

of the distemper, laid up stores of provisions sufficient for

their whole families, and shut themselves up, and that so

entirely that they were neither seen or heard of till the

infection was quite ceased, and then came abroad sound and well.

I might recollect several such as these, and give you the

particulars of their management; for doubtless it was the most

effectual secure step that could be taken for such whose

circumstances would not admit them to remove, or who had not

retreats abroad proper for the case; for in being thus shut up

they were as if they had been a hundred miles off. Nor do I

remember that any one of those families miscarried. Among these,

several Dutch merchants were particularly remarkable, who kept

their houses like little garrisons besieged suffering none to go

in or out or come near them, particularly one in a court in

Throgmorton Street whose house looked into Draper’s Garden.

But I come back to the case of families infected and shut up by

the magistrates. The misery of those families is not to be

expressed; and it was generally in such houses that we heard the

most dismal shrieks and outcries of the poor people, terrified

and even frighted to death by the sight of the condition of their

dearest relations, and by the terror of being imprisoned as they

were.

I remember, and while I am writing this story I think I hear the

very sound of it, a certain lady had an only daughter, a young

maiden about nineteen years old, and who was possessed of a very

considerable fortune. They were only lodgers in the house where

they were. The young woman, her mother, and the maid had been

abroad on some occasion, I do not remember what, for the house

was not shut up; but about two hours after they came home the

young lady complained she was not well; in a quarter of an hour

more she vomited and had a violent pain in her head. ‘Pray God’,

says her mother, in a terrible fright, ‘my child has not the

distemper!’ The pain in her head increasing, her mother ordered

the bed to be warmed, and resolved to put her to bed, and

prepared to give her things to sweat, which was the ordinary

remedy to be taken when the first apprehensions of the distemper

began.

While the bed was airing the mother undressed the young woman,

and just as she was laid down in the bed, she, looking upon her

body with a candle, immediately discovered the fatal tokens on

the inside of her thighs. Her mother, not being able to contain

herself, threw down her candle and shrieked out in such a

frightful manner that it was enough to place horror upon the

stoutest heart in the world; nor was it one scream or one cry,

but the fright having seized her spirits, she—fainted first, then

recovered, then ran all over the house, up the stairs and down

the stairs, like one distracted, and indeed really was

distracted, and continued screeching and crying out for several

hours void of all sense, or at least government of her senses,

and, as I was told, never came thoroughly to herself again. As to

the young maiden, she was a dead corpse from that moment, for the

gangrene which occasions the spots had spread [over] her whole

body, and she died in less than two hours. But still the mother

continued crying out, not knowing anything more of her child,

several hours after she was dead. It is so long ago that I am not

certain, but I think the mother never recovered, but died in two

or three weeks after.

This was an extraordinary case, and I am therefore the more

particular in it, because I came so much to the knowledge of it;

but there were innumerable such-like cases, and it was seldom

that the weekly bill came in but there were two or three put in,

‘frighted’; that is, that may well be called frighted to death.

But besides those who were so frighted as to die upon the spot,

there were great numbers frighted to other extremes, some

frighted out of their senses, some out of their memory, and some

out of their understanding. But I return to the shutting up of

houses.

As several people, I say, got out of their houses by stratagem

after they were shut up, so others got out by bribing the

watchmen, and giving them money to let them go privately out in

the night. I must confess I thought it at that time the most

innocent corruption or bribery that any man could be guilty of,

and therefore could not but pity the poor men, and think it was

hard when three of those watchmen were publicly whipped through

the streets for suffering people to go out of houses shut up.

But notwithstanding that severity, money prevailed with the poor

men, and many families found means to make sallies out, and

escape that way after they had been shut up; but these were

generally such as had some places to retire to; and though there

was no easy passing the roads any whither after the 1st of

August, yet there were many ways of retreat, and particularly, as

I hinted, some got tents and set them up in the fields, carrying

beds or straw to lie on, and provisions to eat, and so lived in

them as hermits in a cell, for nobody would venture to come near

them; and several stories were told of such, some comical, some

tragical, some who lived like wandering pilgrims in the deserts,

and escaped by making themselves exiles in such a manner as is

scarce to be credited, and who yet enjoyed more liberty than was

to be expected in such cases.

I have by me a story of two brothers and their kinsman, who being

single men, but that had stayed in the city too long to get away,

and indeed not knowing where to go to have any retreat, nor

having wherewith to travel far, took a course for their own

preservation, which though in itself at first desperate, yet was

so natural that it may be wondered that no more did so at that

time. They were but of mean condition, and yet not so very poor

as that they could not furnish themselves with some little

conveniences such as might serve to keep life and soul together;

and finding the distemper increasing in a terrible manner, they

resolved to shift as well as they could, and to be gone.

One of them had been a soldier in the late wars, and before that

in the Low Countries, and having been bred to no particular

employment but his arms, and besides being wounded, and not able

to work very hard, had for some time been employed at a baker’s

of sea-biscuit in Wapping.

The brother of this man was a seaman too, but somehow or other

had been hurt of one leg, that he could not go to sea, but had

worked for his living at a sailmaker’s in Wapping, or

thereabouts; and being a good husband, had laid up some money,

and was the richest of the three.

The third man was a joiner or carpenter by trade, a handy fellow,

and he had no wealth but his box or basket of tools, with the

help of which he could at any time get his living, such a time as

this excepted, wherever he went—and he lived near Shadwell.

They all lived in Stepney parish, which, as I have said, being

the last that was infected, or at least violently, they stayed

there till they evidently saw the plague was abating at the west

part of the town, and coming towards the east, where they lived.

The story of those three men, if the reader will be content to

have me give it in their own persons, without taking upon me to

either vouch the particulars or answer for any mistakes, I shall

give as distinctly as I can, believing the history will be a very

good pattern for any poor man to follow, in case the like public

desolation should happen here; and if there may be no such

occasion, which God of His infinite mercy grant us, still the

story may have its uses so many ways as that it will, I hope,

never be said that the relating has been unprofitable.

I say all this previous to the history, having yet, for the

present, much more to say before I quit my own part.

I went all the first part of the time freely about the streets,

though not so freely as to run myself into apparent danger,

except when they dug the great pit in the churchyard of our

parish of Aldgate. A terrible pit it was, and I could not resist

my curiosity to go and see it. As near as I may judge, it was

about forty feet in length, and about fifteen or sixteen feet

broad, and at the time I first looked at it, about nine feet

deep; but it was said they dug it near twenty feet deep

afterwards in one part of it, till they could go no deeper for

the water; for they had, it seems, dug several large pits before

this. For though the plague was long a-coming to our parish, yet,

when it did come, there was no parish in or about London where it

raged with such violence as in the two parishes of Aldgate and

Whitechappel.

I say they had dug several pits in another ground, when the

distemper began to spread in our parish, and especially when the

dead-carts began to go about, which was not, in our parish, till

the beginning of August. Into these pits they had put perhaps

fifty or sixty bodies each; then they made larger holes wherein

they buried all that the cart brought in a week, which, by the

middle to the end of August, came to from 200 to 400 a week; and

they could not well dig them larger, because of the order of the

magistrates confining them to leave no bodies within six feet of

the surface; and the water coming on at about seventeen or

eighteen feet, they could not well, I say, put more in one pit.

But now, at the beginning of September, the plague raging in a

dreadful manner, and the number of burials in our parish

increasing to more than was ever buried in any parish about

London of no larger extent, they ordered this dreadful gulf to be

dug—for such it was, rather than a pit.

They had supposed this pit would have supplied them for a month

or more when they dug it, and some blamed the churchwardens for

suffering such a frightful thing, telling them they were making

preparations to bury the whole parish, and the like; but time

made it appear the churchwardens knew the condition of the parish

better than they did: for, the pit being finished the 4th of

September, I think, they began to bury in it the 6th, and by the

20th, which was just two weeks, they had thrown into it 1114

bodies when they were obliged to fill it up, the bodies being

then come to lie within six feet of the surface. I doubt not but

there may be some ancient persons alive in the parish who can

justify the fact of this, and are able to show even in what place

of the churchyard the pit lay better than I can. The mark of it

also was many years to be seen in the churchyard on the surface,

lying in length parallel with the passage which goes by the west

wall of the churchyard out of Houndsditch, and turns east again

into Whitechappel, coming out near the Three Nuns’ Inn.

It was about the 10th of September that my curiosity led, or

rather drove, me to go and see this pit again, when there had

been near 400 people buried in it; and I was not content to see

it in the day-time, as I had done before, for then there would

have been nothing to have been seen but the loose earth; for all

the bodies that were thrown in were immediately covered with

earth by those they called the buriers, which at other times were

called bearers; but I resolved to go in the night and see some of

them thrown in.

There was a strict order to prevent people coming to those pits,

and that was only to prevent infection. But after some time that

order was more necessary, for people that were infected and near

their end, and delirious also, would run to those pits, wrapt in

blankets or rugs, and throw themselves in, and, as they said,

bury themselves. I cannot say that the officers suffered any

willingly to lie there; but I have heard that in a great pit in

Finsbury, in the parish of Cripplegate, it lying open then to the

fields, for it was not then walled about, [many] came and threw

themselves in, and expired there, before they threw any earth

upon them; and that when they came to bury others and found them

there, they were quite dead, though not cold.

This may serve a little to describe the dreadful condition of

that day, though it is impossible to say anything that is able to

give a true idea of it to those who did not see it, other than

this, that it was indeed very, very, very dreadful, and such as

no tongue can express.

I got admittance into the churchyard by being acquainted with the

sexton who attended; who, though he did not refuse me at all, yet

earnestly persuaded me not to go, telling me very seriously (for

he was a good, religious, and sensible man) that it was indeed

their business and duty to venture, and to run all hazards, and

that in it they might hope to be preserved; but that I had no

apparent call to it but my own curiosity, which, he said, he

believed I would not pretend was sufficient to justify my running

that hazard. I told him I had been pressed in my mind to go, and

that perhaps it might be an instructing sight, that might not be

without its uses. ‘Nay,’ says the good man, ‘if you will venture

upon that score, name of God go in; for, depend upon it, ’twill

be a sermon to you, it may be, the best that ever you heard in

your life. ’Tis a speaking sight,’ says he, ‘and has a voice with

it, and a loud one, to call us all to repentance’; and with that

he opened the door and said, ‘Go, if you will.’

His discourse had shocked my resolution a little, and I stood

wavering for a good while, but just at that interval I saw two

links come over from the end of the Minories, and heard the

bellman, and then appeared a dead-cart, as they called it, coming

over the streets; so I could no longer resist my desire of seeing

it, and went in. There was nobody, as I could perceive at first,

in the churchyard, or going into it, but the buriers and the

fellow that drove the cart, or rather led the horse and cart; but

when they came up to the pit they saw a man go to and again,

muffled up in a brown Cloak, and making motions with his hands

under his cloak, as if he was in great agony, and the buriers

immediately gathered about him, supposing he was one of those

poor delirious or desperate creatures that used to pretend, as I

have said, to bury themselves. He said nothing as he walked

about, but two or three times groaned very deeply and loud, and

sighed as he would break his heart.

When the buriers came up to him they soon found he was neither a

person infected and desperate, as I have observed above, or a

person distempered—in mind, but one oppressed with a dreadful

weight of grief indeed, having his wife and several of his

children all in the cart that was just come in with him, and he

followed in an agony and excess of sorrow. He mourned heartily,

as it was easy to see, but with a kind of masculine grief that

could not give itself vent by tears; and calmly defying the

buriers to let him alone, said he would only see the bodies

thrown in and go away, so they left importuning him. But no

sooner was the cart turned round and the bodies shot into the pit

promiscuously, which was a surprise to him, for he at least

expected they would have been decently laid in, though indeed he

was afterwards convinced that was impracticable; I say, no sooner

did he see the sight but he cried out aloud, unable to contain

himself. I could not hear what he said, but he went backward two

or three steps and fell down in a swoon. The buriers ran to him

and took him up, and in a little while he came to himself, and

they led him away to the Pie Tavern over against the end of

Houndsditch, where, it seems, the man was known, and where they

took care of him. He looked into the pit again as he went away,

but the buriers had covered the bodies so immediately with

throwing in earth, that though there was light enough, for there

were lanterns, and candles in them, placed all night round the

sides of the pit, upon heaps of earth, seven or eight, or perhaps

more, yet nothing could be seen.

This was a mournful scene indeed, and affected me almost as much

as the rest; but the other was awful and full of terror. The cart

had in it sixteen or seventeen bodies; some were wrapt up in

linen sheets, some in rags, some little other than naked, or so

loose that what covering they had fell from them in the shooting

out of the cart, and they fell quite naked among the rest; but

the matter was not much to them, or the indecency much to any one

else, seeing they were all dead, and were to be huddled together

into the common grave of mankind, as we may call it, for here was

no difference made, but poor and rich went together; there was no

other way of burials, neither was it possible there should, for

coffins were not to be had for the prodigious numbers that fell

in such a calamity as this.

It was reported by way of scandal upon the buriers, that if any

corpse was delivered to them decently wound up, as we called it

then, in a winding-sheet tied over the head and feet, which some

did, and which was generally of good linen; I say, it was

reported that the buriers were so wicked as to strip them in the

cart and carry them quite naked to the ground. But as I cannot

easily credit anything so vile among Christians, and at a time so

filled with terrors as that was, I can only relate it and leave

it undetermined.

Innumerable stories also went about of the cruel behaviours and

practices of nurses who tended the sick, and of their hastening

on the fate of those they tended in their sickness. But I shall

say more of this in its place.

I was indeed shocked with this sight; it almost overwhelmed me,

and I went away with my heart most afflicted, and full of the

afflicting thoughts, such as I cannot describe just at my going

out of the church, and turning up the street towards my own

house, I saw another cart with links, and a bellman going before,

coming out of Harrow Alley in the Butcher Row, on the other side

of the way, and being, as I perceived, very full of dead bodies,

it went directly over the street also toward the church. I stood

a while, but I had no stomach to go back again to see the same

dismal scene over again, so I went directly home, where I could

not but consider with thankfulness the risk I had run, believing

I had gotten no injury, as indeed I had not.

Here the poor unhappy gentleman’s grief came into my head again,

and indeed I could not but shed tears in the reflection upon it,

perhaps more than he did himself; but his case lay so heavy upon

my mind that I could not prevail with myself, but that I must go

out again into the street, and go to the Pie Tavern, resolving to

inquire what became of him.

It was by this time one o’clock in the morning, and yet the poor

gentleman was there. The truth was, the people of the house,

knowing him, had entertained him, and kept him there all the

night, notwithstanding the danger of being infected by him,

though it appeared the man was perfectly sound himself.

It is with regret that I take notice of this tavern. The people

were civil, mannerly, and an obliging sort of folks enough, and

had till this time kept their house open and their trade going

on, though not so very publicly as formerly: but there was a

dreadful set of fellows that used their house, and who, in the

middle of all this horror, met there every night, behaved with

all the revelling and roaring extravagances as is usual for such

people to do at other times, and, indeed, to such an offensive

degree that the very master and mistress of the house grew first

ashamed and then terrified at them.

They sat generally in a room next the street, and as they always

kept late hours, so when the dead-cart came across the street-end

to go into Houndsditch, which was in view of the tavern windows,

they would frequently open the windows as soon as they heard the

bell and look out at them; and as they might often hear sad

lamentations of people in the streets or at their windows as the

carts went along, they would make their impudent mocks and jeers

at them, especially if they heard the poor people call upon God

to have mercy upon them, as many would do at those times in their

ordinary passing along the streets.

These gentlemen, being something disturbed with the clutter of

bringing the poor gentleman into the house, as above, were first

angry and very high with the master of the house for suffering

such a fellow, as they called him, to be brought out of the grave

into their house; but being answered that the man was a

neighbour, and that he was sound, but overwhelmed with the

calamity of his family, and the like, they turned their anger

into ridiculing the man and his sorrow for his wife and children,

taunted him with want of courage to leap into the great pit and

go to heaven, as they jeeringly expressed it, along with them,

adding some very profane and even blasphemous expressions.

They were at this vile work when I came back to the house, and,

as far as I could see, though the man sat still, mute and

disconsolate, and their affronts could not divert his sorrow, yet

he was both grieved and offended at their discourse. Upon this I

gently reproved them, being well enough acquainted with their

characters, and not unknown in person to two of them.

They immediately fell upon me with ill language and oaths, asked

me what I did out of my grave at such a time when so many

honester men were carried into the churchyard, and why I was not

at home saying my prayers against the dead-cart came for me, and

the like.

I was indeed astonished at the impudence of the men, though not

at all discomposed at their treatment of me. However, I kept my

temper. I told them that though I defied them or any man in the

world to tax me with any dishonesty, yet I acknowledged that in

this terrible judgement of God many better than I were swept away

and carried to their grave. But to answer their question

directly, the case was, that I was mercifully preserved by that

great God whose name they had blasphemed and taken in vain by

cursing and swearing in a dreadful manner, and that I believed I

was preserved in particular, among other ends of His goodness,

that I might reprove them for their audacious boldness in

behaving in such a manner and in such an awful time as this was,

especially for their jeering and mocking at an honest gentleman

and a neighbour (for some of them knew him), who, they saw, was

overwhelmed with sorrow for the breaches which it had pleased God

to make upon his family.

I cannot call exactly to mind the hellish, abominable raillery

which was the return they made to that talk of mine: being

provoked, it seems, that I was not at all afraid to be free with

them; nor, if I could remember, would I fill my account with any

of the words, the horrid oaths, curses, and vile expressions,

such as, at that time of the day, even the worst and ordinariest

people in the street would not use; for, except such hardened

creatures as these, the most wicked wretches that could be found

had at that time some terror upon their minds of the hand of that

Power which could thus in a moment destroy them.

But that which was the worst in all their devilish language was,

that they were not afraid to blaspheme God and talk

atheistically, making a jest of my calling the plague the hand of

God; mocking, and even laughing, at the word judgement, as if the

providence of God had no concern in the inflicting such a

desolating stroke; and that the people calling upon God as they

saw the carts carrying away the dead bodies was all enthusiastic,

absurd, and impertinent.

I made them some reply, such as I thought proper, but which I

found was so far from putting a check to their horrid way of

speaking that it made them rail the more, so that I confess it

filled me with horror and a kind of rage, and I came away, as I

told them, lest the hand of that judgement which had visited the

whole city should glorify His vengeance upon them, and all that

were near them.

They received all reproof with the utmost contempt, and made the

greatest mockery that was possible for them to do at me, giving

me all the opprobrious, insolent scoffs that they could think of

for preaching to them, as they called it, which indeed grieved

me, rather than angered me; and I went away, blessing God,

however, in my mind that I had not spared them, though they had

insulted me so much.

They continued this wretched course three or four days after

this, continually mocking and jeering at all that showed

themselves religious or serious, or that were any way touched

with the sense of the terrible judgement of God upon us; and I

was informed they flouted in the same manner at the good people

who, notwithstanding the contagion, met at the church, fasted,

and prayed to God to remove His hand from them.

I say, they continued this dreadful course three or four days—I

think it was no more—when one of them, particularly he who asked

the poor gentleman what he did out of his grave, was struck from

Heaven with the plague, and died in a most deplorable manner;

and, in a word, they were every one of them carried into the

great pit which I have mentioned above, before it was quite

filled up, which was not above a fortnight or thereabout.

These men were guilty of many extravagances, such as one would

think human nature should have trembled at the thoughts of at

such a time of general terror as was then upon us, and

particularly scoffing and mocking at everything which they

happened to see that was religious among the people, especially

at their thronging zealously to the place of public worship to

implore mercy from Heaven in such a time of distress; and this

tavern where they held their dub being within view of the

church-door, they had the more particular occasion for their

atheistical profane mirth.

But this began to abate a little with them before the accident

which I have related happened, for the infection increased so

violently at this part of the town now, that people began to be

afraid to come to the church; at least such numbers did not

resort thither as was usual. Many of the clergymen likewise were

dead, and others gone into the country; for it really required a

steady courage and a strong faith for a man not only to venture

being in town at such a time as this, but likewise to venture to

come to church and perform the office of a minister to a

congregation, of whom he had reason to believe many of them were

actually infected with the plague, and to do this every day, or

twice a day, as in some places was done.

It is true the people showed an extraordinary zeal in these

religious exercises, and as the church-doors were always open,

people would go in single at all times, whether the minister was

officiating or no, and locking themselves into separate pews,

would be praying to God with great fervency and devotion.

Others assembled at meeting-houses, every one as their different

opinions in such things guided, but all were promiscuously the

subject of these men’s drollery, especially at the beginning of

the visitation.

It seems they had been checked for their open insulting religion

in this manner by several good people of every persuasion, and

that, and the violent raging of the infection, I suppose, was the

occasion that they had abated much of their rudeness for some

time before, and were only roused by the spirit of ribaldry and

atheism at the clamour which was made when the gentleman was

first brought in there, and perhaps were agitated by the same

devil, when I took upon me to reprove them; though I did it at

first with all the calmness, temper, and good manners that I

could, which for a while they insulted me the more for thinking

it had been in fear of their resentment, though afterwards they

found the contrary.

I went home, indeed, grieved and afflicted in my mind at the

abominable wickedness of those men, not doubting, however, that

they would be made dreadful examples of God’s justice; for I

looked upon this dismal time to be a particular season of Divine

vengeance, and that God would on this occasion single out the

proper objects of His displeasure in a more especial and

remarkable manner than at another time; and that though I did

believe that many good people would, and did, fall in the common

calamity, and that it was no certain rule to judge of the eternal

state of any one by their being distinguished in such a time of

general destruction neither one way or other; yet, I say, it

could not but seem reasonable to believe that God would not think

fit to spare by His mercy such open declared enemies, that should

insult His name and Being, defy His vengeance, and mock at His

worship and worshippers at such a time; no, not though His mercy

had thought fit to bear with and spare them at other times; that

this was a day of visitation, a day of God’s anger, and those

words came into my thought, Jer. v. 9: ‘Shall I not visit for

these things? saith the Lord: and shall not My soul be avenged of

such a nation as this?’

These things, I say, lay upon my mind, and I went home very much

grieved and oppressed with the horror of these men’s wickedness,

and to think that anything could be so vile, so hardened, and

notoriously wicked as to insult God, and His servants, and His

worship in such a manner, and at such a time as this was, when He

had, as it were, His sword drawn in His hand on purpose to take

vengeance not on them only, but on the whole nation.

I had, indeed, been in some passion at first with them—though it

was really raised, not by any affront they had offered me

personally, but by the horror their blaspheming tongues filled me

with. However, I was doubtful in my thoughts whether the

resentment I retained was not all upon my own private account,

for they had given me a great deal of ill language too—I mean

personally; but after some pause, and having a weight of grief

upon my mind, I retired myself as soon as I came home, for I

slept not that night; and giving God most humble thanks for my

preservation in the eminent danger I had been in, I set my mind

seriously and with the utmost earnestness to pray for those

desperate wretches, that God would pardon them, open their eyes,

and effectually humble them.

By this I not only did my duty, namely, to pray for those who

despitefully used me, but I fully tried my own heart, to my full

satisfaction, that it was not filled with any spirit of

resentment as they had offended me in particular; and I humbly

recommend the method to all those that would know, or be certain,

how to distinguish between their zeal for the honour of God and

the effects of their private passions and resentment.

But I must go back here to the particular incidents which occur

to my thoughts of the time of the visitation, and particularly to

the time of their shutting up houses in the first part of their

sickness; for before the sickness was come to its height people

had more room to make their observations than they had afterward;

but when it was in the extremity there was no such thing as

communication with one another, as before.

During the shutting up of houses, as I have said, some violence

was offered to the watchmen. As to soldiers, there were none to

be found. The few guards which the king then had, which were

nothing like the number entertained since, were dispersed, either

at Oxford with the Court, or in quarters in the remoter parts of

the country, small detachments excepted, who did duty at the

Tower and at Whitehall, and these but very few. Neither am I

positive that there was any other guard at the Tower than the

warders, as they called them, who stand at the gate with gowns

and caps, the same as the yeomen of the guard, except the

ordinary gunners, who were twenty-four, and the officers

appointed to look after the magazine, who were called armourers.

As to trained bands, there was no possibility of raising any;

neither, if the Lieutenancy, either of London or Middlesex, had

ordered the drums to beat for the militia, would any of the

companies, I believe, have drawn together, whatever risk they had

run.

This made the watchmen be the less regarded, and perhaps

occasioned the greater violence to be used against them. I

mention it on this score to observe that the setting watchmen

thus to keep the people in was, first of all, not effectual, but

that the people broke out, whether by force or by stratagem, even

almost as often as they pleased; and, second, that those that did

thus break out were generally people infected who, in their

desperation, running about from one place to another, valued not

whom they injured: and which perhaps, as I have said, might give

birth to report that it was natural to the infected people to

desire to infect others, which report was really false.

And I know it so well, and in so many several cases, that I could

give several relations of good, pious, and religious people who,

when they have had the distemper, have been so far from being

forward to infect others that they have forbid their own family

to come near them, in hopes of their being preserved, and have

even died without seeing their nearest relations lest they should

be instrumental to give them the distemper, and infect or

endanger them. If, then, there were cases wherein the infected

people were careless of the injury they did to others, this was

certainly one of them, if not the chief, namely, when people who

had the distemper had broken out from houses which were so shut

up, and having been driven to extremities for provision or for

entertainment, had endeavoured to conceal their condition, and

have been thereby instrumental involuntarily to infect others who

have been ignorant and unwary.

This is one of the reasons why I believed then, and do believe

still, that the shutting up houses thus by force, and

restraining, or rather imprisoning, people in their own houses,

as I said above, was of little or no service in the whole. Nay, I

am of opinion it was rather hurtful, having forced those

desperate people to wander abroad with the plague upon them, who

would otherwise have died quietly in their beds.

I remember one citizen who, having thus broken out of his house

in Aldersgate Street or thereabout, went along the road to

Islington; he attempted to have gone in at the Angel Inn, and

after that the White Horse, two inns known still by the same

signs, but was refused; after which he came to the Pied Bull, an

inn also still continuing the same sign. He asked them for

lodging for one night only, pretending to be going into

Lincolnshire, and assuring them of his being very sound and free

from the infection, which also at that time had not reached much

that way.

They told him they had no lodging that they could spare but one

bed up in the garret, and that they could spare that bed for one

night, some drovers being expected the next day with cattle; so,

if he would accept of that lodging, he might have it, which he

did. So a servant was sent up with a candle with him to show him

the room. He was very well dressed, and looked like a person not

used to lie in a garret; and when he came to the room he fetched

a deep sigh, and said to the servant, ‘I have seldom lain in such

a lodging as this. ‘However, the servant assuring him again that

they had no better, ‘Well,’ says he, ‘I must make shift; this is

a dreadful time; but it is but for one night.’ So he sat down

upon the bedside, and bade the maid, I think it was, fetch him up

a pint of warm ale. Accordingly the servant went for the ale, but

some hurry in the house, which perhaps employed her other ways,

put it out of her head, and she went up no more to him.

The next morning, seeing no appearance of the gentleman, somebody

in the house asked the servant that had showed him upstairs what

was become of him. She started. ‘Alas I,’ says she, ‘I never

thought more of him. He bade me carry him some warm ale, but I

forgot.’ Upon which, not the maid, but some other person was sent

up to see after him, who, coming into the room, found him stark

dead and almost cold, stretched out across the bed. His clothes

were pulled off, his jaw fallen, his eyes open in a most

frightful posture, the rug of the bed being grasped hard in one

of his hands, so that it was plain he died soon after the maid

left him; and ’tis probable, had she gone up with the ale, she

had found him dead in a few minutes after he sat down upon the

bed. The alarm was great in the house, as anyone may suppose,

they having been free from the distemper till that disaster,

which, bringing the infection to the house, spread it immediately

to other houses round about it. I do not remember how many died

in the house itself, but I think the maid-servant who went up

first with him fell presently ill by the fright, and several

others; for, whereas there died but two in Islington of the

plague the week before, there died seventeen the week after,

whereof fourteen were of the plague. This was in the week from

the 11th of July to the 18th.

There was one shift that some families had, and that not a few,

when their houses happened to be infected, and that was this: the

families who, in the first breaking-out of the distemper, fled

away into the country and had retreats among their friends,

generally found some or other of their neighbours or relations to

commit the charge of those houses to for the safety of the goods

and the like. Some houses were, indeed, entirely locked up, the

doors padlocked, the windows and doors having deal boards nailed

over them, and only the inspection of them committed to the

ordinary watchmen and parish officers; but these were but few.

It was thought that there were not less than 10,000 houses

forsaken of the inhabitants in the city and suburbs, including

what was in the out-parishes and in Surrey, or the side of the

water they called Southwark. This was besides the numbers of

lodgers, and of particular persons who were fled out of other

families; so that in all it was computed that about 200,000

people were fled and gone. But of this I shall speak again. But I

mention it here on this account, namely, that it was a rule with

those who had thus two houses in their keeping or care, that if

anybody was taken sick in a family, before the master of the

family let the examiners or any other officer know of it, he

immediately would send all the rest of his family, whether

children or servants, as it fell out to be, to such other house

which he had so in charge, and then giving notice of the sick

person to the examiner, have a nurse or nurses appointed, and

have another person to be shut up in the house with them (which

many for money would do), so to take charge of the house in case

the person should die.

This was, in many cases, the saving a whole family, who, if they

had been shut up with the sick person, would inevitably have

perished. But, on the other hand, this was another of the

inconveniences of shutting up houses; for the apprehensions and

terror of being shut up made many run away with the rest of the

family, who, though it was not publicly known, and they were not

quite sick, had yet the distemper upon them; and who, by having

an uninterrupted liberty to go about, but being obliged still to

conceal their circumstances, or perhaps not knowing it

themselves, gave the distemper to others, and spread the

infection in a dreadful manner, as I shall explain further

hereafter.

And here I may be able to make an observation or two of my own,

which may be of use hereafter to those into whose hands these may

come, if they should ever see the like dreadful visitation. (1)

The infection generally came into the houses of the citizens by

the means of their servants, whom they were obliged to send up

and down the streets for necessaries; that is to say, for food or

physic, to bakehouses, brew-houses, shops, &c.; and who going

necessarily through the streets into shops, markets, and the

like, it was impossible but that they should, one way or other,

meet with distempered people, who conveyed the fatal breath into

them, and they brought it home to the families to which they

belonged. (2) It was a great mistake that such a great city as

this had but one pest-house; for had there been, instead of one

pest-house—viz., beyond Bunhill Fields, where, at most, they

could receive, perhaps, two hundred or three hundred people—I

say, had there, instead of that one, been several pest-houses,

every one able to contain a thousand people, without lying two in

a bed, or two beds in a room; and had every master of a family,

as soon as any servant especially had been taken sick in his

house, been obliged to send them to the next pest-house, if they

were willing, as many were, and had the examiners done the like

among the poor people when any had been stricken with the

infection; I say, had this been done where the people were

willing (not otherwise), and the houses not been shut, I am

persuaded, and was all the while of that opinion, that not so

many, by several thousands, had died; for it was observed, and I

could give several instances within the compass of my own

knowledge, where a servant had been taken sick, and the family

had either time to send him out or retire from the house and

leave the sick person, as I have said above, they had all been

preserved; whereas when, upon one or more sickening in a family,

the house has been shut up, the whole family have perished, and

the bearers been obliged to go in to fetch out the dead bodies,

not being able to bring them to the door, and at last none left

to do it.

(3) This put it out of question to me, that the calamity was

spread by infection; that is to say, by some certain steams or

fumes, which the physicians call effluvia, by the breath, or by

the sweat, or by the stench of the sores of the sick persons, or

some other way, perhaps, beyond even the reach of the physicians

themselves, which effluvia affected the sound who came within

certain distances of the sick, immediately penetrating the vital

parts of the said sound persons, putting their blood into an

immediate ferment, and agitating their spirits to that degree

which it was found they were agitated; and so those newly

infected persons communicated it in the same manner to others.

And this I shall give some instances of, that cannot but convince

those who seriously consider it; and I cannot but with some

wonder find some people, now the contagion is over, talk of its

being an immediate stroke from Heaven, without the agency of

means, having commission to strike this and that particular

person, and none other—which I look upon with contempt as the

effect of manifest ignorance and enthusiasm; likewise the opinion

of others, who talk of infection being carried on by the air

only, by carrying with it vast numbers of insects and invisible

creatures, who enter into the body with the breath, or even at

the pores with the air, and there generate or emit most acute

poisons, or poisonous ovae or eggs, which mingle themselves with

the blood, and so infect the body: a discourse full of learned

simplicity, and manifested to be so by universal experience; but

I shall say more to this case in its order.

I must here take further notice that nothing was more fatal to

the inhabitants of this city than the supine negligence of the

people themselves, who, during the long notice or warning they

had of the visitation, made no provision for it by laying in

store of provisions, or of other necessaries, by which they might

have lived retired and within their own houses, as I have

observed others did, and who were in a great measure preserved by

that caution; nor were they, after they were a little hardened to

it, so shy of conversing with one another, when actually

infected, as they were at first: no, though they knew it.

I acknowledge I was one of those thoughtless ones that had made

so little provision that my servants were obliged to go out of

doors to buy every trifle by penny and halfpenny, just as before

it began, even till my experience showing me the folly, I began

to be wiser so late that I had scarce time to store myself

sufficient for our common subsistence for a month.

I had in family only an ancient woman that managed the house, a

maid-servant, two apprentices, and myself; and the plague

beginning to increase about us, I had many sad thoughts about

what course I should take, and how I should act. The many dismal

objects which happened everywhere as I went about the streets,

had filled my mind with a great deal of horror for fear of the

distemper, which was indeed very horrible in itself, and in some

more than in others. The swellings, which were generally in the

neck or groin, when they grew hard and would not break, grew so

painful that it was equal to the most exquisite torture; and

some, not able to bear the torment, threw themselves out at

windows or shot themselves, or otherwise made themselves away,

and I saw several dismal objects of that kind. Others, unable to

contain themselves, vented their pain by incessant roarings, and

such loud and lamentable cries were to be heard as we walked

along the streets that would pierce the very heart to think of,

especially when it was to be considered that the same dreadful

scourge might be expected every moment to seize upon ourselves.

I cannot say but that now I began to faint in my resolutions; my

heart failed me very much, and sorely I repented of my rashness.

When I had been out, and met with such terrible things as these I

have talked of, I say I repented my rashness in venturing to

abide in town. I wished often that I had not taken upon me to

stay, but had gone away with my brother and his family.

Terrified by those frightful objects, I would retire home

sometimes and resolve to go out no more; and perhaps I would keep

those resolutions for three or four days, which time I spent in

the most serious thankfulness for my preservation and the

preservation of my family, and the constant confession of my

sins, giving myself up to God every day, and applying to Him with

fasting, humiliation, and meditation. Such intervals as I had I

employed in reading books and in writing down my memorandums of

what occurred to me every day, and out of which afterwards I took

most of this work, as it relates to my observations without

doors. What I wrote of my private meditations I reserve for

private use, and desire it may not be made public on any account

whatever.

I also wrote other meditations upon divine subjects, such as

occurred to me at that time and were profitable to myself, but

not fit for any other view, and therefore I say no more of that.

I had a very good friend, a physician, whose name was Heath, whom

I frequently visited during this dismal time, and to whose advice

I was very much obliged for many things which he directed me to

take, by way of preventing the infection when I went out, as he

found I frequently did, and to hold in my mouth when I was in the

streets. He also came very often to see me, and as he was a good

Christian as well as a good physician, his agreeable conversation

was a very great support to me in the worst of this terrible

time.

It was now the beginning of August, and the plague grew very

violent and terrible in the place where I lived, and Dr Heath

coming to visit me, and finding that I ventured so often out in

the streets, earnestly persuaded me to lock myself up and my

family, and not to suffer any of us to go out of doors; to keep

all our windows fast, shutters and curtains close, and never to

open them; but first, to make a very strong smoke in the room

where the window or door was to be opened, with rozen and pitch,

brimstone or gunpowder and the like; and we did this for some

time; but as I had not laid in a store of provision for such a

retreat, it was impossible that we could keep within doors

entirely. However, I attempted, though it was so very late, to do

something towards it; and first, as I had convenience both for

brewing and baking, I went and bought two sacks of meal, and for

several weeks, having an oven, we baked all our own bread; also I

bought malt, and brewed as much beer as all the casks I had would

hold, and which seemed enough to serve my house for five or six

weeks; also I laid in a quantity of salt butter and Cheshire

cheese; but I had no flesh-meat, and the plague raged so

violently among the butchers and slaughter-houses on the other

side of our street, where they are known to dwell in great

numbers, that it was not advisable so much as to go over the

street among them.

And here I must observe again, that this necessity of going out

of our houses to buy provisions was in a great measure the ruin

of the whole city, for the people catched the distemper on these

occasions one of another, and even the provisions themselves were

often tainted; at least I have great reason to believe so; and

therefore I cannot say with satisfaction what I know is repeated

with great assurance, that the market-people and such as brought

provisions to town were never infected. I am certain the butchers

of Whitechappel, where the greatest part of the flesh-meat was

killed, were dreadfully visited, and that at least to such a

degree that few of their shops were kept open, and those that

remained of them killed their meat at Mile End and that way, and

brought it to market upon horses.

However, the poor people could not lay up provisions, and there

was a necessity that they must go to market to buy, and others to

send servants or their children; and as this was a necessity

which renewed itself daily, it brought abundance of unsound

people to the markets, and a great many that went thither sound

brought death home with them.

It is true people used all possible precaution. When any one

bought a joint of meat in the market they would not take it off

the butcher’s hand, but took it off the hooks themselves. On the

other hand, the butcher would not touch the money, but have it

put into a pot full of vinegar, which he kept for that purpose.

The buyer carried always small money to make up any odd sum, that

they might take no change. They carried bottles of scents and

perfumes in their hands, and all the means that could be used

were used, but then the poor could not do even these things, and

they went at all hazards.

Innumerable dismal stories we heard every day on this very

account. Sometimes a man or woman dropped down dead in the very

markets, for many people that had the plague upon them knew

nothing of it till the inward gangrene had affected their vitals,

and they died in a few moments. This caused that many died

frequently in that manner in the streets suddenly, without any

warning; others perhaps had time to go to the next bulk or stall,

or to any door-porch, and just sit down and die, as I have said

before.

These objects were so frequent in the streets that when the

plague came to be very raging on one side, there was scarce any

passing by the streets but that several dead bodies would be

lying here and there upon the ground. On the other hand, it is

observable that though at first the people would stop as they

went along and call to the neighbours to come out on such an

occasion, yet afterward no notice was taken of them; but that if

at any time we found a corpse lying, go across the way and not

come near it; or, if in a narrow lane or passage, go back again

and seek some other way to go on the business we were upon; and

in those cases the corpse was always left till the officers had

notice to come and take them away, or till night, when the

bearers attending the dead-cart would take them up and carry them

away. Nor did those undaunted creatures who performed these

offices fail to search their pockets, and sometimes strip off

their clothes if they were well dressed, as sometimes they were,

and carry off what they could get.

But to return to the markets. The butchers took that care that if

any person died in the market they had the officers always at

hand to take them up upon hand-barrows and carry them to the next

churchyard; and this was so frequent that such were not entered

in the weekly bill, ‘Found dead in the streets or fields’, as is

the case now, but they went into the general articles of the

great distemper.

But now the fury of the distemper increased to such a degree that

even the markets were but very thinly furnished with provisions

or frequented with buyers compared to what they were before; and

the Lord Mayor caused the country people who brought provisions

to be stopped in the streets leading into the town, and to sit

down there with their goods, where they sold what they brought,

and went immediately away; and this encouraged the country people

greatly-to do so, for they sold their provisions at the very

entrances into the town, and even in the fields, as particularly

in the fields beyond Whitechappel, in Spittlefields; also in St

George’s Fields in Southwark, in Bunhill Fields, and in a great

field called Wood’s Close, near Islington. Thither the Lord

Mayor, aldermen, and magistrates sent their officers and servants

to buy for their families, themselves keeping within doors as

much as possible, and the like did many other people; and after

this method was taken the country people came with great

cheerfulness, and brought provisions of all sorts, and very

seldom got any harm, which, I suppose, added also to that report

of their being miraculously preserved.

As for my little family, having thus, as I have said, laid in a

store of bread, butter, cheese, and beer, I took my friend and

physician’s advice, and locked myself up, and my family, and

resolved to suffer the hardship of living a few months without

flesh-meat, rather than to purchase it at the hazard of our

lives.

But though I confined my family, I could not prevail upon my

unsatisfied curiosity to stay within entirely myself; and though

I generally came frighted and terrified home, yet I could not

restrain; only that indeed I did not do it so frequently as at

first.

I had some little obligations, indeed, upon me to go to my

brother’s house, which was in Coleman Street parish and which he

had left to my care, and I went at first every day, but

afterwards only once or twice a week.

In these walks I had many dismal scenes before my eyes, as

particularly of persons falling dead in the streets, terrible

shrieks and screechings of women, who, in their agonies, would

throw open their chamber windows and cry out in a dismal,

surprising manner. It is impossible to describe the variety of

postures in which the passions of the poor people would express

themselves.

Passing through Tokenhouse Yard, in Lothbury, of a sudden a

casement violently opened just over my head, and a woman gave

three frightful screeches, and then cried, ‘Oh! death, death,

death!’ in a most inimitable tone, and which struck me with

horror and a chillness in my very blood. There was nobody to be

seen in the whole street, neither did any other window open, for

people had no curiosity now in any case, nor could anybody help

one another, so I went on to pass into Bell Alley.

Just in Bell Alley, on the right hand of the passage, there was a

more terrible cry than that, though it was not so directed out at

the window; but the whole family was in a terrible fright, and I

could hear women and children run screaming about the rooms like

distracted, when a garret-window opened and somebody from a

window on the other side the alley called and asked, ‘What is the

matter?’ upon which, from the first window, it was answered, ‘Oh

Lord, my old master has hanged himself!’ The other asked again,

‘Is he quite dead?’ and the first answered, ‘Ay, ay, quite dead;

quite dead and cold!’ This person was a merchant and a deputy

alderman, and very rich. I care not to mention the name, though I

knew his name too, but that would be an hardship to the family,

which is now flourishing again.

But this is but one; it is scarce credible what dreadful cases

happened in particular families every day. People in the rage of

the distemper, or in the torment of their swellings, which was

indeed intolerable, running out of their own government, raving

and distracted, and oftentimes laying violent hands upon

themselves, throwing themselves out at their windows, shooting

themselves &c.; mothers murdering their own children in their

lunacy, some dying of mere grief as a passion, some of mere

fright and surprise without any infection at all, others frighted

into idiotism and foolish distractions, some into despair and

lunacy, others into melancholy madness.

The pain of the swelling was in particular very violent, and to

some intolerable; the physicians and surgeons may be said to have

tortured many poor creatures even to death. The swellings in some

grew hard, and they applied violent drawing-plaisters or

poultices to break them, and if these did not do they cut and

scarified them in a terrible manner. In some those swellings were

made hard partly by the force of the distemper and partly by

their being too violently drawn, and were so hard that no

instrument could cut them, and then they burnt them with

caustics, so that many died raving mad with the torment, and some

in the very operation. In these distresses, some, for want of

help to hold them down in their beds, or to look to them, laid

hands upon themselves as above. Some broke out into the streets,

perhaps naked, and would run directly down to the river if they

were not stopped by the watchman or other officers, and plunge

themselves into the water wherever they found it.

It often pierced my very soul to hear the groans and cries of

those who were thus tormented, but of the two this was counted

the most promising particular in the whole infection, for if

these swellings could be brought to a head, and to break and run,

or, as the surgeons call it, to digest, the patient generally

recovered; whereas those who, like the gentlewoman’s daughter,

were struck with death at the beginning, and had the tokens come

out upon them, often went about indifferent easy till a little

before they died, and some till the moment they dropped down, as

in apoplexies and epilepsies is often the case. Such would be

taken suddenly very sick, and would run to a bench or bulk, or

any convenient place that offered itself, or to their own houses

if possible, as I mentioned before, and there sit down, grow

faint, and die. This kind of dying was much the same as it was

with those who die of common mortifications, who die swooning,

and, as it were, go away in a dream. Such as died thus had very

little notice of their being infected at all till the gangrene

was spread through their whole body; nor could physicians

themselves know certainly how it was with them till they opened

their breasts or other parts of their body and saw the tokens.

We had at this time a great many frightful stories told us of

nurses and watchmen who looked after the dying people; that is to

say, hired nurses who attended infected people, using them

barbarously, starving them, smothering them, or by other wicked

means hastening their end, that is to say, murdering of them; and

watchmen, being set to guard houses that were shut up when there

has been but one person left, and perhaps that one lying sick,

that they have broke in and murdered that body, and immediately

thrown them out into the dead-cart! And so they have gone scarce

cold to the grave.

I cannot say but that some such murders were committed, and I

think two were sent to prison for it, but died before they could

be tried; and I have heard that three others, at several times,

were excused for murders of that kind; but I must say I believe

nothing of its being so common a crime as some have since been

pleased to say, nor did it seem to be so rational where the

people were brought so low as not to be able to help themselves,

for such seldom recovered, and there was no temptation to commit

a murder, at least none equal to the fact, where they were sure

persons would die in so short a time, and could not live.

That there were a great many robberies and wicked practices

committed even in this dreadful time I do not deny. The power of

avarice was so strong in some that they would run any hazard to

steal and to plunder; and particularly in houses where all the

families or inhabitants have been dead and carried out, they

would break in at all hazards, and without regard to the danger

of infection, take even the clothes off the dead bodies and the

bed-clothes from others where they lay dead.

This, I suppose, must be the case of a family in Houndsditch,

where a man and his daughter, the rest of the family being, as I

suppose, carried away before by the dead-cart, were found stark

naked, one in one chamber and one in another, lying dead on the

floor, and the clothes of the beds, from whence ’tis supposed

they were rolled off by thieves, stolen and carried quite away.

It is indeed to be observed that the women were in all this

calamity the most rash, fearless, and desperate creatures, and as

there were vast numbers that went about as nurses to tend those

that were sick, they committed a great many petty thieveries in

the houses where they were employed; and some of them were

publicly whipped for it, when perhaps they ought rather to have

been hanged for examples, for numbers of houses were robbed on

these occasions, till at length the parish officers were sent to

recommend nurses to the sick, and always took an account whom it

was they sent, so as that they might call them to account if the

house had been abused where they were placed.

But these robberies extended chiefly to wearing-clothes, linen,

and what rings or money they could come at when the person died

who was under their care, but not to a general plunder of the

houses; and I could give you an account of one of these nurses,

who, several years after, being on her deathbed, confessed with

the utmost horror the robberies she had committed at the time of

her being a nurse, and by which she had enriched herself to a

great degree. But as for murders, I do not find that there was

ever any proof of the facts in the manner as it has been

reported, except as above.

They did tell me, indeed, of a nurse in one place that laid a wet

cloth upon the face of a dying patient whom she tended, and so

put an end to his life, who was just expiring before; and another

that smothered a young woman she was looking to when she was in a

fainting fit, and would have come to herself; some that killed

them by giving them one thing, some another, and some starved

them by giving them nothing at all. But these stories had two

marks of suspicion that always attended them, which caused me

always to slight them and to look on them as mere stories that

people continually frighted one another with. First, that

wherever it was that we heard it, they always placed the scene at

the farther end of the town, opposite or most remote from where

you were to hear it. If you heard it in Whitechappel, it had

happened at St Giles’s, or at Westminster, or Holborn, or that

end of the town. If you heard of it at that end of the town, then

it was done in Whitechappel, or the Minories, or about

Cripplegate parish. If you heard of it in the city, why, then it

happened in Southwark; and if you heard of it in Southwark, then

it was done in the city, and the like.

In the next place, of what part soever you heard the story, the

particulars were always the same, especially that of laying a wet

double cloth on a dying man’s face, and that of smothering a

young gentlewoman; so that it was apparent, at least to my

judgement, that there was more of tale than of truth in those

things.

However, I cannot say but it had some effect upon the people, and

particularly that, as I said before, they grew more cautious whom

they took into their houses, and whom they trusted their lives

with, and had them always recommended if they could; and where

they could not find such, for they were not very plenty, they

applied to the parish officers.

But here again the misery of that time lay upon the poor who,

being infected, had neither food or physic, neither physician or

apothecary to assist them, or nurse to attend them. Many of those

died calling for help, and even for sustenance, out at their

windows in a most miserable and deplorable manner; but it must be

added that whenever the cases of such persons or families were

represented to my Lord Mayor they always were relieved.

It is true, in some houses where the people were not very poor,

yet where they had sent perhaps their wives and children away,

and if they had any servants they had been dismissed;—I say it is

true that to save the expenses, many such as these shut

themselves in, and not having help, died alone.

A neighbour and acquaintance of mine, having some money owing to

him from a shopkeeper in Whitecross Street or thereabouts, sent

his apprentice, a youth about eighteen years of age, to endeavour

to get the money. He came to the door, and finding it shut,

knocked pretty hard; and, as he thought, heard somebody answer

within, but was not sure, so he waited, and after some stay

knocked again, and then a third time, when he heard somebody

coming downstairs.

At length the man of the house came to the door; he had on his

breeches or drawers, and a yellow flannel waistcoat, no

stockings, a pair of slipped-shoes, a white cap on his head, and,

as the young man said, ‘death in his face’.

When he opened the door, says he, ‘What do you disturb me thus

for?’ The boy, though a little surprised, replied, ‘I come from

such a one, and my master sent me for the money which he says you

know of.’ ‘Very well, child,’ returns the living ghost; ‘call as

you go by at Cripplegate Church, and bid them ring the bell’; and

with these words shut the door again, and went up again, and died

the same day; nay, perhaps the same hour. This the young man told

me himself, and I have reason to believe it. This was while the

plague was not come to a height. I think it was in June, towards

the latter end of the month; it must be before the dead-carts

came about, and while they used the ceremony of ringing the bell

for the dead, which was over for certain, in that parish at

least, before the month of July, for by the 25th of July there

died 550 and upwards in a week, and then they could no more bury

in form, rich or poor.

I have mentioned above that notwithstanding this dreadful

calamity, yet the numbers of thieves were abroad upon all

occasions, where they had found any prey, and that these were

generally women. It was one morning about eleven O’clock, I had

walked out to my brother’s house in Coleman Street parish, as I

often did, to see that all was safe.

My brother’s house had a little court before it, and a brick wall

and a gate in it, and within that several warehouses where his

goods of several sorts lay. It happened that in one of these

warehouses were several packs of women’s high-crowned hats, which

came out of the country and were, as I suppose, for exportation:

whither, I know not.

I was surprised that when I came near my brother’s door, which

was in a place they called Swan Alley, I met three or four women

with high-crowned hats on their heads; and, as I remembered

afterwards, one, if not more, had some hats likewise in their

hands; but as I did not see them come out at my brother’s door,

and not knowing that my brother had any such goods in his

warehouse, I did not offer to say anything to them, but went

across the way to shun meeting them, as was usual to do at that

time, for fear of the plague. But when I came nearer to the gate

I met another woman with more hats come out of the gate. ‘What

business, mistress,’ said I, ‘have you had there?’ ‘There are

more people there,’ said she; ‘I have had no more business there

than they.’ I was hasty to get to the gate then, and said no more

to her, by which means she got away. But just as I came to the

gate, I saw two more coming across the yard to come out with hats

also on their heads and under their arms, at which I threw the

gate to behind me, which having a spring lock fastened itself;

and turning to the women, ‘Forsooth,’ said I, ‘what are you doing

here?’ and seized upon the hats, and took them from them. One of

them, who, I confess, did not look like a thief—‘Indeed,’ says

she, ‘we are wrong, but we were told they were goods that had no

owner. Be pleased to take them again; and look yonder, there are

more such customers as we.’ She cried and looked pitifully, so I

took the hats from her and opened the gate, and bade them be

gone, for I pitied the women indeed; but when I looked towards

the warehouse, as she directed, there were six or seven more, all

women, fitting themselves with hats as unconcerned and quiet as

if they had been at a hatter’s shop buying for their money.

I was surprised, not at the sight of so many thieves only, but at

the circumstances I was in; being now to thrust myself in among

so many people, who for some weeks had been so shy of myself that

if I met anybody in the street I would cross the way from them.

They were equally surprised, though on another account. They all

told me they were neighbours, that they had heard anyone might

take them, that they were nobody’s goods, and the like. I talked

big to them at first, went back to the gate and took out the key,

so that they were all my prisoners, threatened to lock them all

into the warehouse, and go and fetch my Lord Mayor’s officers for

them.

They begged heartily, protested they found the gate open, and the

warehouse door open; and that it had no doubt been broken open by

some who expected to find goods of greater value: which indeed

was reasonable to believe, because the lock was broke, and a

padlock that hung to the door on the outside also loose, and an

abundance of the hats carried away.

At length I considered that this was not a time to be cruel and

rigorous; and besides that, it would necessarily oblige me to go

much about, to have several people come to me, and I go to

several whose circumstances of health I knew nothing of; and that

even at this time the plague was so high as that there died 4000

a week; so that in showing my resentment, or even in seeking

justice for my brother’s goods, I might lose my own life; so I

contented myself with taking the names and places where some of

them lived, who were really inhabitants in the neighbourhood, and

threatening that my brother should call them to an account for it

when he returned to his habitation.

Then I talked a little upon another foot with them, and asked

them how they could do such things as these in a time of such

general calamity, and, as it were, in the face of God’s most

dreadful judgements, when the plague was at their very doors,

and, it may be, in their very houses, and they did not know but

that the dead-cart might stop at their doors in a few hours to

carry them to their graves.

I could not perceive that my discourse made much impression upon

them all that while, till it happened that there came two men of

the neighbourhood, hearing of the disturbance, and knowing my

brother, for they had been both dependents upon his family, and

they came to my assistance. These being, as I said, neighbours,

presently knew three of the women and told me who they were and

where they lived; and it seems they had given me a true account

of themselves before.

This brings these two men to a further remembrance. The name of

one was John Hayward, who was at that time undersexton of the

parish of St Stephen, Coleman Street. By undersexton was

understood at that time gravedigger and bearer of the dead. This

man carried, or assisted to carry, all the dead to their graves

which were buried in that large parish, and who were carried in

form; and after that form of burying was stopped, went with the

dead-cart and the bell to fetch the dead bodies from the houses

where they lay, and fetched many of them out of the chambers and

houses; for the parish was, and is still, remarkable

particularly, above all the parishes in London, for a great

number of alleys and thoroughfares, very long, into which no

carts could come, and where they were obliged to go and fetch the

bodies a very long way; which alleys now remain to witness it,

such as White’s Alley, Cross Key Court, Swan Alley, Bell Alley,

White Horse Alley, and many more. Here they went with a kind of

hand-barrow and laid the dead bodies on it, and carried them out

to the carts; which work he performed and never had the distemper

at all, but lived about twenty years after it, and was sexton of

the parish to the time of his death. His wife at the same time

was a nurse to infected people, and tended many that died in the

parish, being for her honesty recommended by the parish officers;

yet she never was infected neither.

He never used any preservative against the infection, other than

holding garlic and rue in his mouth, and smoking tobacco. This I

also had from his own mouth. And his wife’s remedy was washing

her head in vinegar and sprinkling her head-clothes so with

vinegar as to keep them always moist, and if the smell of any of

those she waited on was more than ordinary offensive, she snuffed

vinegar up her nose and sprinkled vinegar upon her head-clothes,

and held a handkerchief wetted with vinegar to her mouth.

It must be confessed that though the plague was chiefly among the

poor, yet were the poor the most venturous and fearless of it,

and went about their employment with a sort of brutal courage; I

must call it so, for it was founded neither on religion nor

prudence; scarce did they use any caution, but ran into any

business which they could get employment in, though it was the

most hazardous. Such was that of tending the sick, watching

houses shut up, carrying infected persons to the pest-house, and,

which was still worse, carrying the dead away to their graves.

It was under this John Hayward’s care, and within his bounds,

that the story of the piper, with which people have made

themselves so merry, happened, and he assured me that it was

true. It is said that it was a blind piper; but, as John told me,

the fellow was not blind, but an ignorant, weak, poor man, and

usually walked his rounds about ten o’clock at night and went

piping along from door to door, and the people usually took him

in at public-houses where they knew him, and would give him drink

and victuals, and sometimes farthings; and he in return would

pipe and sing and talk simply, which diverted the people; and

thus he lived. It was but a very bad time for this diversion

while things were as I have told, yet the poor fellow went about

as usual, but was almost starved; and when anybody asked how he

did he would answer, the dead cart had not taken him yet, but

that they had promised to call for him next week.

It happened one night that this poor fellow, whether somebody had

given him too much drink or no—John Hayward said he had not drink

in his house, but that they had given him a little more victuals

than ordinary at a public-house in Coleman Street—and the poor

fellow, having not usually had a bellyful for perhaps not a good

while, was laid all along upon the top of a bulk or stall, and

fast asleep, at a door in the street near London Wall, towards

Cripplegate, and that upon the same bulk or stall the people of

some house, in the alley of which the house was a corner, hearing

a bell which they always rang before the cart came, had laid a

body really dead of the plague just by him, thinking, too, that

this poor fellow had been a dead body, as the other was, and laid

there by some of the neighbours.

Accordingly, when John Hayward with his bell and the cart came

along, finding two dead bodies lie upon the stall, they took them

up with the instrument they used and threw them into the cart,

and, all this while the piper slept soundly.

From hence they passed along and took in other dead bodies, till,

as honest John Hayward told me, they almost buried him alive in

the cart; yet all this while he slept soundly. At length the cart

came to the place where the bodies were to be thrown into the

ground, which, as I do remember, was at Mount Mill; and as the

cart usually stopped some time before they were ready to shoot

out the melancholy load they had in it, as soon as the cart

stopped the fellow awaked and struggled a little to get his head

out from among the dead bodies, when, raising himself up in the

cart, he called out, ‘Hey! where am I?’ This frighted the fellow

that attended about the work; but after some pause John Hayward,

recovering himself, said, ‘Lord, bless us! There’s somebody in

the cart not quite dead!’ So another called to him and said, ‘Who

are you?’ The fellow answered, ‘I am the poor piper. Where am I?’

‘Where are you?’ says Hayward. ‘Why, you are in the dead-cart,

and we are going to bury you.’ ‘But I an’t dead though, am I?’

says the piper, which made them laugh a little though, as John

said, they were heartily frighted at first; so they helped the

poor fellow down, and he went about his business.

I know the story goes he set up his pipes in the cart and

frighted the bearers and others so that they ran away; but John

Hayward did not tell the story so, nor say anything of his piping

at all; but that he was a poor piper, and that he was carried

away as above I am fully satisfied of the truth of.

It is to be noted here that the dead-carts in the city were not

confined to particular parishes, but one cart went through

several parishes, according as the number of dead presented; nor

were they tied to carry the dead to their respective parishes,

but many of the dead taken up in the city were carried to the

burying-ground in the out-parts for want of room.

I have already mentioned the surprise that this judgement was at

first among the people. I must be allowed to give some of my

observations on the more serious and religious part. Surely never

city, at least of this bulk and magnitude, was taken in a

condition so perfectly unprepared for such a dreadful visitation,

whether I am to speak of the civil preparations or religious.

They were, indeed, as if they had had no warning, no expectation,

no apprehensions, and consequently the least provision imaginable

was made for it in a public way. For example, the Lord Mayor and

sheriffs had made no provision as magistrates for the regulations

which were to be observed. They had gone into no measures for

relief of the poor. The citizens had no public magazines or

storehouses for corn or meal for the subsistence of the poor,

which if they had provided themselves, as in such cases is done

abroad, many miserable families who were now reduced to the

utmost distress would have been relieved, and that in a better

manner than now could be done.

The stock of the city’s money I can say but little to. The

Chamber of London was said to be exceedingly rich, and it may be

concluded that they were so, by the vast of money issued from

thence in the rebuilding the public edifices after the fire of

London, and in building new works, such as, for the first part,

the Guildhall, Blackwell Hall, part of Leadenhall, half the

Exchange, the Session House, the Compter, the prisons of Ludgate,

Newgate, &c., several of the wharfs and stairs and landing-places

on the river; all which were either burned down or damaged by the

great fire of London, the next year after the plague; and of the

second sort, the Monument, Fleet Ditch with its bridges, and the

Hospital of Bethlem or Bedlam, &c. But possibly the managers of

the city’s credit at that time made more conscience of breaking

in upon the orphan’s money to show charity to the distressed

citizens than the managers in the following years did to beautify

the city and re-edify the buildings; though, in the first case,

the losers would have thought their fortunes better bestowed, and

the public faith of the city have been less subjected to scandal

and reproach.

It must be acknowledged that the absent citizens, who, though

they were fled for safety into the country, were yet greatly

interested in the welfare of those whom they left behind, forgot

not to contribute liberally to the relief of the poor, and large

sums were also collected among trading towns in the remotest

parts of England; and, as I have heard also, the nobility and the

gentry in all parts of England took the deplorable condition of

the city into their consideration, and sent up large sums of

money in charity to the Lord Mayor and magistrates for the relief

of the poor. The king also, as I was told, ordered a thousand

pounds a week to be distributed in four parts: one quarter to the

city and liberty of Westminster; one quarter or part among the

inhabitants of the Southwark side of the water; one quarter to

the liberty and parts within of the city, exclusive of the city

within the walls; and one-fourth part to the suburbs in the

county of Middlesex, and the east and north parts of the city.

But this latter I only speak of as a report.

Certain it is, the greatest part of the poor or families who

formerly lived by their labour, or by retail trade, lived now on

charity; and had there not been prodigious sums of money given by

charitable, well-minded Christians for the support of such, the

city could never have subsisted. There were, no question,

accounts kept of their charity, and of the just distribution of

it by the magistrates. But as such multitudes of those very

officers died through whose hands it was distributed, and also

that, as I have been told, most of the accounts of those things

were lost in the great fire which happened in the very next year,

and which burnt even the chamberlain’s office and many of their

papers, so I could never come at the particular account, which I

used great endeavours to have seen.

It may, however, be a direction in case of the approach of a like

visitation, which God keep the city from;—I say, it may be of use

to observe that by the care of the Lord Mayor and aldermen at

that time in distributing weekly great sums of money for relief

of the poor, a multitude of people who would otherwise have

perished, were relieved, and their lives preserved. And here let

me enter into a brief state of the case of the poor at that time,

and what way apprehended from them, from whence may be judged

hereafter what may be expected if the like distress should come

upon the city.

At the beginning of the plague, when there was now no more hope

but that the whole city would be visited; when, as I have said,

all that had friends or estates in the country retired with their

families; and when, indeed, one would have thought the very city

itself was running out of the gates, and that there would be

nobody left behind; you may be sure from that hour all trade,

except such as related to immediate subsistence, was, as it were,

at a full stop.

This is so lively a case, and contains in it so much of the real

condition of the people, that I think I cannot be too particular

in it, and therefore I descend to the several arrangements or

classes of people who fell into immediate distress upon this

occasion. For example:

1. All master-workmen in manufactures, especially such as

belonged to ornament and the less necessary parts of the people’s

dress, clothes, and furniture for houses, such as riband-weavers

and other weavers, gold and silver lace makers, and gold and

silver wire drawers, sempstresses, milliners, shoemakers,

hatmakers, and glovemakers; also upholsterers, joiners,

cabinet-makers, looking-glass makers, and innumerable trades

which depend upon such as these;—I say, the master-workmen in

such stopped their work, dismissed their journeymen and workmen,

and all their dependents.

2. As merchandising was at a full stop, for very few ships

ventured to come up the river and none at all went out, so all

the extraordinary officers of the customs, likewise the watermen,

carmen, porters, and all the poor whose labour depended upon the

merchants, were at once dismissed and put out of business.

3. All the tradesmen usually employed in building or repairing of

houses were at a full stop, for the people were far from wanting

to build houses when so many thousand houses were at once

stripped of their inhabitants; so that this one article turned

all the ordinary workmen of that kind out of business, such as

bricklayers, masons, carpenters, joiners, plasterers, painters,

glaziers, smiths, plumbers, and all the labourers depending on

such.

4. As navigation was at a stop, our ships neither coming in or

going out as before, so the seamen were all out of employment,

and many of them in the last and lowest degree of distress; and

with the seamen were all the several tradesmen and workmen

belonging to and depending upon the building and fitting out of

ships, such as ship-carpenters, caulkers, ropemakers, dry

coopers, sailmakers, anchorsmiths, and other smiths; blockmakers,

carvers, gunsmiths, ship-chandlers, ship-carvers, and the like.

The masters of those perhaps might live upon their substance, but

the traders were universally at a stop, and consequently all

their workmen discharged. Add to these that the river was in a

manner without boats, and all or most part of the watermen,

lightermen, boat-builders, and lighter-builders in like manner

idle and laid by.

5. All families retrenched their living as much as possible, as

well those that fled as those that stayed; so that an innumerable

multitude of footmen, serving-men, shopkeepers, journeymen,

merchants’ bookkeepers, and such sort of people, and especially

poor maid-servants, were turned off, and left friendless and

helpless, without employment and without habitation, and this was

really a dismal article.

I might be more particular as to this part, but it may suffice to

mention in general, all trades being stopped, employment ceased:

the labour, and by that the bread, of the poor were cut off; and

at first indeed the cries of the poor were most lamentable to

hear, though by the distribution of charity their misery that way

was greatly abated. Many indeed fled into the counties, but

thousands of them having stayed in London till nothing but

desperation sent them away, death overtook them on the road, and

they served for no better than the messengers of death; indeed,

others carrying the infection along with them, spread it very

unhappily into the remotest parts of the kingdom.

Many of these were the miserable objects of despair which I have

mentioned before, and were removed by the destruction which

followed. These might be said to perish not by the infection

itself but by the consequence of it; indeed, namely, by hunger

and distress and the want of all things: being without lodging,

without money, without friends, without means to get their bread,

or without anyone to give it them; for many of them were without

what we call legal settlements, and so could not claim of the

parishes, and all the support they had was by application to the

magistrates for relief, which relief was (to give the magistrates

their due) carefully and cheerfully administered as they found it

necessary, and those that stayed behind never felt the want and

distress of that kind which they felt who went away in the manner

above noted.

Let any one who is acquainted with what multitudes of people get

their daily bread in this city by their labour, whether

artificers or mere workmen—I say, let any man consider what must

be the miserable condition of this town if, on a sudden, they

should be all turned out of employment, that labour should cease,

and wages for work be no more.

This was the case with us at that time; and had not the sums of

money contributed in charity by well-disposed people of every

kind, as well abroad as at home, been prodigiously great, it had

not been in the power of the Lord Mayor and sheriffs to have kept

the public peace. Nor were they without apprehensions, as it was,

that desperation should push the people upon tumults, and cause

them to rifle the houses of rich men and plunder the markets of

provisions; in which case the country people, who brought

provisions very freely and boldly to town, would have been

terrified from coming any more, and the town would have sunk

under an unavoidable famine.

But the prudence of my Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen

within the city, and of the justices of peace in the out-parts,

was such, and they were supported with money from all parts so

well, that the poor people were kept quiet, and their wants

everywhere relieved, as far as was possible to be done.

Two things besides this contributed to prevent the mob doing any

mischief. One was, that really the rich themselves had not laid

up stores of provisions in their houses as indeed they ought to

have done, and which if they had been wise enough to have done,

and locked themselves entirely up, as some few did, they had

perhaps escaped the disease better. But as it appeared they had

not, so the mob had no notion of finding stores of provisions

there if they had broken in as it is plain they were sometimes

very near doing, and which, if they had, they had finished the

ruin of the whole city, for there were no regular troops to have

withstood them, nor could the trained bands have been brought

together to defend the city, no men being to be found to bear

arms.

But the vigilance of the Lord Mayor and such magistrates as could

be had (for some, even of the aldermen, were dead, and some

absent) prevented this; and they did it by the most kind and

gentle methods they could think of, as particularly by relieving

the most desperate with money, and putting others into business,

and particularly that employment of watching houses that were

infected and shut up. And as the number of these were very great

(for it was said there was at one time ten thousand houses shut

up, and every house had two watchmen to guard it, viz., one by

night and the other by day), this gave opportunity to employ a

very great number of poor men at a time.

The women and servants that were turned off from their places

were likewise employed as nurses to tend the sick in all places,

and this took off a very great number of them.

And, which though a melancholy article in itself, yet was a

deliverance in its kind: namely, the plague, which raged in a

dreadful manner from the middle of August to the middle of

October, carried off in that time thirty or forty thousand of

these very people which, had they been left, would certainly have

been an insufferable burden by their poverty; that is to say, the

whole city could not have supported the expense of them, or have

provided food for them; and they would in time have been even

driven to the necessity of plundering either the city itself or

the country adjacent, to have subsisted themselves, which would

first or last have put the whole nation, as well as the city,

into the utmost terror and confusion.

It was observable, then, that this calamity of the people made

them very humble; for now for about nine weeks together there

died near a thousand a day, one day with another, even by the

account of the weekly bills, which yet, I have reason to be

assured, never gave a full account, by many thousands; the

confusion being such, and the carts working in the dark when they

carried the dead, that in some places no account at all was kept,

but they worked on, the clerks and sextons not attending for

weeks together, and not knowing what number they carried. This

account is verified by the following bills of mortality:—

- Of all of the

- Diseases. Plague

From August 8 to August 15 5319 3880

” ” 15 ” 22 5568 4237

” ” 22 ” 29 7496 6102

” ” 29 to September 5 8252 6988

” September 5 ” 12 7690 6544

” ” 12 ” 19 8297 7165

” ” 19 ” 26 6460 5533

” ” 26 to October 3 5720 4979

” October 3 ” 10 5068 4327

- ——- ——-

- 59,870 49,705

So that the gross of the people were carried off in these two

months; for, as the whole number which was brought in to die of

the plague was but 68,590, here is 50,000 of them, within a

trifle, in two months; I say 50,000, because, as there wants 295

in the number above, so there wants two days of two months in the

account of time.

Now when I say that the parish officers did not give in a full

account, or were not to be depended upon for their account, let

any one but consider how men could be exact in such a time of

dreadful distress, and when many of them were taken sick

themselves and perhaps died in the very time when their accounts

were to be given in; I mean the parish clerks, besides inferior

officers; for though these poor men ventured at all hazards, yet

they were far from being exempt from the common calamity,

especially if it be true that the parish of Stepney had, within

the year, 116 sextons, gravediggers, and their assistants; that

is to say, bearers, bellmen, and drivers of carts for carrying

off the dead bodies.

Indeed the work was not of a nature to allow them leisure to take

an exact tale of the dead bodies, which were all huddled together

in the dark into a pit; which pit or trench no man could come

nigh but at the utmost peril. I observed often that in the

parishes of Aldgate and Cripplegate, Whitechappel and Stepney,

there were five, six, seven, and eight hundred in a week in the

bills; whereas if we may believe the opinion of those that lived

in the city all the time as well as I, there died sometimes 2000

a week in those parishes; and I saw it under the hand of one that

made as strict an examination into that part as he could, that

there really died an hundred thousand people of the plague in

that one year whereas in the bills, the articles of the plague,

it was but 68,590.

If I may be allowed to give my opinion, by what I saw with my

eyes and heard from other people that were eye-witnesses, I do

verily believe the same, viz., that there died at least 100,000

of the plague only, besides other distempers and besides those

which died in the fields and highways and secret Places out of

the compass of the communication, as it was called, and who were

not put down in the bills though they really belonged to the body

of the inhabitants. It was known to us all that abundance of poor

despairing creatures who had the distemper upon them, and were

grown stupid or melancholy by their misery, as many were,

wandered away into the fields and Woods, and into secret uncouth

places almost anywhere, to creep into a bush or hedge and die.

The inhabitants of the villages adjacent would, in pity, carry

them food and set it at a distance, that they might fetch it, if

they were able; and sometimes they were not able, and the next

time they went they should find the poor wretches lie dead and

the food untouched. The number of these miserable objects were

many, and I know so many that perished thus, and so exactly

where, that I believe I could go to the very place and dig their

bones up still; for the country people would go and dig a hole at

a distance from them, and then with long poles, and hooks at the

end of them, drag the bodies into these pits, and then throw the

earth in from as far as they could cast it, to cover them, taking

notice how the wind blew, and so coming on that side which the

seamen call to windward, that the scent of the bodies might blow

from them; and thus great numbers went out of the world who were

never known, or any account of them taken, as well within the

bills of mortality as without.

This, indeed, I had in the main only from the relation of others,

for I seldom walked into the fields, except towards Bethnal Green

and Hackney, or as hereafter. But when I did walk, I always saw a

great many poor wanderers at a distance; but I could know little

of their cases, for whether it were in the street or in the

fields, if we had seen anybody coming, it was a general method to

walk away; yet I believe the account is exactly true.

As this puts me upon mentioning my walking the streets and

fields, I cannot omit taking notice what a desolate place the

city was at that time. The great street I lived in (which is

known to be one of the broadest of all the streets of London, I

mean of the suburbs as well as the liberties) all the side where

the butchers lived, especially without the bars, was more like a

green field than a paved street, and the people generally went in

the middle with the horses and carts. It is true that the

farthest end towards Whitechappel Church was not all paved, but

even the part that was paved was full of grass also; but this

need not seem strange, since the great streets within the city,

such as Leadenhall Street, Bishopsgate Street, Cornhill, and even

the Exchange itself, had grass growing in them in several places;

neither cart or coach were seen in the streets from morning to

evening, except some country carts to bring roots and beans, or

peas, hay, and straw, to the market, and those but very few

compared to what was usual. As for coaches, they were scarce used

but to carry sick people to the pest-house, and to other

hospitals, and some few to carry physicians to such places as

they thought fit to venture to visit; for really coaches were

dangerous things, and people did not care to venture into them,

because they did not know who might have been carried in them

last, and sick, infected people were, as I have said, ordinarily

carried in them to the pest-houses, and sometimes people expired

in them as they went along.

It is true, when the infection came to such a height as I have

now mentioned, there were very few physicians which cared to stir

abroad to sick houses, and very many of the most eminent of the

faculty were dead, as well as the surgeons also; for now it was

indeed a dismal time, and for about a month together, not taking

any notice of the bills of mortality, I believe there did not die

less than 1500 or 1700 a day, one day with another.

One of the worst days we had in the whole time, as I thought, was

in the beginning of September, when, indeed, good people began to

think that God was resolved to make a full end of the people in

this miserable city. This was at that time when the plague was

fully come into the eastern parishes. The parish of Aldgate, if I

may give my opinion, buried above a thousand a week for two

weeks, though the bills did not say so many;—but it surrounded me

at so dismal a rate that there was not a house in twenty

uninfected in the Minories, in Houndsditch, and in those parts of

Aldgate parish about the Butcher Row and the alleys over against

me. I say, in those places death reigned in every corner.

Whitechappel parish was in the same condition, and though much

less than the parish I lived in, yet buried near 600 a week by

the bills, and in my opinion near twice as many. Whole families,

and indeed whole streets of families, were swept away together;

insomuch that it was frequent for neighbours to call to the

bellman to go to such-and-such houses and fetch out the people,

for that they were all dead.

And, indeed, the work of removing the dead bodies by carts was

now grown so very odious and dangerous that it was complained of

that the bearers did not take care to clear such houses where all

the inhabitants were dead, but that sometimes the bodies lay

several days unburied, till the neighbouring families were

offended with the stench, and consequently infected; and this

neglect of the officers was such that the churchwardens and

constables were summoned to look after it, and even the justices

of the Hamlets were obliged to venture their lives among them to

quicken and encourage them, for innumerable of the bearers died

of the distemper, infected by the bodies they were obliged to

come so near. And had it not been that the number of poor people

who wanted employment and wanted bread (as I have said before)

was so great that necessity drove them to undertake anything and

venture anything, they would never have found people to be

employed. And then the bodies of the dead would have lain above

ground, and have perished and rotted in a dreadful manner.

But the magistrates cannot be enough commended in this, that they

kept such good order for the burying of the dead, that as fast as

any of these they employed to carry off and bury the dead fell

sick or died, as was many times the case, they immediately

supplied the places with others, which, by reason of the great

number of poor that was left out of business, as above, was not

hard to do. This occasioned, that notwithstanding the infinite

number of people which died and were sick, almost all together,

yet they were always cleared away and carried off every night, so

that it was never to be said of London that the living were not

able to bury the dead.

As the desolation was greater during those terrible times, so the

amazement of the people increased, and a thousand unaccountable

things they would do in the violence of their fright, as others

did the same in the agonies of their distemper, and this part was

very affecting. Some went roaring and crying and wringing their

hands along the street; some would go praying and lifting up

their hands to heaven, calling upon God for mercy. I cannot say,

indeed, whether this was not in their distraction, but, be it so,

it was still an indication of a more serious mind, when they had

the use of their senses, and was much better, even as it was,

than the frightful yellings and cryings that every day, and

especially in the evenings, were heard in some streets. I suppose

the world has heard of the famous Solomon Eagle, an enthusiast.

He, though not infected at all but in his head, went about

denouncing of judgement upon the city in a frightful manner,

sometimes quite naked, and with a pan of burning charcoal on his

head. What he said, or pretended, indeed I could not learn.

I will not say whether that clergyman was distracted or not, or

whether he did it in pure zeal for the poor people, who went

every evening through the streets of Whitechappel, and, with his

hands lifted up, repeated that part of the Liturgy of the Church

continually, ‘Spare us, good Lord; spare Thy people, whom Thou

has redeemed with Thy most precious blood.’ I say, I cannot speak

positively of these things, because these were only the dismal

objects which represented themselves to me as I looked through my

chamber windows (for I seldom opened the casements), while I

confined myself within doors during that most violent raging of

the pestilence; when, indeed, as I have said, many began to

think, and even to say, that there would none escape; and indeed

I began to think so too, and therefore kept within doors for

about a fortnight and never stirred out. But I could not hold it.

Besides, there were some people who, notwithstanding the danger,

did not omit publicly to attend the worship of God, even in the

most dangerous times; and though it is true that a great many

clergymen did shut up their churches, and fled, as other people

did, for the safety of their lives, yet all did not do so. Some

ventured to officiate and to keep up the assemblies of the people

by constant prayers, and sometimes sermons or brief exhortations

to repentance and reformation, and this as long as any would come

to hear them. And Dissenters did the like also, and even in the

very churches where the parish ministers were either dead or

fled; nor was there any room for making difference at such a time

as this was.

It was indeed a lamentable thing to hear the miserable

lamentations of poor dying creatures calling out for ministers to

comfort them and pray with them, to counsel them and to direct

them, calling out to God for pardon and mercy, and confessing

aloud their past sins. It would make the stoutest heart bleed to

hear how many warnings were then given by dying penitents to

others not to put off and delay their repentance to the day of

distress; that such a time of calamity as this was no time for

repentance, was no time to call upon God. I wish I could repeat

the very sound of those groans and of those exclamations that I

heard from some poor dying creatures when in the height of their

agonies and distress, and that I could make him that reads this

hear, as I imagine I now hear them, for the sound seems still to

ring in my ears.

If I could but tell this part in such moving accents as should

alarm the very soul of the reader, I should rejoice that I

recorded those things, however short and imperfect.

It pleased God that I was still spared, and very hearty and sound

in health, but very impatient of being pent up within doors

without air, as I had been for fourteen days or thereabouts; and

I could not restrain myself, but I would go to carry a letter for

my brother to the post-house. Then it was indeed that I observed

a profound silence in the streets. When I came to the post-house,

as I went to put in my letter I saw a man stand in one corner of

the yard and talking to another at a window, and a third had

opened a door belonging to the office. In the middle of the yard

lay a small leather purse with two keys hanging at it, with money

in it, but nobody would meddle with it. I asked how long it had

lain there; the man at the window said it had lain almost an

hour, but that they had not meddled with it, because they did not

know but the person who dropped it might come back to look for

it. I had no such need of money, nor was the sum so big that I

had any inclination to meddle with it, or to get the money at the

hazard it might be attended with; so I seemed to go away, when

the man who had opened the door said he would take it up, but so

that if the right owner came for it he should be sure to have it.

So he went in and fetched a pail of water and set it down hard by

the purse, then went again and fetch some gunpowder, and cast a

good deal of powder upon the purse, and then made a train from

that which he had thrown loose upon the purse. The train reached

about two yards. After this he goes in a third time and fetches

out a pair of tongs red hot, and which he had prepared, I

suppose, on purpose; and first setting fire to the train of

powder, that singed the purse and also smoked the air

sufficiently. But he was not content with that, but he then takes

up the purse with the tongs, holding it so long till the tongs

burnt through the purse, and then he shook the money out into the

pail of water, so he carried it in. The money, as I remember, was

about thirteen shilling and some smooth groats and brass

farthings.

There might perhaps have been several poor people, as I have

observed above, that would have been hardy enough to have

ventured for the sake of the money; but you may easily see by

what I have observed that the few people who were spared were

very careful of themselves at that time when the distress was so

exceeding great.

Much about the same time I walked out into the fields towards

Bow; for I had a great mind to see how things were managed in the

river and among the ships; and as I had some concern in shipping,

I had a notion that it had been one of the best ways of securing

one’s self from the infection to have retired into a ship; and

musing how to satisfy my curiosity in that point, I turned away

over the fields from Bow to Bromley, and down to Blackwall to the

stairs which are there for landing or taking water.

Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank, or sea-wall, as they

call it, by himself. I walked a while also about, seeing the

houses all shut up. At last I fell into some talk, at a distance,

with this poor man; first I asked him how people did thereabouts.

‘Alas, sir!’ says he, ‘almost desolate; all dead or sick. Here

are very few families in this part, or in that village’ (pointing

at Poplar), ‘where half of them are not dead already, and the

rest sick.’ Then he pointing to one house, ‘There they are all

dead’, said he, ‘and the house stands open; nobody dares go into

it. A poor thief’, says he, ‘ventured in to steal something, but

he paid dear for his theft, for he was carried to the churchyard

too last night.’ Then he pointed to several other houses.

‘There’, says he, ‘they are all dead, the man and his wife, and

five children. There’, says he, ‘they are shut up; you see a

watchman at the door’; and so of other houses. ‘Why,’ says I,

‘what do you here all alone?’ ‘Why,’ says he, ‘I am a poor,

desolate man; it has pleased God I am not yet visited, though my

family is, and one of my children dead.’ ‘How do you mean, then,’

said I, ‘that you are not visited?’ ‘Why,’ says he, ‘that’s my

house’ (pointing to a very little, low-boarded house), ‘and there

my poor wife and two children live,’ said he, ‘if they may be

said to live, for my wife and one of the children are visited,

but I do not come at them.’ And with that word I saw the tears

run very plentifully down his face; and so they did down mine

too, I assure you.

‘But,’ said I, ‘why do you not come at them? How can you abandon

your own flesh and blood?’ ‘Oh, sir,’ says he, ‘the Lord forbid!

I do not abandon them; I work for them as much as I am able; and,

blessed be the Lord, I keep them from want’; and with that I

observed he lifted up his eyes to heaven, with a countenance that

presently told me I had happened on a man that was no hypocrite,

but a serious, religious, good man, and his ejaculation was an

expression of thankfulness that, in such a condition as he was

in, he should be able to say his family did not want. ‘Well,’

says I, ‘honest man, that is a great mercy as things go now with

the poor. But how do you live, then, and how are you kept from

the dreadful calamity that is now upon us all?’ ‘Why, sir,’ says

he, ‘I am a waterman, and there’s my boat,’ says he, ‘and the

boat serves me for a house. I work in it in the day, and I sleep

in it in the night; and what I get I lay down upon that stone,’

says he, showing me a broad stone on the other side of the

street, a good way from his house; ‘and then,’ says he, ‘I

halloo, and call to them till I make them hear; and they come and

fetch it.’

‘Well, friend,’ says I, ‘but how can you get any money as a

waterman? Does any body go by water these times?’ ‘Yes, sir,’

says he, ‘in the way I am employed there does. Do you see there,’

says he, ‘five ships lie at anchor’ (pointing down the river a

good way below the town), ‘and do you see’, says he, ‘eight or

ten ships lie at the chain there, and at anchor yonder?’

(pointing above the town). ‘All those ships have families on

board, of their merchants and owners, and such-like, who have

locked themselves up and live on board, close shut in, for fear

of the infection; and I tend on them to fetch things for them,

carry letters, and do what is absolutely necessary, that they may

not be obliged to come on shore; and every night I fasten my boat

on board one of the ship’s boats, and there I sleep by myself,

and, blessed be God, I am preserved hitherto.’

‘Well,’ said I, ‘friend, but will they let you come on board

after you have been on shore here, when this is such a terrible

place, and so infected as it is?’

‘Why, as to that,’ said he, ‘I very seldom go up the ship-side,

but deliver what I bring to their boat, or lie by the side, and

they hoist it on board. If I did, I think they are in no danger

from me, for I never go into any house on shore, or touch

anybody, no, not of my own family; but I fetch provisions for

them.’

‘Nay,’ says I, ‘but that may be worse, for you must have those

provisions of somebody or other; and since all this part of the

town is so infected, it is dangerous so much as to speak with

anybody, for the village’, said I, ‘is, as it were, the beginning

of London, though it be at some distance from it.’

‘That is true,’ added he; ‘but you do not understand me right; I

do not buy provisions for them here. I row up to Greenwich and

buy fresh meat there, and sometimes I row down the river to

Woolwich and buy there; then I go to single farm-houses on the

Kentish side, where I am known, and buy fowls and eggs and

butter, and bring to the ships, as they direct me, sometimes one,

sometimes the other. I seldom come on shore here, and I came now

only to call on my wife and hear how my family do, and give them

a little money, which I received last night.’

‘Poor man!’ said I; ‘and how much hast thou gotten for them?’

‘I have gotten four shillings,’ said he, ‘which is a great sum,

as things go now with poor men; but they have given me a bag of

bread too, and a salt fish and some flesh; so all helps out.’

‘Well,’ said I, ‘and have you given it them yet?’

‘No,’ said he; ‘but I have called, and my wife has answered that

she cannot come out yet, but in half-an-hour she hopes to come,

and I am waiting for her. Poor woman!’ says he, ‘she is brought

sadly down. She has a swelling, and it is broke, and I hope she

will recover; but I fear the child will die, but it is the Lord—’

Here he stopped, and wept very much.

‘Well, honest friend,’ said I, ‘thou hast a sure Comforter, if

thou hast brought thyself to be resigned to the will of God; He

is dealing with us all in judgement.’

‘Oh, sir!’ says he, ‘it is infinite mercy if any of us are

spared, and who am I to repine!’

‘Sayest thou so?’ said I, ‘and how much less is my faith than

thine?’ And here my heart smote me, suggesting how much better

this poor man’s foundation was on which he stayed in the danger

than mine; that he had nowhere to fly; that he had a family to

bind him to attendance, which I had not; and mine was mere

presumption, his a true dependence and a courage resting on God;

and yet that he used all possible caution for his safety.

I turned a little way from the man while these thoughts engaged

me, for, indeed, I could no more refrain from tears than he.

At length, after some further talk, the poor woman opened the

door and called, ‘Robert, Robert’. He answered, and bid her stay

a few moments and he would come; so he ran down the common stairs

to his boat and fetched up a sack, in which was the provisions he

had brought from the ships; and when he returned he hallooed

again. Then he went to the great stone which he showed me and

emptied the sack, and laid all out, everything by themselves, and

then retired; and his wife came with a little boy to fetch them

away, and called and said such a captain had sent such a thing,

and such a captain such a thing, and at the end adds, ‘God has

sent it all; give thanks to Him.’ When the poor woman had taken

up all, she was so weak she could not carry it at once in, though

the weight was not much neither; so she left the biscuit, which

was in a little bag, and left a little boy to watch it till she

came again.

‘Well, but’, says I to him, ‘did you leave her the four shillings

too, which you said was your week’s pay?’

‘Yes, yes,’ says he; ‘you shall hear her own it.’ So he calls

again, ‘Rachel, Rachel,’ which it seems was her name, ‘did you

take up the money?’ ‘Yes,’ said she. ‘How much was it?’ said he.

‘Four shillings and a groat,’ said she. ‘Well, well,’ says he,

‘the Lord keep you all’; and so he turned to go away.

As I could not refrain contributing tears to this man’s story, so

neither could I refrain my charity for his assistance. So I

called him, ‘Hark thee, friend,’ said I, ‘come hither, for I

believe thou art in health, that I may venture thee’; so I pulled

out my hand, which was in my pocket before, ‘Here,’ says I, ‘go

and call thy Rachel once more, and give her a little more comfort

from me. God will never forsake a family that trust in Him as

thou dost.’ So I gave him four other shillings, and bid him go

lay them on the stone and call his wife.

I have not words to express the poor man’s thankfulness, neither

could he express it himself but by tears running down his face.

He called his wife, and told her God had moved the heart of a

stranger, upon hearing their condition, to give them all that

money, and a great deal more such as that he said to her. The

woman, too, made signs of the like thankfulness, as well to

Heaven as to me, and joyfully picked it up; and I parted with no

money all that year that I thought better bestowed.

I then asked the poor man if the distemper had not reached to

Greenwich. He said it had not till about a fortnight before; but

that then he feared it had, but that it was only at that end of

the town which lay south towards Deptford Bridge; that he went

only to a butcher’s shop and a grocer’s, where he generally

bought such things as they sent him for, but was very careful.

I asked him then how it came to pass that those people who had so

shut themselves up in the ships had not laid in sufficient stores

of all things necessary. He said some of them had—but, on the

other hand, some did not come on board till they were frighted

into it and till it was too dangerous for them to go to the

proper people to lay in quantities of things, and that he waited

on two ships, which he showed me, that had laid in little or

nothing but biscuit bread and ship beer, and that he had bought

everything else almost for them. I asked him if there was any

more ships that had separated themselves as those had done. He

told me yes, all the way up from the point, right against

Greenwich, to within the shore of Limehouse and Redriff, all the

ships that could have room rid two and two in the middle of the

stream, and that some of them had several families on board. I

asked him if the distemper had not reached them. He said he

believed it had not, except two or three ships whose people had

not been so watchful to keep the seamen from going on shore as

others had been, and he said it was a very fine sight to see how

the ships lay up the Pool.

When he said he was going over to Greenwich as soon as the tide

began to come in, I asked if he would let me go with him and

bring me back, for that I had a great mind to see how the ships

were ranged, as he had told me. He told me, if I would assure him

on the word of a Christian and of an honest man that I had not

the distemper, he would. I assured him that I had not; that it

had pleased God to preserve me; that I lived in Whitechappel, but

was too impatient of being so long within doors, and that I had

ventured out so far for the refreshment of a little air, but that

none in my house had so much as been touched with it.

‘Well, sir,’ says he, ‘as your charity has been moved to pity me

and my poor family, sure you cannot have so little pity left as

to put yourself into my boat if you were not sound in health

which would be nothing less than killing me and ruining my whole

family.’ The poor man troubled me so much when he spoke of his

family with such a sensible concern and in such an affectionate

manner, that I could not satisfy myself at first to go at all. I

told him I would lay aside my curiosity rather than make him

uneasy, though I was sure, and very thankful for it, that I had

no more distemper upon me than the freshest man in the world.

Well, he would not have me put it off neither, but to let me see

how confident he was that I was just to him, now importuned me to

go; so when the tide came up to his boat I went in, and he

carried me to Greenwich. While he bought the things which he had

in his charge to buy, I walked up to the top of the hill under

which the town stands, and on the east side of the town, to get a

prospect of the river. But it was a surprising sight to see the

number of ships which lay in rows, two and two, and some places

two or three such lines in the breadth of the river, and this not

only up quite to the town, between the houses which we call

Ratcliff and Redriff, which they name the Pool, but even down the

whole river as far as the head of Long Reach, which is as far as

the hills give us leave to see it.

I cannot guess at the number of ships, but I think there must be

several hundreds of sail; and I could not but applaud the

contrivance: for ten thousand people and more who attended ship

affairs were certainly sheltered here from the violence of the

contagion, and lived very safe and very easy.

I returned to my own dwelling very well satisfied with my day’s

journey, and particularly with the poor man; also I rejoiced to

see that such little sanctuaries were provided for so many

families in a time of such desolation. I observed also that, as

the violence of the plague had increased, so the ships which had

families on board removed and went farther off, till, as I was

told, some went quite away to sea, and put into such harbours and

safe roads on the north coast as they could best come at.

But it was also true that all the people who thus left the land

and lived on board the ships were not entirely safe from the

infection, for many died and were thrown overboard into the

river, some in coffins, and some, as I heard, without coffins,

whose bodies were seen sometimes to drive up and down with the

tide in the river.

But I believe I may venture to say that in those ships which were

thus infected it either happened where the people had recourse to

them too late, and did not fly to the ship till they had stayed

too long on shore and had the distemper upon them (though perhaps

they might not perceive it) and so the distemper did not come to

them on board the ships, but they really carried it with them; or

it was in these ships where the poor waterman said they had not

had time to furnish themselves with provisions, but were obliged

to send often on shore to buy what they had occasion for, or

suffered boats to come to them from the shore. And so the

distemper was brought insensibly among them.

And here I cannot but take notice that the strange temper of the

people of London at that time contributed extremely to their own

destruction. The plague began, as I have observed, at the other

end of the town, namely, in Long Acre, Drury Lane, &c., and came

on towards the city very gradually and slowly. It was felt at

first in December, then again in February, then again in April,

and always but a very little at a time; then it stopped till May,

and even the last week in May there was but seventeen, and all at

that end of the town; and all this while, even so long as till

there died above 3000 a week, yet had the people in Redriff, and

in Wapping and Ratcliff, on both sides of the river, and almost

all Southwark side, a mighty fancy that they should not be

visited, or at least that it would not be so violent among them.

Some people fancied the smell of the pitch and tar, and such

other things as oil and rosin and brimstone, which is so much

used by all trades relating to shipping, would preserve them.

Others argued it, because it was in its extreamest violence in

Westminster and the parish of St Giles and St Andrew, &c., and

began to abate again before it came among them—which was true

indeed, in part. For example—

From the 8th to the 15th August—

- St Giles-in-the-Fields 242

- Cripplegate 886

- Stepney 197

- St Margaret, Bermondsey 24

- Rotherhithe 3

- Total this week 4030

From the 15th to the 22nd August—

- St Giles-in-the-Fields 175

- Cripplegate 847

- Stepney 273

- St Margaret, Bermondsey 36

- Rotherhithe 2

- Total this week 5319

N.B.—That it was observed the numbers mentioned in Stepney parish

at that time were generally all on that side where Stepney parish

joined to Shoreditch, which we now call Spittlefields, where the

parish of Stepney comes up to the very wall of Shoreditch

Churchyard, and the plague at this time was abated at St

Giles-in-the-Fields, and raged most violently in Cripplegate,

Bishopsgate, and Shoreditch parishes; but there was not ten

people a week that died of it in all that part of Stepney parish

which takes in Limehouse, Ratcliff Highway, and which are now the

parishes of Shadwell and Wapping, even to St Katherine’s by the

Tower, till after the whole month of August was expired. But they

paid for it afterwards, as I shall observe by-and-by.

This, I say, made the people of Redriff and Wapping, Ratcliff and

Limehouse, so secure, and flatter themselves so much with the

plague’s going off without reaching them, that they took no care

either to fly into the country or shut themselves up. Nay, so far

were they from stirring that they rather received their friends

and relations from the city into their houses, and several from

other places really took sanctuary in that part of the town as a

place of safety, and as a place which they thought God would pass

over, and not visit as the rest was visited.

And this was the reason that when it came upon them they were

more surprised, more unprovided, and more at a loss what to do

than they were in other places; for when it came among them

really and with violence, as it did indeed in September and

October, there was then no stirring out into the country, nobody

would suffer a stranger to come near them, no, nor near the towns

where they dwelt; and, as I have been told, several that wandered

into the country on Surrey side were found starved to death in

the woods and commons, that country being more open and more

woody than any other part so near London, especially about

Norwood and the parishes of Camberwell, Dullege, and Lusum,

where, it seems, nobody durst relieve the poor distressed people

for fear of the infection.

This notion having, as I said, prevailed with the people in that

part of the town, was in part the occasion, as I said before,

that they had recourse to ships for their retreat; and where they

did this early and with prudence, furnishing themselves so with

provisions that they had no need to go on shore for supplies or

suffer boats to come on board to bring them,—I say, where they

did so they had certainly the safest retreat of any people

whatsoever; but the distress was such that people ran on board,

in their fright, without bread to eat, and some into ships that

had no men on board to remove them farther off, or to take the

boat and go down the river to buy provisions where it might be

done safely, and these often suffered and were infected on board

as much as on shore.

As the richer sort got into ships, so the lower rank got into

hoys, smacks, lighters, and fishing-boats; and many, especially

watermen, lay in their boats; but those made sad work of it,

especially the latter, for, going about for provision, and

perhaps to get their subsistence, the infection got in among them

and made a fearful havoc; many of the watermen died alone in

their wherries as they rid at their roads, as well as above

bridge as below, and were not found sometimes till they were not

in condition for anybody to touch or come near them.

Indeed, the distress of the people at this seafaring end of the

town was very deplorable, and deserved the greatest

commiseration. But, alas! this was a time when every one’s

private safety lay so near them that they had no room to pity the

distresses of others; for every one had death, as it were, at his

door, and many even in their families, and knew not what to do or

whither to fly.

This, I say, took away all compassion; self-preservation, indeed,

appeared here to be the first law. For the children ran away from

their parents as they languished in the utmost distress. And in

some places, though not so frequent as the other, parents did the

like to their children; nay, some dreadful examples there were,

and particularly two in one week, of distressed mothers, raving

and distracted, killing their own children; one whereof was not

far off from where I dwelt, the poor lunatic creature not living

herself long enough to be sensible of the sin of what she had

done, much less to be punished for it.

It is not, indeed, to be wondered at: for the danger of immediate

death to ourselves took away all bowels of love, all concern for

one another. I speak in general, for there were many instances of

immovable affection, pity, and duty in many, and some that came

to my knowledge, that is to say, by hearsay; for I shall not take

upon me to vouch the truth of the particulars.

To introduce one, let me first mention that one of the most

deplorable cases in all the present calamity was that of women

with child, who, when they came to the hour of their sorrows, and

their pains come upon them, could neither have help of one kind

or another; neither midwife or neighbouring women to come near

them. Most of the midwives were dead, especially of such as

served the poor; and many, if not all the midwives of note, were

fled into the country; so that it was next to impossible for a

poor woman that could not pay an immoderate price to get any

midwife to come to her—and if they did, those they could get were

generally unskilful and ignorant creatures; and the consequence

of this was that a most unusual and incredible number of women

were reduced to the utmost distress. Some were delivered and

spoiled by the rashness and ignorance of those who pretended to

lay them. Children without number were, I might say, murdered by

the same but a more justifiable ignorance: pretending they would

save the mother, whatever became of the child; and many times

both mother and child were lost in the same manner; and

especially where the mother had the distemper, there nobody would

come near them and both sometimes perished. Sometimes the mother

has died of the plague, and the infant, it may be, half born, or

born but not parted from the mother. Some died in the very pains

of their travail, and not delivered at all; and so many were the

cases of this kind that it is hard to judge of them.

Something of it will appear in the unusual numbers which are put

into the weekly bills (though I am far from allowing them to be

able to give anything of a full account) under the articles of—

Child-bed. Abortive and Still-born. Chrisoms and Infants.

Take the weeks in which the plague was most violent, and compare

them with the weeks before the distemper began, even in the same

year. For example:—

Child-bed. Abortive. Still-born.

From January 3 to January 10 7 1 13

” ” 10 ” 17 8 6 11

” ” 17 ” 24 9 5 15

” ” 24 ” 31 3 2 9

” ” 31 to February 7 3 3 8

” February 7 ” 14 6 2 11

” ” 14 ” 21 5 2 13

” ” 21 ” 28 2 2 10

” ” 28 to March 7 5 1 10

- —- —- ——

- 48 24 100

From August 1 to August 8 25 5 11

” ” 8 ” 15 23 6 8

” ” 15 ” 22 28 4 4

” ” 22 ” 29 40 6 10

” ” 29 to September 5 38 2 11

September 5 ” 12 39 23 ...

” ” 12 ” 19 42 5 17

” ” 19 ” 26 42 6 10

” ” 26 to October 3 14 4 9

- —- — —-

- 291 61 80

To the disparity of these numbers it is to be considered and

allowed for, that according to our usual opinion who were then

upon the spot, there were not one-third of the people in the town

during the months of August and September as were in the months

of January and February. In a word, the usual number that used to

die of these three articles, and, as I hear, did die of them the

year before, was thus:—

1664. 1665.

Child-bed 189 Child-bed 625

Abortive and still-born 458 Abortive and still-born 617

- —— ——

- 647 1242

This inequality, I say, is exceedingly augmented when the numbers

of people are considered. I pretend not to make any exact

calculation of the numbers of people which were at this time in

the city, but I shall make a probable conjecture at that part

by-and-by. What I have said now is to explain the misery of those

poor creatures above; so that it might well be said, as in the

Scripture, Woe be to those who are with child, and to those which

give suck in that day. For, indeed, it was a woe to them in

particular.

I was not conversant in many particular families where these

things happened, but the outcries of the miserable were heard

afar off. As to those who were with child, we have seen some

calculation made; 291 women dead in child-bed in nine weeks, out

of one-third part of the number of whom there usually died in

that time but eighty-four of the same disaster. Let the reader

calculate the proportion.

There is no room to doubt but the misery of those that gave suck

was in proportion as great. Our bills of mortality could give but

little light in this, yet some it did. There were several more

than usual starved at nurse, but this was nothing. The misery was

where they were, first, starved for want of a nurse, the mother

dying and all the family and the infants found dead by them,

merely for want; and, if I may speak my opinion, I do believe

that many hundreds of poor helpless infants perished in this

manner. Secondly, not starved, but poisoned by the nurse. Nay,

even where the mother has been nurse, and having received the

infection, has poisoned, that is, infected the infant with her

milk even before they knew they were infected themselves; nay,

and the infant has died in such a case before the mother. I

cannot but remember to leave this admonition upon record, if ever

such another dreadful visitation should happen in this city, that

all women that are with child or that give suck should be gone,

if they have any possible means, out of the place, because their

misery, if infected, will so much exceed all other people’s.

I could tell here dismal stories of living infants being found

sucking the breasts of their mothers, or nurses, after they have

been dead of the plague. Of a mother in the parish where I lived,

who, having a child that was not well, sent for an apothecary to

view the child; and when he came, as the relation goes, was

giving the child suck at her breast, and to all appearance was

herself very well; but when the apothecary came close to her he

saw the tokens upon that breast with which she was suckling the

child. He was surprised enough, to be sure, but, not willing to

fright the poor woman too much, he desired she would give the

child into his hand; so he takes the child, and going to a cradle

in the room, lays it in, and opening its cloths, found the tokens

upon the child too, and both died before he could get home to

send a preventive medicine to the father of the child, to whom he

had told their condition. Whether the child infected the

nurse-mother or the mother the child was not certain, but the

last most likely. Likewise of a child brought home to the parents

from a nurse that had died of the plague, yet the tender mother

would not refuse to take in her child, and laid it in her bosom,

by which she was infected; and died with the child in her arms

dead also.

It would make the hardest heart move at the instances that were

frequently found of tender mothers tending and watching with

their dear children, and even dying before them, and sometimes

taking the distemper from them and dying, when the child for whom

the affectionate heart had been sacrificed has got over it and

escaped.

The like of a tradesman in East Smithfield, whose wife was big

with child of her first child, and fell in labour, having the

plague upon her. He could neither get midwife to assist her or

nurse to tend her, and two servants which he kept fled both from

her. He ran from house to house like one distracted, but could

get no help; the utmost he could get was, that a watchman, who

attended at an infected house shut up, promised to send a nurse

in the morning. The poor man, with his heart broke, went back,

assisted his wife what he could, acted the part of the midwife,

brought the child dead into the world, and his wife in about an

hour died in his arms, where he held her dead body fast till the

morning, when the watchman came and brought the nurse as he had

promised; and coming up the stairs (for he had left the door

open, or only latched), they found the man sitting with his dead

wife in his arms, and so overwhelmed with grief that he died in a

few hours after without any sign of the infection upon him, but

merely sunk under the weight of his grief.

I have heard also of some who, on the death of their relations,

have grown stupid with the insupportable sorrow; and of one, in

particular, who was so absolutely overcome with the pressure upon

his spirits that by degrees his head sank into his body, so

between his shoulders that the crown of his head was very little

seen above the bone of his shoulders; and by degrees losing both

voice and sense, his face, looking forward, lay against his

collarbone and could not be kept up any otherwise, unless held up

by the hands of other people; and the poor man never came to

himself again, but languished near a year in that condition, and

died. Nor was he ever once seen to lift up his eyes or to look

upon any particular object.

I cannot undertake to give any other than a summary of such

passages as these, because it was not possible to come at the

particulars, where sometimes the whole families where such things

happened were carried off by the distemper. But there were

innumerable cases of this kind which presented to the eye and the

ear, even in passing along the streets, as I have hinted above.

Nor is it easy to give any story of this or that family which

there was not divers parallel stories to be met with of the same

kind.

But as I am now talking of the time when the plague raged at the

easternmost part of the town—how for a long time the people of

those parts had flattered themselves that they should escape, and

how they were surprised when it came upon them as it did; for,

indeed, it came upon them like an armed man when it did come;—I

say, this brings me back to the three poor men who wandered from

Wapping, not knowing whither to go or what to do, and whom I

mentioned before; one a biscuit-baker, one a sailmaker, and the

other a joiner, all of Wapping, or there-abouts.

The sleepiness and security of that part, as I have observed, was

such that they not only did not shift for themselves as others

did, but they boasted of being safe, and of safety being with

them; and many people fled out of the city, and out of the

infected suburbs, to Wapping, Ratcliff, Limehouse, Poplar, and

such Places, as to Places of security; and it is not at all

unlikely that their doing this helped to bring the plague that

way faster than it might otherwise have come. For though I am

much for people flying away and emptying such a town as this upon

the first appearance of a like visitation, and that all people

who have any possible retreat should make use of it in time and

be gone, yet I must say, when all that will fly are gone, those

that are left and must stand it should stand stock-still where

they are, and not shift from one end of the town or one part of

the town to the other; for that is the bane and mischief of the

whole, and they carry the plague from house to house in their

very clothes.

Wherefore were we ordered to kill all the dogs and cats, but

because as they were domestic animals, and are apt to run from

house to house and from street to street, so they are capable of

carrying the effluvia or infectious streams of bodies infected

even in their furs and hair? And therefore it was that, in the

beginning of the infection, an order was published by the Lord

Mayor, and by the magistrates, according to the advice of the

physicians, that all the dogs and cats should be immediately

killed, and an officer was appointed for the execution.

It is incredible, if their account is to be depended upon, what a

prodigious number of those creatures were destroyed. I think they

talked of forty thousand dogs, and five times as many cats; few

houses being without a cat, some having several, sometimes five

or six in a house. All possible endeavours were used also to

destroy the mice and rats, especially the latter, by laying

ratsbane and other poisons for them, and a prodigious multitude

of them were also destroyed.

I often reflected upon the unprovided condition that the whole

body of the people were in at the first coming of this calamity

upon them, and how it was for want of timely entering into

measures and managements, as well public as private, that all the

confusions that followed were brought upon us, and that such a

prodigious number of people sank in that disaster, which, if

proper steps had been taken, might, Providence concurring, have

been avoided, and which, if posterity think fit, they may take a

caution and warning from. But I shall come to this part again.

I come back to my three men. Their story has a moral in every

part of it, and their whole conduct, and that of some whom they

joined with, is a pattern for all poor men to follow, or women

either, if ever such a time comes again; and if there was no

other end in recording it, I think this a very just one, whether

my account be exactly according to fact or no.

Two of them are said to be brothers, the one an old soldier, but

now a biscuit-maker; the other a lame sailor, but now a

sailmaker; the third a joiner. Says John the biscuit-maker one

day to Thomas his brother, the sailmaker, ‘Brother Tom, what will

become of us? The plague grows hot in the city, and increases

this way. What shall we do?’

‘Truly,’ says Thomas, ‘I am at a great loss what to do, for I

find if it comes down into Wapping I shall be turned out of my

lodging.’ And thus they began to talk of it beforehand.

John. Turned out of your lodging, Tom! If you are, I don’t know

who will take you in; for people are so afraid of one another

now, there’s no getting a lodging anywhere.

Thomas. Why, the people where I lodge are good, civil people, and

have kindness enough for me too; but they say I go abroad every

day to my work, and it will be dangerous; and they talk of

locking themselves up and letting nobody come near them.

John. Why, they are in the right, to be sure, if they resolve to

venture staying in town.

Thomas. Nay, I might even resolve to stay within doors too, for,

except a suit of sails that my master has in hand, and which I am

just finishing, I am like to get no more work a great while.

There’s no trade stirs now. Workmen and servants are turned off

everywhere, so that I might be glad to be locked up too; but I do

not see they will be willing to consent to that, any more than to

the other.

John. Why, what will you do then, brother? And what shall I do?

for I am almost as bad as you. The people where I lodge are all

gone into the country but a maid, and she is to go next week, and

to shut the house quite up, so that I shall be turned adrift to

the wide world before you, and I am resolved to go away too, if I

knew but where to go.

Thomas. We were both distracted we did not go away at first; then

we might have travelled anywhere. There’s no stirring now; we

shall be starved if we pretend to go out of town. They won’t let

us have victuals, no, not for our money, nor let us come into the

towns, much less into their houses.

John. And that which is almost as bad, I have but little money to

help myself with neither.

Thomas. As to that, we might make shift, I have a little, though

not much; but I tell you there’s no stirring on the road. I know

a couple of poor honest men in our street have attempted to

travel, and at Barnet, or Whetstone, or thereabouts, the people

offered to fire at them if they pretended to go forward, so they

are come back again quite discouraged.

John. I would have ventured their fire if I had been there. If I

had been denied food for my money they should have seen me take

it before their faces, and if I had tendered money for it they

could not have taken any course with me by law.

Thomas. You talk your old soldier’s language, as if you were in

the Low Countries now, but this is a serious thing. The people

have good reason to keep anybody off that they are not satisfied

are sound, at such a time as this, and we must not plunder them.

John. No, brother, you mistake the case, and mistake me too. I

would plunder nobody; but for any town upon the road to deny me

leave to pass through the town in the open highway, and deny me

provisions for my money, is to say the town has a right to starve

me to death, which cannot be true.

Thomas. But they do not deny you liberty to go back again from

whence you came, and therefore they do not starve you.

John. But the next town behind me will, by the same rule, deny me

leave to go back, and so they do starve me between them. Besides,

there is no law to prohibit my travelling wherever I will on the

road.

Thomas. But there will be so much difficulty in disputing with

them at every town on the road that it is not for poor men to do

it or undertake it, at such a time as this is especially.

John. Why, brother, our condition at this rate is worse than

anybody else’s, for we can neither go away nor stay here. I am of

the same mind with the lepers of Samaria: ‘If we stay here we are

sure to die’, I mean especially as you and I are stated, without

a dwelling-house of our own, and without lodging in anybody

else’s. There is no lying in the street at such a time as this;

we had as good go into the dead-cart at once. Therefore I say, if

we stay here we are sure to die, and if we go away we can but

die; I am resolved to be gone.

Thomas. You will go away. Whither will you go, and what can you

do? I would as willingly go away as you, if I knew whither. But

we have no acquaintance, no friends. Here we were born, and here

we must die.

John. Look you, Tom, the whole kingdom is my native country as

well as this town. You may as well say I must not go out of my

house if it is on fire as that I must not go out of the town I

was born in when it is infected with the plague. I was born in

England, and have a right to live in it if I can.

Thomas. But you know every vagrant person may by the laws of

England be taken up, and passed back to their last legal

settlement.

John. But how shall they make me vagrant? I desire only to travel

on, upon my lawful occasions.

Thomas. What lawful occasions can we pretend to travel, or rather

wander upon? They will not be put off with words.

John. Is not flying to save our lives a lawful occasion? And do

they not all know that the fact is true? We cannot be said to

dissemble.

Thomas. But suppose they let us pass, whither shall we go?

John. Anywhere, to save our lives; it is time enough to consider

that when we are got out of this town. If I am once out of this

dreadful place, I care not where I go.

Thomas. We shall be driven to great extremities. I know not what

to think of it.

John. Well, Tom, consider of it a little.

This was about the beginning of July; and though the plague was

come forward in the west and north parts of the town, yet all

Wapping, as I have observed before, and Redriff, and Ratdiff, and

Limehouse, and Poplar, in short, Deptford and Greenwich, all both

sides of the river from the Hermitage, and from over against it,

quite down to Blackwall, was entirely free; there had not one

person died of the plague in all Stepney parish, and not one on

the south side of Whitechappel Road, no, not in any parish; and

yet the weekly bill was that very week risen up to 1006.

It was a fortnight after this before the two brothers met again,

and then the case was a little altered, and the plague was

exceedingly advanced and the number greatly increased; the bill

was up at 2785, and prodigiously increasing, though still both

sides of the river, as below, kept pretty well. But some began to

die in Redriff, and about five or six in Ratcliff Highway, when

the sailmaker came to his brother John express, and in some

fright; for he was absolutely warned out of his lodging, and had

only a week to provide himself. His brother John was in as bad a

case, for he was quite out, and had only begged leave of his

master, the biscuit-maker, to lodge in an outhouse belonging to

his workhouse, where he only lay upon straw, with some

biscuit-sacks, or bread-sacks, as they called them, laid upon it,

and some of the same sacks to cover him.

Here they resolved (seeing all employment being at an end, and no

work or wages to be had), they would make the best of their way

to get out of the reach of the dreadful infection, and, being as

good husbands as they could, would endeavour to live upon what

they had as long as it would last, and then work for more if they

could get work anywhere, of any kind, let it be what it would.

While they were considering to put this resolution in practice in

the best manner they could, the third man, who was acquainted

very well with the sailmaker, came to know of the design, and got

leave to be one of the number; and thus they prepared to set out.

It happened that they had not an equal share of money; but as the

sailmaker, who had the best stock, was, besides his being lame,

the most unfit to expect to get anything by working in the

country, so he was content that what money they had should all go

into one public stock, on condition that whatever any one of them

could gain more than another, it should without any grudging be

all added to the public stock.

They resolved to load themselves with as little baggage as

possible because they resolved at first to travel on foot, and to

go a great way that they might, if possible, be effectually safe;

and a great many consultations they had with themselves before

they could agree about what way they should travel, which they

were so far from adjusting that even to the morning they set out

they were not resolved on it.

At last the seaman put in a hint that determined it. ‘First,’

says he, ‘the weather is very hot, and therefore I am for

travelling north, that we may not have the sun upon our faces and

beating on our breasts, which will heat and suffocate us; and I

have been told’, says he, ‘that it is not good to overheat our

blood at a time when, for aught we know, the infection may be in

the very air. In the next place,’ says he, ‘I am for going the

way that may be contrary to the wind, as it may blow when we set

out, that we may not have the wind blow the air of the city on

our backs as we go.’ These two cautions were approved of, if it

could be brought so to hit that the wind might not be in the

south when they set out to go north.

John the baker, who had been a soldier, then put in his opinion.

‘First,’ says he, ‘we none of us expect to get any lodging on the

road, and it will be a little too hard to lie just in the open

air. Though it be warm weather, yet it may be wet and damp, and

we have a double reason to take care of our healths at such a

time as this; and therefore,’ says he, ‘you, brother Tom, that

are a sailmaker, might easily make us a little tent, and I will

undertake to set it up every night, and take it down, and a fig

for all the inns in England; if we have a good tent over our

heads we shall do well enough.’

The joiner opposed this, and told them, let them leave that to

him; he would undertake to build them a house every night with

his hatchet and mallet, though he had no other tools, which

should be fully to their satisfaction, and as good as a tent.

The soldier and the joiner disputed that point some time, but at

last the soldier carried it for a tent. The only objection

against it was, that it must be carried with them, and that would

increase their baggage too much, the weather being hot; but the

sailmaker had a piece of good hap, fell in which made that easy,

for his master whom he worked for, having a rope-walk as well as

sailmaking trade, had a little, poor horse that he made no use of

then; and being willing to assist the three honest men, he gave

them the horse for the carrying their baggage; also for a small

matter of three days’ work that his man did for him before he

went, he let him have an old top-gallant sail that was worn out,

but was sufficient and more than enough to make a very good tent.

The soldier showed how to shape it, and they soon by his

direction made their tent, and fitted it with poles or staves for

the purpose; and thus they were furnished for their journey,

viz., three men, one tent, one horse, one gun—for the soldier

would not go without arms, for now he said he was no more a

biscuit-baker, but a trooper.

The joiner had a small bag of tools such as might be useful if he

should get any work abroad, as well for their subsistence as his

own. What money they had they brought all into one public stock,

and thus they began their journey. It seems that in the morning

when they set out the wind blew, as the sailor said, by his

pocket-compass, at N.W. by W. So they directed, or rather

resolved to direct, their course N.W.

But then a difficulty came in their way, that, as they set out

from the hither end of Wapping, near the Hermitage, and that the

plague was now very violent, especially on the north side of the

city, as in Shoreditch and Cripplegate parish, they did not think

it safe for them to go near those parts; so they went away east

through Ratcliff Highway as far as Ratcliff Cross, and leaving

Stepney Church still on their left hand, being afraid to come up

from Ratcliff Cross to Mile End, because they must come just by

the churchyard, and because the wind, that seemed to blow more

from the west, blew directly from the side of the city where the

plague was hottest. So, I say, leaving Stepney they fetched a

long compass, and going to Poplar and Bromley, came into the

great road just at Bow.

Here the watch placed upon Bow Bridge would have questioned them,

but they, crossing the road into a narrow way that turns out of

the hither end of the town of Bow to Old Ford, avoided any

inquiry there, and travelled to Old Ford. The constables

everywhere were upon their guard not so much, it seems, to stop

people passing by as to stop them from taking up their abode in

their towns, and withal because of a report that was newly raised

at that time: and that, indeed, was not very improbable, viz.,

that the poor people in London, being distressed and starved for

want of work, and by that means for want of bread, were up in

arms and had raised a tumult, and that they would come out to all

the towns round to plunder for bread. This, I say, was only a

rumour, and it was very well it was no more. But it was not so

far off from being a reality as it has been thought, for in a few

weeks more the poor people became so desperate by the calamity

they suffered that they were with great difficulty kept from

going out into the fields and towns, and tearing all in pieces

wherever they came; and, as I have observed before, nothing

hindered them but that the plague raged so violently and fell in

upon them so furiously that they rather went to the grave by

thousands than into the fields in mobs by thousands; for, in the

parts about the parishes of St Sepulcher, Clarkenwell,

Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, and Shoreditch, which were the places

where the mob began to threaten, the distemper came on so

furiously that there died in those few parishes even then, before

the plague was come to its height, no less than 5361 people in

the first three weeks in August; when at the same time the parts

about Wapping, Radcliff, and Rotherhithe were, as before

described, hardly touched, or but very lightly; so that in a word

though, as I said before, the good management of the Lord Mayor

and justices did much to prevent the rage and desperation of the

people from breaking out in rabbles and tumults, and in short

from the poor plundering the rich,—I say, though they did much,

the dead-carts did more: for as I have said that in five parishes

only there died above 5000 in twenty days, so there might be

probably three times that number sick all that time; for some

recovered, and great numbers fell sick every day and died

afterwards. Besides, I must still be allowed to say that if the

bills of mortality said five thousand, I always believed it was

near twice as many in reality, there being no room to believe

that the account they gave was right, or that indeed they were

among such confusions as I saw them in, in any condition to keep

an exact account.

But to return to my travellers. Here they were only examined, and

as they seemed rather coming from the country than from the city,

they found the people the easier with them; that they talked to

them, let them come into a public-house where the constable and

his warders were, and gave them drink and some victuals which

greatly refreshed and encouraged them; and here it came into

their heads to say, when they should be inquired of afterwards,

not that they came from London, but that they came out of Essex.

To forward this little fraud, they obtained so much favour of the

constable at Old Ford as to give them a certificate of their

passing from Essex through that village, and that they had not

been at London; which, though false in the common acceptance of

London in the county, yet was literally true, Wapping or Ratcliff

being no part either of the city or liberty.

This certificate directed to the next constable that was at

Homerton, one of the hamlets of the parish of Hackney, was so

serviceable to them that it procured them, not a free passage

there only, but a full certificate of health from a justice of

the peace, who upon the constable’s application granted it

without much difficulty; and thus they passed through the long

divided town of Hackney (for it lay then in several separated

hamlets), and travelled on till they came into the great north

road on the top of Stamford Hill.

By this time they began to be weary, and so in the back-road from

Hackney, a little before it opened into the said great road, they

resolved to set up their tent and encamp for the first night,

which they did accordingly, with this addition, that finding a

barn, or a building like a barn, and first searching as well as

they could to be sure there was nobody in it, they set up their

tent, with the head of it against the barn. This they did also

because the wind blew that night very high, and they were but

young at such a way of lodging, as well as at the managing their

tent.

Here they went to sleep; but the joiner, a grave and sober man,

and not pleased with their lying at this loose rate the first

night, could not sleep, and resolved, after trying to sleep to no

purpose, that he would get out, and, taking the gun in his hand,

stand sentinel and guard his companions. So with the gun in his

hand, he walked to and again before the barn, for that stood in

the field near the road, but within the hedge. He had not been

long upon the scout but he heard a noise of people coming on, as

if it had been a great number, and they came on, as he thought,

directly towards the barn. He did not presently awake his

companions; but in a few minutes more, their noise growing louder

and louder, the biscuit-baker called to him and asked him what

was the matter, and quickly started out too. The other, being the

lame sailmaker and most weary, lay still in the tent.

As they expected, so the people whom they had heard came on

directly to the barn, when one of our travellers challenged, like

soldiers upon the guard, with ‘Who comes there?’ The people did

not answer immediately, but one of them speaking to another that

was behind him, ‘Alas! alas! we are all disappointed,’ says he.

‘Here are some people before us; the barn is taken up.’

They all stopped upon that, as under some surprise, and it seems

there was about thirteen of them in all, and some women among

them. They consulted together what they should do, and by their

discourse our travellers soon found they were poor, distressed

people too, like themselves, seeking shelter and safety; and

besides, our travellers had no need to be afraid of their coming

up to disturb them, for as soon as they heard the words, ‘Who

comes there?’ these could hear the women say, as if frighted, ‘Do

not go near them. How do you know but they may have the plague?’

And when one of the men said, ‘Let us but speak to them’, the

women said, ‘No, don’t by any means. We have escaped thus far by

the goodness of God; do not let us run into danger now, we

beseech you.’

Our travellers found by this that they were a good, sober sort of

people, and flying for their lives, as they were; and, as they

were encouraged by it, so John said to the joiner, his comrade,

‘Let us encourage them too as much as we can’; so he called to

them, ‘Hark ye, good people,’ says the joiner, ‘we find by your

talk that you are flying from the same dreadful enemy as we are.

Do not be afraid of us; we are only three poor men of us. If you

are free from the distemper you shall not be hurt by us. We are

not in the barn, but in a little tent here in the outside, and we

will remove for you; we can set up our tent again immediately

anywhere else’; and upon this a parley began between the joiner,

whose name was Richard, and one of their men, who said his name

was Ford.

Ford. And do you assure us that you are all sound men?

Richard. Nay, we are concerned to tell you of it, that you may

not be uneasy or think yourselves in danger; but you see we do

not desire you should put yourselves into any danger, and

therefore I tell you that we have not made use of the barn, so we

will remove from it, that you may be safe and we also.

Ford. That is very kind and charitable; but if we have reason to

be satisfied that you are sound and free from the visitation, why

should we make you remove now you are settled in your lodging,

and, it may be, are laid down to rest? We will go into the barn,

if you please, to rest ourselves a while, and we need not disturb

you.

Richard. Well, but you are more than we are. I hope you will

assure us that you are all of you sound too, for the danger is as

great from you to us as from us to you.

Ford. Blessed be God that some do escape, though it is but few;

what may be our portion still we know not, but hitherto we are

preserved.

Richard. What part of the town do you come from? Was the plague

come to the places where you lived?

Ford. Ay, ay, in a most frightful and terrible manner, or else we

had not fled away as we do; but we believe there will be very few

left alive behind us.

Richard. What part do you come from?

Ford. We are most of us of Cripplegate parish, only two or three

of Clerkenwell parish, but on the hither side.

Richard. How then was it that you came away no sooner?

Ford. We have been away some time, and kept together as well as

we could at the hither end of Islington, where we got leave to

lie in an old uninhabited house, and had some bedding and

conveniences of our own that we brought with us; but the plague

is come up into Islington too, and a house next door to our poor

dwelling was infected and shut up; and we are come away in a

fright.

Richard. And what way are you going?

Ford. As our lot shall cast us; we know not whither, but God will

guide those that look up to Him.

They parleyed no further at that time, but came all up to the

barn, and with some difficulty got into it. There was nothing but

hay in the barn, but it was almost full of that, and they

accommodated themselves as well as they could, and went to rest;

but our travellers observed that before they went to sleep an

ancient man who it seems was father of one of the women, went to

prayer with all the company, recommending themselves to the

blessing and direction of Providence, before they went to sleep.

It was soon day at that time of the year, and as Richard the

joiner had kept guard the first part of the night, so John the

soldier relieved him, and he had the post in the morning, and

they began to be acquainted with one another. It seems when they

left Islington they intended to have gone north, away to

Highgate, but were stopped at Holloway, and there they would not

let them pass; so they crossed over the fields and hills to the

eastward, and came out at the Boarded River, and so avoiding the

towns, they left Hornsey on the left hand and Newington on the

right hand, and came into the great road about Stamford Hill on

that side, as the three travellers had done on the other side.

And now they had thoughts of going over the river in the marshes,

and make forwards to Epping Forest, where they hoped they should

get leave to rest. It seems they were not poor, at least not so

poor as to be in want; at least they had enough to subsist them

moderately for two or three months, when, as they said, they were

in hopes the cold weather would check the infection, or at least

the violence of it would have spent itself, and would abate, if

it were only for want of people left alive to be infected.

This was much the fate of our three travellers, only that they

seemed to be the better furnished for travelling, and had it in

their view to go farther off; for as to the first, they did not

propose to go farther than one day’s journey, that so they might

have intelligence every two or three days how things were at

London.

But here our travellers found themselves under an unexpected

inconvenience: namely that of their horse, for by means of the

horse to carry their baggage they were obliged to keep in the

road, whereas the people of this other band went over the fields

or roads, path or no path, way or no way, as they pleased;

neither had they any occasion to pass through any town, or come

near any town, other than to buy such things as they wanted for

their necessary subsistence, and in that indeed they were put to

much difficulty; of which in its place.

But our three travellers were obliged to keep the road, or else

they must commit spoil, and do the country a great deal of damage

in breaking down fences and gates to go over enclosed fields,

which they were loth to do if they could help it.

Our three travellers, however, had a great mind to join

themselves to this company and take their lot with them; and

after some discourse they laid aside their first design which

looked northward, and resolved to follow the other into Essex; so

in the morning they took up their tent and loaded their horse,

and away they travelled all together.

They had some difficulty in passing the ferry at the river-side,

the ferryman being afraid of them; but after some parley at a

distance, the ferryman was content to bring his boat to a place

distant from the usual ferry, and leave it there for them to take

it; so putting themselves over, he directed them to leave the

boat, and he, having another boat, said he would fetch it again,

which it seems, however, he did not do for above eight days.

Here, giving the ferryman money beforehand, they had a supply of

victuals and drink, which he brought and left in the boat for

them; but not without, as I said, having received the money

beforehand. But now our travellers were at a great loss and

difficulty how to get the horse over, the boat being small and

not fit for it: and at last could not do it without unloading the

baggage and making him swim over.

From the river they travelled towards the forest, but when they

came to Walthamstow the people of that town denied to admit them,

as was the case everywhere. The constables and their watchmen

kept them off at a distance and parleyed with them. They gave the

same account of themselves as before, but these gave no credit to

what they said, giving it for a reason that two or three

companies had already come that way and made the like pretences,

but that they had given several people the distemper in the towns

where they had passed; and had been afterwards so hardly used by

the country (though with justice, too, as they had deserved) that

about Brentwood, or that way, several of them perished in the

fields—whether of the plague or of mere want and distress they

could not tell.

This was a good reason indeed why the people of Walthamstow

should be very cautious, and why they should resolve not to

entertain anybody that they were not well satisfied of. But, as

Richard the joiner and one of the other men who parleyed with

them told them, it was no reason why they should block up the

roads and refuse to let people pass through the town, and who

asked nothing of them but to go through the street; that if their

people were afraid of them, they might go into their houses and

shut their doors; they would neither show them civility nor

incivility, but go on about their business.

The constables and attendants, not to be persuaded by reason,

continued obstinate, and would hearken to nothing; so the two men

that talked with them went back to their fellows to consult what

was to be done. It was very discouraging in the whole, and they

knew not what to do for a good while; but at last John the

soldier and biscuit-maker, considering a while, ‘Come,’ says he,

‘leave the rest of the parley to me.’ He had not appeared yet, so

he sets the joiner, Richard, to work to cut some poles out of the

trees and shape them as like guns as he could, and in a little

time he had five or six fair muskets, which at a distance would

not be known; and about the part where the lock of a gun is he

caused them to wrap cloth and rags such as they had, as soldiers

do in wet weather to preserve the locks of their pieces from

rust; the rest was discoloured with clay or mud, such as they

could get; and all this while the rest of them sat under the

trees by his direction, in two or three bodies, where they made

fires at a good distance from one another.

While this was doing he advanced himself and two or three with

him, and set up their tent in the lane within sight of the

barrier which the town’s men had made, and set a sentinel just by

it with the real gun, the only one they had, and who walked to

and fro with the gun on his shoulder, so as that the people of

the town might see them. Also, he tied the horse to a gate in the

hedge just by, and got some dry sticks together and kindled a

fire on the other side of the tent, so that the people of the

town could see the fire and the smoke, but could not see what

they were doing at it.

After the country people had looked upon them very earnestly a

great while, and, by all that they could see, could not but

suppose that they were a great many in company, they began to be

uneasy, not for their going away, but for staying where they

were; and above all, perceiving they had horses and arms, for

they had seen one horse and one gun at the tent, and they had

seen others of them walk about the field on the inside of the

hedge by the side of the lane with their muskets, as they took

them to be, shouldered; I say, upon such a sight as this, you may

be assured they were alarmed and terribly frighted, and it seems

they went to a justice of the peace to know what they should do.

What the justice advised them to I know not, but towards the

evening they called from the barrier, as above, to the sentinel

at the tent.

‘What do you want?’ says John.[1]

[1] It seems John was in the tent, but hearing them call, he

steps out, and taking the gun upon his shoulder, talked to them

as if he had been the sentinel placed there upon the guard by

some officer that was his superior. [Footnote in the original.]

‘Why, what do you intend to do?’ says the constable. ‘To do,’

says John; ‘what would you have us to do?’ Constable. Why don’t

you be gone? What do you stay there for?

John. Why do you stop us on the king’s highway, and pretend to

refuse us leave to go on our way?

Constable. We are not bound to tell you our reason, though we did

let you know it was because of the plague.

John. We told you we were all sound and free from the plague,

which we were not bound to have satisfied you of, and yet you

pretend to stop us on the highway.

Constable. We have a right to stop it up, and our own safety

obliges us to it. Besides, this is not the king’s highway; ’tis a

way upon sufferance. You see here is a gate, and if we do let

people pass here, we make them pay toll.

John. We have a right to seek our own safety as well as you, and

you may see we are flying for our lives: and ’tis very

unchristian and unjust to stop us.

Constable. You may go back from whence you came; we do not hinder

you from that.

John. No; it is a stronger enemy than you that keeps us from

doing that, or else we should not have come hither.

Constable. Well, you may go any other way, then.

John. No, no; I suppose you see we are able to send you going,

and all the people of your parish, and come through your town

when we will; but since you have stopped us here, we are content.

You see we have encamped here, and here we will live. We hope you

will furnish us with victuals.

Constable. We furnish you! What mean you by that?

John. Why, you would not have us starve, would you? If you stop

us here, you must keep us.

Constable. You will be ill kept at our maintenance.

John. If you stint us, we shall make ourselves the better

allowance.

Constable. Why, you will not pretend to quarter upon us by force,

will you?

John. We have offered no violence to you yet. Why do you seem to

oblige us to it? I am an old soldier, and cannot starve, and if

you think that we shall be obliged to go back for want of

provisions, you are mistaken.

Constable. Since you threaten us, we shall take care to be strong

enough for you. I have orders to raise the county upon you.

John. It is you that threaten, not we. And since you are for

mischief, you cannot blame us if we do not give you time for it;

we shall begin our march in a few minutes.[2]

[2] This frighted the constable and the people that were with

him, that they immediately changed their note.

Constable. What is it you demand of us?

John. At first we desired nothing of you but leave to go through

the town; we should have offered no injury to any of you, neither

would you have had any injury or loss by us. We are not thieves,

but poor people in distress, and flying from the dreadful plague

in London, which devours thousands every week. We wonder how you

could be so unmerciful!

Constable. Self-preservation obliges us.

John. What! To shut up your compassion in a case of such distress

as this?

Constable. Well, if you will pass over the fields on your left

hand, and behind that part of the town, I will endeavour to have

gates opened for you.

John. Our horsemen[3] cannot pass with our baggage that way; it

does not lead into the road that we want to go, and why should

you force us out of the road? Besides, you have kept us here all

day without any provisions but such as we brought with us. I

think you ought to send us some provisions for our relief.

[3] They had but one horse among them. [Footnotes in the

original.]

Constable. If you will go another way we will send you some

provisions.

John. That is the way to have all the towns in the county stop up

the ways against us.

Constable. If they all furnish you with food, what will you be

the worse? I see you have tents; you want no lodging.

John. Well, what quantity of provisions will you send us?

Constable. How many are you?

John. Nay, we do not ask enough for all our company; we are in

three companies. If you will send us bread for twenty men and

about six or seven women for three days, and show us the way over

the field you speak of, we desire not to put your people into any

fear for us; we will go out of our way to oblige you, though we

are as free from infection as you are.[4]

[4] Here he called to one of his men, and bade him order Captain

Richard and his people to march the lower way on the side of the

marches, and meet them in the forest; which was all a sham, for

they had no Captain Richard, or any such company. [Footnote in

the original.]

Constable. And will you assure us that your other people shall

offer us no new disturbance?

John. No, no you may depend on it.

Constable. You must oblige yourself, too, that none of your

people shall come a step nearer than where the provisions we send

you shall be set down.

John. I answer for it we will not.

Accordingly they sent to the place twenty loaves of bread and

three or four large pieces of good beef, and opened some gates,

through which they passed; but none of them had courage so much

as to look out to see them go, and, as it was evening, if they

had looked they could not have seen them as to know how few they

were.

This was John the soldier’s management. But this gave such an

alarm to the county, that had they really been two or three

hundred the whole county would have been raised upon them, and

they would have been sent to prison, or perhaps knocked on the

head.

They were soon made sensible of this, for two days afterwards

they found several parties of horsemen and footmen also about, in

pursuit of three companies of men, armed, as they said, with

muskets, who were broke out from London and had the plague upon

them, and that were not only spreading the distemper among the

people, but plundering the country.

As they saw now the consequence of their case, they soon saw the

danger they were in; so they resolved by the advice also of the

old soldier to divide themselves again. John and his two

comrades, with the horse, went away, as if towards Waltham; the

other in two companies, but all a little asunder, and went

towards Epping.

The first night they encamped all in the forest, and not far off

of one another, but not setting up the tent, lest that should

discover them. On the other hand, Richard went to work with his

axe and his hatchet, and cutting down branches of trees, he built

three tents or hovels, in which they all encamped with as much

convenience as they could expect.

The provisions they had at Walthamstow served them very

plentifully this night; and as for the next, they left it to

Providence. They had fared so well with the old soldier’s conduct

that they now willingly made him their leader, and the first of

his conduct appeared to be very good. He told them that they were

now at a proper distance enough from London; that as they need

not be immediately beholden to the country for relief, so they

ought to be as careful the country did not infect them as that

they did not infect the country; that what little money they had,

they must be as frugal of as they could; that as he would not

have them think of offering the country any violence, so they

must endeavour to make the sense of their condition go as far

with the country as it could. They all referred themselves to his

direction, so they left their three houses standing, and the next

day went away towards Epping. The captain also (for so they now

called him), and his two fellow-travellers, laid aside their

design of going to Waltham, and all went together.

When they came near Epping they halted, choosing out a proper

place in the open forest, not very near the highway, but not far

out of it on the north side, under a little cluster of low

pollard-trees. Here they pitched their little camp—which

consisted of three large tents or huts made of poles which their

carpenter, and such as were his assistants, cut down and fixed in

the ground in a circle, binding all the small ends together at

the top and thickening the sides with boughs of trees and bushes,

so that they were completely close and warm. They had, besides

this, a little tent where the women lay by themselves, and a hut

to put the horse in.

It happened that the next day, or next but one, was market-day at

Epping, when Captain John and one of the other men went to market

and bought some provisions; that is to say, bread, and some

mutton and beef; and two of the women went separately, as if they

had not belonged to the rest, and bought more. John took the

horse to bring it home, and the sack which the carpenter carried

his tools in, to put it in. The carpenter went to work and made

them benches and stools to sit on, such as the wood he could get

would afford, and a kind of table to dine on.

They were taken no notice of for two or three days, but after

that abundance of people ran out of the town to look at them, and

all the country was alarmed about them. The people at first

seemed afraid to come near them; and, on the other hand, they

desired the people to keep off, for there was a rumour that the

plague was at Waltham, and that it had been in Epping two or

three days; so John called out to them not to come to them,

‘for,’ says he, ‘we are all whole and sound people here, and we

would not have you bring the plague among us, nor pretend we

brought it among you.’

After this the parish officers came up to them and parleyed with

them at a distance, and desired to know who they were, and by

what authority they pretended to fix their stand at that place.

John answered very frankly, they were poor distressed people from

London who, foreseeing the misery they should be reduced to if

plague spread into the city, had fled out in time for their

lives, and, having no acquaintance or relations to fly to, had

first taken up at Islington; but, the plague being come into that

town, were fled farther; and as they supposed that the people of

Epping might have refused them coming into their town, they had

pitched their tents thus in the open field and in the forest,

being willing to bear all the hardships of such a disconsolate

lodging rather than have any one think or be afraid that they

should receive injury by them.

At first the Epping people talked roughly to them, and told them

they must remove; that this was no place for them; and that they

pretended to be sound and well, but that they might be infected

with the plague for aught they knew, and might infect the whole

country, and they could not suffer them there.

John argued very calmly with them a great while, and told them

that London was the place by which they—that is, the townsmen of

Epping and all the country round them—subsisted; to whom they

sold the produce of their lands, and out of whom they made their

rent of their farms; and to be so cruel to the inhabitants of

London, or to any of those by whom they gained so much, was very

hard, and they would be loth to have it remembered hereafter, and

have it told how barbarous, how inhospitable, and how unkind they

were to the people of London when they fled from the face of the

most terrible enemy in the world; that it would be enough to make

the name of an Epping man hateful through all the city, and to

have the rabble stone them in the very streets whenever they came

so much as to market; that they were not yet secure from being

visited themselves, and that, as he heard, Waltham was already;

that they would think it very hard that when any of them fled for

fear before they were touched, they should be denied the liberty

of lying so much as in the open fields.

The Epping men told them again, that they, indeed, said they were

sound and free from the infection, but that they had no assurance

of it; and that it was reported that there had been a great

rabble of people at Walthamstow, who made such pretences of being

sound as they did, but that they threatened to plunder the town

and force their way, whether the parish officers would or no;

that there were near two hundred of them, and had arms and tents

like Low Country soldiers; that they extorted provisions from the

town, by threatening them with living upon them at free quarter,

showing their arms, and talking in the language of soldiers; and

that several of them being gone away toward Rumford and

Brentwood, the country had been infected by them, and the plague

spread into both those large towns, so that the people durst not

go to market there as usual; that it was very likely they were

some of that party; and if so, they deserved to be sent to the

county jail, and be secured till they had made satisfaction for

the damage they had done, and for the terror and fright they had

put the country into.

John answered that what other people had done was nothing to

them; that they assured them they were all of one company; that

they had never been more in number than they saw them at that

time (which, by the way, was very true); that they came out in

two separate companies, but joined by the way, their cases being

the same; that they were ready to give what account of themselves

anybody could desire of them, and to give in their names and

places of abode, that so they might be called to an account for

any disorder that they might be guilty of; that the townsmen

might see they were content to live hardly, and only desired a

little room to breathe in on the forest where it was wholesome;

for where it was not they could not stay, and would decamp if

they found it otherwise there.

‘But,’ said the townsmen, ‘we have a great charge of poor upon

our hands already, and we must take care not to increase it; we

suppose you can give us no security against your being chargeable

to our parish and to the inhabitants, any more than you can of

being dangerous to us as to the infection.’

‘Why, look you,’ says John, ‘as to being chargeable to you, we

hope we shall not. If you will relieve us with provisions for our

present necessity, we will be very thankful; as we all lived

without charity when we were at home, so we will oblige ourselves

fully to repay you, if God pleases to bring us back to our own

families and houses in safety, and to restore health to the

people of London.

‘As to our dying here: we assure you, if any of us die, we that

survive will bury them, and put you to no expense, except it

should be that we should all die; and then, indeed, the last man

not being able to bury himself, would put you to that single

expense which I am persuaded’, says John, ‘he would leave enough

behind him to pay you for the expense of.

‘On the other hand,’ says John, ‘if you shut up all bowels of

compassion, and not relieve us at all, we shall not extort

anything by violence or steal from any one; but when what little

we have is spent, if we perish for want, God’s will be done.’

John wrought so upon the townsmen, by talking thus rationally and

smoothly to them, that they went away; and though they did not

give any consent to their staying there, yet they did not molest

them; and the poor people continued there three or four days

longer without any disturbance. In this time they had got some

remote acquaintance with a victualling-house at the outskirts of

the town, to whom they called at a distance to bring some little

things that they wanted, and which they caused to be set down at

a distance, and always paid for very honestly.

During this time the younger people of the town came frequently

pretty near them, and would stand and look at them, and sometimes

talk with them at some space between; and particularly it was

observed that the first Sabbath-day the poor people kept retired,

worshipped God together, and were heard to sing psalms.

These things, and a quiet, inoffensive behaviour, began to get

them the good opinion of the country, and people began to pity

them and speak very well of them; the consequence of which was,

that upon the occasion of a very wet, rainy night, a certain

gentleman who lived in the neighbourhood sent them a little cart

with twelve trusses or bundles of straw, as well for them to

lodge upon as to cover and thatch their huts and to keep them

dry. The minister of a parish not far off, not knowing of the

other, sent them also about two bushels of wheat and half a

bushel of white peas.

They were very thankful, to be sure, for this relief, and

particularly the straw was a very great comfort to them; for

though the ingenious carpenter had made frames for them to lie in

like troughs, and filled them with leaves of trees, and such

things as they could get, and had cut all their tent-cloth out to

make them coverlids, yet they lay damp and hard and unwholesome

till this straw came, which was to them like feather-beds, and,

as John said, more welcome than feather-beds would have been at

another time.

This gentleman and the minister having thus begun, and given an

example of charity to these wanderers, others quickly followed,

and they received every day some benevolence or other from the

people, but chiefly from the gentlemen who dwelt in the country

round them. Some sent them chairs, stools, tables, and such

household things as they gave notice they wanted; some sent them

blankets, rugs, and coverlids, some earthenware, and some kitchen

ware for ordering their food.

Encouraged by this good usage, their carpenter in a few days

built them a large shed or house with rafters, and a roof in

form, and an upper floor, in which they lodged warm: for the

weather began to be damp and cold in the beginning of September.

But this house, being well thatched, and the sides and roof made

very thick, kept out the cold well enough. He made, also, an

earthen wall at one end with a chimney in it, and another of the

company, with a vast deal of trouble and pains, made a funnel to

the chimney to carry out the smoke.

Here they lived comfortably, though coarsely, till the beginning

of September, when they had the bad news to hear, whether true or

not, that the plague, which was very hot at Waltham Abbey on one

side and at Rumford and Brentwood on the other side, was also

coming to Epping, to Woodford, and to most of the towns upon the

Forest, and which, as they said, was brought down among them

chiefly by the higglers, and such people as went to and from

London with provisions.

If this was true, it was an evident contradiction to that report

which was afterwards spread all over England, but which, as I

have said, I cannot confirm of my own knowledge: namely, that the

market-people carrying provisions to the city never got the

infection or carried it back into the country; both which, I have

been assured, has been false.

It might be that they were preserved even beyond expectation,

though not to a miracle, that abundance went and came and were

not touched; and that was much for the encouragement of the poor

people of London, who had been completely miserable if the people

that brought provisions to the markets had not been many times

wonderfully preserved, or at least more preserved than could be

reasonably expected.

But now these new inmates began to be disturbed more effectually,

for the towns about them were really infected, and they began to

be afraid to trust one another so much as to go abroad for such

things as they wanted, and this pinched them very hard, for now

they had little or nothing but what the charitable gentlemen of

the country supplied them with. But, for their encouragement, it

happened that other gentlemen in the country who had not sent

them anything before, began to hear of them and supply them, and

one sent them a large pig—that is to say, a porker—another two

sheep, and another sent them a calf. In short, they had meat

enough, and sometimes had cheese and milk, and all such things.

They were chiefly put to it for bread, for when the gentlemen

sent them corn they had nowhere to bake it or to grind it. This

made them eat the first two bushel of wheat that was sent them in

parched corn, as the Israelites of old did, without grinding or

making bread of it.

At last they found means to carry their corn to a windmill near

Woodford, where they had it ground, and afterwards the

biscuit-maker made a hearth so hollow and dry that he could bake

biscuit-cakes tolerably well; and thus they came into a condition

to live without any assistance or supplies from the towns; and it

was well they did, for the country was soon after fully infected,

and about 120 were said to have died of the distemper in the

villages near them, which was a terrible thing to them.

On this they called a new council, and now the towns had no need

to be afraid they should settle near them; but, on the contrary,

several families of the poorer sort of the inhabitants quitted

their houses and built huts in the forest after the same manner

as they had done. But it was observed that several of these poor

people that had so removed had the sickness even in their huts or

booths; the reason of which was plain, namely, not because they

removed into the air, but, (1) because they did not remove time

enough; that is to say, not till, by openly conversing with the

other people their neighbours, they had the distemper upon them,

or (as may be said) among them, and so carried it about them

whither they went. Or (2) because they were not careful enough,

after they were safely removed out of the towns, not to come in

again and mingle with the diseased people.

But be it which of these it will, when our travellers began to

perceive that the plague was not only in the towns, but even in

the tents and huts on the forest near them, they began then not

only to be afraid, but to think of decamping and removing; for

had they stayed they would have been in manifest danger of their

lives.

It is not to be wondered that they were greatly afflicted at

being obliged to quit the place where they had been so kindly

received, and where they had been treated with so much humanity

and charity; but necessity and the hazard of life, which they

came out so far to preserve, prevailed with them, and they saw no

remedy. John, however, thought of a remedy for their present

misfortune: namely, that he would first acquaint that gentleman

who was their principal benefactor with the distress they were

in, and to crave his assistance and advice.

The good, charitable gentleman encouraged them to quit the Place

for fear they should be cut off from any retreat at all by the

violence of the distemper; but whither they should go, that he

found very hard to direct them to. At last John asked of him

whether he, being a justice of the peace, would give them

certificates of health to other justices whom they might come

before; that so whatever might be their lot, they might not be

repulsed now they had been also so long from London. This his

worship immediately granted, and gave them proper letters of

health, and from thence they were at liberty to travel whither

they pleased.

Accordingly they had a full certificate of health, intimating

that they had resided in a village in the county of Essex so long

that, being examined and scrutinised sufficiently, and having

been retired from all conversation for above forty days, without

any appearance of sickness, they were therefore certainly

concluded to be sound men, and might be safely entertained

anywhere, having at last removed rather for fear of the plague

which was come into such a town, rather than for having any

signal of infection upon them, or upon any belonging to them.

With this certificate they removed, though with great reluctance;

and John inclining not to go far from home, they moved towards

the marshes on the side of Waltham. But here they found a man

who, it seems, kept a weir or stop upon the river, made to raise

the water for the barges which go up and down the river, and he

terrified them with dismal stories of the sickness having been

spread into all the towns on the river and near the river, on the

side of Middlesex and Hertfordshire; that is to say, into

Waltham, Waltham Cross, Enfield, and Ware, and all the towns on

the road, that they were afraid to go that way; though it seems

the man imposed upon them, for that the thing was not really

true.

However, it terrified them, and they resolved to move across the

forest towards Rumford and Brentwood; but they heard that there

were numbers of people fled out of London that way, who lay up

and down in the forest called Henalt Forest, reaching near

Rumford, and who, having no subsistence or habitation, not only

lived oddly and suffered great extremities in the woods and

fields for want of relief, but were said to be made so desperate

by those extremities as that they offered many violences to the

county, robbed and plundered, and killed cattle, and the like;

that others, building huts and hovels by the roadside, begged,

and that with an importunity next door to demanding relief; so

that the county was very uneasy, and had been obliged to take

some of them up.

This in the first place intimated to them, that they would be

sure to find the charity and kindness of the county, which they

had found here where they were before, hardened and shut up

against them; and that, on the other hand, they would be

questioned wherever they came, and would be in danger of violence

from others in like cases as themselves.

Upon all these considerations John, their captain, in all their

names, went back to their good friend and benefactor, who had

relieved them before, and laying their case truly before him,

humbly asked his advice; and he as kindly advised them to take up

their old quarters again, or if not, to remove but a little

farther out of the road, and directed them to a proper place for

them; and as they really wanted some house rather than huts to

shelter them at that time of the year, it growing on towards

Michaelmas, they found an old decayed house which had been

formerly some cottage or little habitation but was so out of

repair as scarce habitable; and by the consent of a farmer to

whose farm it belonged, they got leave to make what use of it

they could.

The ingenious joiner, and all the rest, by his directions went to

work with it, and in a very few days made it capable to shelter

them all in case of bad weather; and in which there was an old

chimney and old oven, though both lying in ruins; yet they made

them both fit for use, and, raising additions, sheds, and leantos

on every side, they soon made the house capable to hold them all.

They chiefly wanted boards to make window-shutters, floors,

doors, and several other things; but as the gentlemen above

favoured them, and the country was by that means made easy with

them, and above all, that they were known to be all sound and in

good health, everybody helped them with what they could spare.

Here they encamped for good and all, and resolved to remove no

more. They saw plainly how terribly alarmed that county was

everywhere at anybody that came from London, and that they should

have no admittance anywhere but with the utmost difficulty; at

least no friendly reception and assistance as they had received

here.

Now, although they received great assistance and encouragement

from the country gentlemen and from the people round about them,

yet they were put to great straits: for the weather grew cold and

wet in October and November, and they had not been used to so

much hardship; so that they got colds in their limbs, and

distempers, but never had the infection; and thus about December

they came home to the city again.

I give this story thus at large, principally to give an account

what became of the great numbers of people which immediately

appeared in the city as soon as the sickness abated; for, as I

have said, great numbers of those that were able and had retreats

in the country fled to those retreats. So, when it was increased

to such a frightful extremity as I have related, the middling

people who had not friends fled to all parts of the country where

they could get shelter, as well those that had money to relieve

themselves as those that had not. Those that had money always

fled farthest, because they were able to subsist themselves; but

those who were empty suffered, as I have said, great hardships,

and were often driven by necessity to relieve their wants at the

expense of the country. By that means the country was made very

uneasy at them, and sometimes took them up; though even then they

scarce knew what to do with them, and were always very backward

to punish them, but often, too, they forced them from place to

place till they were obliged to come back again to London.

I have, since my knowing this story of John and his brother,

inquired and found that there were a great many of the poor

disconsolate people, as above, fled into the country every way;

and some of them got little sheds and barns and outhouses to live

in, where they could obtain so much kindness of the country, and

especially where they had any the least satisfactory account to

give of themselves, and particularly that they did not come out

of London too late. But others, and that in great numbers, built

themselves little huts and retreats in the fields and woods, and

lived like hermits in holes and caves, or any place they could

find, and where, we may be sure, they suffered great extremities,

such that many of them were obliged to come back again whatever

the danger was; and so those little huts were often found empty,

and the country people supposed the inhabitants lay dead in them

of the plague, and would not go near them for fear—no, not in a

great while; nor is it unlikely but that some of the unhappy

wanderers might die so all alone, even sometimes for want of

help, as particularly in one tent or hut was found a man dead,

and on the gate of a field just by was cut with his knife in

uneven letters the following words, by which it may be supposed

the other man escaped, or that, one dying first, the other buried

him as well as he could:—

O mIsErY!

We BoTH ShaLL DyE,

WoE, WoE.

I have given an account already of what I found to have been the

case down the river among the seafaring men; how the ships lay in

the offing, as it’s called, in rows or lines astern of one

another, quite down from the Pool as far as I could see. I have

been told that they lay in the same manner quite down the river

as low as Gravesend, and some far beyond: even everywhere or in

every place where they could ride with safety as to wind and

weather; nor did I ever hear that the plague reached to any of

the people on board those ships—except such as lay up in the

Pool, or as high as Deptford Reach, although the people went

frequently on shore to the country towns and villages and

farmers’ houses, to buy fresh provisions, fowls, pigs, calves,

and the like for their supply.

Likewise I found that the watermen on the river above the bridge

found means to convey themselves away up the river as far as they

could go, and that they had, many of them, their whole families

in their boats, covered with tilts and bales, as they call them,

and furnished with straw within for their lodging, and that they

lay thus all along by the shore in the marshes, some of them

setting up little tents with their sails, and so lying under them

on shore in the day, and going into their boats at night; and in

this manner, as I have heard, the river-sides were lined with

boats and people as long as they had anything to subsist on, or

could get anything of the country; and indeed the country people,

as well Gentlemen as others, on these and all other occasions,

were very forward to relieve them—but they were by no means

willing to receive them into their towns and houses, and for that

we cannot blame them.

There was one unhappy citizen within my knowledge who had been

visited in a dreadful manner, so that his wife and all his

children were dead, and himself and two servants only left, with

an elderly woman, a near relation, who had nursed those that were

dead as well as she could. This disconsolate man goes to a

village near the town, though not within the bills of mortality,

and finding an empty house there, inquires out the owner, and

took the house. After a few days he got a cart and loaded it with

goods, and carries them down to the house; the people of the

village opposed his driving the cart along; but with some

arguings and some force, the men that drove the cart along got

through the street up to the door of the house. There the

constable resisted them again, and would not let them be brought

in. The man caused the goods to be unloaden and laid at the door,

and sent the cart away; upon which they carried the man before a

justice of peace; that is to say, they commanded him to go, which

he did. The justice ordered him to cause the cart to fetch away

the goods again, which he refused to do; upon which the justice

ordered the constable to pursue the carters and fetch them back,

and make them reload the goods and carry them away, or to set

them in the stocks till they came for further orders; and if they

could not find them, nor the man would not consent to take them

away, they should cause them to be drawn with hooks from the

house-door and burned in the street. The poor distressed man upon

this fetched the goods again, but with grievous cries and

lamentations at the hardship of his case. But there was no

remedy; self-preservation obliged the people to those severities

which they would not otherwise have been concerned in. Whether

this poor man lived or died I cannot tell, but it was reported

that he had the plague upon him at that time; and perhaps the

people might report that to justify their usage of him; but it

was not unlikely that either he or his goods, or both, were

dangerous, when his whole family had been dead of the distempers

so little a while before.

I know that the inhabitants of the towns adjacent to London were

much blamed for cruelty to the poor people that ran from the

contagion in their distress, and many very severe things were

done, as may be seen from what has been said; but I cannot but

say also that, where there was room for charity and assistance to

the people, without apparent danger to themselves, they were

willing enough to help and relieve them. But as every town were

indeed judges in their own case, so the poor people who ran

abroad in their extremities were often ill-used and driven back

again into the town; and this caused infinite exclamations and

outcries against the country towns, and made the clamour very

popular.

And yet, more or less, (with) all the caution, there was not a

town of any note within ten (or, I believe, twenty) miles of the

city but what was more or less infected and had some died among

them. I have heard the accounts of several, such as they were

reckoned up, as follows:—

In Enfield 32 In Uxbridge 117

” Hornsey 58 ” Hertford 90

” Newington 17 ” Ware 160

” Tottenham 42 ” Hodsdon 30

” Edmonton 19 ” Waltham Abbey 23

” Barnet and Hadly 19 ” Epping 26

” St Albans 121 ” Deptford 623

” Watford 45 ” Greenwich 231

” Eltham and Lusum 85 ” Kingston 122

” Croydon 61 ” Stanes 82

” Brentwood 70 ” Chertsey 18

” Rumford 109 ” Windsor 103

” Barking Abbot 200

” Brentford 432 Cum aliis.

Another thing might render the country more strict with respect

to the citizens, and especially with respect to the poor, and

this was what I hinted at before: namely, that there was a

seeming propensity or a wicked inclination in those that were

infected to infect others.

There have been great debates among our physicians as to the

reason of this. Some will have it to be in the nature of the

disease, and that it impresses every one that is seized upon by

it with a kind of a rage, and a hatred against their own kind—as

if there was a malignity not only in the distemper to communicate

itself, but in the very nature of man, prompting him with evil

will or an evil eye, that, as they say in the case of a mad dog,

who though the gentlest creature before of any of his kind, yet

then will fly upon and bite any one that comes next him, and

those as soon as any who had been most observed by him before.

Others placed it to the account of the corruption of human

nature, who cannot bear to see itself more miserable than others

of its own species, and has a kind of involuntary wish that all

men were as unhappy or in as bad a condition as itself.

Others say it was only a kind of desperation, not knowing or

regarding what they did, and consequently unconcerned at the

danger or safety not only of anybody near them, but even of

themselves also. And indeed, when men are once come to a

condition to abandon themselves, and be unconcerned for the

safety or at the danger of themselves, it cannot be so much

wondered that they should be careless of the safety of other

people.

But I choose to give this grave debate a quite different turn,

and answer it or resolve it all by saying that I do not grant the

fact. On the contrary, I say that the thing is not really so, but

that it was a general complaint raised by the people inhabiting

the outlying villages against the citizens to justify, or at

least excuse, those hardships and severities so much talked of,

and in which complaints both sides may be said to have injured

one another; that is to say, the citizens pressing to be received

and harboured in time of distress, and with the plague upon them,

complain of the cruelty and injustice of the country people in

being refused entrance and forced back again with their goods and

families; and the inhabitants, finding themselves so imposed

upon, and the citizens breaking in as it were upon them whether

they would or no, complain that when they were infected they were

not only regardless of others, but even willing to infect them;

neither of which were really true—that is to say, in the colours

they were described in.

It is true there is something to be said for the frequent alarms

which were given to the country of the resolution of the people

of London to come out by force, not only for relief, but to

plunder and rob; that they ran about the streets with the

distemper upon them without any control; and that no care was

taken to shut up houses, and confine the sick people from

infecting others; whereas, to do the Londoners justice, they

never practised such things, except in such particular cases as I

have mentioned above, and such like. On the other hand,

everything was managed with so much care, and such excellent

order was observed in the whole city and suburbs by the care of

the Lord Mayor and aldermen and by the justices of the peace,

church-wardens, &c., in the outparts, that London may be a

pattern to all the cities in the world for the good government

and the excellent order that was everywhere kept, even in the

time of the most violent infection, and when the people were in

the utmost consternation and distress. But of this I shall speak

by itself.

One thing, it is to be observed, was owing principally to the

prudence of the magistrates, and ought to be mentioned to their

honour: viz., the moderation which they used in the great and

difficult work of shutting up of houses. It is true, as I have

mentioned, that the shutting up of houses was a great subject of

discontent, and I may say indeed the only subject of discontent

among the people at that time; for the confining the sound in the

same house with the sick was counted very terrible, and the

complaints of people so confined were very grievous. They were

heard into the very streets, and they were sometimes such that

called for resentment, though oftener for compassion. They had no

way to converse with any of their friends but out at their

windows, where they would make such piteous lamentations as often

moved the hearts of those they talked with, and of others who,

passing by, heard their story; and as those complaints oftentimes

reproached the severity, and sometimes the insolence, of the

watchmen placed at their doors, those watchmen would answer

saucily enough, and perhaps be apt to affront the people who were

in the street talking to the said families; for which, or for

their ill-treatment of the families, I think seven or eight of

them in several places were killed; I know not whether I should

say murdered or not, because I cannot enter into the particular

cases. It is true the watchmen were on their duty, and acting in

the post where they were placed by a lawful authority; and

killing any public legal officer in the execution of his office

is always, in the language of the law, called murder. But as they

were not authorised by the magistrates’ instructions, or by the

power they acted under, to be injurious or abusive either to the

people who were under their observation or to any that concerned

themselves for them; so when they did so, they might be said to

act themselves, not their office; to act as private persons, not

as persons employed; and consequently, if they brought mischief

upon themselves by such an undue behaviour, that mischief was

upon their own heads; and indeed they had so much the hearty

curses of the people, whether they deserved it or not, that

whatever befell them nobody pitied them, and everybody was apt to

say they deserved it, whatever it was. Nor do I remember that

anybody was ever punished, at least to any considerable degree,

for whatever was done to the watchmen that guarded their houses.

What variety of stratagems were used to escape and get out of

houses thus shut up, by which the watchmen were deceived or

overpowered, and that the people got away, I have taken notice of

already, and shall say no more to that. But I say the magistrates

did moderate and ease families upon many occasions in this case,

and particularly in that of taking away, or suffering to be

removed, the sick persons out of such houses when they were

willing to be removed either to a pest-house or other Places; and

sometimes giving the well persons in the family so shut up, leave

to remove upon information given that they were well, and that

they would confine themselves in such houses where they went so

long as should be required of them. The concern, also, of the

magistrates for the supplying such poor families as were

infected—I say, supplying them with necessaries, as well physic

as food—was very great, and in which they did not content

themselves with giving the necessary orders to the officers

appointed, but the aldermen in person, and on horseback,

frequently rode to such houses and caused the people to be asked

at their windows whether they were duly attended or not; also,

whether they wanted anything that was necessary, and if the

officers had constantly carried their messages and fetched them

such things as they wanted or not. And if they answered in the

affirmative, all was well; but if they complained that they were

ill supplied, and that the officer did not do his duty, or did

not treat them civilly, they (the officers) were generally

removed, and others placed in their stead.

It is true such complaint might be unjust, and if the officer had

such arguments to use as would convince the magistrate that he

was right, and that the people had injured him, he was continued

and they reproved. But this part could not well bear a particular

inquiry, for the parties could very ill be well heard and

answered in the street from the windows, as was the case then.

The magistrates, therefore, generally chose to favour the people

and remove the man, as what seemed to be the least wrong and of

the least ill consequence; seeing if the watchman was injured,

yet they could easily make him amends by giving him another post

of the like nature; but if the family was injured, there was no

satisfaction could be made to them, the damage perhaps being

irreparable, as it concerned their lives.

A great variety of these cases frequently happened between the

watchmen and the poor people shut up, besides those I formerly

mentioned about escaping. Sometimes the watchmen were absent,

sometimes drunk, sometimes asleep when the people wanted them,

and such never failed to be punished severely, as indeed they

deserved.

But after all that was or could be done in these cases, the

shutting up of houses, so as to confine those that were well with

those that were sick, had very great inconveniences in it, and

some that were very tragical, and which merited to have been

considered if there had been room for it. But it was authorised

by a law, it had the public good in view as the end chiefly aimed

at, and all the private injuries that were done by the putting it

in execution must be put to the account of the public benefit.

It is doubtful to this day whether, in the whole, it contributed

anything to the stop of the infection; and indeed I cannot say it

did, for nothing could run with greater fury and rage than the

infection did when it was in its chief violence, though the

houses infected were shut up as exactly and as effectually as it

was possible. Certain it is that if all the infected persons were

effectually shut in, no sound person could have been infected by

them, because they could not have come near them. But the case

was this (and I shall only touch it here): namely, that the

infection was propagated insensibly, and by such persons as were

not visibly infected, who neither knew whom they infected or who

they were infected by.

A house in Whitechappel was shut up for the sake of one infected

maid, who had only spots, not the tokens come out upon her, and

recovered; yet these people obtained no liberty to stir, neither

for air or exercise, forty days. Want of breath, fear, anger,

vexation, and all the other gifts attending such an injurious

treatment cast the mistress of the family into a fever, and

visitors came into the house and said it was the plague, though

the physicians declared it was not. However, the family were

obliged to begin their quarantine anew on the report of the

visitors or examiner, though their former quarantine wanted but a

few days of being finished. This oppressed them so with anger and

grief, and, as before, straitened them also so much as to room,

and for want of breathing and free air, that most of the family

fell sick, one of one distemper, one of another, chiefly

scorbutic ailments; only one, a violent colic; till, after

several prolongings of their confinement, some or other of those

that came in with the visitors to inspect the persons that were

ill, in hopes of releasing them, brought the distemper with them

and infected the whole house; and all or most of them died, not

of the plague as really upon them before, but of the plague that

those people brought them, who should have been careful to have

protected them from it. And this was a thing which frequently

happened, and was indeed one of the worst consequences of

shutting houses up.

I had about this time a little hardship put upon me, which I was

at first greatly afflicted at, and very much disturbed about

though, as it proved, it did not expose me to any disaster; and

this was being appointed by the alderman of Portsoken Ward one of

the examiners of the houses in the precinct where I lived. We had

a large parish, and had no less than eighteen examiners, as the

order called us; the people called us visitors. I endeavoured

with all my might to be excused from such an employment, and used

many arguments with the alderman’s deputy to be excused;

particularly I alleged that I was against shutting up houses at

all, and that it would be very hard to oblige me to be an

instrument in that which was against my judgement, and which I

did verily believe would not answer the end it was intended for;

but all the abatement I could get was only, that whereas the

officer was appointed by my Lord Mayor to continue two months, I

should be obliged to hold it but three weeks, on condition

nevertheless that I could then get some other sufficient

housekeeper to serve the rest of the time for me—which was, in

short, but a very small favour, it being very difficult to get

any man to accept of such an employment, that was fit to be

entrusted with it.

It is true that shutting up of houses had one effect, which I am

sensible was of moment, namely, it confined the distempered

people, who would otherwise have been both very troublesome and

very dangerous in their running about streets with the distemper

upon them—which, when they were delirious, they would have done

in a most frightful manner, and as indeed they began to do at

first very much, till they were thus restrained; nay, so very

open they were that the poor would go about and beg at people’s

doors, and say they had the plague upon them, and beg rags for

their sores, or both, or anything that delirious nature happened

to think of.

A poor, unhappy gentlewoman, a substantial citizen’s wife, was

(if the story be true) murdered by one of these creatures in

Aldersgate Street, or that way. He was going along the street,

raving mad to be sure, and singing; the people only said he was

drunk, but he himself said he had the plague upon him, which it

seems was true; and meeting this gentlewoman, he would kiss her.

She was terribly frighted, as he was only a rude fellow, and she

ran from him, but the street being very thin of people, there was

nobody near enough to help her. When she saw he would overtake

her, she turned and gave him a thrust so forcibly, he being but

weak, and pushed him down backward. But very unhappily, she being

so near, he caught hold of her and pulled her down also, and

getting up first, mastered her and kissed her; and which was

worst of all, when he had done, told her he had the plague, and

why should not she have it as well as he? She was frighted enough

before, being also young with child; but when she heard him say

he had the plague, she screamed out and fell down into a swoon,

or in a fit, which, though she recovered a little, yet killed her

in a very few days; and I never heard whether she had the plague

or no.

Another infected person came and knocked at the door of a

citizen’s house where they knew him very well; the servant let

him in, and being told the master of the house was above, he ran

up and came into the room to them as the whole family was at

supper. They began to rise up, a little surprised, not knowing

what the matter was; but he bid them sit still, he only came to

take his leave of them. They asked him, ‘Why, Mr—, where are you

going?’ ‘Going,’ says he; ‘I have got the sickness, and shall die

tomorrow night.’ ’Tis easy to believe, though not to describe,

the consternation they were all in. The women and the man’s

daughters, which were but little girls, were frighted almost to

death and got up, one running out at one door and one at another,

some downstairs and some upstairs, and getting together as well

as they could, locked themselves into their chambers and screamed

out at the window for help, as if they had been frighted out of

their wits. The master, more composed than they, though both

frighted and provoked, was going to lay hands on him and throw

him downstairs, being in a passion; but then, considering a

little the condition of the man and the danger of touching him,

horror seized his mind, and he stood still like one astonished.

The poor distempered man all this while, being as well diseased

in his brain as in his body, stood still like one amazed. At

length he turns round: ‘Ay!’ says he, with all the seeming

calmness imaginable, ‘is it so with you all? Are you all

disturbed at me? Why, then I’ll e’en go home and die there.’ And

so he goes immediately downstairs. The servant that had let him

in goes down after him with a candle, but was afraid to go past

him and open the door, so he stood on the stairs to see what he

would do. The man went and opened the door, and went out and

flung the door after him. It was some while before the family

recovered the fright, but as no ill consequence attended, they

have had occasion since to speak of it (You may be sure) with

great satisfaction. Though the man was gone, it was some

time—nay, as I heard, some days before they recovered themselves

of the hurry they were in; nor did they go up and down the house

with any assurance till they had burnt a great variety of fumes

and perfumes in all the rooms, and made a great many smokes of

pitch, of gunpowder, and of sulphur, all separately shifted, and

washed their clothes, and the like. As to the poor man, whether

he lived or died I don’t remember.

It is most certain that, if by the shutting up of houses the sick

had not been confined, multitudes who in the height of their

fever were delirious and distracted would have been continually

running up and down the streets; and even as it was a very great

number did so, and offered all sorts of violence to those they

met, even just as a mad dog runs on and bites at every one he

meets; nor can I doubt but that, should one of those infected,

diseased creatures have bitten any man or woman while the frenzy

of the distemper was upon them, they, I mean the person so

wounded, would as certainly have been incurably infected as one

that was sick before, and had the tokens upon him.

I heard of one infected creature who, running out of his bed in

his shirt in the anguish and agony of his swellings, of which he

had three upon him, got his shoes on and went to put on his coat;

but the nurse resisting, and snatching the coat from him, he

threw her down, ran over her, ran downstairs and into the street,

directly to the Thames in his shirt; the nurse running after him,

and calling to the watch to stop him; but the watchman, frighted

at the man, and afraid to touch him, let him go on; upon which he

ran down to the Stillyard stairs, threw away his shirt, and

plunged into the Thames, and, being a good swimmer, swam quite

over the river; and the tide being coming in, as they call it

(that is, running westward) he reached the land not till he came

about the Falcon stairs, where landing, and finding no people

there, it being in the night, he ran about the streets there,

naked as he was, for a good while, when, it being by that time

high water, he takes the river again, and swam back to the

Stillyard, landed, ran up the streets again to his own house,

knocking at the door, went up the stairs and into his bed again;

and that this terrible experiment cured him of the plague, that

is to say, that the violent motion of his arms and legs stretched

the parts where the swellings he had upon him were, that is to

say, under his arms and his groin, and caused them to ripen and

break; and that the cold of the water abated the fever in his

blood.

I have only to add that I do not relate this any more than some

of the other, as a fact within my own knowledge, so as that I can

vouch the truth of them, and especially that of the man being

cured by the extravagant adventure, which I confess I do not

think very possible; but it may serve to confirm the many

desperate things which the distressed people falling into

deliriums, and what we call light-headedness, were frequently run

upon at that time, and how infinitely more such there would have

been if such people had not been confined by the shutting up of

houses; and this I take to be the best, if not the only good

thing which was performed by that severe method.

On the other hand, the complaints and the murmurings were very

bitter against the thing itself. It would pierce the hearts of

all that came by to hear the piteous cries of those infected

people, who, being thus out of their understandings by the

violence of their pain or the heat of their blood, were either

shut in or perhaps tied in their beds and chairs, to prevent

their doing themselves hurt—and who would make a dreadful outcry

at their being confined, and at their being not permitted to die

at large, as they called it, and as they would have done before.

This running of distempered people about the streets was very

dismal, and the magistrates did their utmost to prevent it; but

as it was generally in the night and always sudden when such

attempts were made, the officers could not be at hand to prevent

it; and even when any got out in the day, the officers appointed

did not care to meddle with them, because, as they were all

grievously infected, to be sure, when they were come to that

height, so they were more than ordinarily infectious, and it was

one of the most dangerous things that could be to touch them. On

the other hand, they generally ran on, not knowing what they did,

till they dropped down stark dead, or till they had exhausted

their spirits so as that they would fall and then die in perhaps

half-an-hour or an hour; and, which was most piteous to hear,

they were sure to come to themselves entirely in that half-hour

or hour, and then to make most grievous and piercing cries and

lamentations in the deep, afflicting sense of the condition they

were in. This was much of it before the order for shutting up of

houses was strictly put in execution, for at first the watchmen

were not so vigorous and severe as they were afterward in the

keeping the people in; that is to say, before they were (I mean

some of them) severely punished for their neglect, failing in

their duty, and letting people who were under their care slip

away, or conniving at their going abroad, whether sick or well.

But after they saw the officers appointed to examine into their

conduct were resolved to have them do their duty or be punished

for the omission, they were more exact, and the people were

strictly restrained; which was a thing they took so ill and bore

so impatiently that their discontents can hardly be described.

But there was an absolute necessity for it, that must be

confessed, unless some other measures had been timely entered

upon, and it was too late for that.

Had not this particular (of the sick being restrained as above)

been our case at that time, London would have been the most

dreadful place that ever was in the world; there would, for aught

I know, have as many people died in the streets as died in their

houses; for when the distemper was at its height it generally

made them raving and delirious, and when they were so they would

never be persuaded to keep in their beds but by force; and many

who were not tied threw themselves out of windows when they found

they could not get leave to go out of their doors.

It was for want of people conversing one with another, in this

time of calamity, that it was impossible any particular person

could come at the knowledge of all the extraordinary cases that

occurred in different families; and particularly I believe it was

never known to this day how many people in their deliriums

drowned themselves in the Thames, and in the river which runs

from the marshes by Hackney, which we generally called Ware

River, or Hackney River. As to those which were set down in the

weekly bill, they were indeed few; nor could it be known of any

of those whether they drowned themselves by accident or not. But

I believe I might reckon up more who within the compass of my

knowledge or observation really drowned themselves in that year,

than are put down in the bill of all put together: for many of

the bodies were never found who yet were known to be lost; and

the like in other methods of self-destruction. There was also one

man in or about Whitecross Street burned himself to death in his

bed; some said it was done by himself, others that it was by the

treachery of the nurse that attended him; but that he had the

plague upon him was agreed by all.

It was a merciful disposition of Providence also, and which I

have many times thought of at that time, that no fires, or no

considerable ones at least, happened in the city during that

year, which, if it had been otherwise, would have been very

dreadful; and either the people must have let them alone

unquenched, or have come together in great crowds and throngs,

unconcerned at the danger of the infection, not concerned at the

houses they went into, at the goods they handled, or at the

persons or the people they came among. But so it was, that

excepting that in Cripplegate parish, and two or three little

eruptions of fires, which were presently extinguished, there was

no disaster of that kind happened in the whole year. They told us

a story of a house in a place called Swan Alley, passing from

Goswell Street, near the end of Old Street, into St John Street,

that a family was infected there in so terrible a manner that

every one of the house died. The last person lay dead on the

floor, and, as it is supposed, had lain herself all along to die

just before the fire; the fire, it seems, had fallen from its

place, being of wood, and had taken hold of the boards and the

joists they lay on, and burnt as far as just to the body, but had

not taken hold of the dead body (though she had little more than

her shift on) and had gone out of itself, not burning the rest of

the house, though it was a slight timber house. How true this

might be I do not determine, but the city being to suffer

severely the next year by fire, this year it felt very little of

that calamity.

Indeed, considering the deliriums which the agony threw people

into, and how I have mentioned in their madness, when they were

alone, they did many desperate things, it was very strange there

were no more disasters of that kind.

It has been frequently asked me, and I cannot say that I ever

knew how to give a direct answer to it, how it came to pass that

so many infected people appeared abroad in the streets at the

same time that the houses which were infected were so vigilantly

searched, and all of them shut up and guarded as they were.

I confess I know not what answer to give to this, unless it be

this: that in so great and populous a city as this is it was

impossible to discover every house that was infected as soon as

it was so, or to shut up all the houses that were infected; so

that people had the liberty of going about the streets, even

where they pleased, unless they were known to belong to

such-and-such infected houses.

It is true that, as several physicians told my Lord Mayor, the

fury of the contagion was such at some particular times, and

people sickened so fast and died so soon, that it was impossible,

and indeed to no purpose, to go about to inquire who was sick and

who was well, or to shut them up with such exactness as the thing

required, almost every house in a whole street being infected,

and in many places every person in some of the houses; and that

which was still worse, by the time that the houses were known to

be infected, most of the persons infected would be stone dead,

and the rest run away for fear of being shut up; so that it was

to very small purpose to call them infected houses and shut them

up, the infection having ravaged and taken its leave of the house

before it was really known that the family was any way touched.

This might be sufficient to convince any reasonable person that

as it was not in the power of the magistrates or of any human

methods of policy, to prevent the spreading the infection, so

that this way of shutting up of houses was perfectly insufficient

for that end. Indeed it seemed to have no manner of public good

in it, equal or proportionable to the grievous burden that it was

to the particular families that were so shut up; and, as far as I

was employed by the public in directing that severity, I

frequently found occasion to see that it was incapable of

answering the end. For example, as I was desired, as a visitor or

examiner, to inquire into the particulars of several families

which were infected, we scarce came to any house where the plague

had visibly appeared in the family but that some of the family

were fled and gone. The magistrates would resent this, and charge

the examiners with being remiss in their examination or

inspection. But by that means houses were long infected before it

was known. Now, as I was in this dangerous office but half the

appointed time, which was two months, it was long enough to

inform myself that we were no way capable of coming at the

knowledge of the true state of any family but by inquiring at the

door or of the neighbours. As for going into every house to

search, that was a part no authority would offer to impose on the

inhabitants, or any citizen would undertake: for it would have

been exposing us to certain infection and death, and to the ruin

of our own families as well as of ourselves; nor would any

citizen of probity, and that could be depended upon, have stayed

in the town if they had been made liable to such a severity.

Seeing then that we could come at the certainty of things by no

method but that of inquiry of the neighbours or of the family,

and on that we could not justly depend, it was not possible but

that the uncertainty of this matter would remain as above.

It is true masters of families were bound by the order to give

notice to the examiner of the place wherein he lived, within two

hours after he should discover it, of any person being sick in

his house (that is to say, having signs of the infection)—but

they found so many ways to evade this and excuse their negligence

that they seldom gave that notice till they had taken measures to

have every one escape out of the house who had a mind to escape,

whether they were sick or sound; and while this was so, it is

easy to see that the shutting up of houses was no way to be

depended upon as a sufficient method for putting a stop to the

infection because, as I have said elsewhere, many of those that

so went out of those infected houses had the plague really upon

them, though they might really think themselves sound. And some

of these were the people that walked the streets till they fell

down dead, not that they were suddenly struck with the distemper

as with a bullet that killed with the stroke, but that they

really had the infection in their blood long before; only, that

as it preyed secretly on the vitals, it appeared not till it

seized the heart with a mortal power, and the patient died in a

moment, as with a sudden fainting or an apoplectic fit.

I know that some even of our physicians thought for a time that

those people that so died in the streets were seized but that

moment they fell, as if they had been touched by a stroke from

heaven as men are killed by a flash of lightning—but they found

reason to alter their opinion afterward; for upon examining the

bodies of such after they were dead, they always either had

tokens upon them or other evident proofs of the distemper having

been longer upon them than they had otherwise expected.

This often was the reason that, as I have said, we that were

examiners were not able to come at the knowledge of the infection

being entered into a house till it was too late to shut it up,

and sometimes not till the people that were left were all dead.

In Petticoat Lane two houses together were infected, and several

people sick; but the distemper was so well concealed, the

examiner, who was my neighbour, got no knowledge of it till

notice was sent him that the people were all dead, and that the

carts should call there to fetch them away. The two heads of the

families concerted their measures, and so ordered their matters

as that when the examiner was in the neighbourhood they appeared

generally at a time, and answered, that is, lied, for one

another, or got some of the neighbourhood to say they were all in

health—and perhaps knew no better—till, death making it

impossible to keep it any longer as a secret, the dead-carts were

called in the night to both the houses, and so it became public.

But when the examiner ordered the constable to shut up the houses

there was nobody left in them but three people, two in one house

and one in the other, just dying, and a nurse in each house who

acknowledged that they had buried five before, that the houses

had been infected nine or ten days, and that for all the rest of

the two families, which were many, they were gone, some sick,

some well, or whether sick or well could not be known.

In like manner, at another house in the same lane, a man having

his family infected but very unwilling to be shut up, when he

could conceal it no longer, shut up himself; that is to say, he

set the great red cross upon his door with the words, ‘Lord have

mercy upon us’, and so deluded the examiner, who supposed it had

been done by the constable by order of the other examiner, for

there were two examiners to every district or precinct. By this

means he had free egress and regress into his house again and out

of it, as he pleased, notwithstanding it was infected, till at

length his stratagem was found out; and then he, with the sound

part of his servants and family, made off and escaped, so they

were not shut up at all.

These things made it very hard, if not impossible, as I have

said, to prevent the spreading of an infection by the shutting up

of houses—unless the people would think the shutting of their

houses no grievance, and be so willing to have it done as that

they would give notice duly and faithfully to the magistrates of

their being infected as soon as it was known by themselves; but

as that cannot be expected from them, and the examiners cannot be

supposed, as above, to go into their houses to visit and search,

all the good of shutting up houses will be defeated, and few

houses will be shut up in time, except those of the poor, who

cannot conceal it, and of some people who will be discovered by

the terror and consternation which the things put them into.

I got myself discharged of the dangerous office I was in as soon

as I could get another admitted, whom I had obtained for a little

money to accept of it; and so, instead of serving the two months,

which was directed, I was not above three weeks in it; and a

great while too, considering it was in the month of August, at

which time the distemper began to rage with great violence at our

end of the town.

In the execution of this office I could not refrain speaking my

opinion among my neighbours as to this shutting up the people in

their houses; in which we saw most evidently the severities that

were used, though grievous in themselves, had also this

particular objection against them: namely, that they did not

answer the end, as I have said, but that the distempered people

went day by day about the streets; and it was our united opinion

that a method to have removed the sound from the sick, in case of

a particular house being visited, would have been much more

reasonable on many accounts, leaving nobody with the sick persons

but such as should on such occasion request to stay and declare

themselves content to be shut up with them.

Our scheme for removing those that were sound from those that

were sick was only in such houses as were infected, and confining

the sick was no confinement; those that could not stir would not

complain while they were in their senses and while they had the

power of judging. Indeed, when they came to be delirious and

light-headed, then they would cry out of the cruelty of being

confined; but for the removal of those that were well, we thought

it highly reasonable and just, for their own sakes, they should

be removed from the sick, and that for other people’s safety they

should keep retired for a while, to see that they were sound, and

might not infect others; and we thought twenty or thirty days

enough for this.

Now, certainly, if houses had been provided on purpose for those

that were sound to perform this demi-quarantine in, they would

have much less reason to think themselves injured in such a

restraint than in being confined with infected people in the

houses where they lived.

It is here, however, to be observed that after the funerals

became so many that people could not toll the bell, mourn or

weep, or wear black for one another, as they did before; no, nor

so much as make coffins for those that died; so after a while the

fury of the infection appeared to be so increased that, in short,

they shut up no houses at all. It seemed enough that all the

remedies of that kind had been used till they were found

fruitless, and that the plague spread itself with an irresistible

fury; so that as the fire the succeeding year spread itself, and

burned with such violence that the citizens, in despair, gave

over their endeavours to extinguish it, so in the plague it came

at last to such violence that the people sat still looking at one

another, and seemed quite abandoned to despair; whole streets

seemed to be desolated, and not to be shut up only, but to be

emptied of their inhabitants; doors were left open, windows stood

shattering with the wind in empty houses for want of people to

shut them. In a word, people began to give up themselves to their

fears and to think that all regulations and methods were in vain,

and that there was nothing to be hoped for but an universal

desolation; and it was even in the height of this general despair

that it Pleased God to stay His hand, and to slacken the fury of

the contagion in such a manner as was even surprising, like its

beginning, and demonstrated it to be His own particular hand, and

that above, if not without the agency of means, as I shall take

notice of in its proper place.

But I must still speak of the plague as in its height, raging

even to desolation, and the people under the most dreadful

consternation, even, as I have said, to despair. It is hardly

credible to what excess the passions of men carried them in this

extremity of the distemper, and this part, I think, was as moving

as the rest. What could affect a man in his full power of

reflection, and what could make deeper impressions on the soul,

than to see a man almost naked, and got out of his house, or

perhaps out of his bed, into the street, come out of Harrow

Alley, a populous conjunction or collection of alleys, courts,

and passages in the Butcher Row in Whitechappel,—I say, what

could be more affecting than to see this poor man come out into

the open street, run dancing and singing and making a thousand

antic gestures, with five or six women and children running after

him, crying and calling upon him for the Lord’s sake to come

back, and entreating the help of others to bring him back, but

all in vain, nobody daring to lay a hand upon him or to come near

him?

This was a most grievous and afflicting thing to me, who saw it

all from my own windows; for all this while the poor afflicted

man was, as I observed it, even then in the utmost agony of pain,

having (as they said) two swellings upon him which could not be

brought to break or to suppurate; but, by laying strong caustics

on them, the surgeons had, it seems, hopes to break them—which

caustics were then upon him, burning his flesh as with a hot

iron. I cannot say what became of this poor man, but I think he

continued roving about in that manner till he fell down and died.

No wonder the aspect of the city itself was frightful. The usual

concourse of people in the streets, and which used to be supplied

from our end of the town, was abated. The Exchange was not kept

shut, indeed, but it was no more frequented. The fires were lost;

they had been almost extinguished for some days by a very smart

and hasty rain. But that was not all; some of the physicians

insisted that they were not only no benefit, but injurious to the

health of people. This they made a loud clamour about, and

complained to the Lord Mayor about it. On the other hand, others

of the same faculty, and eminent too, opposed them, and gave

their reasons why the fires were, and must be, useful to assuage

the violence of the distemper. I cannot give a full account of

their arguments on both sides; only this I remember, that they

cavilled very much with one another. Some were for fires, but

that they must be made of wood and not coal, and of particular

sorts of wood too, such as fir in particular, or cedar, because

of the strong effluvia of turpentine; others were for coal and

not wood, because of the sulphur and bitumen; and others were for

neither one or other. Upon the whole, the Lord Mayor ordered no

more fires, and especially on this account, namely, that the

plague was so fierce that they saw evidently it defied all means,

and rather seemed to increase than decrease upon any application

to check and abate it; and yet this amazement of the magistrates

proceeded rather from want of being able to apply any means

successfully than from any unwillingness either to expose

themselves or undertake the care and weight of business; for, to

do them justice, they neither spared their pains nor their

persons. But nothing answered; the infection raged, and the

people were now frighted and terrified to the last degree: so

that, as I may say, they gave themselves up, and, as I mentioned

above, abandoned themselves to their despair.

But let me observe here that, when I say the people abandoned

themselves to despair, I do not mean to what men call a religious

despair, or a despair of their eternal state, but I mean a

despair of their being able to escape the infection or to outlive

the plague which they saw was so raging and so irresistible in

its force that indeed few people that were touched with it in its

height, about August and September, escaped; and, which is very

particular, contrary to its ordinary operation in June and July,

and the beginning of August, when, as I have observed, many were

infected, and continued so many days, and then went off after

having had the poison in their blood a long time; but now, on the

contrary, most of the people who were taken during the two last

weeks in August and in the three first weeks in September,

generally died in two or three days at furthest, and many the

very same day they were taken; whether the dog-days, or, as our

astrologers pretended to express themselves, the influence of the

dog-star, had that malignant effect, or all those who had the

seeds of infection before in them brought it up to a maturity at

that time altogether, I know not; but this was the time when it

was reported that above 3000 people died in one night; and they

that would have us believe they more critically observed it

pretend to say that they all died within the space of two hours,

viz., between the hours of one and three in the morning.

As to the suddenness of people’s dying at this time, more than

before, there were innumerable instances of it, and I could name

several in my neighbourhood. One family without the Bars, and not

far from me, were all seemingly well on the Monday, being ten in

family. That evening one maid and one apprentice were taken ill

and died the next morning—when the other apprentice and two

children were touched, whereof one died the same evening, and the

other two on Wednesday. In a word, by Saturday at noon the

master, mistress, four children, and four servants were all gone,

and the house left entirely empty, except an ancient woman who

came in to take charge of the goods for the master of the

family’s brother, who lived not far off, and who had not been

sick.

Many houses were then left desolate, all the people being carried

away dead, and especially in an alley farther on the same side

beyond the Bars, going in at the sign of Moses and Aaron, there

were several houses together which, they said, had not one person

left alive in them; and some that died last in several of those

houses were left a little too long before they were fetched out

to be buried; the reason of which was not, as some have written

very untruly, that the living were not sufficient to bury the

dead, but that the mortality was so great in the yard or alley

that there was nobody left to give notice to the buriers or

sextons that there were any dead bodies there to be buried. It

was said, how true I know not, that some of those bodies were so

much corrupted and so rotten that it was with difficulty they

were carried; and as the carts could not come any nearer than to

the Alley Gate in the High Street, it was so much the more

difficult to bring them along; but I am not certain how many

bodies were then left. I am sure that ordinarily it was not so.

As I have mentioned how the people were brought into a condition

to despair of life and abandon themselves, so this very thing had

a strange effect among us for three or four weeks; that is, it

made them bold and venturous: they were no more shy of one

another, or restrained within doors, but went anywhere and

everywhere, and began to converse. One would say to another, ‘I

do not ask you how you are, or say how I am; it is certain we

shall all go; so ’tis no matter who is all sick or who is sound’;

and so they ran desperately into any place or any company.

As it brought the people into public company, so it was

surprising how it brought them to crowd into the churches. They

inquired no more into whom they sat near to or far from, what

offensive smells they met with, or what condition the people

seemed to be in; but, looking upon themselves all as so many dead

corpses, they came to the churches without the least caution, and

crowded together as if their lives were of no consequence

compared to the work which they came about there. Indeed, the

zeal which they showed in coming, and the earnestness and

affection they showed in their attention to what they heard, made

it manifest what a value people would all put upon the worship of

God if they thought every day they attended at the church that it

would be their last.

Nor was it without other strange effects, for it took away, all

manner of prejudice at or scruple about the person whom they

found in the pulpit when they came to the churches. It cannot be

doubted but that many of the ministers of the parish churches

were cut off, among others, in so common and dreadful a calamity;

and others had not courage enough to stand it, but removed into

the country as they found means for escape. As then some parish

churches were quite vacant and forsaken, the people made no

scruple of desiring such Dissenters as had been a few years

before deprived of their livings by virtue of the Act of

Parliament called the Act of Uniformity to preach in the

churches; nor did the church ministers in that case make any

difficulty of accepting their assistance; so that many of those

whom they called silenced ministers had their mouths opened on

this occasion and preached publicly to the people.

Here we may observe and I hope it will not be amiss to take

notice of it that a near view of death would soon reconcile men

of good principles one to another, and that it is chiefly owing

to our easy situation in life and our putting these things far

from us that our breaches are fomented, ill blood continued,

prejudices, breach of charity and of Christian union, so much

kept and so far carried on among us as it is. Another plague year

would reconcile all these differences; a close conversing with

death, or with diseases that threaten death, would scum off the

gall from our tempers, remove the animosities among us, and bring

us to see with differing eyes than those which we looked on

things with before. As the people who had been used to join with

the Church were reconciled at this time with the admitting the

Dissenters to preach to them, so the Dissenters, who with an

uncommon prejudice had broken off from the communion of the

Church of England, were now content to come to their parish

churches and to conform to the worship which they did not approve

of before; but as the terror of the infection abated, those

things all returned again to their less desirable channel and to

the course they were in before.

I mention this but historically. I have no mind to enter into

arguments to move either or both sides to a more charitable

compliance one with another. I do not see that it is probable

such a discourse would be either suitable or successful; the

breaches seem rather to widen, and tend to a widening further,

than to closing, and who am I that I should think myself able to

influence either one side or other? But this I may repeat again,

that ’tis evident death will reconcile us all; on the other side

the grave we shall be all brethren again. In heaven, whither I

hope we may come from all parties and persuasions, we shall find

neither prejudice or scruple; there we shall be of one principle

and of one opinion. Why we cannot be content to go hand in hand

to the Place where we shall join heart and hand without the least

hesitation, and with the most complete harmony and affection—I

say, why we cannot do so here I can say nothing to, neither shall

I say anything more of it but that it remains to be lamented.

I could dwell a great while upon the calamities of this dreadful

time, and go on to describe the objects that appeared among us

every day, the dreadful extravagancies which the distraction of

sick people drove them into; how the streets began now to be

fuller of frightful objects, and families to be made even a

terror to themselves. But after I have told you, as I have above,

that one man, being tied in his bed, and finding no other way to

deliver himself, set the bed on fire with his candle, which

unhappily stood within his reach, and burnt himself in his bed;

and how another, by the insufferable torment he bore, danced and

sung naked in the streets, not knowing one ecstasy from another;

I say, after I have mentioned these things, what can be added

more? What can be said to represent the misery of these times

more lively to the reader, or to give him a more perfect idea of

a complicated distress?

I must acknowledge that this time was terrible, that I was

sometimes at the end of all my resolutions, and that I had not

the courage that I had at the beginning. As the extremity brought

other people abroad, it drove me home, and except having made my

voyage down to Blackwall and Greenwich, as I have related, which

was an excursion, I kept afterwards very much within doors, as I

had for about a fortnight before. I have said already that I

repented several times that I had ventured to stay in town, and

had not gone away with my brother and his family, but it was too

late for that now; and after I had retreated and stayed within

doors a good while before my impatience led me abroad, then they

called me, as I have said, to an ugly and dangerous office which

brought me out again; but as that was expired while the height of

the distemper lasted, I retired again, and continued close ten or

twelve days more, during which many dismal spectacles represented

themselves in my view out of my own windows and in our own

street—as that particularly from Harrow Alley, of the poor

outrageous creature which danced and sung in his agony; and many

others there were. Scarce a day or night passed over but some

dismal thing or other happened at the end of that Harrow Alley,

which was a place full of poor people, most of them belonging to

the butchers or to employments depending upon the butchery.

Sometimes heaps and throngs of people would burst out of the

alley, most of them women, making a dreadful clamour, mixed or

compounded of screeches, cryings, and calling one another, that

we could not conceive what to make of it. Almost all the dead

part of the night the dead-cart stood at the end of that alley,

for if it went in it could not well turn again, and could go in

but a little way. There, I say, it stood to receive dead bodies,

and as the churchyard was but a little way off, if it went away

full it would soon be back again. It is impossible to describe

the most horrible cries and noise the poor people would make at

their bringing the dead bodies of their children and friends out

of the cart, and by the number one would have thought there had

been none left behind, or that there were people enough for a

small city living in those places. Several times they cried

‘Murder’, sometimes ‘Fire’; but it was easy to perceive it was

all distraction, and the complaints of distressed and distempered

people.

I believe it was everywhere thus as that time, for the plague

raged for six or seven weeks beyond all that I have expressed,

and came even to such a height that, in the extremity, they began

to break into that excellent order of which I have spoken so much

in behalf of the magistrates; namely, that no dead bodies were

seen in the street or burials in the daytime: for there was a

necessity in this extremity to bear with its being otherwise for

a little while.

One thing I cannot omit here, and indeed I thought it was

extraordinary, at least it seemed a remarkable hand of Divine

justice: viz., that all the predictors, astrologers,

fortune-tellers, and what they called cunning-men, conjurers, and

the like: calculators of nativities and dreamers of dream, and

such people, were gone and vanished; not one of them was to be

found. I am verily persuaded that a great number of them fell in

the heat of the calamity, having ventured to stay upon the

prospect of getting great estates; and indeed their gain was but

too great for a time, through the madness and folly of the

people. But now they were silent; many of them went to their long

home, not able to foretell their own fate or to calculate their

own nativities. Some have been critical enough to say that every

one of them died. I dare not affirm that; but this I must own,

that I never heard of one of them that ever appeared after the

calamity was over.

But to return to my particular observations during this dreadful

part of the visitation. I am now come, as I have said, to the

month of September, which was the most dreadful of its kind, I

believe, that ever London saw; for, by all the accounts which I

have seen of the preceding visitations which have been in London,

nothing has been like it, the number in the weekly bill amounting

to almost 40,000 from the 22nd of August to the 26th of

September, being but five weeks. The particulars of the bills are

as follows, viz.:—

From August the 22nd to the 29th 7496

” ” 29th ” 5th September 8252

” September the 5th ” 12th 7690

” ” 12th ” 19th 8297

” ” 19th ” 26th 6460

————

38,195

This was a prodigious number of itself, but if I should add the

reasons which I have to believe that this account was deficient,

and how deficient it was, you would, with me, make no scruple to

believe that there died above ten thousand a week for all those

weeks, one week with another, and a proportion for several weeks

both before and after. The confusion among the people, especially

within the city, at that time, was inexpressible. The terror was

so great at last that the courage of the people appointed to

carry away the dead began to fail them; nay, several of them

died, although they had the distemper before and were recovered,

and some of them dropped down when they have been carrying the

bodies even at the pit side, and just ready to throw them in; and

this confusion was greater in the city because they had flattered

themselves with hopes of escaping, and thought the bitterness of

death was past. One cart, they told us, going up Shoreditch was

forsaken of the drivers, or being left to one man to drive, he

died in the street; and the horses going on overthrew the cart,

and left the bodies, some thrown out here, some there, in a

dismal manner. Another cart was, it seems, found in the great pit

in Finsbury Fields, the driver being dead, or having been gone

and abandoned it, and the horses running too near it, the cart

fell in and drew the horses in also. It was suggested that the

driver was thrown in with it and that the cart fell upon him, by

reason his whip was seen to be in the pit among the bodies; but

that, I suppose, could not be certain.

In our parish of Aldgate the dead-carts were several times, as I

have heard, found standing at the churchyard gate full of dead

bodies, but neither bellman or driver or any one else with it;

neither in these or many other cases did they know what bodies

they had in their cart, for sometimes they were let down with

ropes out of balconies and out of windows, and sometimes the

bearers brought them to the cart, sometimes other people; nor, as

the men themselves said, did they trouble themselves to keep any

account of the numbers.

The vigilance of the magistrates was now put to the utmost

trial—and, it must be confessed, can never be enough acknowledged

on this occasion also; whatever expense or trouble they were at,

two things were never neglected in the city or suburbs either:—

(1) Provisions were always to be had in full plenty, and the

price not much raised neither, hardly worth speaking.

(2) No dead bodies lay unburied or uncovered; and if one walked

from one end of the city to another, no funeral or sign of it was

to be seen in the daytime, except a little, as I have said above,

in the three first weeks in September.

This last article perhaps will hardly be believed when some

accounts which others have published since that shall be seen,

wherein they say that the dead lay unburied, which I am assured

was utterly false; at least, if it had been anywhere so, it must

have been in houses where the living were gone from the dead

(having found means, as I have observed, to escape) and where no

notice was given to the officers. All which amounts to nothing at

all in the case in hand; for this I am positive in, having myself

been employed a little in the direction of that part in the

parish in which I lived, and where as great a desolation was made

in proportion to the number of inhabitants as was anywhere; I

say, I am sure that there were no dead bodies remained unburied;

that is to say, none that the proper officers knew of; none for

want of people to carry them off, and buriers to put them into

the ground and cover them; and this is sufficient to the

argument; for what might lie in houses and holes, as in Moses and

Aaron Alley, is nothing; for it is most certain they were buried

as soon as they were found. As to the first article (namely, of

provisions, the scarcity or dearness), though I have mentioned it

before and shall speak of it again, yet I must observe here:—

(1) The price of bread in particular was not much raised; for in

the beginning of the year, viz., in the first week in March, the

penny wheaten loaf was ten ounces and a half; and in the height

of the contagion it was to be had at nine ounces and a half, and

never dearer, no, not all that season. And about the beginning of

November it was sold ten ounces and a half again; the like of

which, I believe, was never heard of in any city, under so

dreadful a visitation, before.

(2) Neither was there (which I wondered much at) any want of

bakers or ovens kept open to supply the people with the bread;

but this was indeed alleged by some families, viz., that their

maidservants, going to the bakehouses with their dough to be

baked, which was then the custom, sometimes came home with the

sickness (that is to say the plague) upon them.

In all this dreadful visitation there were, as I have said

before, but two pest-houses made use of, viz., one in the fields

beyond Old Street and one in Westminster; neither was there any

compulsion used in carrying people thither. Indeed there was no

need of compulsion in the case, for there were thousands of poor

distressed people who, having no help or conveniences or supplies

but of charity, would have been very glad to have been carried

thither and been taken care of; which, indeed, was the only thing

that I think was wanting in the whole public management of the

city, seeing nobody was here allowed to be brought to the

pest-house but where money was given, or security for money,

either at their introducing or upon their being cured and sent

out—for very many were sent out again whole; and very good

physicians were appointed to those places, so that many people

did very well there, of which I shall make mention again. The

principal sort of people sent thither were, as I have said,

servants who got the distemper by going on errands to fetch

necessaries to the families where they lived, and who in that

case, if they came home sick, were removed to preserve the rest

of the house; and they were so well looked after there in all the

time of the visitation that there was but 156 buried in all at

the London pest-house, and 159 at that of Westminster.

By having more pest-houses I am far from meaning a forcing all

people into such places. Had the shutting up of houses been

omitted and the sick hurried out of their dwellings to

pest-houses, as some proposed, it seems, at that time as well as

since, it would certainly have been much worse than it was. The

very removing the sick would have been a spreading of the

infection, and rather because that removing could not effectually

clear the house where the sick person was of the distemper; and

the rest of the family, being then left at liberty, would

certainly spread it among others.

The methods also in private families, which would have been

universally used to have concealed the distemper and to have

concealed the persons being sick, would have been such that the

distemper would sometimes have seized a whole family before any

visitors or examiners could have known of it. On the other hand,

the prodigious numbers which would have been sick at a time would

have exceeded all the capacity of public pest-houses to receive

them, or of public officers to discover and remove them.

This was well considered in those days, and I have heard them

talk of it often. The magistrates had enough to do to bring

people to submit to having their houses shut up, and many ways

they deceived the watchmen and got out, as I have observed. But

that difficulty made it apparent that they would have found it

impracticable to have gone the other way to work, for they could

never have forced the sick people out of their beds and out of

their dwellings. It must not have been my Lord Mayor’s officers,

but an army of officers, that must have attempted it; and the

people, on the other hand, would have been enraged and desperate,

and would have killed those that should have offered to have

meddled with them or with their children and relations, whatever

had befallen them for it; so that they would have made the

people, who, as it was, were in the most terrible distraction

imaginable, I say, they would have made them stark mad; whereas

the magistrates found it proper on several accounts to treat them

with lenity and compassion, and not with violence and terror,

such as dragging the sick out of their houses or obliging them to

remove themselves, would have been.

This leads me again to mention the time when the plague first

began; that is to say, when it became certain that it would

spread over the whole town, when, as I have said, the better sort

of people first took the alarm and began to hurry themselves out

of town. It was true, as I observed in its place, that the throng

was so great, and the coaches, horses, waggons, and carts were so

many, driving and dragging the people away, that it looked as if

all the city was running away; and had any regulations been

published that had been terrifying at that time, especially such

as would pretend to dispose of the people otherwise than they

would dispose of themselves, it would have put both the city and

suburbs into the utmost confusion.

But the magistrates wisely caused the people to be encouraged,

made very good bye-laws for the regulating the citizens, keeping

good order in the streets, and making everything as eligible as

possible to all sorts of people.

In the first place, the Lord Mayor and the sheriffs, the Court of

Aldermen, and a certain number of the Common Council men, or

their deputies, came to a resolution and published it, viz., that

they would not quit the city themselves, but that they would be

always at hand for the preserving good order in every place and

for the doing justice on all occasions; as also for the

distributing the public charity to the poor; and, in a word, for

the doing the duty and discharging the trust reposed in them by

the citizens to the utmost of their power.

In pursuance of these orders, the Lord Mayor, sheriffs, &c., held

councils every day, more or less, for making such dispositions as

they found needful for preserving the civil peace; and though

they used the people with all possible gentleness and clemency,

yet all manner of presumptuous rogues such as thieves,

housebreakers, plunderers of the dead or of the sick, were duly

punished, and several declarations were continually published by

the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen against such.

Also all constables and churchwardens were enjoined to stay in

the city upon severe penalties, or to depute such able and

sufficient housekeepers as the deputy aldermen or Common Council

men of the precinct should approve, and for whom they should give

security; and also security in case of mortality that they would

forthwith constitute other constables in their stead.

These things re-established the minds of the people very much,

especially in the first of their fright, when they talked of

making so universal a flight that the city would have been in

danger of being entirely deserted of its inhabitants except the

poor, and the country of being plundered and laid waste by the

multitude. Nor were the magistrates deficient in performing their

part as boldly as they promised it; for my Lord Mayor and the

sheriffs were continually in the streets and at places of the

greatest danger, and though they did not care for having too

great a resort of people crowding about them, yet in emergent

cases they never denied the people access to them, and heard with

patience all their grievances and complaints. My Lord Mayor had a

low gallery built on purpose in his hall, where he stood a little

removed from the crowd when any complaint came to be heard, that

he might appear with as much safety as possible.

Likewise the proper officers, called my Lord Mayor’s officers,

constantly attended in their turns, as they were in waiting; and

if any of them were sick or infected, as some of them were,

others were instantly employed to fill up and officiate in their

places till it was known whether the other should live or die.

In like manner the sheriffs and aldermen did in their several

stations and wards, where they were placed by office, and the

sheriff’s officers or sergeants were appointed to receive orders

from the respective aldermen in their turn, so that justice was

executed in all cases without interruption. In the next place, it

was one of their particular cares to see the orders for the

freedom of the markets observed, and in this part either the Lord

Mayor or one or both of the sheriffs were every market-day on

horseback to see their orders executed and to see that the

country people had all possible encouragement and freedom in

their coming to the markets and going back again, and that no

nuisances or frightful objects should be seen in the streets to

terrify them or make them unwilling to come. Also the bakers were

taken under particular order, and the Master of the Bakers’

Company was, with his court of assistants, directed to see the

order of my Lord Mayor for their regulation put in execution, and

the due assize of bread (which was weekly appointed by my Lord

Mayor) observed; and all the bakers were obliged to keep their

oven going constantly, on pain of losing the privileges of a

freeman of the city of London.

By this means bread was always to be had in plenty, and as cheap

as usual, as I said above; and provisions were never wanting in

the markets, even to such a degree that I often wondered at it,

and reproached myself with being so timorous and cautious in

stirring abroad, when the country people came freely and boldly

to market, as if there had been no manner of infection in the

city, or danger of catching it.

It was indeed one admirable piece of conduct in the said

magistrates that the streets were kept constantly clear and free

from all manner of frightful objects, dead bodies, or any such

things as were indecent or unpleasant—unless where anybody fell

down suddenly or died in the streets, as I have said above; and

these were generally covered with some cloth or blanket, or

removed into the next churchyard till night. All the needful

works that carried terror with them, that were both dismal and

dangerous, were done in the night; if any diseased bodies were

removed, or dead bodies buried, or infected clothes burnt, it was

done in the night; and all the bodies which were thrown into the

great pits in the several churchyards or burying-grounds, as has

been observed, were so removed in the night, and everything was

covered and closed before day. So that in the daytime there was

not the least signal of the calamity to be seen or heard of,

except what was to be observed from the emptiness of the streets,

and sometimes from the passionate outcries and lamentations of

the people, out at their windows, and from the numbers of houses

and shops shut up.

Nor was the silence and emptiness of the streets so much in the

city as in the out-parts, except just at one particular time

when, as I have mentioned, the plague came east and spread over

all the city. It was indeed a merciful disposition of God, that

as the plague began at one end of the town first (as has been

observed at large) so it proceeded progressively to other parts,

and did not come on this way, or eastward, till it had spent its

fury in the West part of the town; and so, as it came on one way,

it abated another. For example, it began at St Giles’s and the

Westminster end of the town, and it was in its height in all that

part by about the middle of July, viz., in St

Giles-in-the-Fields, St Andrew’s, Holborn, St Clement Danes, St

Martin-in-the-Fields, and in Westminster. The latter end of July

it decreased in those parishes; and coming east, it increased

prodigiously in Cripplegate, St Sepulcher’s, St James’s,

Clarkenwell, and St Bride’s and Aldersgate. While it was in all

these parishes, the city and all the parishes of the Southwark

side of the water and all Stepney, Whitechappel, Aldgate,

Wapping, and Ratcliff, were very little touched; so that people

went about their business unconcerned, carried on their trades,

kept open their shops, and conversed freely with one another in

all the city, the east and north-east suburbs, and in Southwark,

almost as if the plague had not been among us.

Even when the north and north-west suburbs were fully infected,

viz., Cripplegate, Clarkenwell, Bishopsgate, and Shoreditch, yet

still all the rest were tolerably well. For example from 25th

July to 1st August the bill stood thus of all diseases:—

St Giles, Cripplegate 554

St Sepulchers 250

Clarkenwell 103

Bishopsgate 116

Shoreditch 110

Stepney parish 127

Aldgate 92

Whitechappel 104

All the ninety-seven parishes within the walls 228

All the parishes in Southwark 205

- ——-

- Total 1889

So that, in short, there died more that week in the two parishes

of Cripplegate and St Sepulcher by forty-eight than in all the

city, all the east suburbs, and all the Southwark parishes put

together. This caused the reputation of the city’s health to

continue all over England—and especially in the counties and

markets adjacent, from whence our supply of provisions chiefly

came even much longer than that health itself continued; for when

the people came into the streets from the country by Shoreditch

and Bishopsgate, or by Old Street and Smithfield, they would see

the out-streets empty and the houses and shops shut, and the few

people that were stirring there walk in the middle of the

streets. But when they came within the city, there things looked

better, and the markets and shops were open, and the people

walking about the streets as usual, though not quite so many; and

this continued till the latter end of August and the beginning of

September.

But then the case altered quite; the distemper abated in the west

and north-west parishes, and the weight of the infection lay on

the city and the eastern suburbs, and the Southwark side, and

this in a frightful manner. Then, indeed, the city began to look

dismal, shops to be shut, and the streets desolate. In the High

Street, indeed, necessity made people stir abroad on many

occasions; and there would be in the middle of the day a pretty

many people, but in the mornings and evenings scarce any to be

seen, even there, no, not in Cornhill and Cheapside.

These observations of mine were abundantly confirmed by the

weekly bills of mortality for those weeks, an abstract of which,

as they respect the parishes which I have mentioned and as they

make the calculations I speak of very evident, take as follows.

The weekly bill, which makes out this decrease of the burials in

the west and north side of the city, stands thus—

From the 12th of September to the 19th—

- St Giles, Cripplegate 456

- St Giles-in-the-Fields 140

- Clarkenwell 77

- St Sepulcher 214

- St Leonard, Shoreditch 183

- Stepney parish 716

- Aldgate 623

- Whitechappel 532

- In the ninety-seven parishes within the walls 1493

- In the eight parishes on Southwark side 1636

- ————

- Total 6060

Here is a strange change of things indeed, and a sad change it

was; and had it held for two months more than it did, very few

people would have been left alive. But then such, I say, was the

merciful disposition of God that, when it was thus, the west and

north part which had been so dreadfully visited at first, grew,

as you see, much better; and as the people disappeared here, they

began to look abroad again there; and the next week or two

altered it still more; that is, more to the encouragement of the

other part of the town. For example:—

From the 19th of September to the 26th—

- St Giles, Cripplegate 277

- St Giles-in-the-Fields 119

- Clarkenwell 76

- St Sepulchers 193

- St Leonard, Shoreditch 146

- Stepney parish 616

- Aldgate 496

- Whitechappel 346

- In the ninety-seven parishes within the walls 1268

- In the eight parishes on Southwark side 1390

- ————

- Total 4927

From the 26th of September to the 3rd of October—

- St Giles, Cripplegate 196

- St Giles-in-the-Fields 95

- Clarkenwell 48

- St Sepulchers 137

- St Leonard, Shoreditch 128

- Stepney parish 674

- Aldgate 372

- Whitechappel 328

- In the ninety-seven parishes within the walls 1149

- In the eight parishes on Southwark side 1201

- ————

- Total 4382

And now the misery of the city and of the said east and south

parts was complete indeed; for, as you see, the weight of the

distemper lay upon those parts, that is to say, the city, the

eight parishes over the river, with the parishes of Aldgate,

Whitechappel, and Stepney; and this was the time that the bills

came up to such a monstrous height as that I mentioned before,

and that eight or nine, and, as I believe, ten or twelve thousand

a week, died; for it is my settled opinion that they never could

come at any just account of the numbers, for the reasons which I

have given already.

Nay, one of the most eminent physicians, who has since published

in Latin an account of those times, and of his observations says

that in one week there died twelve thousand people, and that

particularly there died four thousand in one night; though I do

not remember that there ever was any such particular night so

remarkably fatal as that such a number died in it. However, all

this confirms what I have said above of the uncertainty of the

bills of mortality, &c., of which I shall say more hereafter.

And here let me take leave to enter again, though it may seem a

repetition of circumstances, into a description of the miserable

condition of the city itself, and of those parts where I lived at

this particular time. The city and those other parts,

notwithstanding the great numbers of people that were gone into

the country, was vastly full of people; and perhaps the fuller

because people had for a long time a strong belief that the

plague would not come into the city, nor into Southwark, no, nor

into Wapping or Ratcliff at all; nay, such was the assurance of

the people on that head that many removed from the suburbs on the

west and north sides, into those eastern and south sides as for

safety; and, as I verily believe, carried the plague amongst them

there perhaps sooner than they would otherwise have had it.

Here also I ought to leave a further remark for the use of

posterity, concerning the manner of people’s infecting one

another; namely, that it was not the sick people only from whom

the plague was immediately received by others that were sound,

but the well. To explain myself: by the sick people I mean those

who were known to be sick, had taken their beds, had been under

cure, or had swellings and tumours upon them, and the like; these

everybody could beware of; they were either in their beds or in

such condition as could not be concealed.

By the well I mean such as had received the contagion, and had it

really upon them, and in their blood, yet did not show the

consequences of it in their countenances: nay, even were not

sensible of it themselves, as many were not for several days.

These breathed death in every place, and upon everybody who came

near them; nay, their very clothes retained the infection, their

hands would infect the things they touched, especially if they

were warm and sweaty, and they were generally apt to sweat too.

Now it was impossible to know these people, nor did they

sometimes, as I have said, know themselves to be infected. These

were the people that so often dropped down and fainted in the

streets; for oftentimes they would go about the streets to the

last, till on a sudden they would sweat, grow faint, sit down at

a door and die. It is true, finding themselves thus, they would

struggle hard to get home to their own doors, or at other times

would be just able to go into their houses and die instantly;

other times they would go about till they had the very tokens

come out upon them, and yet not know it, and would die in an hour

or two after they came home, but be well as long as they were

abroad. These were the dangerous people; these were the people of

whom the well people ought to have been afraid; but then, on the

other side, it was impossible to know them.

And this is the reason why it is impossible in a visitation to

prevent the spreading of the plague by the utmost human

vigilance: viz., that it is impossible to know the infected

people from the sound, or that the infected people should

perfectly know themselves. I knew a man who conversed freely in

London all the season of the plague in 1665, and kept about him

an antidote or cordial on purpose to take when he thought himself

in any danger, and he had such a rule to know or have warning of

the danger by as indeed I never met with before or since. How far

it may be depended on I know not. He had a wound in his leg, and

whenever he came among any people that were not sound, and the

infection began to affect him, he said he could know it by that

signal, viz., that his wound in his leg would smart, and look

pale and white; so as soon as ever he felt it smart it was time

for him to withdraw, or to take care of himself, taking his

drink, which he always carried about him for that purpose. Now it

seems he found his wound would smart many times when he was in

company with such who thought themselves to be sound, and who

appeared so to one another; but he would presently rise up and

say publicly, ‘Friends, here is somebody in the room that has the

plague’, and so would immediately break up the company. This was

indeed a faithful monitor to all people that the plague is not to

be avoided by those that converse promiscuously in a town

infected, and people have it when they know it not, and that they

likewise give it to others when they know not that they have it

themselves; and in this case shutting up the well or removing the

sick will not do it, unless they can go back and shut up all

those that the sick had conversed with, even before they knew

themselves to be sick, and none knows how far to carry that back,

or where to stop; for none knows when or where or how they may

have received the infection, or from whom.

This I take to be the reason which makes so many people talk of

the air being corrupted and infected, and that they need not be

cautious of whom they converse with, for that the contagion was

in the air. I have seen them in strange agitations and surprises

on this account. ‘I have never come near any infected body’, says

the disturbed person; ‘I have conversed with none but sound,

healthy people, and yet I have gotten the distemper!’ ‘I am sure

I am struck from Heaven’, says another, and he falls to the

serious part. Again, the first goes on exclaiming, ‘I have come

near no infection or any infected person; I am sure it is the

air. We draw in death when we breathe, and therefore ’tis the

hand of God; there is no withstanding it.’ And this at last made

many people, being hardened to the danger, grow less concerned at

it; and less cautious towards the latter end of the time, and

when it was come to its height, than they were at first. Then,

with a kind of a Turkish predestinarianism, they would say, if it

pleased God to strike them, it was all one whether they went

abroad or stayed at home; they could not escape it, and therefore

they went boldly about, even into infected houses and infected

company; visited sick people; and, in short, lay in the beds with

their wives or relations when they were infected. And what was

the consequence, but the same that is the consequence in Turkey,

and in those countries where they do those things—namely, that

they were infected too, and died by hundreds and thousands?

I would be far from lessening the awe of the judgements of God

and the reverence to His providence which ought always to be on

our minds on such occasions as these. Doubtless the visitation

itself is a stroke from Heaven upon a city, or country, or nation

where it falls; a messenger of His vengeance, and a loud call to

that nation or country or city to humiliation and repentance,

according to that of the prophet Jeremiah (xviii. 7, 8): ‘At what

instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a

kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if

that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil,

I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.’ Now to

prompt due impressions of the awe of God on the minds of men on

such occasions, and not to lessen them, it is that I have left

those minutes upon record.

I say, therefore, I reflect upon no man for putting the reason of

those things upon the immediate hand of God, and the appointment

and direction of His providence; nay, on the contrary, there were

many wonderful deliverances of persons from infection, and

deliverances of persons when infected, which intimate singular

and remarkable providence in the particular instances to which

they refer; and I esteem my own deliverance to be one next to

miraculous, and do record it with thankfulness.

But when I am speaking of the plague as a distemper arising from

natural causes, we must consider it as it was really propagated

by natural means; nor is it at all the less a judgement for its

being under the conduct of human causes and effects; for, as the

Divine Power has formed the whole scheme of nature and maintains

nature in its course, so the same Power thinks fit to let His own

actings with men, whether of mercy or judgement, to go on in the

ordinary course of natural causes; and He is pleased to act by

those natural causes as the ordinary means, excepting and

reserving to Himself nevertheless a power to act in a

supernatural way when He sees occasion. Now ’tis evident that in

the case of an infection there is no apparent extraordinary

occasion for supernatural operation, but the ordinary course of

things appears sufficiently armed, and made capable of all the

effects that Heaven usually directs by a contagion. Among these

causes and effects, this of the secret conveyance of infection,

imperceptible and unavoidable, is more than sufficient to execute

the fierceness of Divine vengeance, without putting it upon

supernaturals and miracle.

The acute penetrating nature of the disease itself was such, and

the infection was received so imperceptibly, that the most exact

caution could not secure us while in the place. But I must be

allowed to believe—and I have so many examples fresh in my memory

to convince me of it, that I think none can resist their

evidence—I say, I must be allowed to believe that no one in this

whole nation ever received the sickness or infection but who

received it in the ordinary way of infection from somebody, or

the clothes or touch or stench of somebody that was infected

before.

The manner of its coming first to London proves this also, viz.,

by goods brought over from Holland, and brought thither from the

Levant; the first breaking of it out in a house in Long Acre

where those goods were carried and first opened; its spreading

from that house to other houses by the visible unwary conversing

with those who were sick; and the infecting the parish officers

who were employed about the persons dead, and the like. These are

known authorities for this great foundation point—that it went on

and proceeded from person to person and from house to house, and

no otherwise. In the first house that was infected there died

four persons. A neighbour, hearing the mistress of the first

house was sick, went to visit her, and went home and gave the

distemper to her family, and died, and all her household. A

minister, called to pray with the first sick person in the second

house, was said to sicken immediately and die with several more

in his house. Then the physicians began to consider, for they did

not at first dream of a general contagion. But the physicians

being sent to inspect the bodies, they assured the people that it

was neither more or less than the plague, with all its terrifying

particulars, and that it threatened an universal infection, so

many people having already conversed with the sick or

distempered, and having, as might be supposed, received infection

from them, that it would be impossible to put a stop to it.

Here the opinion of the physicians agreed with my observation

afterwards, namely, that the danger was spreading insensibly, for

the sick could infect none but those that came within reach of

the sick person; but that one man who may have really received

the infection and knows it not, but goes abroad and about as a

sound person, may give the plague to a thousand people, and they

to greater numbers in proportion, and neither the person giving

the infection or the persons receiving it know anything of it,

and perhaps not feel the effects of it for several days after.

For example, many persons in the time of this visitation never

perceived that they were infected till they found to their

unspeakable surprise, the tokens come out upon them; after which

they seldom lived six hours; for those spots they called the

tokens were really gangrene spots, or mortified flesh in small

knobs as broad as a little silver penny, and hard as a piece of

callus or horn; so that, when the disease was come up to that

length, there was nothing could follow but certain death; and

yet, as I said, they knew nothing of their being infected, nor

found themselves so much as out of order, till those mortal marks

were upon them. But everybody must allow that they were infected

in a high degree before, and must have been so some time, and

consequently their breath, their sweat, their very clothes, were

contagious for many days before. This occasioned a vast variety

of cases which physicians would have much more opportunity to

remember than I; but some came within the compass of my

observation or hearing, of which I shall name a few.

A certain citizen who had lived safe and untouched till the month

of September, when the weight of the distemper lay more in the

city than it had done before, was mighty cheerful, and something

too bold (as I think it was) in his talk of how secure he was,

how cautious he had been, and how he had never come near any sick

body. Says another citizen, a neighbour of his, to him one day,

‘Do not be too confident, Mr ——; it is hard to say who is sick and

who is well, for we see men alive and well to outward appearance

one hour, and dead the next.’ ‘That is true’, says the first man,

for he was not a man presumptuously secure, but had escaped a

long while—and men, as I said above, especially in the city began

to be over-easy upon that score. ‘That is true,’ says he; ‘I do

not think myself secure, but I hope I have not been in company

with any person that there has been any danger in.’ ‘No?’ says

his neighbour. ‘Was not you at the Bull Head Tavern in

Gracechurch Street with Mr —— the night before last?’ ‘Yes,’ says

the first, ‘I was; but there was nobody there that we had any

reason to think dangerous.’ Upon which his neighbour said no

more, being unwilling to surprise him; but this made him more

inquisitive, and as his neighbour appeared backward, he was the

more impatient, and in a kind of warmth says he aloud, ‘Why, he

is not dead, is he?’ Upon which his neighbour still was silent,

but cast up his eyes and said something to himself; at which the

first citizen turned pale, and said no more but this, ‘Then I am

a dead man too’, and went home immediately and sent for a

neighbouring apothecary to give him something preventive, for he

had not yet found himself ill; but the apothecary, opening his

breast, fetched a sigh, and said no more but this, ‘Look up to

God’; and the man died in a few hours.

Now let any man judge from a case like this if it is possible for

the regulations of magistrates, either by shutting up the sick or

removing them, to stop an infection which spreads itself from man

to man even while they are perfectly well and insensible of its

approach, and may be so for many days.

It may be proper to ask here how long it may be supposed men

might have the seeds of the contagion in them before it

discovered itself in this fatal manner, and how long they might

go about seemingly whole, and yet be contagious to all those that

came near them. I believe the most experienced physicians cannot

answer this question directly any more than I can; and something

an ordinary observer may take notice of, which may pass their

observations. The opinion of physicians abroad seems to be that

it may lie dormant in the spirits or in the blood-vessels a very

considerable time. Why else do they exact a quarantine of those

who came into their harbours and ports from suspected places?

Forty days is, one would think, too long for nature to struggle

with such an enemy as this, and not conquer it or yield to it.

But I could not think, by my own observation, that they can be

infected so as to be contagious to others above fifteen or

sixteen days at furthest; and on that score it was, that when a

house was shut up in the city and any one had died of the plague,

but nobody appeared to be ill in the family for sixteen or

eighteen days after, they were not so strict but that they would

connive at their going privately abroad; nor would people be much

afraid of them afterward, but rather think they were fortified

the better, having not been vulnerable when the enemy was in

their own house; but we sometimes found it had lain much longer

concealed.

Upon the foot of all these observations I must say that though

Providence seemed to direct my conduct to be otherwise, yet it is

my opinion, and I must leave it as a prescription, viz., that the

best physic against the plague is to run away from it. I know

people encourage themselves by saying God is able to keep us in

the midst of danger, and able to overtake us when we think

ourselves out of danger; and this kept thousands in the town

whose carcases went into the great pits by cartloads, and who, if

they had fled from the danger, had, I believe, been safe from the

disaster; at least ’tis probable they had been safe.

And were this very fundamental only duly considered by the people

on any future occasion of this or the like nature, I am persuaded

it would put them upon quite different measures for managing the

people from those that they took in 1665, or than any that have

been taken abroad that I have heard of. In a word, they would

consider of separating the people into smaller bodies, and

removing them in time farther from one another—and not let such a

contagion as this, which is indeed chiefly dangerous to collected

bodies of people, find a million of people in a body together, as

was very near the case before, and would certainly be the case if

it should ever appear again.

The plague, like a great fire, if a few houses only are

contiguous where it happens, can only burn a few houses; or if it

begins in a single, or, as we call it, a lone house, can only

burn that lone house where it begins. But if it begins in a

close-built town or city and gets a head, there its fury

increases: it rages over the whole place, and consumes all it can

reach.

I could propose many schemes on the foot of which the government

of this city, if ever they should be under the apprehensions of

such another enemy (God forbid they should), might ease

themselves of the greatest part of the dangerous people that

belong to them; I mean such as the begging, starving, labouring

poor, and among them chiefly those who, in case of a siege, are

called the useless mouths; who being then prudently and to their

own advantage disposed of, and the wealthy inhabitants disposing

of themselves and of their servants and children, the city and

its adjacent parts would be so effectually evacuated that there

would not be above a tenth part of its people left together for

the disease to take hold upon. But suppose them to be a fifth

part, and that two hundred and fifty thousand people were left:

and if it did seize upon them, they would, by their living so

much at large, be much better prepared to defend themselves

against the infection, and be less liable to the effects of it

than if the same number of people lived close together in one

smaller city such as Dublin or Amsterdam or the like.

It is true hundreds, yea, thousands of families fled away at this

last plague, but then of them, many fled too late, and not only

died in their flight, but carried the distemper with them into

the countries where they went and infected those whom they went

among for safety; which confounded the thing, and made that be a

propagation of the distemper which was the best means to prevent

it; and this too is an evidence of it, and brings me back to what

I only hinted at before, but must speak more fully to here,

namely, that men went about apparently well many days after they

had the taint of the disease in their vitals, and after their

spirits were so seized as that they could never escape it, and

that all the while they did so they were dangerous to others; I

say, this proves that so it was; for such people infected the

very towns they went through, as well as the families they went

among; and it was by that means that almost all the great towns

in England had the distemper among them, more or less, and always

they would tell you such a Londoner or such a Londoner brought it

down.

It must not be omitted that when I speak of those people who were

really thus dangerous, I suppose them to be utterly ignorant of

their own conditions; for if they really knew their circumstances

to be such as indeed they were, they must have been a kind of

wilful murtherers if they would have gone abroad among healthy

people—and it would have verified indeed the suggestion which I

mentioned above, and which I thought seemed untrue: viz., that

the infected people were utterly careless as to giving the

infection to others, and rather forward to do it than not; and I

believe it was partly from this very thing that they raised that

suggestion, which I hope was not really true in fact.

I confess no particular case is sufficient to prove a general,

but I could name several people within the knowledge of some of

their neighbours and families yet living who showed the contrary

to an extreme. One man, a master of a family in my neighbourhood,

having had the distemper, he thought he had it given him by a

poor workman whom he employed, and whom he went to his house to

see, or went for some work that he wanted to have finished; and

he had some apprehensions even while he was at the poor workman’s

door, but did not discover it fully; but the next day it

discovered itself, and he was taken very in, upon which he

immediately caused himself to be carried into an outbuilding

which he had in his yard, and where there was a chamber over a

workhouse (the man being a brazier). Here he lay, and here he

died, and would be tended by none of his neighbours, but by a

nurse from abroad; and would not suffer his wife, nor children,

nor servants to come up into the room, lest they should be

infected—but sent them his blessing and prayers for them by the

nurse, who spoke it to them at a distance, and all this for fear

of giving them the distemper; and without which he knew, as they

were kept up, they could not have it.

And here I must observe also that the plague, as I suppose all

distempers do, operated in a different manner on differing

constitutions; some were immediately overwhelmed with it, and it

came to violent fevers, vomitings, insufferable headaches, pains

in the back, and so up to ravings and ragings with those pains;

others with swellings and tumours in the neck or groin, or

armpits, which till they could be broke put them into

insufferable agonies and torment; while others, as I have

observed, were silently infected, the fever preying upon their

spirits insensibly, and they seeing little of it till they fell

into swooning, and faintings, and death without pain. I am not

physician enough to enter into the particular reasons and manner

of these differing effects of one and the same distemper, and of

its differing operation in several bodies; nor is it my business

here to record the observations which I really made, because the

doctors themselves have done that part much more effectually than

I can do, and because my opinion may in some things differ from

theirs. I am only relating what I know, or have heard, or believe

of the particular cases, and what fell within the compass of my

view, and the different nature of the infection as it appeared in

the particular cases which I have related; but this may be added

too: that though the former sort of those cases, namely, those

openly visited, were the worst for themselves as to pain—I mean

those that had such fevers, vomitings, headaches, pains, and

swellings, because they died in such a dreadful manner—yet the

latter had the worst state of the disease; for in the former they

frequently recovered, especially if the swellings broke; but the

latter was inevitable death; no cure, no help, could be possible,

nothing could follow but death. And it was worse also to others,

because, as above, it secretly and unperceived by others or by

themselves, communicated death to those they conversed with, the

penetrating poison insinuating itself into their blood in a

manner which it is impossible to describe, or indeed conceive.

This infecting and being infected without so much as its being

known to either person is evident from two sorts of cases which

frequently happened at that time; and there is hardly anybody

living who was in London during the infection but must have known

several of the cases of both sorts.

(1) Fathers and mothers have gone about as if they had been well,

and have believed themselves to be so, till they have insensibly

infected and been the destruction of their whole families, which

they would have been far from doing if they had the least

apprehensions of their being unsound and dangerous themselves. A

family, whose story I have heard, was thus infected by the

father; and the distemper began to appear upon some of them even

before he found it upon himself. But searching more narrowly, it

appeared he had been affected some time; and as soon as he found

that his family had been poisoned by himself he went distracted,

and would have laid violent hands upon himself, but was kept from

that by those who looked to him, and in a few days died.

(2) The other particular is, that many people having been well to

the best of their own judgement, or by the best observation which

they could make of themselves for several days, and only finding

a decay of appetite, or a light sickness upon their stomachs;

nay, some whose appetite has been strong, and even craving, and

only a light pain in their heads, have sent for physicians to

know what ailed them, and have been found, to their great

surprise, at the brink of death: the tokens upon them, or the

plague grown up to an incurable height.

It was very sad to reflect how such a person as this last

mentioned above had been a walking destroyer perhaps for a week

or a fortnight before that; how he had ruined those that he would

have hazarded his life to save, and had been breathing death upon

them, even perhaps in his tender kissing and embracings of his

own children. Yet thus certainly it was, and often has been, and

I could give many particular cases where it has been so. If then

the blow is thus insensibly striking—if the arrow flies thus

unseen, and cannot be discovered—to what purpose are all the

schemes for shutting up or removing the sick people? Those

schemes cannot take place but upon those that appear to be sick,

or to be infected; whereas there are among them at the same time

thousands of people who seem to be well, but are all that while

carrying death with them into all companies which they come into.

This frequently puzzled our physicians, and especially the

apothecaries and surgeons, who knew not how to discover the sick

from the sound; they all allowed that it was really so, that many

people had the plague in their very blood, and preying upon their

spirits, and were in themselves but walking putrefied carcases

whose breath was infectious and their sweat poison, and yet were

as well to look on as other people, and even knew it not

themselves; I say, they all allowed that it was really true in

fact, but they knew not how to propose a discovery.

My friend Dr Heath was of opinion that it might be known by the

smell of their breath; but then, as he said, who durst smell to

that breath for his information? since, to know it, he must draw

the stench of the plague up into his own brain, in order to

distinguish the smell! I have heard it was the opinion of others

that it might be distinguished by the party’s breathing upon a

piece of glass, where, the breath condensing, there might living

creatures be seen by a microscope, of strange, monstrous, and

frightful shapes, such as dragons, snakes, serpents, and devils,

horrible to behold. But this I very much question the truth of,

and we had no microscopes at that time, as I remember, to make

the experiment with.

It was the opinion also of another learned man, that the breath

of such a person would poison and instantly kill a bird; not only

a small bird, but even a cock or hen, and that, if it did not

immediately kill the latter, it would cause them to be roupy, as

they call it; particularly that if they had laid any eggs at any

time, they would be all rotten. But those are opinions which I

never found supported by any experiments, or heard of others that

had seen it; so I leave them as I find them; only with this

remark, namely, that I think the probabilities are very strong

for them.

Some have proposed that such persons should breathe hard upon

warm water, and that they would leave an unusual scum upon it, or

upon several other things, especially such as are of a glutinous

substance and are apt to receive a scum and support it.

But from the whole I found that the nature of this contagion was

such that it was impossible to discover it at all, or to prevent

its spreading from one to another by any human skill.

Here was indeed one difficulty which I could never thoroughly get

over to this time, and which there is but one way of answering

that I know of, and it is this, viz., the first person that died

of the plague was on December 20, or thereabouts, 1664, and in or

about long Acre; whence the first person had the infection was

generally said to be from a parcel of silks imported from

Holland, and first opened in that house.

But after this we heard no more of any person dying of the

plague, or of the distemper being in that place, till the 9th of

February, which was about seven weeks after, and then one more

was buried out of the same house. Then it was hushed, and we were

perfectly easy as to the public for a great while; for there were

no more entered in the weekly bill to be dead of the plague till

the 22nd of April, when there was two more buried, not out of the

same house, but out of the same street; and, as near as I can

remember, it was out of the next house to the first. This was

nine weeks asunder, and after this we had no more till a

fortnight, and then it broke out in several streets and spread

every way. Now the question seems to lie thus: Where lay the

seeds of the infection all this while? How came it to stop so

long, and not stop any longer? Either the distemper did not come

immediately by contagion from body to body, or, if it did, then a

body may be capable to continue infected without the disease

discovering itself many days, nay, weeks together; even not a

quarantine of days only, but soixantine; not only forty days, but

sixty days or longer.

It is true there was, as I observed at first, and is well known

to many yet living, a very cold winter and a long frost which

continued three months; and this, the doctors say, might check

the infection; but then the learned must allow me to say that if,

according to their notion, the disease was (as I may say) only

frozen up, it would like a frozen river have returned to its

usual force and current when it thawed—whereas the principal

recess of this infection, which was from February to April, was

after the frost was broken and the weather mild and warm.

But there is another way of solving all this difficulty, which I

think my own remembrance of the thing will supply; and that is,

the fact is not granted—namely, that there died none in those

long intervals, viz., from the 20th of December to the 9th of

February, and from thence to the 22nd of April. The weekly bills

are the only evidence on the other side, and those bills were not

of credit enough, at least with me, to support an hypothesis or

determine a question of such importance as this; for it was our

received opinion at that time, and I believe upon very good

grounds, that the fraud lay in the parish officers, searchers,

and persons appointed to give account of the dead, and what

diseases they died of; and as people were very loth at first to

have the neighbours believe their houses were infected, so they

gave money to procure, or otherwise procured, the dead persons to

be returned as dying of other distempers; and this I know was

practised afterwards in many places, I believe I might say in all

places where the distemper came, as will be seen by the vast

increase of the numbers placed in the weekly bills under other

articles of diseases during the time of the infection. For

example, in the months of July and August, when the plague was

coming on to its highest pitch, it was very ordinary to have from

a thousand to twelve hundred, nay, to almost fifteen hundred a

week of other distempers. Not that the numbers of those

distempers were really increased to such a degree, but the great

number of families and houses where really the infection was,

obtained the favour to have their dead be returned of other

distempers, to prevent the shutting up their houses. For

example:—

Dead of other diseases beside the plague—

From the 18th July to the 25th 942

” 25th July ” 1st August 1004

” 1st August ” 8th 1213

” 8th ” 15th 1439

” 15th ” 22nd 1331

” 22nd ” 29th 1394

” 29th ” 5th September 1264

” 5th September to the 12th 1056

” 12th ” 19th 1132

” 19th ” 26th 927

Now it was not doubted but the greatest part of these, or a great

part of them, were dead of the plague, but the officers were

prevailed with to return them as above, and the numbers of some

particular articles of distempers discovered is as follows:—

Aug. Aug. Aug. Aug. Aug. Sept. Sept. Sept.

1 8 15 22 29 5 12 19

to 8 to 15 to 22 to 29 to Sept.5 to 12 to 19 to 26

Fever 314 353 348 383 364 332 309 268

Spotted 174 190 166 165 157 97 101 65

Fever

Surfeit 85 87 74 99 68 45 49 36

Teeth 90 113 111 133 138 128 121 112

—— —— —— —— —— —— —— ——

663 743 699 780 727 602 580 481

There were several other articles which bore a proportion to

these, and which, it is easy to perceive, were increased on the

same account, as aged, consumptions, vomitings, imposthumes,

gripes, and the like, many of which were not doubted to be

infected people; but as it was of the utmost consequence to

families not to be known to be infected, if it was possible to

avoid it, so they took all the measures they could to have it not

believed, and if any died in their houses, to get them returned

to the examiners, and by the searchers, as having died of other

distempers.

This, I say, will account for the long interval which, as I have

said, was between the dying of the first persons that were

returned in the bill to be dead of the plague and the time when

the distemper spread openly and could not be concealed.

Besides, the weekly bills themselves at that time evidently

discover the truth; for, while there was no mention of the

plague, and no increase after it had been mentioned, yet it was

apparent that there was an increase of those distempers which

bordered nearest upon it; for example, there were eight, twelve,

seventeen of the spotted fever in a week, when there were none,

or but very few, of the plague; whereas before, one, three, or

four were the ordinary weekly numbers of that distemper.

Likewise, as I observed before, the burials increased weekly in

that particular parish and the parishes adjacent more than in any

other parish, although there were none set down of the plague;

all which tells us, that the infection was handed on, and the

succession of the distemper really preserved, though it seemed to

us at that time to be ceased, and to come again in a manner

surprising.

It might be, also, that the infection might remain in other parts

of the same parcel of goods which at first it came in, and which

might not be perhaps opened, or at least not fully, or in the

clothes of the first infected person; for I cannot think that

anybody could be seized with the contagion in a fatal and mortal

degree for nine weeks together, and support his state of health

so well as even not to discover it to themselves; yet if it were

so, the argument is the stronger in favour of what I am saying:

namely, that the infection is retained in bodies apparently well,

and conveyed from them to those they converse with, while it is

known to neither the one nor the other.

Great were the confusions at that time upon this very account,

and when people began to be convinced that the infection was

received in this surprising manner from persons apparently well,

they began to be exceeding shy and jealous of every one that came

near them. Once, on a public day, whether a Sabbath-day or not I

do not remember, in Aldgate Church, in a pew full of people, on a

sudden one fancied she smelt an ill smell. Immediately she

fancies the plague was in the pew, whispers her notion or

suspicion to the next, then rises and goes out of the pew. It

immediately took with the next, and so to them all; and every one

of them, and of the two or three adjoining pews, got up and went

out of the church, nobody knowing what it was offended them, or

from whom.

This immediately filled everybody’s mouths with one preparation

or other, such as the old woman directed, and some perhaps as

physicians directed, in order to prevent infection by the breath

of others; insomuch that if we came to go into a church when it

was anything full of people, there would be such a mixture of

smells at the entrance that it was much more strong, though

perhaps not so wholesome, than if you were going into an

apothecary’s or druggist’s shop. In a word, the whole church was

like a smelling-bottle; in one corner it was all perfumes; in

another, aromatics, balsamics, and variety of drugs and herbs; in

another, salts and spirits, as every one was furnished for their

own preservation. Yet I observed that after people were

possessed, as I have said, with the belief, or rather assurance,

of the infection being thus carried on by persons apparently in

health, the churches and meeting-houses were much thinner of

people than at other times before that they used to be. For this

is to be said of the people of London, that during the whole time

of the pestilence the churches or meetings were never wholly shut

up, nor did the people decline coming out to the public worship

of God, except only in some parishes when the violence of the

distemper was more particularly in that parish at that time, and

even then no longer than it continued to be so.

Indeed nothing was more strange than to see with what courage the

people went to the public service of God, even at that time when

they were afraid to stir out of their own houses upon any other

occasion; this, I mean, before the time of desperation, which I

have mentioned already. This was a proof of the exceeding

populousness of the city at the time of the infection,

notwithstanding the great numbers that were gone into the country

at the first alarm, and that fled out into the forests and woods

when they were further terrified with the extraordinary increase

of it. For when we came to see the crowds and throngs of people

which appeared on the Sabbath-days at the churches, and

especially in those parts of the town where the plague was

abated, or where it was not yet come to its height, it was

amazing. But of this I shall speak again presently. I return in

the meantime to the article of infecting one another at first,

before people came to right notions of the infection, and of

infecting one another. People were only shy of those that were

really sick, a man with a cap upon his head, or with clothes

round his neck, which was the case of those that had swellings

there. Such was indeed frightful; but when we saw a gentleman

dressed, with his band on and his gloves in his hand, his hat

upon his head, and his hair combed, of such we had not the least

apprehensions, and people conversed a great while freely,

especially with their neighbours and such as they knew. But when

the physicians assured us that the danger was as well from the

sound (that is, the seemingly sound) as the sick, and that those

people who thought themselves entirely free were oftentimes the

most fatal, and that it came to be generally understood that

people were sensible of it, and of the reason of it; then, I say,

they began to be jealous of everybody, and a vast number of

people locked themselves up, so as not to come abroad into any

company at all, nor suffer any that had been abroad in

promiscuous company to come into their houses, or near them—at

least not so near them as to be within the reach of their breath

or of any smell from them; and when they were obliged to converse

at a distance with strangers, they would always have

preservatives in their mouths and about their clothes to repel

and keep off the infection.

It must be acknowledged that when people began to use these

cautions they were less exposed to danger, and the infection did

not break into such houses so furiously as it did into others

before; and thousands of families were preserved (speaking with

due reserve to the direction of Divine Providence) by that means.

But it was impossible to beat anything into the heads of the

poor. They went on with the usual impetuosity of their tempers,

full of outcries and lamentations when taken, but madly careless

of themselves, foolhardy and obstinate, while they were well.

Where they could get employment they pushed into any kind of

business, the most dangerous and the most liable to infection;

and if they were spoken to, their answer would be, ‘I must trust

to God for that; if I am taken, then I am provided for, and there

is an end of me’, and the like. Or thus, ‘Why, what must I do? I

can’t starve. I had as good have the plague as perish for want. I

have no work; what could I do? I must do this or beg.’ Suppose it

was burying the dead, or attending the sick, or watching infected

houses, which were all terrible hazards; but their tale was

generally the same. It is true, necessity was a very justifiable,

warrantable plea, and nothing could be better; but their way of

talk was much the same where the necessities were not the same.

This adventurous conduct of the poor was that which brought the

plague among them in a most furious manner; and this, joined to

the distress of their circumstances when taken, was the reason

why they died so by heaps; for I cannot say I could observe one

jot of better husbandry among them, I mean the labouring poor,

while they were all well and getting money than there was before,

but as lavish, as extravagant, and as thoughtless for tomorrow as

ever; so that when they came to be taken sick they were

immediately in the utmost distress, as well for want as for

sickness, as well for lack of food as lack of health.

This misery of the poor I had many occasions to be an eyewitness

of, and sometimes also of the charitable assistance that some

pious people daily gave to such, sending them relief and supplies

both of food, physic, and other help, as they found they wanted;

and indeed it is a debt of justice due to the temper of the

people of that day to take notice here, that not only great sums,

very great sums of money were charitably sent to the Lord Mayor

and aldermen for the assistance and support of the poor

distempered people, but abundance of private people daily

distributed large sums of money for their relief, and sent people

about to inquire into the condition of particular distressed and

visited families, and relieved them; nay, some pious ladies were

so transported with zeal in so good a work, and so confident in

the protection of Providence in discharge of the great duty of

charity, that they went about in person distributing alms to the

poor, and even visiting poor families, though sick and infected,

in their very houses, appointing nurses to attend those that

wanted attending, and ordering apothecaries and surgeons, the

first to supply them with drugs or plasters, and such things as

they wanted; and the last to lance and dress the swellings and

tumours, where such were wanting; giving their blessing to the

poor in substantial relief to them, as well as hearty prayers for

them.

I will not undertake to say, as some do, that none of those

charitable people were suffered to fall under the calamity

itself; but this I may say, that I never knew any one of them

that miscarried, which I mention for the encouragement of others

in case of the like distress; and doubtless, if they that give to

the poor lend to the Lord, and He will repay them, those that

hazard their lives to give to the poor, and to comfort and assist

the poor in such a misery as this, may hope to be protected in

the work.

Nor was this charity so extraordinary eminent only in a few, but

(for I cannot lightly quit this point) the charity of the rich,

as well in the city and suburbs as from the country, was so great

that, in a word, a prodigious number of people who must otherwise

inevitably have perished for want as well as sickness were

supported and subsisted by it; and though I could never, nor I

believe any one else, come to a full knowledge of what was so

contributed, yet I do believe that, as I heard one say that was a

critical observer of that part, there was not only many thousand

pounds contributed, but many hundred thousand pounds, to the

relief of the poor of this distressed, afflicted city; nay, one

man affirmed to me that he could reckon up above one hundred

thousand pounds a week, which was distributed by the

churchwardens at the several parish vestries by the Lord Mayor

and aldermen in the several wards and precincts, and by the

particular direction of the court and of the justices

respectively in the parts where they resided, over and above the

private charity distributed by pious bands in the manner I speak

of; and this continued for many weeks together.

I confess this is a very great sum; but if it be true that there

was distributed in the parish of Cripplegate only, 17,800 in one

week to the relief of the poor, as I heard reported, and which I

really believe was true, the other may not be improbable.

It was doubtless to be reckoned among the many signal good

providences which attended this great city, and of which there

were many other worth recording,—I say, this was a very

remarkable one, that it pleased God thus to move the hearts of

the people in all parts of the kingdom so cheerfully to

contribute to the relief and support of the poor at London, the

good consequences of which were felt many ways, and particularly

in preserving the lives and recovering the health of so many

thousands, and keeping so many thousands of families from

perishing and starving.

And now I am talking of the merciful disposition of Providence in

this time of calamity, I cannot but mention again, though I have

spoken several times of it already on other accounts, I mean that

of the progression of the distemper; how it began at one end of

the town, and proceeded gradually and slowly from one part to

another, and like a dark cloud that passes over our heads, which,

as it thickens and overcasts the air at one end, clears up at the

other end; so, while the plague went on raging from west to east,

as it went forwards east, it abated in the west, by which means

those parts of the town which were not seized, or who were left,

and where it had spent its fury, were (as it were) spared to help

and assist the other; whereas, had the distemper spread itself

over the whole city and suburbs, at once, raging in all places

alike, as it has done since in some places abroad, the whole body

of the people must have been overwhelmed, and there would have

died twenty thousand a day, as they say there did at Naples; nor

would the people have been able to have helped or assisted one

another.

For it must be observed that where the plague was in its full

force, there indeed the people were very miserable, and the

consternation was inexpressible. But a little before it reached

even to that place, or presently after it was gone, they were

quite another sort of people; and I cannot but acknowledge that

there was too much of that common temper of mankind to be found

among us all at that time, namely, to forget the deliverance when

the danger is past. But I shall come to speak of that part again.

It must not be forgot here to take some notice of the state of

trade during the time of this common calamity, and this with

respect to foreign trade, as also to our home trade.

As to foreign trade, there needs little to be said. The trading

nations of Europe were all afraid of us; no port of France, or

Holland, or Spain, or Italy would admit our ships or correspond

with us; indeed we stood on ill terms with the Dutch, and were in

a furious war with them, but though in a bad condition to fight

abroad, who had such dreadful enemies to struggle with at home.

Our merchants were accordingly at a full stop; their ships could

go nowhere—that is to say, to no place abroad; their manufactures

and merchandise—that is to say, of our growth—would not be

touched abroad. They were as much afraid of our goods as they

were of our people; and indeed they had reason: for our woollen

manufactures are as retentive of infection as human bodies, and

if packed up by persons infected, would receive the infection and

be as dangerous to touch as a man would be that was infected; and

therefore, when any English vessel arrived in foreign countries,

if they did take the goods on shore, they always caused the bales

to be opened and aired in places appointed for that purpose. But

from London they would not suffer them to come into port, much

less to unlade their goods, upon any terms whatever, and this

strictness was especially used with them in Spain and Italy. In

Turkey and the islands of the Arches indeed, as they are called,

as well those belonging to the Turks as to the Venetians, they

were not so very rigid. In the first there was no obstruction at

all; and four ships which were then in the river loading for

Italy—that is, for Leghorn and Naples—being denied product, as

they call it, went on to Turkey, and were freely admitted to

unlade their cargo without any difficulty; only that when they

arrived there, some of their cargo was not fit for sale in that

country; and other parts of it being consigned to merchants at

Leghorn, the captains of the ships had no right nor any orders to

dispose of the goods; so that great inconveniences followed to

the merchants. But this was nothing but what the necessity of

affairs required, and the merchants at Leghorn and Naples having

notice given them, sent again from thence to take care of the

effects which were particularly consigned to those ports, and to

bring back in other ships such as were improper for the markets

at Smyrna and Scanderoon.

The inconveniences in Spain and Portugal were still greater, for

they would by no means suffer our ships, especially those from

London, to come into any of their ports, much less to unlade.

There was a report that one of our ships having by stealth

delivered her cargo, among which was some bales of English cloth,

cotton, kerseys, and such-like goods, the Spaniards caused all

the goods to be burned, and punished the men with death who were

concerned in carrying them on shore. This, I believe, was in part

true, though I do not affirm it; but it is not at all unlikely,

seeing the danger was really very great, the infection being so

violent in London.

I heard likewise that the plague was carried into those countries

by some of our ships, and particularly to the port of Faro in the

kingdom of Algarve, belonging to the King of Portugal, and that

several persons died of it there; but it was not confirmed.

On the other hand, though the Spaniards and Portuguese were so

shy of us, it is most certain that the plague (as has been said)

keeping at first much at that end of the town next Westminster,

the merchandising part of the town (such as the city and the

water-side) was perfectly sound till at least the beginning of

July, and the ships in the river till the beginning of August;

for to the 1st of July there had died but seven within the whole

city, and but sixty within the liberties, but one in all the

parishes of Stepney, Aldgate, and Whitechappel, and but two in

the eight parishes of Southwark. But it was the same thing

abroad, for the bad news was gone over the whole world that the

city of London was infected with the plague, and there was no

inquiring there how the infection proceeded, or at which part of

the town it was begun or was reached to.

Besides, after it began to spread it increased so fast, and the

bills grew so high all on a sudden, that it was to no purpose to

lessen the report of it, or endeavour to make the people abroad

think it better than it was; the account which the weekly bills

gave in was sufficient; and that there died two thousand to three

or four thousand a week was sufficient to alarm the whole trading

part of the world; and the following time, being so dreadful also

in the very city itself, put the whole world, I say, upon their

guard against it.

You may be sure, also, that the report of these things lost

nothing in the carriage. The plague was itself very terrible, and

the distress of the people very great, as you may observe of what

I have said. But the rumour was infinitely greater, and it must

not be wondered that our friends abroad (as my brother’s

correspondents in particular were told there, namely, in Portugal

and Italy, where he chiefly traded) [said] that in London there

died twenty thousand in a week; that the dead bodies lay unburied

by heaps; that the living were not sufficient to bury the dead or

the sound to look after the sick; that all the kingdom was

infected likewise, so that it was an universal malady such as was

never heard of in those parts of the world; and they could hardly

believe us when we gave them an account how things really were,

and how there was not above one-tenth part of the people dead;

that there was 500,000, left that lived all the time in the town;

that now the people began to walk the streets again, and those

who were fled to return, there was no miss of the usual throng of

people in the streets, except as every family might miss their

relations and neighbours, and the like. I say they could not

believe these things; and if inquiry were now to be made in

Naples, or in other cities on the coast of Italy, they would tell

you that there was a dreadful infection in London so many years

ago, in which, as above, there died twenty thousand in a week,

&c., just as we have had it reported in London that there was a

plague in the city of Naples in the year 1656, in which there

died 20,000 people in a day, of which I have had very good

satisfaction that it was utterly false.

But these extravagant reports were very prejudicial to our trade,

as well as unjust and injurious in themselves, for it was a long

time after the plague was quite over before our trade could

recover itself in those parts of the world; and the Flemings and

Dutch (but especially the last) made very great advantages of it,

having all the market to themselves, and even buying our

manufactures in several parts of England where the plague was

not, and carrying them to Holland and Flanders, and from thence

transporting them to Spain and to Italy as if they had been of

their own making.

But they were detected sometimes and punished: that is to say,

their goods confiscated and ships also; for if it was true that

our manufactures as well as our people were infected, and that it

was dangerous to touch or to open and receive the smell of them,

then those people ran the hazard by that clandestine trade not

only of carrying the contagion into their own country, but also

of infecting the nations to whom they traded with those goods;

which, considering how many lives might be lost in consequence of

such an action, must be a trade that no men of conscience could

suffer themselves to be concerned in.

I do not take upon me to say that any harm was done, I mean of

that kind, by those people. But I doubt I need not make any such

proviso in the case of our own country; for either by our people

of London, or by the commerce which made their conversing with

all sorts of people in every country and of every considerable

town necessary, I say, by this means the plague was first or last

spread all over the kingdom, as well in London as in all the

cities and great towns, especially in the trading manufacturing

towns and seaports; so that, first or last, all the considerable

places in England were visited more or less, and the kingdom of

Ireland in some places, but not so universally. How it fared with

the people in Scotland I had no opportunity to inquire.

It is to be observed that while the plague continued so violent

in London, the outports, as they are called, enjoyed a very great

trade, especially to the adjacent countries and to our own

plantations. For example, the towns of Colchester, Yarmouth, and

Hull, on that side of England, exported to Holland and Hamburg

the manufactures of the adjacent countries for several months

after the trade with London was, as it were, entirely shut up;

likewise the cities of Bristol and Exeter, with the port of

Plymouth, had the like advantage to Spain, to the Canaries, to

Guinea, and to the West Indies, and particularly to Ireland; but

as the plague spread itself every way after it had been in London

to such a degree as it was in August and September, so all or

most of those cities and towns were infected first or last; and

then trade was, as it were, under a general embargo or at a full

stop—as I shall observe further when I speak of our home trade.

One thing, however, must be observed: that as to ships coming in

from abroad (as many, you may be sure, did) some who were out in

all parts of the world a considerable while before, and some who

when they went out knew nothing of an infection, or at least of

one so terrible—these came up the river boldly, and delivered

their cargoes as they were obliged to do, except just in the two

months of August and September, when the weight of the infection

lying, as I may say, all below Bridge, nobody durst appear in

business for a while. But as this continued but for a few weeks,

the homeward-bound ships, especially such whose cargoes were not

liable to spoil, came to an anchor for a time short of the

Pool,[5] or fresh-water part of the river, even as low as the

river Medway, where several of them ran in; and others lay at the

Nore, and in the Hope below Gravesend. So that by the latter end

of October there was a very great fleet of homeward-bound ships

to come up, such as the like had not been known for many years.

[5] That part of the river where the ships lie up when they come home

is called the Pool, and takes in all the river on both sides of the

water, from the Tower to Cuckold’s Point and Limehouse. [Footnote in

the original.]

Two particular trades were carried on by water-carriage all the

while of the infection, and that with little or no interruption,

very much to the advantage and comfort of the poor distressed

people of the city: and those were the coasting trade for corn

and the Newcastle trade for coals.

The first of these was particularly carried on by small vessels

from the port of Hull and other places on the Humber, by which

great quantities of corn were brought in from Yorkshire and

Lincolnshire. The other part of this corn-trade was from Lynn, in

Norfolk, from Wells and Burnham, and from Yarmouth, all in the

same county; and the third branch was from the river Medway, and

from Milton, Feversham, Margate, and Sandwich, and all the other

little places and ports round the coast of Kent and Essex.

There was also a very good trade from the coast of Suffolk with

corn, butter, and cheese; these vessels kept a constant course of

trade, and without interruption came up to that market known

still by the name of Bear Key, where they supplied the city

plentifully with corn when land-carriage began to fail, and when

the people began to be sick of coming from many places in the

country.

This also was much of it owing to the prudence and conduct of the

Lord Mayor, who took such care to keep the masters and seamen

from danger when they came up, causing their corn to be bought

off at any time they wanted a market (which, however, was very

seldom), and causing the corn-factors immediately to unlade and

deliver the vessels loaden with corn, that they had very little

occasion to come out of their ships or vessels, the money being

always carried on board to them and put into a pail of vinegar

before it was carried.

The second trade was that of coals from Newcastle-upon-Tyne,

without which the city would have been greatly distressed; for

not in the streets only, but in private houses and families,

great quantities of coals were then burnt, even all the summer

long and when the weather was hottest, which was done by the

advice of the physicians. Some indeed opposed it, and insisted

that to keep the houses and rooms hot was a means to propagate

the temper, which was a fermentation and heat already in the

blood; that it was known to spread and increase in hot weather

and abate in cold; and therefore they alleged that all contagious

distempers are the worse for heat, because the contagion was

nourished and gained strength in hot weather, and was, as it

were, propagated in heat.

Others said they granted that heat in the climate might propagate

infection—as sultry, hot weather fills the air with vermin and

nourishes innumerable numbers and kinds of venomous creatures

which breed in our food, in the plants, and even in our bodies,

by the very stench of which infection may be propagated; also

that heat in the air, or heat of weather, as we ordinarily call

it, makes bodies relax and faint, exhausts the spirits, opens the

pores, and makes us more apt to receive infection, or any evil

influence, be it from noxious pestilential vapours or any other

thing in the air; but that the heat of fire, and especially of

coal fires kept in our houses, or near us, had a quite different

operation; the heat being not of the same kind, but quick and

fierce, tending not to nourish but to consume and dissipate all

those noxious fumes which the other kind of heat rather exhaled

and stagnated than separated and burnt up. Besides, it was

alleged that the sulphurous and nitrous particles that are often

found to be in the coal, with that bituminous substance which

burns, are all assisting to clear and purge the air, and render

it wholesome and safe to breathe in after the noxious particles,

as above, are dispersed and burnt up.

The latter opinion prevailed at that time, and, as I must

confess, I think with good reason; and the experience of the

citizens confirmed it, many houses which had constant fires kept

in the rooms having never been infected at all; and I must join

my experience to it, for I found the keeping good fires kept our

rooms sweet and wholesome, and I do verily believe made our whole

family so, more than would otherwise have been.

But I return to the coals as a trade. It was with no little

difficulty that this trade was kept open, and particularly

because, as we were in an open war with the Dutch at that time,

the Dutch capers at first took a great many of our collier-ships,

which made the rest cautious, and made them to stay to come in

fleets together. But after some time the capers were either

afraid to take them, or their masters, the States, were afraid

they should, and forbade them, lest the plague should be among

them, which made them fare the better.

For the security of those northern traders, the coal-ships were

ordered by my Lord Mayor not to come up into the Pool above a

certain number at a time, and ordered lighters and other vessels

such as the woodmongers (that is, the wharf-keepers or

coal-sellers) furnished, to go down and take out the coals as low

as Deptford and Greenwich, and some farther down.

Others delivered great quantities of coals in particular places

where the ships could come to the shore, as at Greenwich,

Blackwall, and other places, in vast heaps, as if to be kept for

sale; but were then fetched away after the ships which brought

them were gone, so that the seamen had no communication with the

river-men, nor so much as came near one another.

Yet all this caution could not effectually prevent the distemper

getting among the colliery: that is to say among the ships, by

which a great many seamen died of it; and that which was still

worse was, that they carried it down to Ipswich and Yarmouth, to

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and other places on the coast—where,

especially at Newcastle and at Sunderland, it carried off a great

number of people.

The making so many fires, as above, did indeed consume an unusual

quantity of coals; and that upon one or two stops of the ships

coming up, whether by contrary weather or by the interruption of

enemies I do not remember, but the price of coals was exceeding

dear, even as high as 4 l. a chalder; but it soon abated when the

ships came in, and as afterwards they had a freer passage, the

price was very reasonable all the rest of that year.

The public fires which were made on these occasions, as I have

calculated it, must necessarily have cost the city about 200

chalders of coals a week, if they had continued, which was indeed

a very great quantity; but as it was thought necessary, nothing

was spared. However, as some of the physicians cried them down,

they were not kept alight above four or five days. The fires were

ordered thus:—

One at the Custom House, one at Billingsgate, one at Queenhith,

and one at the Three Cranes; one in Blackfriars, and one at the

gate of Bridewell; one at the corner of Leadenhal Street and

Gracechurch; one at the north and one at the south gate of the

Royal Exchange; one at Guild Hall, and one at Blackwell Hall

gate; one at the Lord Mayor’s door in St Helen’s, one at the west

entrance into St Paul’s, and one at the entrance into Bow Church.

I do not remember whether there was any at the city gates, but

one at the Bridge-foot there was, just by St Magnus Church.

I know some have quarrelled since that at the experiment, and

said that there died the more people because of those fires; but

I am persuaded those that say so offer no evidence to prove it,

neither can I believe it on any account whatever.

It remains to give some account of the state of trade at home in

England during this dreadful time, and particularly as it relates

to the manufactures and the trade in the city. At the first

breaking out of the infection there was, as it is easy to

suppose, a very great fright among the people, and consequently a

general stop of trade, except in provisions and necessaries of

life; and even in those things, as there was a vast number of

people fled and a very great number always sick, besides the

number which died, so there could not be above two-thirds, if

above one-half, of the consumption of provisions in the city as

used to be.

It pleased God to send a very plentiful year of corn and fruit,

but not of hay or grass—by which means bread was cheap, by reason

of the plenty of corn. Flesh was cheap, by reason of the scarcity

of grass; but butter and cheese were dear for the same reason,

and hay in the market just beyond Whitechappel Bars was sold at 4

pound per load. But that affected not the poor. There was a most

excessive plenty of all sorts of fruit, such as apples, pears,

plums, cherries, grapes, and they were the cheaper because of the

want of people; but this made the poor eat them to excess, and

this brought them into fluxes, griping of the guts, surfeits, and

the like, which often precipitated them into the plague.

But to come to matters of trade. First, foreign exportation being

stopped or at least very much interrupted and rendered difficult,

a general stop of all those manufactures followed of course which

were usually brought for exportation; and though sometimes

merchants abroad were importunate for goods, yet little was sent,

the passages being so generally stopped that the English ships

would not be admitted, as is said already, into their port.

This put a stop to the manufactures that were for exportation in

most parts of England, except in some out-ports; and even that

was soon stopped, for they all had the plague in their turn. But

though this was felt all over England, yet, what was still worse,

all intercourse of trade for home consumption of manufactures,

especially those which usually circulated through the Londoner’s

hands, was stopped at once, the trade of the city being stopped.

All kinds of handicrafts in the city, &c., tradesmen and

mechanics, were, as I have said before, out of employ; and this

occasioned the putting-off and dismissing an innumerable number

of journeymen and workmen of all sorts, seeing nothing was done

relating to such trades but what might be said to be absolutely

necessary.

This caused the multitude of single people in London to be

unprovided for, as also families whose living depended upon the

labour of the heads of those families; I say, this reduced them

to extreme misery; and I must confess it is for the honour of the

city of London, and will be for many ages, as long as this is to

be spoken of, that they were able to supply with charitable

provision the wants of so many thousands of those as afterwards

fell sick and were distressed: so that it may be safely averred

that nobody perished for want, at least that the magistrates had

any notice given them of.

This stagnation of our manufacturing trade in the country would

have put the people there to much greater difficulties, but that

the master-workmen, clothiers and others, to the uttermost of

their stocks and strength, kept on making their goods to keep the

poor at work, believing that soon as the sickness should abate

they would have a quick demand in proportion to the decay of

their trade at that time. But as none but those masters that were

rich could do thus, and that many were poor and not able, the

manufacturing trade in England suffered greatly, and the poor

were pinched all over England by the calamity of the city of

London only.

It is true that the next year made them full amends by another

terrible calamity upon the city; so that the city by one calamity

impoverished and weakened the country, and by another calamity,

even terrible too of its kind, enriched the country and made them

again amends; for an infinite quantity of household Stuff,

wearing apparel, and other things, besides whole warehouses

filled with merchandise and manufactures such as come from all

parts of England, were consumed in the fire of London the next

year after this terrible visitation. It is incredible what a

trade this made all over the whole kingdom, to make good the want

and to supply that loss; so that, in short, all the manufacturing

hands in the nation were set on work, and were little enough for

several years to supply the market and answer the demands. All

foreign markets also were empty of our goods by the stop which

had been occasioned by the plague, and before an open trade was

allowed again; and the prodigious demand at home falling in,

joined to make a quick vent for all sort of goods; so that there

never was known such a trade all over England for the time as was

in the first seven years after the plague, and after the fire of

London.

It remains now that I should say something of the merciful part

of this terrible judgement. The last week in September, the

plague being come to its crisis, its fury began to assuage. I

remember my friend Dr Heath, coming to see me the week before,

told me he was sure that the violence of it would assuage in a

few days; but when I saw the weekly bill of that week, which was

the highest of the whole year, being 8297 of all diseases, I

upbraided him with it, and asked him what he had made his

judgement from. His answer, however, was not so much to seek as I

thought it would have been. ‘Look you,’ says he, ‘by the number

which are at this time sick and infected, there should have been

twenty thousand dead the last week instead of eight thousand, if

the inveterate mortal contagion had been as it was two weeks ago;

for then it ordinarily killed in two or three days, now not under

eight or ten; and then not above one in five recovered, whereas I

have observed that now not above two in five miscarry. And,

observe it from me, the next bill will decrease, and you will see

many more people recover than used to do; for though a vast

multitude are now everywhere infected, and as many every day fall

sick, yet there will not so many die as there did, for the

malignity of the distemper is abated’;—adding that he began now

to hope, nay, more than hope, that the infection had passed its

crisis and was going off; and accordingly so it was, for the next

week being, as I said, the last in September, the bill decreased

almost two thousand.

It is true the plague was still at a frightful height, and the

next bill was no less than 6460, and the next to that, 5720; but

still my friend’s observation was just, and it did appear the

people did recover faster and more in number than they used to

do; and indeed, if it had not been so, what had been the

condition of the city of London? For, according to my friend,

there were not fewer than 60,000 people at that time infected,

whereof, as above, 20,477 died, and near 40,000 recovered;

whereas, had it been as it was before, 50,000 of that number

would very probably have died, if not more, and 50,000 more would

have sickened; for, in a word, the whole mass of people began to

sicken, and it looked as if none would escape.

But this remark of my friend’s appeared more evident in a few

weeks more, for the decrease went on, and another week in October

it decreased 1843, so that the number dead of the plague was but

2665; and the next week it decreased 1413 more, and yet it was

seen plainly that there was abundance of people sick, nay,

abundance more than ordinary, and abundance fell sick every day

but (as above) the malignity of the disease abated.

Such is the precipitant disposition of our people (whether it is

so or not all over the world, that’s none of my particular

business to inquire), but I saw it apparently here, that as upon

the first fright of the infection they shunned one another, and

fled from one another’s houses and from the city with an

unaccountable and, as I thought, unnecessary fright, so now, upon

this notion spreading, viz., that the distemper was not so

catching as formerly, and that if it was catched it was not so

mortal, and seeing abundance of people who really fell sick

recover again daily, they took to such a precipitant courage, and

grew so entirely regardless of themselves and of the infection,

that they made no more of the plague than of an ordinary fever,

nor indeed so much. They not only went boldly into company with

those who had tumours and carbuncles upon them that were running,

and consequently contagious, but ate and drank with them, nay,

into their houses to visit them, and even, as I was told, into

their very chambers where they lay sick.

This I could not see rational. My friend Dr Heath allowed, and it

was plain to experience, that the distemper was as catching as

ever, and as many fell sick, but only he alleged that so many of

those that fell sick did not die; but I think that while many did

die, and that at best the distemper itself was very terrible, the

sores and swellings very tormenting, and the danger of death not

left out of the circumstances of sickness, though not so frequent

as before; all those things, together with the exceeding

tediousness of the cure, the loathsomeness of the disease, and

many other articles, were enough to deter any man living from a

dangerous mixture with the sick people, and make them as anxious

almost to avoid the infections as before.

Nay, there was another thing which made the mere catching of the

distemper frightful, and that was the terrible burning of the

caustics which the surgeons laid on the swellings to bring them

to break and to run, without which the danger of death was very

great, even to the last. Also, the insufferable torment of the

swellings, which, though it might not make people raving and

distracted, as they were before, and as I have given several

instances of already, yet they put the patient to inexpressible

torment; and those that fell into it, though they did escape with

life, yet they made bitter complaints of those that had told them

there was no danger, and sadly repented their rashness and folly

in venturing to run into the reach of it.

Nor did this unwary conduct of the people end here, for a great

many that thus cast off their cautions suffered more deeply

still, and though many escaped, yet many died; and at least it

had this public mischief attending it, that it made the decrease

of burials slower than it would otherwise have been. For as this

notion ran like lightning through the city, and people’s heads

were possessed with it, even as soon as the first great decrease

in the bills appeared, we found that the two next bills did not

decrease in proportion; the reason I take to be the people’s

running so rashly into danger, giving up all their former

cautions and care, and all the shyness which they used to

practise, depending that the sickness would not reach them—or

that if it did, they should not die.

The physicians opposed this thoughtless humour of the people with

all their might, and gave out printed directions, spreading them

all over the city and suburbs, advising the people to continue

reserved, and to use still the utmost caution in their ordinary

conduct, notwithstanding the decrease of the distemper,

terrifying them with the danger of bringing a relapse upon the

whole city, and telling them how such a relapse might be more

fatal and dangerous than the whole visitation that had been

already; with many arguments and reasons to explain and prove

that part to them, and which are too long to repeat here.

But it was all to no purpose; the audacious creatures were so

possessed with the first joy and so surprised with the

satisfaction of seeing a vast decrease in the weekly bills, that

they were impenetrable by any new terrors, and would not be

persuaded but that the bitterness of death was past; and it was

to no more purpose to talk to them than to an east wind; but they

opened shops, went about streets, did business, and conversed

with anybody that came in their way to converse with, whether

with business or without, neither inquiring of their health or so

much as being apprehensive of any danger from them, though they

knew them not to be sound.

This imprudent, rash conduct cost a great many their lives who

had with great care and caution shut themselves up and kept

retired, as it were, from all mankind, and had by that means,

under God’s providence, been preserved through all the heat of

that infection.

This rash and foolish conduct, I say, of the people went so far

that the ministers took notice to them of it at last, and laid

before them both the folly and danger of it; and this checked it

a little, so that they grew more cautious. But it had another

effect, which they could not check; for as the first rumour had

spread not over the city only, but into the country, it had the

like effect: and the people were so tired with being so long from

London, and so eager to come back, that they flocked to town

without fear or forecast, and began to show themselves in the

streets as if all the danger was over. It was indeed surprising

to see it, for though there died still from 1000 to 1800 a week,

yet the people flocked to town as if all had been well.

The consequence of this was, that the bills increased again 400

the very first week in November; and if I might believe the

physicians, there was above 3000 fell sick that week, most of

them new-comers, too.

One John Cock, a barber in St Martin’s-le-Grand, was an eminent

example of this; I mean of the hasty return of the people when

the plague was abated. This John Cock had left the town with his

whole family, and locked up his house, and was gone in the

country, as many others did; and finding the plague so decreased

in November that there died but 905 per week of all diseases, he

ventured home again. He had in his family ten persons; that is to

say, himself and wife, five children, two apprentices, and a

maid-servant. He had not returned to his house above a week, and

began to open his shop and carry on his trade, but the distemper

broke out in his family, and within about five days they all

died, except one; that is to say, himself, his wife, all his five

children, and his two apprentices; and only the maid remained

alive.

But the mercy of God was greater to the rest than we had reason

to expect; for the malignity (as I have said) of the distemper

was spent, the contagion was exhausted, and also the winter

weather came on apace, and the air was clear and cold, with sharp

frosts; and this increasing still, most of those that had fallen

sick recovered, and the health of the city began to return. There

were indeed some returns of the distemper even in the month of

December, and the bills increased near a hundred; but it went off

again, and so in a short while things began to return to their

own channel. And wonderful it was to see how populous the city

was again all on a sudden, so that a stranger could not miss the

numbers that were lost. Neither was there any miss of the

inhabitants as to their dwellings—few or no empty houses were to

be seen, or if there were some, there was no want of tenants for

them.

I wish I could say that as the city had a new face, so the

manners of the people had a new appearance. I doubt not but there

were many that retained a sincere sense of their deliverance, and

were that heartily thankful to that Sovereign Hand that had

protected them in so dangerous a time; it would be very

uncharitable to judge otherwise in a city so populous, and where

the people were so devout as they were here in the time of the

visitation itself; but except what of this was to be found in

particular families and faces, it must be acknowledged that the

general practice of the people was just as it was before, and

very little difference was to be seen.

Some, indeed, said things were worse; that the morals of the

people declined from this very time; that the people, hardened by

the danger they had been in, like seamen after a storm is over,

were more wicked and more stupid, more bold and hardened, in

their vices and immoralities than they were before; but I will

not carry it so far neither. It would take up a history of no

small length to give a particular of all the gradations by which

the course of things in this city came to be restored again, and

to run in their own channel as they did before.

Some parts of England were now infected as violently as London

had been; the cities of Norwich, Peterborough, Lincoln,

Colchester, and other places were now visited; and the

magistrates of London began to set rules for our conduct as to

corresponding with those cities. It is true we could not pretend

to forbid their people coming to London, because it was

impossible to know them asunder; so, after many consultations,

the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen were obliged to drop it. All

they could do was to warn and caution the people not to entertain

in their houses or converse with any people who they knew came

from such infected places.

But they might as well have talked to the air, for the people of

London thought themselves so plague-free now that they were past

all admonitions; they seemed to depend upon it that the air was

restored, and that the air was like a man that had had the

smallpox, not capable of being infected again. This revived that

notion that the infection was all in the air, that there was no

such thing as contagion from the sick people to the sound; and so

strongly did this whimsy prevail among people that they ran all

together promiscuously, sick and well. Not the Mahometans, who,

prepossessed with the principle of predestination, value nothing

of contagion, let it be in what it will, could be more obstinate

than the people of London; they that were perfectly sound, and

came out of the wholesome air, as we call it, into the city, made

nothing of going into the same houses and chambers, nay, even

into the same beds, with those that had the distemper upon them,

and were not recovered.

Some, indeed, paid for their audacious boldness with the price of

their lives; an infinite number fell sick, and the physicians had

more work than ever, only with this difference, that more of

their patients recovered; that is to say, they generally

recovered, but certainly there were more people infected and fell

sick now, when there did not die above a thousand or twelve

hundred in a week, than there was when there died five or six

thousand a week, so entirely negligent were the people at that

time in the great and dangerous case of health and infection, and

so ill were they able to take or accept of the advice of those

who cautioned them for their good.

The people being thus returned, as it were, in general, it was

very strange to find that in their inquiring after their friends,

some whole families were so entirely swept away that there was no

remembrance of them left, neither was anybody to be found to

possess or show any title to that little they had left; for in

such cases what was to be found was generally embezzled and

purloined, some gone one way, some another.

It was said such abandoned effects came to the king, as the

universal heir; upon which we are told, and I suppose it was in

part true, that the king granted all such, as deodands, to the

Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen of London, to be applied to the

use of the poor, of whom there were very many. For it is to be

observed, that though the occasions of relief and the objects of

distress were very many more in the time of the violence of the

plague than now after all was over, yet the distress of the poor

was more now a great deal than it was then, because all the

sluices of general charity were now shut. People supposed the

main occasion to be over, and so stopped their hands; whereas

particular objects were still very moving, and the distress of

those that were poor was very great indeed.

Though the health of the city was now very much restored, yet

foreign trade did not begin to stir, neither would foreigners

admit our ships into their ports for a great while. As for the