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FICTION

DEFOE'S JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR. WITH INTRO-

DUCTION BY G. A. AITKEN

THE PUBLISHERS OF SFeiiX'^t^O^& LlB%A1iT WILL BE PLEASED TO SEND FREELY TO ALL APPLICANTS A LIST GF THE PUBLISHED AND PROJECTED VOLUMES TO BE COMPRISED UNDER THE FOLLOWING THIRTEEN HEADINGS: TRAVEL ^

SCIENCE

FICTION

THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY HISTORY

CLASSICAL

YOUNG PEOPLE ESSAYS ^ ORATORY POETRY & DRAMA BIOGRAPHY

FOR

REFERENCE

ROMANCE

CLOTH, IN FOUR STYLES OF BINDING FLAT BACK, COLOURED TOP; LEATHER, :

ROUND CORNERS, GILT TOP; LIBRARY BINDING IN CLOTH, & QUARTER PIGSKIN M. DENT & SONS, Ltd. New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO. London

"Journal of the Plague Year," 1722. "Due Preparations for the Plague," 1722. "Life of Cartouche." 1722. "History of Colonel Jacque," 1722. "Religious Courtship," 1722. "History of Peter the Great,'' "The Highland Rogue" (Rob Roy), 1723. 1723. "The Fortunate Mistress" (Roxana), 1724. "Nar" Life of John rative of Murders at Calais," 1724. Sheppard," 1724. "Robberies, Escapes, Sec, of John Sheppard," 1 724. " The Great Law of Subordination or. The Insolence and Insufferable Behaviour of Servants in England," 1724. Tour through Great " New Voyage Round the World, Britain," 1724-6. " Account of Jonathan Wild," 1 725. " Account 1725. "Everybody's Business is of John Gow," 1725. Nobody's Business" (on Servants), 1725. "The Complete English Tradesman," 1725 ; vol. ii., 1727. "The Friendly Demon," 1726. "Mere Nature Delineated" (Peter the Wild Boy), 1726. "Political History of the Devil," 1726. "Essay upon Literature and the Original of Letters," 1726. " History of Discoveries," 1726-7. " The Protestant Monastery," 1726. " System of Magic," 1726. " Parochial Tyranny." "Treatise concerning Use and Abuse of 1727. Marriage," 1727." " Secrets of Invisible World Discovered ; or. History and Reality of Apparitions," New Family Instructor," 1728. 1727, 1728. " Augusta Triumphans," 1728. " Plan of English Commerce," 1728. " Second Thoughts are Best" (on Street Robberies), 1728. "Street Robberies Considered," "Humble Proposal to People of England for 1728. "Preface to R. Increase of Trade, &c.," 1729. "Effectual Dodsiey's Poem 'Servitude,'" 1729. Scheme for Preventing Street Robberies," 1731. Besides the above-named publications a large number of further tracts by Defoe are extant, on matters of Politics and Church. ;

A JOURNAL of tfie PLAGUE written

YEAR

Gy a Citizen wfio

continued all tfie wfiile in London ©

BY DANIEL>^

Defoe. ^-<^y^ LOT«J DON: PUBLI SHED

byJ-MDENT &SONS1S' AND IN NE'W VORK

BY E- P- DUTTON^CO

.....

First Issue of this Edition

Reprinted

1908 1911

INTRODUCTION. TWENTY-FIVE days after the appearance of " Religious Courtship," and forty-nine days " Moll Flanders," Defoe published, on the 17th of March 1722, " Journal of the Plague after

Year

being

observations

or memorials of the most

remarkable occurrences, as well public as private, which happened in London during the last great visitation in Written by a Citizen who continued all the 1665. while in London. Never made public before." Attention was drawn to the Plague of London by the public alarm at the plague at Marseilles in 17 20-1. very large number of books and pamphlets had been published on the outbreak at Marseilles and on

the pestilence in general, and Defoe

showed his usual

upon a subject of general interest and using it for his own purpose. He had already written on this topic in the newspapers, and in the same year skill in seizing

he published another excellent narrative of the Plague, which will be found in a later volume and these works are all that can be said to have survived of the many which were written at this time. In fact, the popular knowledge of the Plague is derived almost wholly from Defoe. Upon what, then, did Defoe base his narrative? ;

Introduction

viii

At the end of the volume appear the initials, "H. F.," and it has been suggested that these may be the initials of one of the Foe family. now know that Defoe had an uncle, Henry Foe, who was born in 1628, and may very well have been in London in 1665. have no positive information as to what became of this uncle, but he had a sister Mary (of whom we know nothing) and Defoe interpolates in his story " The author of this journal lies the following note

;

buried in that very ground [Moorfields], being at his

own desire, his sister having been buried there a few Beyond this, we are told only that years before." the narrator was a saddler, who lived, with a housekeeper, maid-servant, and two apprentices, " without

Aldgate, about midway between Aldgate Church and Whitechapel Bars, on the left hand, or north side, of the street," and that he had an elder brother, who sent his wife and two children to Bedfordshire, and then The brother who resolved to stay followed himself. in London had friends and relations in Northamptonshire, " whence our family first came from," and an only sister in Lincolnshire. The Foes came from Northamptonshire, but Henry Foe's elder brother died long before the Plague, and the facts, though curious, seem to suggest only that « Defoe made use, for purposes of local colouring, of He had himself names which were familiar to him. Certainly been married at St Botolph's, Aldgate. there is nothing in the story to support the statement that it was written by " a citizen who continued all the while in London," unless that citizen be Defoe himself, whose mannerisms abound throughout the book. The corrected date of Defoe's birth shows that he was about six years of age not four, as previously supposed at the date of the Plague rmd if, as is very

—

;

Introduction

London during the he would himself remember a good deal of the striking events of this terrible year ; and as he grew up the matter would for long be the subject of conversation among those around him. There is mention on several occasions of a friend, Dr Heath, but this character seems to be imaginary, as no doctor of the name can be traced. Apart from personal recollections and the talk of others, Defoe derived great help from books. He had in his library, " Necessary Directions for the Prevention and Cure of the Plague," 1665, and " Medela Pestilentiae," 1664 ; but he also made much use of " London's Dreadful Visitation," 1665 (the weekly bills of mortality), the Rev. Thomas Vincent's " God's Terrible Voice in the City," 1667, and Dr Nathaniel Hodges's " Loimologia," translated by probable, his parents remained in

visitation,

Defoe expressly alludes to Dr " one of the most eminent physicians."

Dr Quincy in 1720. Hodges

Hodges, like Defoe, doubted the policy of shutting up infected houses, but, like Defoe, he gave arguments on both sides of the question. He deprecated public fires in

the streets.

The " Journal of the Plague Year " is in some respects Defoe's masterpiece ;

unsurpassed, caused

and

its

realism, which

Dr Mead, the eminent physician

of the time, to refer to the book some years after-

According to his wont, Defoe mouth of a sober citizen, who his own fashion what he saw and heard

wards as an authority.

places his story in the

describes in

around him, and the apparent simplicity of his style adds to, rather than detracts from, the awe-inspiring nature of the catastrophe. As might be expected trom a man like the saddler, there are many figures and and sometrivial details, with occasional repetitions ;

times the narrator expresses contradictory opinions, as

Introduction whose views respecting remedies were modified by constant discussion

natural with one

safeguards

others. In telling some of the more startof the anecdotes, the saddler is careful to say ftbat as regards these matters he is relating what he heard, not what he himself saw, and here and there he hints that he feels doubtful whether the incident really

with

ling

By this device Defoe added greatly to the appearance of truth, and was able to increase the

occurred.

interest of his story while safeguarding himself against

The

charges of giving a false account of the Plague.

pious reflections are suited to the saddler, and characteristic of Defoe, who never forgot, whatever other end he had in view, to endeavour at the improvement

of the reader. Besides the didactic purpose, Defoe wished in this book 10 warn people of the dangers of the Plague, and to induce them to adopt every possible precaution.

—

But he knew also that he had found a theme how was by accident we cannot tell v/hich lent it itself to the construction of an immortal work. The subject might be compared with that of " Robinson Crusoe " here it was not a single man, but a great but the city, which was visited with dire calamity problem was similar How would these men come out of the ordeal ? How would they behave towards each other and towards God ? Nothing could be more natural than the account ot the saddler's uncertainty whether he should leave London. DiflSculties which presented themselves suggested to him that it was God's wish that he should stay, and when he opened his Bible for guidance he lighted on the words, " Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall

—

far

;

any plague come nigh thy dwelling."

From

that

Introduction

moment he

resolved to stay, knowing that whatever Nothing could be happened he was in God's hands. more tragic than the solemn but vivid descriptions of the state of the streets when the pestilence spread from parish to parish ; the shut-up houses, the

dead-cart,

the pest-hole, the plague-stricken lunatic

these are a

—

few of the many undying pictures which Defoe presents to us. One family blew up a watchman with gunpowder in order that they might escape from their house a mother became distracted when she found that her daughter was infected, and was for some ;

time unconscious of^the

girl's death.

"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." It was said that infected persons, who were delirious, threw themselves into the pits where the dead were placed, and were buried alive. Some men mocked and jeered, meeting in taverns until they were themothers showed great zeal for reselves stricken down ;

ligious exercises, in spite in

of the danger of assembling

churches, many of which had been deserted by the

clergy.

The people, for the most part, used the utmost precaution to prevent infection ; but the saddler, though he

bought a store of food and shut his own family up in the house, could not himself prevail upon his curiositv to stay within entirely, though he generally returned home in a state of terror. The story of the piper who was taken away in the dead-cart when he was asleep was told to the saddler by an under-sexton named John Hayward, who testified to its truth but Defoe remarks that the fellow was not blind, as usually alleged, nor did he set up his pipes in the cart and " The frighten the bearers so that they ran away. woi Id has heard of the famous Solomon Eagle, an enthusiast. What he said, or pretended, in;

Introduction

xii

deed, I could not learn." passages

One of the most interesting

the account of the wanderings of the three

poor men from Wapping, in their efforts to reach the " 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 country.

follow, or

women either, if ever such a time comes

again."

When the Plague abated, the people were so overjoyed that they rashly abandoned all precautions, with the result that

many lost their lives

;

but the return

of the pestilence was only temporary. The saddler feared being charged with preaching a sermon instead of writing a history ; but, for himself, he desired to be as the one leper who returned to give thanks after he was healed. He trusted that the meditations he composed for his own comfort would not be published. The most touching story in the book is that of the poor waterman, who was able to work for his plaguestricken family by keeping himself isolated from them, and who thanked God that he was able to preserve

them from want " ' Oh, sir ' says he, * it is infinite mercy if any of us are spared and who am I, to :

repine ? '

;

For purposes of art Defoe represented the cessation of the Plague as being more sudden and complete than it was in reality, and the great joy of the people furnishes him with an admirable closing scene. As a matter of fact, the pestilence lingered for some time, about two thousand deaths occurring in 1666, though the great fire of that year destroyed eighty-three parishes. With this exception, there is no reason to doubt that Defoe's narrative conveys a generally accurate impression of the pestilence, though he probably exaggerates the deserted state of the streets and the stoppage of the ordinary life of the people. The

Introduction

xiii

means of testing the historical value of his work it with the extracts from contemporary narratives which I have printed in the Appendix. best

to compare

The reader who desires

fuller

illustrations

will

find

them in the notes to Brayley's edition, which has been republished by Messrs Routledge.

The account of

the Plague by an apothecary named William Boghurst,

which

often referred to by Brayley, was recently

printed by the Epidemiological Society, with an intro-

duction by Dr J. F. Payne.

hardly necessary to refer to the tradition that in the controversy of 1722 about a cold-water cure for the plague, which was It

Defoe was concerned

started by the publication of " Febrifugium Magnum," by John Hancocke, D.D. Two replies, " Remarks upon * Febrifugium Magnum,' " by " James Gardner, M.D.," and " Flagellum, or a dry answer to Dr Hancocke's wonderfully comical liquid book," were

Defoe. One pam" Remarks upon Remarks, or some animadversions on a treatise called ' Remarks upon Febrifugium,' written by Daniel Defoe under the According to assumed name of Dr Gardner." another pamphlet, Dr Gardner was a certain Mr attributed, without any warrant, to

phlet was called

Grier.

G. A.

AITKEN.

The following is a list of Defoe's works

" New

Discovery of Old Intrigue" (verse), 1691. " Char"The acter of Dr. Samuel Annesley " (verse), 1697. Pacificator" (verse), 1700. (verse), 1701.

"True-Born Englishman"

"The Mock Mourners" (verse), 1702.

"Reformation of Manners"

(verse),

"New

1702. " Shortest

Test of Church of England's Loyalty," 1 702.

Way

with

the

Dissenters,"

1702.

"Ode

the

" Enquiry into Acgill's Athenian Society," 1703. General Translation," 1703. "More Reformation"

"Hymn to the Pillory," 1703. "The

(verse),

1703. (Tale), 1704. Storm," 1704.

"Layman's Sermon on the "The Consolidator or, MeLate moirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon," 1704, "Elegy on Author of 'True-Born "Hymn to Victory," 1704. Englishman,'" 1704. "Giving Alms no Charity," 1704. "The Dyet of Poland" (verse), 1705. "Apparition of Mrs. Veal," "Sermon on the Filling-up of Dr. Burgess's 1706. Meeting-house," 1706. "Jure Divino" (verse), 1706. "Caledonia" (verse), 1706. "History of the Union of Great Britain," 1709. "Short Enquiry into a Late "A General History of Trade," 1713. Duel," 1713. "Wars of Charles IIL," 1715. "The Family In"Hymn to the Mob," struction" (two eds.), 1715. Storm"

;

"Memoirs of the Church of Scotland," 1717. 1715. " Memoirs " Life and Death of Count Patkul," 1717. " Memoirs of Daniel of Duke of Shrewsbury," 17 18. Williams," 1718. "The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner,' 1719. " The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," 1719.

''The Dumb Philosopher:

or. Great Britain's

"The King of Pirates" (Capt. 1719. "Life of Baron de Goertz," 1719. Avery), 1719. "Life and Adventures of Duncan Campbell," 1720. "Mr. Campbell's Pacquet," 1720. "Memoirs of a "Life of Captain Singleton," 1720. Cavalier," 1720. "Serious Reflections during the Life and Surprising Wonder,"

Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," 1720. "The Supernatural Philosopher or. The Mysteries of Magick," Translation of Du Fresnoy's "Compleat Art 1720. of Painting" (verse), 1720. "Moll Flanders," 1722. ;

;

A JOURNAL OF

THE PLAGUE YEAR was about the beginning of September 1664, that

among the rest of my neighbours, heard, in ordinary discourse, that the plague was returned for it had been very violent there, again in Holland I,

;

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 It mattered not from whence it came from Cyprus. but all agreed it was come into Holland again. 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 those 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 ;

;

— 2

A Journal of the Plague Year

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^f mortality ;

in the usual

manner, thus

Plague, 2.

Parishes infected,

The people showed a great began to be alarmed

all

concern at

this,

and

over the town, and the more,

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

because in the

weeks, when none having died with any marks of it was said the distemper was gone ; but after that, I think it was about the 1 2th 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 infection,

—

A Journal of the Plague Year of burials

increase

more than

Giles's parish

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 yery much, and few cared to go through Drury Lane, or the other streets suspected, unless they had extraordinary usual,

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, Holborn, were from twelve to seventeen or nineteen each, few more :

but from the time that the plague

or less ; in

nary burials

example

first

began

was observed that the ordiFor increased in number considerably.

St Giles's parish, :

From December 27

—

A Journal of the Plague Year

were from four to six or eight, whereas at that time they were increased as follows :

From December 20 to December 27 December 27 to January

January

January 10

January 17 January 24

January 31

February 7

j .

St James's

(

St Bride's

(

St James's

(

St Bride's

(

St James's

St Bride's

t St James's (

St Bride's

St James's

St Bride's

(

St James's

(

St Bride's

\ St James's

February 7

( ,

St Bride's

\ St James's

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

when usually the bills are very

time of the year moderate.

at a

The usual number mortality for a

of burials within the

bills

week was from about 240 or thereThe last was esteemed a pretty high

abouts to 300. bill ; but after this

increasing, as follows

we found

the

bills

successively

; ;

A Journal of the Plague Year

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

8th to the 25th,

when there was buried in

Giles's parish thirty, whereof two of the plague and eight of the spotted-fever, which

the same thing

;

was looked upon as number that died of the

likewise 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 the bills were low, the number to be some hopes again 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, St Clement Danes viz., St Andrew's, Holborn ;

;

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

all

Lane, near Stocks Market

there were nine of the plague and six of the

spotted-fever. that this

was, however, upon inquiry, found in Bearbinder Lane

Frenchman who died

was one who, having

lived

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

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 i6th, 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,

weekly bill for the next week the thing began There was indeed but fourteen set to show itself. down of the plague, but this was all knavery and in the

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 ;

A Journal of the Plague Year

30th, when the number of the plague was seventeen. But the burials in St Giles's were fifty-three a frightof whom they set down but nine of the ful number but on an examination more strictly by the plague justices of the 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 imnow 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 mediately after; fgr

;

all

that could conceal their distempers did

it,

pre-

vent 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

1 20, 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.

No;w 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 Whitechapel Bars, on the left hand or north side of the street and as the distemper ;

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

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, espec ial ly the nobility and gentr y \ frorrTthe west part of the city, thronged out of town wit h their tamilie s and servant sTn 2m_unusual"liiianner.; and this was more particularly seen in Whitechapel that is to say, the Broad Street where I lived indeed, nothing was to be seen but waggons and carts, with 1

)

;

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 bag-

gage and

fitted

out for travelling, as any one might

perceive by their appearance.

This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to and as it was a sight which I could not but look on from morning to night, for indeed there was nosee,

thing 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 Mayor's door without exceeding difficulty there was such pressing and crowding there to get passes and certificates of that there was no getting at the Lord ;

health for such as travelled abroad, for without these

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 there

—

;

A Journal of the Plague Year and to those within the

parishes,

too for a

liberties

while.

This hurry, I say, continued some weeks, that is to month of May and June, and the more because it was rumoured that an order of the Gorernment 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 say, all the

first.

now began to consider seriously with myself conmy own case, and how I should dispose of

cerning

myself; that stay

whether

to say,

London

or shut up

should resolve to

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 may pass with them rather for a ;

desire this account

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

may not be of one farthing value to

them to note what became of me. I had two imp ortant things before me the one was the carrying on my business and shop, whic h was* c onsid erable»_and_in^ jwhich was embarksd'^allmy :

pffpr^s i"

*^''

v atinn nf my

wnrlfl Ijfe

a^£arently_ _was

^Tu^~tKp~n^h*^^^ ws^s -ttfe^feser-,

•

so dismal a calamjty as I

cnrpj pjT

which, however great

sa^ and

np nn

the .jsrhflle^city,

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

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 m an, '_tis.ir.ae«Jbut I had. a family^f seryants whom I kept at my business; had a house, ^op, and wareh ou-.es filled with goods and, in short, to leave them _j.ij as things in such a case must be, left, that js_to_^a^jaQthauL^y overseer or person lit to .be ,

;

triist-ed

•Vfil\]

fhpm, haH

onl y of my trade, but of

Wn ^mKa-zar,-! th, loss

n'ot

my goHcfs, and indeed" of all ~ """-^

Lhad injiut-Avorld.

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, I

;

heard abroad, that the best preparation for the plague was to run away from it. As to my argument of I 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. I

My brother, who had already sent his wife and two children into Bedfordshire, and resolved to follow

A Journal of the Plague Year

them, pressed my going yery 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 ;

;;

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may safely take them for intimations from Heayen 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 believed 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 dis-

A Journal of the Plague Year

posing of me, and that then there had been no

diffi-

culty 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 same 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 Euro;

peans or Christian merchants,

who

kept themselves

retired and reserved, generally escaped the contagion.

arguments my brother changed my 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

Upon

these

resolutions again,

resolve.

A Journal of the Plague Year

I went home that evening greatly oppressed in my I had mind, irresolute, and not knowing what to do. set the evening wholly apart to consider seriously about for already people had, as it it, and was all alone ; 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

Add with a secret satisfaction that I should be kept. 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 91st 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 He shall cover thee with His noisome pestilence. !

;

A Journal of the Plague Year feathers,

and under His wings shalt thou

truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

trust :

15 His

Thou shalt not

be afraid for the terror by night ; nor for the arrowthat flieth by day ; nor for the pestilence that walketh

nor for the destruction that wasteth at thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten noonday. thousand at thy right hand ; but it shall not come Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold nigh thee. Because thou hast and see the reward of the wicked. 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

in darkness ;

]

;

family. It was a very ill time to be sick in, for if any one / complained. It was immediately said he had the plague ; /

A Journal of the Plague Year

and though

had indeed no symptoms of that dis-

temper, yet being yery 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

away with my illness, and I went about my business as usual. These things, hov/ever, 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 infection went also quite

said before, in the parishes of St Giles, St

Andrew,

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 South wark ; for though there died that week 1 268 of all distempers, whereof it might be supposed above 900 died of the plague, yet there was but twenty-eight in the whole city, within the walls, and but nineteen in South wark, Lambeth parish whereas in the parishes of St Giles and included St Martin-in-the-Fields alone there died 421. But we perceived the infy tion kept chiefly in the ou t- parishes, which being very jjopulous, and fuller al soôf poor^tbe disêm £er ro_undîore_ to J)rey upon ;

than

shall observe afterwards!

in ~the city, a s I

"We

perceived, T! say, the distemper to draw our way, viz.,

by the parishes of Clerkenwell, Cripplegate, Shorewhich last two parishes joining ditch, and Bishopsgate ;

to Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Stepney, the infection

came at length to spread its utmost rage and violence

A Journal of the Plague Year n those parts, even

when

abated

the western

parishes where it began. It was very strange to observe that in this particular week, from the 4th to the nth 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-theFields only, there died in the parish of Aldgate but four, in the parish of Whitechapel three, in the parish of Stepney but one. Likewise in the next week, from the iith of July to the i8th, 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 Clerkenwell ; so that by the second week in August, Cripplegate parish alone buried 886, and Clerkenwell Of the first, 850 might well be reckoned to 155. die of the plague and of the last, the bill itself said 1 45 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 jind debauc heries , were then practised~in the Town as openly as ever will not say quite as" frequently, because the numSers of people were many ways lessened. ;

;

—

A Journal of the Plague Year

But the

city itself

mean within the

began

now to be visited too, I

number of people 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, walls ;

but the

there were

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 judgment upon the whole nation. The face of London was now indeed strangely altered, I mean the whole mass of buildings, city, liberties, suburbs, Westminster, Sbuthwark, and alto;

gether ; for as to the particular part called the city, or

within the walls, that was not yet much infected.

But was much altered ; sorrow and sadness sat upon every face and though some parts were not yet overwhelmed, yet all and as we saw it apparently looked deeply concerned coming on, so every one looked on himself and his in

the whole the face of things, I

say,

;

Were it possible to family as in the utmost danger. 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 surpriseLondon might well be said to be all

tears ; the

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

mourners did not go about the streets indeed, for nobody put on black or made a formal dress of mourning but the voice of mourning for their nearest friends 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 wiTP usually sn thr""g*"^ rr>W gfOWn <!tr«»pfg_ji^h''"*^ ;

;

d <^solate. 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 me to observe things more than usually, and indeed I walked a great way where special business, curiosity led

had no business.

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

came out of houses, or meet with from houses that might be infected.

anybody that

smells and scents

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 rov/s ot 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,

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 weie 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 penple fjed^ ap 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, a nd such

Egopleaswere

u nencumbered with trades and business.^ res

BuToTthe

t^he generality stayed, a nd seemed to abide the

Voorst; so that in the place we call the Liberties, and in

the suburbs, in Southwark, and in the east part, such as

Wapping,

like, the

RatclifF, Stepney, Rotherhithe,

and the

people generally stayed, except here and there

a few wealthy families, who, as above, did not depend

upon their business.

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 t own w as co mputed, to hav e in it a.boYe_a4?^P^'"ed thousand people more than ;

ever it held before ; na v,~sorne~ tooir'upbn~tHem to sa y it had twice as many, because alT'the ruined families of fh^-tv^aTpprfy flnrl'pt-) hjt^ her. All the old soHiers'^s et

up '•^^d^s ^^^'•v, ^nrl fthiinrlanr e of families settled here.. Again, the C'nurt hrniiglit_MQf}l^ thprn_a_grpar f*'1^ "f All people were grown gay prid e and new fashions. and luxurious, and the jo y of the Restoration had brottghr-;i vastin/iny families to..LQndQn

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

otherwibe have been in other countries ; so the,plague

L ondon when an in credible increase of people had bappenecT occasio nally, by the particular circumstances above named. As this conflux of the people to a youthful and gay Court made a pr eat |:r ad^ir thfjdJXy) entered^

esp ecially_jto_xK£i:^iSun£jtjjat belonged_ to fashion and

fmery^^so_Jt_jif*w''by^33jnsequence a great numbei^ of

worltmen, manufacturersraiid~~flTg~Hk^," being mostly And poor peoplt^ Wli6 depemled^upojLQieix-Jabour. I

TtmciTTbeF" rn~"pamcttl«r,'T:hat

a representation to

my Lord Mayor of the condition of the poor, it was estimated that there were no

less

than an hundred

;

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thousand riband-weaTcrs in and about the city, the chiefest number of whom lived then in the parishes of Shoreditch, Stepney, Whitechapel, 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 While the fears of the people were surprising time. 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 Aceldama, doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth, and that all that would be found in it would I shall name but a few of these things perish with it. 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) Igft

behind.

In the

place, a blazing star or comet appeared months before the plague, as there did the

first

for several

The old year after another, a little before the fire. 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 judgments 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 it«

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 23 motion very heary, 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 judgment, slow but serere, terrible and frightful, as was the plague ; swift,

but

and

the

fiery

other

foretold

stroke,

sudden,

Nay,

so par-

as the conflagration.

some people were, that as they looked upon comet preceding the fire, they fancied that they not only saw it pass swiftly and fiercely, and could per-

ticular

that

ceive the motion with their eye, but even they heard that

it ;

terrible,

made a rushing, mighty noise, fierce and

though

at a

distance,

and but

just

perceiv-

able. I

saw both these stars, and, I must confess, had so

much of the common notion of such things in my head, was apt to look upon them as the forerunners and warnings of God's judgments 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 that I

;

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 foremuch 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

tellers,

and judgment coming upon the city and this principally from the sight of this comet, and the little alarm ;

A Journal of the Plague Year

that was giren in December by two people dying at St Giles's, as above.

The

of the people were likewise 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 apprehensions

strangely

increased

;

most part of which, foretold, directly or covertly, the Nay, some were so enthusiastically

ruin of the city.

bold as to run about the streets with their oral predictions, pretending they were sent to preach to the

and one in particular, who, like Jonah to city 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 and nobody could ever find of horror, a swift pace him to stop or rest, or take any sustenance, at least that I met this poor creature several ever I could hear of. ;

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

times in the streets, and would have spoke 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,

should say, the interpretation of old ; 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 or,

women upon other people's dreams

would not be able

bury the dead. Others saw 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 to

apparitions in the air ;

never appeared, but the imagination of the people was reaUy turned wayward and possessed. And no if they who were poring continually at the saw shapes and figures, representations and appearances, which had nothing in them but air and Here they told us they saw a flaming sword vapour. held in a hand coming out of a cloud, with a point there they saw hanging directly over the city hearses and coffins in the air carrying to be buried; and there again, heaps of dead bodies lying unburied,

wonder,

clouds

;

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 relation* such people gave every day of what they had seen ;

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 One time before the and impenetrable on the other. 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 She described every part of the figure to the head. 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 One saw one what a glorious creature he was I looked as earnestly as the thing, and one another. 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 The woman shining of the sun upon the other part. endeavoured to show it me, but could not make me confess that I saw it, which, indeed, if I had I must But the woman, turning upon me, looked have lied. 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 judgments were approaching, and that despisers such as I should wander and perish. The people about her seemed disgusted as well as ;

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

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.

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 mighty 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, tliat 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 stnrt, and, as if he were called away, disappeared on a ;

;

sudden.

A Journal of the Plague Year

28 I

looked

earnestly

every way,

and

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 abun-

dance 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.

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

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

it,

am informed, the

Government being unwilling to exasperate the people,

who were, as I ma^^ 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 perwhose discourses were full of and as terror, who spoke nothing but dismal things suasions and opinions,

;

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, they brought

the

people

together

at least not enough, to cry to

It was, indeed, a _t;igif

among

heaven for mercy. '""'y

us in matters of religion.

""happy breaches In numerable sect s

and_dryi siQns and separat p npin'ftns prpvnil'''^ omnng Th e Cb"''<'h "f F.n g land was restored, inde ed, with the restorati on of the m onarch y, about th e people.

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

four _^f-ara

ht-fnj-e-, hiif

thy;

ministers and preach ers of

the—Eresbyteriana-antL_IiLdepe.Qr]rnrg, an4-of all-the. otl2er_sg£tg-jo£ profcs gi on s, h a d begun to gath e r oepa rate fjoriet.ips and eject 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 v/here the incumbents were fled away, as many were, not being able to stand it and the people flecked 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 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_tpwn swarm with a wicked ge neration of pretenders to magic, to the blackart, 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 tradegrew 80_.opfin terrors

A Journal of the Plague Year 31 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

that

innumerable

attendants crowded about their doors every day.

And

if but a grave

fellow in a velvet jacket, a band, and a black cloak, 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, but there was no remedy for it or what it tended to 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

must necessarily bring sickness and disAnd some had the assurance to tell them the plague was begun already, which was too true, though they that said so knew planets, which

tempers, and consequently the plague.

nothing of the matter.

The ministers, to do them justice, and preachers of most sorts that were serious and understanding persons.

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 But it was impossible to make and abhorred them. 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. Maidservants especially, and men-servants, were the chief ot their customers, and their question generally was, after

the first demand of " Will there be a plague ? " I say, for the Lord's sake,

the next question was, ' Oh, sir

what will become of me ? or will she turn

me off?

Will my mistress keep me, Will she stay here, or will

And if she goes into the she go into the country ? country, will she take me with her, or leave me here to be starved and undone ? " And the like of men-servants. The truth is, the_ca5£-©f-peor -servants was

very

dismal, as I shallhave occasioato mention-agaljB^yand^y, f or~it was apparent a prodigious nurnber 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 charitv; provided for these poor creatures, whose nurrrbefy7as- exceeding great, and in all cases of this nature must be so, they would hav£- -beeB-ULllie.:\KQrat 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

more serious part of the inhabitants behaved another manner. ^ Th e GovernrngpL encouraged their devotion, and appointed public prayers and, days that the after

A Journal of the Plague Year

of fasting and humiliation, to make public confession of sin and implore the mercy of God to avert the dreadful judgment which hung over their heads ; and it is not to be expressed with what alacrity the p eople of all persuasions embraced the occasion how they flocked to the churche s and meetings, and they were " air so thronged_t hat ther e was nften nn rn ming 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 ;

;

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 their

;

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 for the up their shops, finding indeed no trade 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. ;

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

even those wholesome reflections, which, 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 and, as I have said before that they ran to of folly 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 storing themselves with such medicines and remedies multitudes of pills, potions, and preservatives, as they were called, that they not only spent their money, but

But

rightly

;

even poisoned themselves beforehand, for fear of the poison of the infection, and prepared their bodies for On the plague, instead of preserving them against it. 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

" Infallible preventive pills against the viz. : plague." " Never-failing preservatives against the infec" Sovereign cordials against the corruption of tion." " Exact regulations for the conduct of the the air."

these,

body in case of an infection." "Anti-pestilential pills." " Incomparable drink against the plague, never found " An universal remedy for the plague." out before."

—

A Journal of the Plague Year

" The only true plague water." " The royal antidote and such a number more that I cannot reckon up and if I could, would fill a book of themselves to set them down. against all kinds of infection; " ;

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

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 spoke 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

give you

by way of specimen.

I could

two or three dozen of the like and yet have

A Journal of the Plague Year

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.

cannot omit a subtilty of one of those quack which he gulled the poor people to crowd about him, but did nothing for them without I

operators, with

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 This made the people all resolve that were infected. 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 " Ay, good woman," says the doctor, "so

for nothing."

my advice to the poor "Alas, sir! " says she, " that is a snare laid for the poor, then for you give them your advice for nothing that is to say, you advise them gratis, to buy your physic for their money; so does I do, as I published there.

I give

for nothing, but notmyphysic."

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

every shopkeeper 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 to be imposed upon by all sorts of pretenders and by every mountebank. There is no doubt but

them

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 whatever it was, lay chiefly on the

their wickedness,

side of the deceivers deceiving, not upon the deceived.

But in this part

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

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 a possession of an evil spirit, and that it was to be kept oflF with crossings, ;

signs

of the zodiac, papers tied up with so many words or figures written on tliem,

knots, and certain

— 38

A Journal of the Plague Year

as particularly the

word Abracadabra, formed in tri-

angle or pyramid, thus

ABRACADABRA ABRACADABR ABRACADAB ABRACADA ABRACAD ABRACA ABRAC ABRA ABR AB A I

Others had the Jesuits' mark in a cross :

„ o

^•

Others nothing but this mark, thus :

3^ 1^

might spend a great deal of time in my exclamaand indeed the wickedness, of

tions against the follies,

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 the poor people found the insufficiency of so. 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

How

A Journal of the Plague Year 39 themselTes. But they ran about from one neighbour's house to another, and cTcn in the streets, from one door to another, with repeated cries of, " Lord, have mercy What shall we do r " upon us 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 erery 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 People might be heard, even into the accounts of it. 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 imiuiry 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 !

A Journal of the Plague Year

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

supposing

'have said,

now the plague to be begun, as I

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, having seen the foolish humour of the people in quacks and mountebanks, wizards and fortune-tellers, which they did as above, even to mad-

that,

running after

ness, the Lord Mayor, a very sober and religious gentle-

man, appointed physicians and surgeons tor relief of and in particular I mean the diseased poor

the poor

—

ordered the College of Physicians to publish directions for cheap remedies for the poor, in all the circumstances This, indeed, was one of the most of the distemper. 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

and copies were given gratis to all that desired it. But as it is public, and to be seen on all occasions, I

it,

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

A Journal of the Plague Year

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,

like the

;

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 judgments, 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 ;

;

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 it is

A Journal of the Plague Year

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

hare frequent occasion to

speak of the prudence of the magistrates, their charity, their Tigilance for the poor, a'--' for preserving good order,

furnishing provisions, and the

when the

like,

But I am now upon the order and regulations they published for

plague was increased, as it afterwards was. the government of infected families. I mentioned above shutting of houses

;

and it is

needful to say something particularly to that, for this part of the history of the plague

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 It was also observed that the plague decreased streets. sooner in those parishes after they had been visited to the full than

did in the parishes of Bishops-

and manner being a

gate, Shoreditch, Aldgate, Whitechapel, Stepney,

others, the early care taken in that

great means to the putting a check to it.

This shutting up of houses was a method first which happened

taken, as I understand, in the plague

—

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the coming of King James the First to 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 ist of July 1665, when the numbers infected within the city were but few, the last bill for the ninety-two and some houses having been parishes being but four shut up in the city, and some people being removed to the pest-house beyond Bunhill Fields, in the way to I say, by these means, when there died Islington,

1603,

crown

the

;

—

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 i st 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

their

offices.

statute did also authorise the giving

And

the

same

of other direc-

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

tlons,

as unto

seem

good

them for the present necessity should It is now, upon their discretions.

special consideration, thought rery expedient for pre-

venting and aroiding of infection shall so please Almighty

of sickness

(if

God) that these officers fol-

lowing 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 fit

months at least.

And if any

person so appointed shall refuse to undertake the

same, the said parties so refusing to be committed to prison imtil they shall conform themselves accordingly.

The Examiners^ 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 and order to the constable that the house be shut up 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 and that these watchmen have a special care night that no person go in or out of such infected houses ;

A Journal of the Plague Year

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

special care to appoint

women

searchers in every parish, such as are of honest re-

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 putation,

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 as they can.

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,

any other

common employment what-

soever. /»,'«.

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

S-i

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 twelvepence 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 de-

cease of any person dying of the infection, the house to which the said nurse-keeper self shall be

doth so remove her-

shut up until the said twenty-eight days

be expired."

ORDERS Concerning Infected Houses and Persons Sick of the Plague. Notice

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

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 47 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, chirargeon, 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 Stiiff".

" For sequestration of the goods and stuff of the 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 the examiner. infection, their

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. he

" Item, that none be removed out of the house where falleth sick of the infection into any other house

(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 in the city

own

servants)

;

and so as security be given to the remove is made, that the attend-

parish whither such

ance and charge about the said visited persons shall

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 two houses to remove either

to any person that hath

sound or his infected people to his spare house at he send away first his sound, he not after send thither the 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

his

his choice, so as, if

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 praver, 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 forborne 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 bed-

ding or old apparel to be sold or pawned be utterly

A Journal of the Plague Year 49 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 imAnd if any broker or other person shall prisonment. 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

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 the same house.

to continue until

lawful opening of

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 be

A Journal of the Plague Year

unable ;

the shutting up to be for the space of four

weeks after all be whole. " That precise order 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

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 in length in their

;

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 thb Streets Sweet. 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.

A Journal of the Plague Year 51 That Rakers take it from out the Houses.

"That the sweeping and filth of houses be

daily

and that the raker shall give notice of his coming by the blowing of a horn, as carried

away by the

rakers,

hitherto hath been done.

Laystalls to be made far offfrom 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 he had of unnvholesome 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 unto for musty and unwholesome casks. "That no hogs, dogs, or cats, or tame pigeons, or

any part of the be or stray in the streets or lanes, but that such swine be impounded by the beadle

conies, be suffered to be kept within city,

or any swine to

or any other officer, and the owner punished according

Common Council, and that the dogs be killed by the dog-killers appointed for that purpose,"

to Act of

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

A Journal of the Plague Year

be avoided, notwithstanding any orders that have been It is therefore now ordered, given to the contrary 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 pro:

vided by the law, upon them.

to be duly

and severely executed

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 bf!e5drfig~sSVerely'punisKeJBy every alderman in his ward. Feasting prohibited.

" That

all

public feasting, and particularly by the

companies of tms city, and dinners at taverns, ale-houses, and other places of common entertainment, be_£ojborne till further order and allowance^' and that the money t/iereby sj)ai:ed-he:pfe8«»rT£d 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, alehouse, or coffee-house to drink after nine of the clock in the evening, according to the ancient iaw 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 conIt is ordered and sideration, shall be found needful enjoined that the aldermen, deputies, and common councilmeD shall meet together weekly, once, twice, thrice :

—

A Journal of the Plague Year

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, ) p, -rr t, f oheriffs. -"

o- r> T\ oir Charles JJoe,

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. 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 For example, the whole bill the beginning of August. from the nth to the i8th of July was 1761, yet there died but 7 1 of the plague in all those parishes we call the Tower Hamlets, and they were as follows :

The next week

Aldgate Stepney Whitechapel

33 .

St Catherine, Tower Trinity, Minories

— 54 It

that

;

A Journal of the Plague Year was indeed coming on amain, for the burial* same week were in the next adjoining parishes

thus :

St Leonard's, Shoreditch

64 St Botolph's, Bishopsgate 65 213 St Giles's, Cripplegate .

The next week

«.« >h> .» .wT

prodigiously increased, as :

^Vg^'h^u^f ""s- ""=

342

84 105 421

.... no .... 116 .... 554

610

780

This shutting up of houses was

at first

counted a

very cruel and unchristian method, and tlie poor people Complaints of so confined made bitter lamentations. the severity of it were also daily brought to my Lord Mayor, of houses causelessly (and some maliciously) 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 ofiFered to the men who were set to watch the also several people broke out by houses so shut up force in many places, as I shall observe by-and-by.

shut up.

;

But

was a public good that

justified

the private

A Journal of the Plague Year 55 mischief, and there

was no obtaining the least mitiga-

tion by any application to magistrates or government at

This put the manner of stratagem in order, if posand it would fill a little volume to set sible, to get out 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 It is true, indeed, eight o'clock there was a great noise. there was not much crowd, because people w^ ie not that time, at least not that I heard of.

people upon

all

;

very fr ee to gath er together, or to stay long together whe n they we re there ; nor did T 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. 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, All this while no and was now come to relieve him. 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.

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 Toice, or a voice of one that was crying, " What d'ye want, that ye make such a knocking ? "

How do you He answered, " I am the watchman do ? What is the matter ? " The person answered, " What is that to you ? Stop the dead-cart." This, Soon after, as the it seems, was about one o'clock. 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, he let them alone till the morning-man or daywatchman, as they called him, came to relieve him. Giving him an account of the particulars, they knocked and at the door a great while, but nobody answered 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, But though having no clothes on her but her shift. 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 and finding it just so, they fellow, who went up also resolved to acquaint either the Lord Mayor or some so

;

other magistrate of it, but did not offer to go in at the

A Journal of the Plague Year

The magistrate, it seems, upon the informa-

window.

tion 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 ac-

cordingly

was so done, when nobody was found in

the house but that young

woman, who haring 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 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 as to those cries

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,

sound, that I could never learn

;

whether sick

nor, indeed, did I

make much inquiry after it.

Many

such

escapes

houses, as particularly

were made out

when

the

infected

watchman was

of some errand ; for it was his business

sent

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

to order

would come, or surgeons, or

the dead-cart, and the like ;

nurses, or

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

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 During this interval the to them the same evening. 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

Having made his his own keeping. 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

had the key in

A Journal of the Plague Year the watchman ; I say, having

made his way into this

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 triSing errand, which, as I take it, was to an apothecary's for a plaister for the maid, which he was to 6ta]l,

making up, or some other such errand 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 that is, throw her into the cart the poor wench and stay for the

that might secure his staying

;

—

take care of the house.

could give a great many such stories as these, enough, which in the long course of that dismal year I met with that is, heard of and which I

diverting

—

are very certain to be true, or very near the truth ; is to say, true in the general, for no man could such a timelearn all the^ particulars. "There was likewise violence used with the watchmen, as was

that

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 ;

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

man so to guard all the passages as prevent the escape of people made desperate by the fright of their circumstances, by the resentment of impossible for one to

their usage, or by the raging of the distemper itself;

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. 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. 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

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 6i back-houses ; and these, by friendship and entreaties, would get leave to get over those walls or pales, and or, by giving so go out at their neighbours' doors money to their servants, get them to let them through ;

in the

night ;

so that, in

short, the

shutting

up of

Neither houses was in no wise to be depended upon. 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,

their desperate circumstances, than they would other-

wise have done ; for whoever considers

all

the par-

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 one body of the family had gone out and unwarily or otherwise catched the ticulars

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 Hberty to remove himself or all his family, But the if he knew whither to go, and many did so. 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 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 notion, or

know not.

am very well satisfied that it cannot be

reconciled to religion and principle any more than

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 On the other hand, were out, but sadly increased. many that thus got away had retreats to go to and other houses, where they locked themselves up and kept hid and many families, foreseeing till the plague was over the approach of the distemper, laid up stores of pro;

A Journal of the Plague Year

risions 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

thui shut up, they were as if they had been a hundred

Nor do I remember that any one of those Among these several Dutch merchants were particularly remarkable, who kept their miles off.

families miscarried.

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

houses like

were. I

remember, and while

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 ;

;

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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 screeched out in such a frightful manner that it was enough to place horror upon the nor was it one scream or stoutest heart in the world 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 It is so long ago that I am not was dead.

after she

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 suchlike cases, and it was seldom that the weekly bill came in but there

were two or three put in frighted ; that

may well be called frighted to death. But besides those who were so frighted as to die upon the is,

that

A Journal of the Plague Year 65 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 I must confess I them go privately out in the night. 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 ist 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

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 in

the city

;

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which though in itself at first desperate, 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 preseryation,

yet was so natural that

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 and being a sailmaker's in Wapping, or thereabouts 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

can, believing the history will be a very

good

A Journal of the Plague Year pattern for any poor public

desolation

man to follow, in case the like

should happen here ;

and

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.

went all the first part of the time freely about the 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. 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 they had, it seems, dug several large for the water 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 Whitechapel. I say they had dug several pits in another ground, I

streets,

;

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

A Journal of the Plague Year

feet of the surface ; and the water coming on at about seventeen or eighteen feet, they could not well, I say,

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 11 14 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 The mark of it also was pit lay better than I can. 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 Whitechapel, coming out near the Three Nuns' Inn. It was about the loth 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, a* 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 put

;

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covered with earth by those they called the buriers,

which at other times were called bearers but I resolved 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

any willingly to lie there

;

officers

suffered

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, [some] came and threw themselves in, and expired there,

that

before they threw any earth upon

them ;

and

when they came to bury others, and found them

there, they were quite dead, though not cold.

This may serve a

little

condition of that day, though

describe it

the dreadful

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 ac-

quainted 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

was indeed

business and duty to venture, and to run

all

their

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.

told

had been pressed in my mind to go, and that perhaps it might be an instructing sight, that might not '* N.iv," says the good man, " if be without its uses.

him

;;

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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 a 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 and calmly that could not give itself vent by tears defying the buriers to let him alone, said he would only see the bodies thrown in and go away, so they left But no sooner was the cart turned importuning him. ;

;

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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.

could not hear

what he said, but he went backward two or three The buriers ran to steps and fell down in a swoon. 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 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 almost as

;

calamity as this. It

was reported by way of scandal upon the buriers,

A Journal of the Plague Year

that if any corpse

was delivered

them decently

wound up, as we called it then, in a winding-sheet 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 But as I cannot easily credit anything so ground. vile among Christians, and at a time so filled with terrors as that was, I can only relate it and leave it tied

;

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 But I shall say more of tended in their sickness. this in

its

place.

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 I

Just at my going out of the I cannot describe. 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 I directly over the street also toward the church. stood a while, but 1 had no stomach to go back again to see the same dismal scene over again, so I went directly

home, where

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

A Journal of the Plague Year to the

of him.

Pie Tavern, resolving to inquire what became •

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

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 of bringing the poor gentleman into the 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 the

clutter

house, as above, were

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 their house ;

turned their anger into ridiculing the man and hi& 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 Upon this I gently reoffended at their discourse.

proved 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 However, I kept my temper. I told them of me. that though I defied them or any man in the world to tax me with any dishonesty, yet I acknowledged that in this terrible judgment of God many better than But to I were swept away and carried to their grave. 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

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 nor, if I could reall afraid to be free with them member, 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

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 judgment, 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 Judgment 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,

A Journal of the Plague Year

and made the greatest mockery that was possible for them to do at me, giving me all the opprobrious, insoof for preaciiing 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 judgment of God upon us ; and I was informed they lent scoffs that they could think

flouted in the same manner at the good people who, not-

withstanding 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

—

when one of I think it was no more 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

four days

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 club being within view of the church-door, they had the more particular occasion for their atheistical profane mirth.

A Journal of the Plague Year

But this began to abate a little with them before the accident which I have related happened, for the infecthis 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

tion increased so violently at

;

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 exctaordinary zeal in these^reli^ious ^xercises, and as the church-doors were always open, peopi? 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.

seems they had been checked for their open 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, It

insulting religion in this manner by several

which

for a

while the^ insulted

the

for.

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 for I looked upon this examples of God's justice ;

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 that this was a day of spare them at other times 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 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 so notori-

home

ously 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

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them, though it was really raised, not by any affront they had offered me personally, but by the horror However, their blaspheming tongues filled me with. 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

— mean I

personally ;

but

pause, and having a weight of grief upon retired myself as soon as I

that night ;

and giving

after

some

my mind, I

came home, for I slept not

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 humble them.

their eyes,

and

effectually

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 ; all

and I humbly recommend the method to

those that would know, or be certain, how to dis-

tinguish between their real 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

the sickness was

room ward

part of their sickness ;

come

for before

had more make their observations than they had afterbut when_ it was in the^xtrernity there was to its height people

to ;

n o such thing a s 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 ;

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 Neither am I positire that there was but very few.

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 I mention it on this score to observe against them. 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

many several

cases, that I could give several relations of good, pious,

who, when they have had the 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 and

religious people

distemper, have

have even died without seeing their nearest relations.

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they should be instrumental to give them the disIf, then, there temper, and infect or endanger them. were cases wherein the infected people were careless of lest

the injury they did to others, this was certainly one ot them, if not the chief, namely, when people who had the distemper had broken out from houses which were so shut UD, 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 Nay, I am of opinion it was service in the whole. 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 at the White Horse,

two inns known still by the same signs, but was refused; which he came to the Pied Bull, an inn also still He asked them for lodging continuing the same sign. after

for one night only, pretending to be going into Lincoln-

them of his being very sound and 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 but for one night, some drovers being so, if he would expected the next day with cattle accept of that lodging, he might have it, which he did. So a servant was sent up with a candle with him to

shire, and assuring

free

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

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

show him the room.

lodging as this."

However, the servant assuring him "I

again that they had no better, " Well," says he,

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.

" Alas " says she, " I never thought 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 She started. more of him.

off, his

jaw fallen, his eyes open

most

frightful

posture, the rug of the bed being grasped hard in one

of his hands, so that

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 The alarm was great after he sat down upon the bed. in the house, as any one 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 maidservant 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,

A Journal of the Plague Year

there died seventeen the week after, whereof fourteen

were of the plague.

This was in the week from the

nth 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 break-

away into the country among their friends, generally found

ing out of the distemper, fled

and had

retreats

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 10,00 houses forsaken of the inhabitafits m 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 cornputecL_thaL_about 200,000 But of this I shall speak people were fled and gone. again. Bilt I mention it here on this account, namely, Ihat 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

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.

the

— ;

A Journal of the Plague Year

This was, in many cases, the saving a whole family, who, if they had been shut up with the sick person, But, on the other would inevitably have perished. hand, this was another of the inconveniences of shutfor the apprehensions and terror of ting up houses 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 ;

go about, but being obliged still to conceal knowing it themselves, gave the distemper to others, and spread the infection in a dreadful manner, as I shall explain further liberty to

their circumstances, or perhaps not

hereafter.

And here I may be able to make an observation two of my own, which may be of use hereafter

to those into

whose hands these may come,

they

(i.) The should ever see the like dreadful visitation, 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,

and who going necessarily through the 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 viz., for had there been, instead of one pest-house 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 pesthouses, 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 sershops, &c. ; streets into

shops, markets, and the like,

—

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

rant 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 I say, had this been been stricken with the infection 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 for it was observed, and I could thousands, had died 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 that is to say, by calamity was spread by infection 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 im-

A Journal of the Plague Year

mediate 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 ina discourse full of learned simplicity, fect the body and manifested to be so by universal experience ; but :

I shall say I

more to this case in its order.

must here take further notice that nothing was

more fatal supine

the inhabitants

negligence

the

of this city than the themselves, who,

people

during the long notice or warning they had of the visitation,

made no

provision

for

it,

by laying

of other necessaries, by which they might have lived retired, and within their own houses, as I have observed others did, and who were nor in a great measure preserved by that caution ; 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 store of provisions, or

knew it. was one of those thoughtless ones my servants were obliged to go out of doors to buy every trifle by penny I acknowledge I

that had made so little provision that

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. ancient woman that I had in famil y only an

managed the house, a maidrafJJcapt, two apprentices.

A Journal of the Plague Year 87 ^and myself; and the plague beginning to increase aBout us, ITiad many sad thoughts about what course The manyI should take, and how I should act. 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.

now I began to faint in my my heart failed me very much, and sorely When I had been out, and I repented of my rashness. I

cannot say but that

resolutions ;

met with such of,

say

terrible things as these

repented

my rashness

have talked venturing to

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

abide

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

Him with fasting, humiliation, and meditation.

Such

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 What I wrote of my private meditawithout doors. tions 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 intervals as I

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 rosin 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

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

aomething 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 but I had no flesh-meat, butter and Cheshire cheese 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 Whitechapel, 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

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

any one bought a joint of meat

the market they

would not take it off the butcher's hand, but took it On the other hand, the off the hooks themselves. butcher would not touch the money, but have it put into a ])ot full of vinegar, which he kept for that pur-

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

pose.

they went at all hazards. Innumerable dismal stories we heard every day on Sometimes a man or woman this very account. 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

A Journal of the Plague Year 91 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

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 handbarrows 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

compared

provisions

or frequented with

buyers

what they were before ; and the Lord

Mayor caused the country people who brouj;ht 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 Whitechapel, in Spitalfields ; * also in St George's Fields in Southwark, field

called Wood's

Thither the

Lord Mayor,

Bunhill Fields, and in a great

Close,

near

Islington.

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

Those streets now called Spitalfields were then indeed open

fields.

[1754 edition.]

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 T 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 he had left to my care, and I went

parish, and which

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

at first every day, but

themselves.

Passing through Tokenhouse Yard, in Lothbury, of sudden a casement violently opened just over my head, and a woman gave three frightful screeches, death, death, death " in a and then cried, " Oh most inimitable tone, and which struck me with horror There was nobody and a chillness in my very blood. 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 a

on to pass into Bell Alley.

A Journal of the Plague Year 93 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, ' O 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 People in the rage of the distemper, or in the day. 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 !

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 watchmen or other officers, and plunge themselves into the water wherever they found it. It often pierced

my very soul to hear the groans and.

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 cries

surgeons

call

it,

to digest,

the

patient

generally re-

covered ; 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 This kind of dying sit down, grow faint, and die. 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.

A Journal of the Plague Year 95 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 and so they have gone scarce cold into the dead-cart !

to the grave. I

cannot say but that some such murders were com-

mitted, 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 being so

must say I believe nothing of its

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 committed even in this dreadful time I do 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

practices

not deny.

;

they lay dead.

This, I suppose, must be the case of a family in Houndsditch, where a man and his daughter, the rest

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 all this

were in

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 wearingclothes, 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

A Journal of the Plague Year 97 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 First, that wherever it was frighted one another with.

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 White-

chapel, 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 Whitechapel,

If you

or the Minories, or about Cripplegate parish.

heard of it in the city, why, then it happened in South-

wark ; 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 clout on a dying man's face, and that of smothering a young gentlewoman so that it was apparent, at least to my judgment, 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 mjsery of that time lay upon the poor, who, being infected, had neither food or jjhysic, 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 ;

A Journal of the Plague Year

wheneyer the cases of such persons or families were represented to my Lord Mayor they always were

that

relieved. It

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 serI say, it is true, that vants they had been dismissed ; to save the expenses, many such as these shut themselves in, and not having help, died alone. 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 He came to the door, and finding it get the money. 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 down-

—

stairs.

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 The boy, though a little you disturb me thus for ?" surprised, replied, " I come from such a one, and my me

for the money which he says you " 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 This the young day nay, perhaps the same hour. 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

master sent

know of."

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 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 It was prey, and that these were generally women. 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 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,

a brick wall

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,

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 " What business, mistress," said I, " have you gate. '* There are had there ? " more people there," said ohe ; " I have had no more business there than they." I was hasty to get to the gate then, and said no more I

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

TOO

But just as by which means she got away. 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 One of them, who, hats, and took them from them. " Indeed," says I confess, did not look like a thief to her, I

—

she,

"we are wrong, but we were told they were

Be pleased to take them goods that had no owner. again ; and look yonder, there are more such customers She cried and looked pitifully, so I took as we." 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 thrust myself in

now to

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 They all told me they were neighbours,

account.

that they had heard any one might take them, that I talked they were nobody's goods, and the like. big to them at first, went back to the gate and took

out

the

key,

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

A Journal of the Plague Year loi was reasonable to believe, because the lock was broke, and a padlock that hung to the door on the outside also loose, and not 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 ;

much

about, to have 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 4OOO a week so that in showing my necessarily

oblige

several people come to me, and I

;

resentment, or even in seeking justice for my brother's

goods, I might lose my own iife ; 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 to an account for it when he returned to his

them

habitation.

Then

talked

them, and

asked

a little upon another foot with them how they could do such

things as these in a time

and, as

ot such general calamity, were, in the face of God's most dreadful

judgments, 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

impression upon them that there came two

all

that while,

till

made much it

happened

men of the neighbourhood, hear-

ing of the disturbance, and

knowing

my brother, for

they had been both dependents upon his family, and they came to my assistance. These bfing, as I said, neighbours, presently knew three of the women, and told it

me who they were, and where they lived and, me a true account of them-

seems, they had given

selves before.

;

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A Journal of the Plague Year

This brings these two men to a further remembrance.

The name of one was John Hayward, who was at that time under-sexton of the parish of St Stephen, Coleman Street. By under-sexton was understood at that This man time gravedigger and bearer of the dead. 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 Here they went with a kind Alley, and many more. 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 His wife at the same time was the time of his death. 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 ;

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 103 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 tTie 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. ;

;

—

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

I04

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 1

fellow that attended about the work ; but after some

pause John Hayward, recovering himself, said, " Lord, us

bless

dead " you ? " !

There's somebody in the cart not quite So another called to him and said, " Who are

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 " But I an't dead though, am I ? " says bury you." the piper, which

made them laugh a little, though, as

A Journal of the Plague Year 105 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

ran away ; but John

and others so that they

Hayward did not tell the story

nor say anything of his piping at all ; but that he 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 so,

was a poor

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 at first among the people. I must be allowed to give some of my observations on the more Surely never city, at least serious and religious part. 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 They were, indeed, as if they had had no religious. 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 store-houses for corn or meal for the subsistence of the poor, which if they had provided themselves, as in such cases is done

judgment was

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. abroad,

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A Journal of the Plague Year

The stock of the city's money I can say but little The Chamber of London was said to be exceeding rich, and it may be concluded that they were so,

to.

by the vast sums 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,

would have thought

in the first case, the losers

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

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

in all parts of

magistrates for the relief of the poor. as I

The king also,

was told, ordered a thousand pounds a week to

be distributed in four parts

and liberty of Westminster

;

one quarter to the city one quarter or part among

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 107 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 But this latter I the east and north parts of the city. only speak of as a report. Certain it is, the greatest part of the poor or families who formerly lived oyTheir labour, or by retail trade, lived now on charity and had there not been prodigious sums of money given by charitable, wellminded 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 ;

;

—

— io8

A Journal of the Plague Year

country retired with their families; and when, would have thought the very city itself was running out of the gates, and that there would be

in the

indeed7"0ffe

you may be sure from that hour ; except such as related to immediate 6\iht sistence, was, as it were, at a full stop.

nobody left behind trade,

all

This is 80 lively a case, and contains in

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

example 1.

upon

this

For

occasion.

AH 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, cabinetmakers, looking-glass makers, and innumerable trades which depend upon such as these say, the master-workmen in such stopped their work, dismissed their journeymen and workmen, and all their dependents. 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. 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 ;

—

A Journal of the Plague Year

109

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. i^^navigation was at a stop, our ships neither coming Tn 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 The masters of those perhaps might live like. upon their substance, but the traders were universally at a stop, and consequently all their

workmen discharged.

Add to these that the

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. river

fa milies

retrenched their living as

much as

possible, as well those that fled as those thaf

so thatan 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,

stayed;

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, ail trades being

no A Journal of the Plague Year stopped, employment ceased, the labour, and. by th^t

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_tjhif 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 These might be said the destruction which followed. 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 for their bread, or without any one to give it them 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 I say, labour, whether artificers or mere workmen 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;

;

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A Journal of the Plague Year

1 1 r

disposfd 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 Nor were they without apprethe public peace. hensions, as

was, that desperation should push the

upon tumults, and cause them to rifle the houses of rich men and plunder the markets of prothe country people, who in which case visions 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 people

;

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. had not

One was, that really the

up stores of provisions 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

rich themselves in

laid

their houses, as indeed they ought to

112

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 ho«ses 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 this ;

men at a time. The women and servants that were turned off from their places were likewise

the sick in

all

employed as nurses to tend

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, tlig^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

—

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 carried the dead, that in

by the following bills of mortality

Of all Diseases.

From August 8 to August 15

OfthePlagMc

114

A Journal of the Plague Year

bellmen, and drivers of carts for carrying off the dead bodies.

Indeed the work was not of a nature to allow them 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 I observed often that in the parishes of Aldgate peril. and Cripplegate, Whitechapel 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 leisure to take an exact tale

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 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 I

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,

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 and sometimes they might fetch it, if they were able thev were not able, and the next time they went

wandered away

into the

fields

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

they should find the poor wretches lie dead and the The number of these miserable food untouched. 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

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

distance from

mortality as without.

This, indeed, I had in the main only from the 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, relation

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

desoiate place the city was at that time.

The great

known to be one of the broadest of all the streets of London, I mean of the street I

lived in,

which

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 Whitechapel Church was not all paved, but even the part that was

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A Journal of the Plague Year

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 neither cart or coach were seen in in several places 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 pesthouse, and to other hospitals, and some few to carry physicians to such places as they thought fit to venture for really coaches were dangerous things, and to visit 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 as

I have

sicians

came to such a height

now mentioned, there were very few phy-

which cared to stir abroad

to sick houses, and

many of the most eminent of the faculty were for now it was indead, as well as the surgeons also deed a dismal time, and for about a month together, very

;

not taking any notice of the

bills

lieve there did not die less than

of mortality, I be-

1500 or 1700 a day,

one day with another. One of the worst days we had

the whole time,

as I thought, was in the beginning of September, when,

indeed, good

resolved

miserable

began to think that God was the people in this This was at that time when the

people

make a full end of

city.

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 but it surrounded me at so bills did not say so many ;

—

A Journal of the Plague Year dismal a rate that there was uninfected in the Minories,

not a house in twenty in

Houndsditch, and

those parts of Aldgate parish about the Butcher

and the alleys over against me.

Row

I say, in those places

Whitechapel parish same condition, and though much less

death reigned in every corner.

was

the

than the parish I lived in, yet buried near 600 a week

by the bills, and in my opinion near twice as many. Wiiole families, and indeed whole streets of families, ^re s^yept 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 and this with the stench, and consequently infected 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 ;ibove 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 ;

A Journal of the Plague Year

the dead, that as fast as any of those 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 I cannot say, indeed, whether this was not in mercy. 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 espeI cially in the evenings, were heard in some streets. suppose the world has heard of the famous Solomon He, though not infected at all Eagle, an enthusiast. but in his head, went about denouncing of judgment 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

Whitechapel, and, with his hands lifted up, repeated that part of the Liturgy of the

Church

continually.

A Journal of the Plague Year * Spare us, good Lord

;

spare Thy people, whom Thou

hast redeemed with Thy most precious blood."

I say,

I cannot speak positively of these things, because these

were only the dismal objects which represented themmy 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 Besides, there stirred out. But I could not hold it. were some people who, notwithstanding the danger, did selves to me as I looked through

;

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,

Some ventured to officiate and up the assemblies o7 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 difi"erence at such a time as yet ail did not do so.

to keep

;

this was.

It was indeed a lamentable thing to hear the miser-

able 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 sins.

and mercy, and confessing aloud their past

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 this

;

that such

a time of calamity as

was no time for repentance, was no time

to call

120

A Journal of the Plague Year

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

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 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 to the ofEce.

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 sura 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 fetched some gunpowder, and cast a good deal of powder upon the purse.

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 121 and then made a train from that which he had thrown The train reached about two loose upon the purse. 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 shillings 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

Bow

towards

;

for I

had a great mind to see

how things were managed in the river and among the and as I had some concern in shipping, I had

ships ;

a notion that it had been one of the best ways of secur-

ing one's self from the infection to have retired into a

ship ; and musing

how to satisfy my curiosity in that

the fields from Bow to Bromley, and down to Blackwall to the stairs, which

point,

turned

away over

are there for landing or taking water.

Here

saw a poor man walking on the bank, or they call it, by himself. I walked a

sea-wall,

while also about, seeing the houses last I fell

man

;

first

" Alas,

all

shut up.

into some talk, at a distance, with this poor

sir

I !

asked him

says

he,

how people did thereabouts. *'

almost

desolate ;

all

dead

A Journal of the Plague Year

122

or sick.

Here are very few families in this part, or Poplar), "where half of

in that village" (pointing at

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. poor thief," says he, " ventured in to ;

something, but he paid dear for his theft, for he was carried to the churchyard too last night." Then " There," says he, he pointed to several other houses. "they are all dead, the man and his wife, and five There," says he, " they are shut up you children. 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 steal

;

has pleased

God

not

yet

visited,

family is, and one of my children dead."

though my " 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

"why do you not come at them?

How can you abandon your own flesh and blood "Oh, sir," says he, "the Lord forbid! abandon them ;

work

able ; and, blessed be

for

them

much as

the Lord, I keep

do not I

them from

;

want " and with that I observed he lifted up his eyes to I

heaven, with a countenance that presently told me 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 "Well," says I, "honest man, that is a not want.

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 123 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 great

house.

work in it in the day, and

sleep in

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 anybody go by water " Yes, sir," says he, " in the way I these times ? "

the night ;

;

am employed

there does.

Do you see there," says

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 he, "five shi'^

lie at

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,

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

;

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A Journal of the Plague Year

into any house on shore, or touch

anybody, no, not of

but I fetch provisions for them." " Nay," says I, " but that may be worse, for you must have those provisions of somebody or other

my own family

;

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

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 I row up to Greenwich and buy fresh meat here. 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. 1 seldom come on shore here, and I came now only to call to my wife and hear how my little 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 Poor woman " says he, " she is brought for her. !

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

thou hast a sure

;;

A Journal of the Plague Year 125 Comforter, if thou hast brought thyself to be resigned to the will of God; He is dealing with us all in judgment." " 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

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 my faith than thine?"

;

all possible

caution for his safety.

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 he called and said such a captain had sent such a thing, and such a captain •uch a thing, and at the end adds, " God has sent ;

;

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 •o 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

126

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 for

his

assistance.

friend,"

said

"come hither,

art in health, that I

refrain

my charity

" Hark thee,

called him, for

believe

thou

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.

told her

He called his wife, and

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, Heaven as to me, and joyfully picked it up ; and I parted with no money all that year that I thought

as well to

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 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

that

A Journal of the Plague Year 127 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.

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 said

proper people to lay in quantities of things, and that he

waited on two ships, which he showed me, that had 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 laid

that had separated themselves as those had done.

told

yes, all

the

way up from

the point,

He right

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 1 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 Whitechapel, 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 mv house had so much as been touched with it. against

128

A Journal of the Plague Year

" 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 The poor man troubled me so much when family." he spoke of his family with such a sensible concern, and in such an affectionate manner, that I could not I told him I would satisfy myself at first to go at all. 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 Well, he would not have me put it off the world. 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 But side of the town, to get a prospect of the river. 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

A Journal of the Plague Year 129 man

;

also, I rejoiced to see that such little sanctuaries

for so many families in a time of such 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

were provided desolation.

some went quite away to sea, and put into such harbours and safe roads on the north coast as they could

told,

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 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. ships

;

And here I cannot but take notice that t\\e 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

— 130 in

——

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 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 extremes! 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

242 886

Cripplegate

Stepney St Margaret, Bermondsey Rotherhithe Total this week

....

......

197 24 3

4030

From the 15th to the 22nd August St Giles-in-the-Fields

Cripplegate

.... ......

Stepney St Margaret, Bermondsey Rotherhithe Total this week

N.B.

—

175 847 273 36 2

5319

That it was observed the numbers mentioned Stepney parish at that time were generally all on that side where Stepney parish joined to Shoreditch, which we now call Spitalfields, 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

A Journal of the Plague Year 131 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,

Highway, and which are now the parishes of Shadwell and Wapping, even to St Catherine's by the Tower, till after the whole month of August was expired. But they paid for it afterwards, as I shall RatclifF

observe by-and-by.

This,

I say,

made the people of RedrifF and Wap-

ping, 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 suflxT 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, Dulwich, and Lusum, where, it seems, nobody durst relieve ;

the poor distressed people for fear of the infection.

This notion having, as

said,

prevailed with the

people in that part of the town, was in part the occasion,

132

A Journal of the Plague Year had recourse to ships for and where they did this early and with

as I said before, that they

their retreat ;

prudence, furnishing themselves so with provisions that

they had no need to go on shore for supplies or suffer 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 proboats to come on board to bring them,

—

visions 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 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 everyone 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,

say,

took away

all

compassion ; self-prefirst law from their parents as

servation,

indeed, appeared here to be the

For

children

the

ran

away

And in some they languished in the utmost distress. 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,

A Journal of the Plague Year 133 of distressed mothers, raving and distracted, killing their own children ; one whereof was not far off from

where

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 midwi^'es 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 ;

;

pretending they would save the mother, whatever became of the child and many times both mother and child were lost in the same justifiable ignorance,

;

manner

;

and especially where the mother had the come near them, and

distemper, there nobody would

—

— 134

A Journal of the Plague Year

Sometimes the mother has both sometimes perished. 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-bom.

Chrisoms and Infants.

Take the weeks in which the plague was most violent, and compare them with the weeks before the distemper For example began, even in the same year. :

—

A Journal of the Plague Year 135 To the disparity of these numbers is to be considered and allowed for, that, according to our usual

who were then upon the spot, there were not one-third of the people in the town during the opinion

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 Abortive and still-born

Child-bed .625 Abortive and still-born 617

458

647

This

inequality,

say,

1242

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 make a probable conjecture at that part by-andWhat I have said now is to explain the misery by. of those poor creatures above, so that it might well be shall

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 onethird 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

136

A Journal of the Plague Year

nurse, but this

was nothing.

The misery was where

they were, first, starved for want of a nurse, the mother dying, and ail 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 Secondly, helpless infants perished in this manner. Nay, even not starved, but poisoned by the nurse. 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 I cannot but resuch a case before the mother. member 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, Of a mother after they have been dead of the plague. 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 condiWhether the child infected the nurse-mother tion.

A Journal of the Plague Year 137 or the mother the child was not certain, but the last Likewise of a child brought home to the most likely. 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 He ran servants which he kept fled both from her. from house to house like one distracted, but could ^et no help ; the utmost he could get was, that a watchman, who attended at an infected house shut up,

The poor promised to send a nurse in the morning. 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 sank under the weight of his grief. I

their

have heard also of some who, on the death of relations, have grown stupid with the insupport-

A Journal of the Plague Year

138

able 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 betv/een 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 collar-bone, 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

indeed, it came upon

—

did ;

for,

them like an armed man when

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 thereabouts. 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 it

A Journal of the Plague Year 139 and of safety being with them ; and many people 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

safe,

fled out

unlikely that their doing

this

helped to

bring

the

way faster than it might otherwise have For though I am much for people flying

plague that

come. away, and emptying such a town

as this,

upon the

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 first

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 for that is the bane and mischief of the the other 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, effluvia or in

so they are capable of carrying the

infectious

their furs

steams of bodies infected even

and hair ?

And therefore it was that,

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 in 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 I think they talked of forty thouwere destroyed. sand dogs, and five times as many cats, few houses being without a cat, some having several, sometimes five

or six in a house.

used, also, to

All possible endeavours were

destroy the mice and rats, especially

the latter, by laying ratsbane and other poisons for

A Journal of the Plague Year

I40

them, and a prodigious multitude of them were aho destroyed. reflected upon the unprovided condition 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, arid that of some whom they joined with, is a pattern I

often

that the

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 for all

or no.

Two of them are said to be brothers, the one an old soldier, but now a biscuit-baker ; the other a lame sailor, but

now a sailmaker

;

Says

the third a joiner.

John the biscuit-baker one day to Thomas his brother, the sailmaker, " Brother Tom, what will become of The plague grows hot in the city, and increases us ? What shall we do ? " this way. ' Truly," says Thomas, " I am at a great loss what to do, for I find if it comes down into Wapping I shall

And thus they began be turned out of my lodging." to talk of it beforehand. If John. Turned out of your lodging, Tom 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.

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 141 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 There's no trade to get no more work a great while. Workmen and servants are turned off everystirs now. where, 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 vou. 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 then we might have travelled anywhere.

away at first

;

There's no

stirring

now

;

pretend to go out of town. victuals, no, not for our

we shall be starved if we They won't let us have

money, nor

let

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.

little, though

have a

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 thereabout, the people offered to fire at

142 them

A Journal of the Plague Year 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 If I had been denied food for my money they should have seen me take it before their faces, and if

there.

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 The people have good reason to a serious thing. 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 I would plunder nobody ; but for mistake me too. 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

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 Besides, there is no law to starve me between them. 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 to starve

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 I am of the same mind with the lepers nor stay here, of Samaria.

If we stay here

we are sure to die

;

you and I are stated, without a dwelling-house of our own, and without lodging in any

mean

especially as

A Journal of the Plague Year 143 There is no lying in the street at such a

body else's.

we had as good go into the dead-cart at once. Therefore I say, if we stay here we are sure to I am resolved die, and if we go away we can but die time as this ;

;

to be gone.

You will

Whither will you 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 Thomas.

away.

what can you do ?

go, and

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 I was born

when it is infected with the plague.

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

<hey make

me vagrant ?

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.

occasion ?

not

flying

save

our

lives

lawful

And do they not all know that the fact is

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 true ?

not where I go.

Thomas. I

We shall be driven to great extremities.

know not what to think of it. John. Well, Tom, consider of it a little.

;

144

A Journal of the Plague Year

This was about the beginning of July the plague was

;

and though

come forward in the west and north

parts of the town, yet all Wapping, as I have observed

before, and Redriff, and RatclifF, and Limehouse, and

Poplar, in short, Deptford and Greenwich,

all both 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 Whitechapel 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 But some began to river, as below, kept pretty well. 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 His brother John was in as bad a provide himself. case, for he was quite out, and had only begged leave of his master, the biscuit-baker, to lodge in an outhouse belonging to his work-house, 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.

sides of the river from the

Here they resolved, seeing all employment being and no work or wages to be had, they would make the best of their way to get out of the

at an end,

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

kind, let it be what it would.

work anywhere, of any

A Journal of the Plague Year 145 While they were considering to put this resolution 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 in practice in the

out.

It happened that they had not an equal share of money, but as the sallmaker, 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 thsm 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. ;

146

A Journal of the Plague Year

John the baker, who had been a soldier, then put in " First," says he, " we none of us expect

his opinion.

to get any lodging on the road, and it will be a little too

Though it be warm hard to lie just in the open air. 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

little tent, and I will

make us

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 his master

made that easy, for

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

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 The soldier showed how to shape a very good tent. 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 days' work that his

A Journal of the Plague Year 147 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

What money they had their subsistence as his own. they brought all into one public stock, and thus they It seems that in the morning began their journey. 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 out from the hither end of Wapping, near the Hermitage, and that the plague was now very violent,

set

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 hare ;

questioned them, but they, crossing the road into

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 starred for want

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A Journal of the Plague Year

of work, and by that means for want of bread, were up 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 in arms and

But it was not so far off from being

was no more.

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

running 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

upon them so furiously, that

they father went to the grave by thousands than into for, in the parts about the fields in mobs by thousands the parishes of St Sepulchre, Clerkenwell, 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, RatclifF, 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 plunI say, though they did much, the dering the rich, 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 ;

—

some recovered, and great numbers day and died afterwards. Besides, I

all

that time, for

fell

sick every

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

A Journal of the Plague Year 149 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

from Essex through that and that they had not been at London, which,,

a certificate of their passing village,

though false

in the common acceptation

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

150

A Journal of the Plague Year

could to be sure there was nobody in it, they set up 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 lodgtheir tent, with the

ing, 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

lying at

their

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 this loose

rate the

first

night,

So, with the gun companions. hand, he walked to and again before the barn, for that stood in the field near the road, but within He had not been long upon the scout but the hedge. he heard a noise of people coming on, as if it had been a great number, and they came on, as he thought, sentinel and guard his in his

towards the barn. He did not presently companions, but in a few minutes more, their noise growing louder and louder, the biscuitbaker called to him and asked him what was the The other, being matter, and quickly started out too. the lame sailmaker and most weary, lay still in the directly

awake

his

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,

"Who

The people did not comes there?" with answer immediately, but one of them speaking to we are alas another that was behind him, " Alas !

" Here are some people disappointed," says he. before us ; the barn is taken up." all

stopped upon that, as under some surand it seems there was about thirteen of them They conin all, and some women among them. sulted together what they should do, and by their discourse our travellers soon found they were poor,

They all

prise,

A Journal of the Plague Year 151 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

How

not go near them. do you know but they may And when one of the men said, have the plague ? " •' Let us but speak to them," the women said, " No,

We have escaped thus far by

don't by any means. 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 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 said to the

;

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, 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

;

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

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A Journal of the Plague Year

from the visitation, why should we make you remove now you are settled in your lodging, and, it may be, are We will go into the barn, if you laid down to rest ? please, to rest ourselves a while, and we need not disturb you. I Richard. Well, but you are more than we are. 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 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. are most of us of Cripplegate parish, only two or three of Clerkenwell parish, but on the

hither side.

Richard.

How then was

that

you came away no

sooner ?

Ford.

We have been away some time, and kept

together as well as

we could

the hither end of

Islington, where we got leave to lie in an old unin-

habited 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.

A Journal of the Plague Year 153 They parleyed no further at that time, but came 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 all

as well

they could, and went

travellers observed that before they

rest ;

went

but our

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 leh 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 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 in the marshes, and

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

154

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 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 road,

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

there for

them

take

It ;

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

A Journal of the Plague Year 155 had a supply of victuals and drink, which he brought and left in the boat for them, but not without, as I But now said, having received the money beforehand. 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 thev 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 ;

156

A Journal of the Plague Year

nothing, so the two men that talked with them went oack 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-baker, 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 fire?, r,t 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

A Journal of the Plague Year 157 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.* " 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. are not bound to tell you our reason, though we did let you know it was because of the

plague.

told you we were all sound and free John. from the plague, which we were not bound to have satisfied you of, and yet you pretend to stop us on the highway. Constable. have a right to stop it up, and our

own safety obliges us to it. Besides, this is not the 'tis a way upon sufferance. king's highway 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 ;

* 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.

158

A Journal of the Plague Year

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. Well, you may go any other way, then. I suppose you see we are able to send you going, and all the people of your parish, but and come through your town when we will You since you have stopped us here, we are content. see v/e have encamped here, and here we will live. hope you will furnish us with victuals. What mean you by furnish you Constable. Constable.

No, no ;

John.

;

that?

John.

you ?

Why, you would not have us starve, would

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 ? have offered no violence to you yet. Why John. 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 I have orders to raise to be strong enough for you. the county upon you. And since John. It is you that threaten, not we. you are for mischief, you cannot blame us if we do we shall begin our march in not give you time for it a few minutes.*

;

* This frighted the constable and the people that were with him, that they immediately changed their note.

A Journal of the Plague Year 159 What is it you demand of us ? At first we desired nothing of you but leave

Constable.

John. 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.

are not thieves, but poor people in distress, and flying from the dreadful plague in London, which devours thousands every week.

wonder how you could be so unmerciful Constable.

John.

Self-preservation obliges us.

What

To shut up your compassion in a

case of such distress as this ?

Well, if you will pass over the fields on hand, and behind that part of the town, I will endeavour to have gates opened for you. John. Our horsemen * cannot pass with our baggage Constable.

your

left

that way ;

it does not lead into the road that we want 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. 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

to go,

send us ? Constable.

How many are you

John. Nay, we do not ask enough for all our com-

pany; 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 •

They had but one horse among them.

i6o

A Journal of the Plague Year

we will go out of our way to oblige you, though we are as free from infection as you are.* 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 nont 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 so 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 fear for us ;

;

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, * 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.

A Journal of the Plague Year i6i went away as if towards Waltham companies, but Epping.

all

little

;

the other in two

asunder, and went towards

The first night they encamped all in the forest, and not far off of one another, but not setting up the tent, On the other hand, lest that should discover them. 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 had fared so well they left it to Providence. with the old soldier's conduct that they now willingly made him their leader, and the first of his conduct He told them that they appeared to be very good. 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. their little camp,

Here they pitched

which consisted of three large tents L

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 They had, besides this, a little tent, and warm. 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 prothat is to say, bread, and some mutton and visions 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 The people at first seemed afraid to come near them. 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 so John called out to them not to come three days 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 John answered very to fix their stand at that place. frankly, they were poor distressed people from London,

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 163 who, foreseeing the misery they should be reduced to plague spread into the city, had fled out in time

if the

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

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, that this was no and told them they must remove 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 unkird 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 ;

;

164

A Journal of the Plague Year

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

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 that

the

their way, whether the parish no; that there were near two hundred

town and force

officers would or

of them, and had arms and tents like Low Country 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

soldiers ;

of soldiers ; and that several of them being gone away towards Romford 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

A Journal of the Plague Year

165

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 please 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 will 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

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 The minister of a parish and to keep them dry. 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 ;

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 167 from the gentlemen who dwelt in the country round Some sent them chairs, stools, tables, and such about. 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 very 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 when they had the bad

the beginning of September,

news to hear, whether true or not, that the plague, which was very hot at Waitham Abbey on one side, and at Romford and Brentwood on the other side, was also come 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 all over England, but which, as I have said, I cannot confirm of that report which was afterwards spread

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

A Journal of the Plague Year

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

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 and they began to be afraid to trust one 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 They were chiefly put to it for bread, such things. 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-baker 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 infected,

another so

;

terrible thing to them.

On this they called a new council, and now the

A Journal of the Plague Year 169 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, ( ) because they did not remove time enough that I ;

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 is

to say, not

till,

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 it

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

not to be wondered

afflicted at

that

they were greatly

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 John, however, thought of a remedy for no remedy. 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 ;

lyo any

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 anyv/here, 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 But here they found a man who, side of Waltham. 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 that is to say, into Waltham, and Hertfordshire 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 ;

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 171 move across the forest towards Romford 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 Hainault Forest, reaching near ;

Romford, 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

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 to be

so that the county w^s 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 relief;

others in like cases as themselves.

Upon all these considerations John, their captain, in names, went back to their good friend and 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 all

their

benefactor,

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

that time

of the year,

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 it

whose farm it belonged, they got leave to make what use of it they could.

172

A Journal of the Plague Year

The ingenious joiner and all the rest, by his direcwent to work with it, and in a very few days made it capable to shelter them all in case of bad

tions,

weather, and in which there was an old chimney and an old oven, though both lying in ruins yet they made them both fit for use, and raising additions, sheds, and lean-tos 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 gentle-

men 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 They saw plainly how terribly to remove no more. alarmed that county was everywhere at anybody that came from London, and that they should have no admittance anywhere but with the utmost diflSculty, 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

was increased

A Journal of the Plague Year 173 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 Those that had money always fled farthest, benot. cause 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 little

country every way, and some of them got and barns, and outhouses to live in,

sheds,

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 80 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

— 174 in

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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

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 : letters, the

••OmlsErYl

We BoTH ShaLL DyE. WoE, WoE." what I found to

I have given an account already of

have been the case ing men;

down the river among the seafar-

how the ships lay in the offing, as it's called,

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 Depiford 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 and in this day, and going into their boats at night manner, as I have heard, the river-sides were lined with boats and people as long as they had anything in

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 175 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 This disconsolate were dead as well as she could. 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 There the constable reup to the door of the house. sisted them again, and would not let them be brought The man caused the goods to be unloaden and in. 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

— 176

A Journal of the Plague Year

the goods again, but with grievous cries and lamentations at the hardship of his case.

remedy ;

But there was no

self-preservation obliged the people to those

which they would not otherwise have been Whether this poor man lived or died concerned in. 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 distemper 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 But as every town were indeed judges in their them. 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. severities,

And yet, more or less, maugre 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 I have infected aod had some died among them. heard the accounts of several, such as they were reckoned up, as follows : In Barnet and Hadleigh

In Enfield

Hornsey ,, Newington ,, Tottenham ,,

Edmonton

St Albans

.... 121

Watford Uxbridge

Hertford

,, ,

....

45 117

A Journal of the Plague Year 177 In Ware

;

178

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 indeed

other people.

But I choose to give ferent turn, and answer

that I

this grave debate a quite difit

or resolve

do not grant the fact.

all

by saying

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 in

which complaints both

sides

much talked of, and 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 whereas, to do the Londoners justice, infecting others ;

they never practised such things, except in such particular On cases as I have mentioned above, and such like. the other hand, everything was managed with so much

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 179 and such excellent order was observed in the whole city and subqrbs by the care of the Lord Mayor and aldermen, and by the justices of the peace, churchcare,

wardens, &c., in the out-parts, that a

pattern to

all

London may be

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 They had no way to converse with any compassion. 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

affi-ont

the people

who were in the street

talking to the said families ; for which, or for their ill-treatment of the families,

of them whether

think seven or eight

were killed I know not say murdered or not, because 1

several places

should

;

;;

A Journal of the Plague Year

i8o

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

murder.

always, in the language of the law, called

But

they were

magistrates' instructions, or

not authorised by the 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 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, Nor do I remember that anybody whatever it was. 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 But I say the magistrates shall say no more to that. 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

A Journal of the Plague Year i8i The concern, also, of the magistrates for the them. 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, vet 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. 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 ;

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 v/ell 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

putting

the private injuries that were done by the in

execution must be put to the account of

the public benefit. It

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 eifectually 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.

house in Whitechapel 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 Want of breath, fear, anger, vexation, and all days. the other griefs 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

was

not.

However,

the

A Journal of the Plague Year 183 family were obliged to begin their quarantine anew on the report of the visitor 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. 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 1 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 judgment, and which I did verily believe would riot answer the end it was intended for ; but all the abatement I could get was only, that whereas the officer was appointed by xny Lord Mayor to continue two months, I should be ;

184

A Journal of the Plague Year

•obliged to hold it but three weeks, on condition never-

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. poor, unhappy gentlewoman, a substantial citizen's wife, was (if the story be true) murdered by one of He these creatures in Aldersgate Street, or that way. 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 When she saw he would near enough to help her. overtake her, she turned and gave him a thrust so forcibly, he being but weak, and pushed him down But very unhappily, she being so near, backward. 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 theless

A Journal of the Plague Year

185

had the plague, and why should not she have it as She was frighted enough before, being well as he ? but when she heard him say also young with child 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 " Why, Mr says he ;

his ,

leave of them.

They asked him,

where are you going ? "

" Going,"

"I have got the sickness, and shall die to-

morrow night."

'Tis easy to believe, though not to

were all in. The women and the man's daughters, which were but little describe,

the

consternation they

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 girls,

well as they could, locked themselves into their cham-

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 bers, 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

" Ay " says he, with all the seeming turns round calmness imaginable, " is it so with you all ? Are you :

A Journal of the Plague Year

all

disturbed at

and die there."

Why, then I'll e'en go home And so he goes immediately down-

me ?

The servant that had let him in goes down

stairs.

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 It door, and went out and flung the door after him. 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 Though the man was gone, it was great satisfaction. some time, nay, as I heard, some days before they renor did covered themselves of the hurry they were in 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 As shifted, and washed their clothes, and the like. 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 and even as it was a very great number did so, streets and offered all sorts of violence to those they met, even just as a mad dog runs on and bites at every one he nor can I doubt but that, should one of those meets 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

after him with a candle, but was afraid to

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 187 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

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 street, directly to the

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 ; they call it, that is, running westward, he reached the land not till he came about the Falcon stairs, where in, as

landing, and finding no people there,

being in the

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 night, he ran about the streets there,

;

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

may serve to confirm the many

which the distressed people falling into deliriums, and what we call light-headedness, were trequently 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 desperate

things

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 murmurIt would ings were very bitter against the thing itself. 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

and chairs, to prevent their doing 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 but as it was generally in the night and to prevent it always sudden when such attempts were made, the and even officers could not be at hand to prevent it

tied in their beds

themselves

hurt,

;

when any got out in the day, the officers appointed did not care to meddle with them, because, as they were be sure, when they were come

all grievously infected, to

more than ordinarily inwas one of the most dangerous things

to that height, so they were fectious, and it

that could be to touch them.

On the other hand, they

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 and, which was most perhaps half-an-hour or an hour 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 generally ran on, not

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 189 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 «ay, before they were, I

;

generally called Ware River, or Hackney River.

to those which were set down in the weekly bill, they

were indeed few

;

those whether they

nor could

known of any of

drowned themselves by accident

IQO or not.

A Journal of the Plague Year But I believe

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 and the like in other methods of self-destruction. 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 lost ;

There was

;

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 tliought 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

manner that every one of the house died. The last person lay dead on the floor, and, as it is supposed, had laid herself all along infected there in so terrible a

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 to die just before the fire ;

A Journal of the Plague Year 191 on, and had gone out of itself, not hurting the rest of

How

the house, though it was a slight timber house.

do not determine, but the citybeing to suffer severely the next year by fire, this year

true this might be I

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 it felt

disasters of that kind.

been frequently asked me, and I cannot say knew how to give a direct answer to it, how it came to pass that so many infected people apIt has

that I ever

peared 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 suchand-such infected houses. It

true that, as several physicians told

Mayor, the fury of the contagion was such particular times, and people sickened so fast

my Lord at

some

and died 80 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 ;

;

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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 For example, as was incapable of answering the end. 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 The magistrates would family were fled and gone. resent this, and charge the examiners with being remiss But by that means in their examination or inspection. 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.

A Journal of the Plague Year 193 Seeing then that we could come at the certainty ol things by no method but that of inquiry of the neigh-

bours 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.

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

his

house,

that is to say, having signs of the infection, but they

found 80 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 else-

where, many of those that so went out of those infected houses had the plague really upon them, though And some they might really think themselves sound. 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 N

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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 Iiad otherwise expected. This often was the reason that, as I have said, we

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 In Pettitill the people that were left were all dead. coat 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 The two heads of the there to fetch them away. 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 that

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

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 195 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 By this means he had free egress district or precinct. 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 thing 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 my opinion among my neighbours as to this shutting up the people in their houses in which we speaking

;

saw most evidently the

severities

that

were

used,

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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 Indeed, when they came had the power of judging. 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 demiquarantine 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

or weep, or wear black for one they did before ; no, nor so much as coffins for those that died ; so after a while

bell,

mourn

another, as

make

A Journal of the Plague Year 197 the fury of the infection appeared to be so increased 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

that,

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

open, windows stood 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 inhabitants ;

doors

shattering with the

were wind

left

;

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 excesses the passions of men carried them in this extremity of the distemper, and this part, I think, was as moving as the What could affect a man in his full power of rest. 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

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collection of alleys, courts, and passages in the I say, what could be Butcher Row in Whitechapel, 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 I cannot say what became of this poor man, hot iron. 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 The Exchange was not kept shut, indeed, but abated. The fires were lost they it was no more frequented. had been almost extinguished for some days by a very some of the smart and hasty rain. But that was not all physicians insisted that they were not only no benefit, This they made but injurious to the health of people. 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 I cannot give assuage the violence of the distemper. only a full account of their arguments on both sides this I remember, that they cavilled very much with

—

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 199 Some were for fires, but that they must one another. 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 or 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

observe

people abandoned

here,

that

when

say the

do not mean to what men call a religious despair, or a despair of their eternal state, but I mean a despair of their themselves

despair,

being able to escape the infection or to outlive the which, they saw, was so raging and so

plague,

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 irresistible

;

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A Journal of the Plague Year

August, and in the three first weeks in September, generally died in two or three days at furthest, and many the rery 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 my neighbourhood. it, and I could name several in 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 last weeks in

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 201 were fetched out to be buried ; the reason of which was not, as some hare 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 and as that it was with difficulty they were carried 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

how many bodies were then left.

am not certain

I am sure that ordi-

narily it was not so.

As I have mentioned how the people were brought into a condition to despair of life selves, so this

and abandon them-

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 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 come 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

;

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A Journal of the Plague Year

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 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

to the churches.

and others had not courage enough

to stand

it,

but

removed into the country as they found means for As then some parish churches were quite escape. 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 Parliacalled 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

ment

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

that our breaches are fomented,

ill

far

blood

from us

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 As the people who looked on things with before.

A Journal of the Plague Year 203 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 pre-

the communion of the Church of England, were now content to come to their parish churches, and to conform to the worship which judice had broken off from

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. enter into arguments to

I have no mind to move either or both sides to a

charitable compliance one with another.

probable such a discourse would be either suitable or successful ; the breaches seem rather not see that it

widen, and tend to a widening further, than to 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 to

closing,

;

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 lamented.

remains to be

could dwell a great while upon the calamities of and go on to describe the objects that appeared among us every day, the dreadful exI

this dreadful time,

travagancies 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

A Journal of the Plague Year

204

But after I have told you, as I have above, that one man, being tied in his bed, and finding to themselves.

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 re;

more lively to the him a more perfect idea of a com-

present the misery of these times reader, or to give

plicated distress ? I must acknowledge that this time was terrible, that was sometimes at the end of all my resolutions, and that I had not the courage that I had at the beginning. I

As the drove

extremity brought other

people abroad,

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 ;

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 205 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 burse out of the alley, most of them women, making a dreadful

clamour, mixed or compounded of screeches, cry-

ings, 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

went in it could not well turn again, and could go in 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 at that time, for the plague raged for six or seven weeks beyond all that I have expressed, and came even to such a it

but a little way.

;

height that, in the extremity,

they began to break I have spoken so

into that excellent order of which

much

in behalf of the magistrates, namely, that no dead bodies were seen in the streets 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 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 natiit

;

2o6

A Journal of the Plague Year

and dreamers of dreams, 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,

vities

;

not able to

foretell

their own nativities.

own fate or to calculate Some have been critical enough

their

to say that every one of them died.

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,

From August the 22nd to the zgth

A Journal of the Plague Year 207 weeks, one week with another, and a proportion for The confusion several weeks both before and after.

among the people, especially within the city at that time, was inexpressible.

The terror was so great at

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 last that the

recovered, and some of them dropped down when they have been carrying the bodies even at the pit side, and and this confusion was just ready to throw them in 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 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

bodies ; but that,

;

— —

A Journal of the Plague Year

2o8

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 Provisions were always to be had in full plenty, ( I ) and the price not much raised neither, hardly worth .

speaking.

No dead bodies lay unburied or uncovered and walked from one end of the city to another, no funeral or sign of it was to be seen in the daytime, (2.)

;

if one

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

am assured was utterly false at 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 for this I am to nothing at all in the case in hand 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 I say, to the number of inhabitants as was anywhere I am sure that there were no dead bodies remained that is to say, none that the proper officers unburied 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 for it is most certain they were Alley, is nothing As to the first buried as soon as they were found. 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 unburied, which I

;

least, if it

;

—

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 209 ( I.)

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 And about the bedearer, no, not all that season. ginning 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 but this was indeed alleged by people with bread some families, viz., that their maid-servants, 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. ;

all

this dreadful visitation there were, as I

said before, but two pest-houses

have

made use of, viz., one

in the fields beyond Old Street and one in Westminster

was there any compulsion used in carrying 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 v/as 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 neither

people thither.

;

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 of errands to those places, so that

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A Journal of the Plague Year

fetch necessaries to the famihes where they lived, and

who in that case, if they came home sicic, 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

56 buried in all at the London

59 at that of Westminster. By having more pest-houses I am far from meaning Had the shutting a forcing all people into such places. 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 the 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 pest-house, and

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 On the other or examiners could have known of it. 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 The magistrates had heard them talk of it often. 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 It must not of their beds and out of their dwellings.

—

A Journal of the Plague Year 211 have been my Lord Mayor's officers, but an army of 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 yiolence and terror, such as dragging the sick out of officers that

;

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, their houses, or obliging

as I

have said, the better sort of people

first

took the

alarm, and began to hurry themselves out of town.

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

;

212

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 resolution

place and for the doing justice on

all

occasions

;

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 sheriffs,

&c., held

councils every

Mayor, day more or less,

making such dispositions as they found needful for

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 v/ere conby the Lord Mayor and Court of

tinually published

Aldermen against such. Also

all

constables

and churchwardens were en-

joined 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

plundered and laid waste by the multitude. Nor were the magistrates deficient in performing their part as boldly as they promised it

country of being

for

my Lord Mayor and the sheriffs were continually

the streets, and at places of the greatest danger.

A Journal of the Plague Year 213 and though they did not care for haying 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 and if any of them were sick or they were in v/aiting 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 sheriffs' officers or sergeants were appointed to receive orders from the respective aldermen in their turn, so that justice was executed in all cases In the next place, it was one without interruption. ;

of their particular cares to see the orders for the freedom of the markets observed, and in this part either the Lord Mayor or fine 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

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A Journal of the Plague Year

keep their ovens going constantly, on pain of J_osing tjie privileges l)FaTreeman of the city of London.

By this means hrfatJAtAajt-aJ-wayc tn hf harl ip plffltyj and provisions and as cheap as usual, as I said above 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 if both dismal and dangerous, were done in the night any diseased bodies were removed, or dead bodies buried, and or infected clothes burnt, it was done in the night 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 everySo that in thing was covered and closed before day. 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 Journal of the Plague Year 215 a merciful disposition of God, that as the plague began

one end of the town

first,

as has been

obseryed at

large, so it proceeded progressively to other parts, and

did not come on this way, or eastward, till it had spent 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 Martinin-the-Fields, and in Westminster. The latter end of July it decreased in those parishes and coming east, its

;

increased prodigiously in Cripplegate, St Sepulchre's,

St James's, Clerkenwell, and St Bride's and Aldersgate.

While it was in all these parishes, the city and

Southwark side of the water, and all Stepney, Whitechapel, 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 all

the parishes of the

among us. Even when the north and north-west suburbs were fully infected, viz., Cripplegate, Clerkenwell, Bishops-

gate, and Shoreditch, yet still all the rest were tolerably

well. bill

For example, from 25th July to ist August the

stood thus of all diseases :

St Giles, Cripplegate

554 250

St Sepulchre

Clerkenwell

103

Bishopsgate

ii6

Shoreditch

no Carry forward

1133

2i6

A Journal of the Plague Year Brought forward

1133

Stepney parish

127

Aldgate

Whitechapel

104

All the ninety-seven parishes within the walls All the parishes in Southwark

228 205

Total

1889

So that, in short, there died more that week in the two parishes of Cripplegate and St Sepulchre 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 But stirring there walk in the middle of the streets. 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. the distemper But then the case altered quite 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 In the High to be shut, and the streets desolate. 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 ;

——

—

A Journal of the Plague Year 217 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

456 140

St Giles-in-the-Fields

...... ....

Clerkenwell St Sepulchre

77 214

St Leonard, Shoreditch

183

Stepney parish

716

Aldgate

623

Whitechapel

532

In the ninety-seven parishes within the walls

1493

In the eight parishes on Soutbwark side

1636

6060

Total

Here is a strange change of things indeed, and a 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,

sad change

as you see, much better ;

and as the people disappeared and the

here, they began to look abroad again there ;

next week or two altered it still more ; that is, more to the encouragement of the other part of the town.

example :

For

— 2i8

—

;

A Journal of the Plague Year

From the 19th of September to the 26th St Giles, Cripplegate

277

St Giles-in-the-Fields

119

Clerkenwell St Sepulchre

St Leonard, Shoreditch

Stepney parish Aldgate Whitechapel

....

193 146

616

......

In the ninety-seven parishes within the walls In the eight parishes on Southwark side

Total

496 346 1268 1390

4927

..... ..... .... ...... .... ...... ....... ......

From the 26th of September to the 3rd of October St Giles, Cripplegate

St Giles-in-the-Fields

Clerkenwell

St Sepulchre

St Leonard, Shoreditch Stepney parish Aldgate Whitechapel

In the ninety-seven parishes within the walls In the eight parishes on Southwark side .

Total

196 95 48 137 128 674 372 328 1149 1201

4328

And now the misery of the city, and of the said east and south parts,

was complete indeed for, as you upon those parts, ;

see, the weight of the distemper lay

that is to say, the city, the eight parishes over the river,

with the parishes of Aldgate, Whitechapel, 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 ;

A Journal of the Plague Year 219 of his observations, says that in one

week there died

twelve thousand people, and that particularly there died though I do not remember four thousand in one night that there ever was any such particular night so remark;

ably 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 de-

scription 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 Ratclilt 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, I verily believe, carried the plague amongst them there, perhaps sooner than they would otherwise

and, as

have had it.

Here also I ought to leave a further remark for the use of posterity, concerning

the manner of people's

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 infecting one another ;

not be concealed.

By the well I mean such as had received the con-

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A Journal of the Plague Year

tagion, and had it really upon them, and in their blood,

yet did not show the consequences of it in their coun-

tenances ; nay, even were not sensible of it themselves,

many were not for several days. These breathed death in every place, and upon everybody who came as

near them ; nay, their yery clothes retained the infec-

hands would infect the things they touched,

tion, their

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

the utmost

prevent the spreading of the plague by

human vigilance, viz., that it is impossible

know the infected people from the sound, or that the infected people should perfectly know themselves. to

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

A Journal of the Plague Year 221 1 never met with before or since. How far it may He had a wound in his be depended on I know not. leg, and wheneyer 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 This was indeed a faithful break up the company. 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 con-

verse with, for that the contagion was in the

have seen them

air.

and surprises on " I have never come near any infected this account. *' I have conversed body," says the disturbed person with none but sound, healthy people, and yet I have in strange agitations

;

;;

222

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 in the air. 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 relations

the

when they were

consequence, but the

infected.

same

that

their wives

And what was is

the

conse-

quence 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 judgments 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 :

A Journal of the Plague Year 223 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 being under the it at all the less a judgment for its 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 judgment, 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

no apparent extraordinary

occasion for supernatural operation, but the ordinary

made Heaven usually directs

course of things appears sufficiently armed, and capable of all the effects that

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 by a contagion.

224

A Journal of the Plague Year

such, and the infection was received so imperceptibly, that the most exact caution could not secure us while

—

But I must be allowed to believe and I in the place. have so many examples fresh in my memory to convince me of it, that I think none can resist their evidence 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, These are known authorities for this and the like. great foundation point, that it went on and proceeded from person to person and from house to house, and no In the first house that was infected there otherwise.

—

neighbour, hearing the mistress died four persons. of the first house was sick, went to visit her, and went

home and gave the distemper to her family, and died,

minister, called to pray person in the second house, was said to sicken immediately, and die with several more Then the physicians began to consider, in his house.

and

all

her household.

with the

first

sick

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 for they did not at first

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

A Journal of the Plague Year 225 from them, that it would be impossible to put a stop to it.

Here

of the physicians agreed with

the opinion

my observation afterwards, namely, that the danger was spreading insensibly, for the those that

sick,

could infect none but

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 they were infected till they found, to their unspeakable surprise, the tokens come out upon them alter 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 60 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

visitation never perceived that

;

name a few.

A certain citizen who had lived safe and untouched

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A Journal of the Plague Year

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, till

was, in his talk of how secure he was, how cautious he had been, and how he had never come near any Says another citizen, a neighbour of his, sick body. 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 "That is true," says the hour, and dead the next." 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 "That is true," says he; "I do not think score. myself secure, but I hope I have not been in company with any person that there has been any danger in." " Was not you at the " No ? " says his neighbour. it

Gracechurch Street with Mr " Yes," says the first, " I was ; but there was nobody there that we had any Upon which his neighbour reason to think dangerous." but this said no more, being unwilling to surprise him 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, Upon which his neighbour still was silent, is he?" 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 Bull

Head Tavern

the night before last ? "

;

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

A Journal of the Plague Year 227 by shutting up the sick or renioying 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 ali 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 observation.

physicians abroad seems to be that

The opinion of may lie dormant

in the spirits, or in the blood-vessels, a very consider-

able time.

those

Why else do they exact a quarantine of

who come into their harbours and ports from

suspected places ?

Forty days

one would think,

is,

too long for nature to struggle with such an

enemy

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 as

this,

;

be much afraid of them afterward, but rather think they were fortified the better, having not been vulner-

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

able when the enemy was in their

;

as a prescription, viz., that the best physic against

A Journal of the Plague Year

228

I know people is to run away from it. 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

the plague

;

thousands in the town, whose carcasses 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

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 begins.

greatest part of the dangerous people that belong to

them

;

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

A Journal of the Plague Year 229 prudently and to their own advantage disposed of, and the wealthy inhabitants disposing of themselves, and of

and children, the

their servants

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

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

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to be utterly ignorant of their own condition ; for if they really knew their circumstances to be such as indeed they were, they must have been a kind of wilful murderers if they would hare 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 ill, 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 and would not suffer his wife, a nurse from abroad 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 ;

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 231 suppose all distempers do, operated in a different manner on differing constitutions ; some were immediately over-

whelmed 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

— mean I

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 unpcrceived by others, or by themselves, communicated death to those tliey conversed with, the

;

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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 either person is evident from its being known to two sorts of cases which frequently happened at that and there is hardly anybody living who was in time London during the infection but must have known as

;

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 destruc-

whole families, which they would have been far from doing if they had the least apprehensions of their being unsound and dangerous themselves. 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 judgment, 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

tion of their

A Journal of the Plague Year 233 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 last

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 carcasses, 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

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,

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A Journal of the Plague Year

serpents,

very

and

much

devils, horrible to

question

the truth

But this I and we had no remember, to make

behold. of,

microscopes at that time, as I 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

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

A Journal of the Plague Year 235 house. Then it was hushed, and we were perfectly easy as to the public for a great while ; for there were

no more entered plague

till

the

in the weekly bill to be dead of 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

Now the question seems to lie thus

every way.

Where lay the seeds of the infection all this while ?

How came

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

— 236

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 bills

that time, and I believe upon very good grounds, that

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

the fraud

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 For example, in the months time of the infection. 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

Not that the hundred a week of other distempers. 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 preFor example vent the shutting up their houses. :

Dead of other diseases beside the plague—

From the i8th July to the 2Sth

— A Journal of the Plague Year 237 Now it was rot 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 :

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A Journal of the Plague Year

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 Likewise, as I observed numbers of that distemper. 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 tell 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 not be perhaps first it came in, and which might ;

;

opened, or at least not fully, or in the clothes of the infected person ; for I cannot think that anybody could be seized with the contagion in a fatal and

first

mortal degree for nine weeks together, and support his state of health so well as even not to discover it to themselves ;

yet if

were

stronger in favour of what I

the

infection

retained

so, the

argument is the

am saying, namely, that 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

A Journal of the Plague Year 239 Immediately she fancies the plague was in the pew, whispers her notion or suspicion to the next, then It immediately took with rises and goes out of the pew. and every one of them, the next, and so to them all and of the two or three adjoining pews, got up and went out of the church, nobody knowing what it was smell.

;

offended them, or from whom. This immediately filled everybody's mouths with one preparation or other, such as the old women 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 any-

thing full of people, there would be such a mixture of it was much more strong, though perhaps not so wholesome, than if you were

smells at the entrance that

In a going into an apothecary's or druggist's shop. word, the whole church was like a smelling-bottle ; in one corner it was all perfumes ; in another, aromatics, in another, balsamics, and variety of drugs and herbs 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 meetinghouses were much thinner of people than at other times ;

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 before that they used to be.

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

240

A Journal of the Plague Year

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

company to come into their houses, or near them, at least not so near them as to be within in promiscuous

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 241 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

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 Suppose it was burying the dead, or attendor beg." ing 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 £oor was that which broiight 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

furiously as

;

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A Journal of the Plague Year

them, I mean the labouring poor, while they were all well and getting money than there was before, but as lavish, as extraragant, and as thoughtless for to-morrow 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 eye-witness 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 cf 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 plaisters, and such things and the last to lar.ce and dress the as they wanted 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

A Journal of the Plague Year 243 knew any one of them that miscarried, which I mention for the encouragement of others in case of the like dis-

and doubtless, if they that give to the poor lend 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 tress;

to the

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 and though I could supported and subsisted by it 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 nay, relief of the poor of this distressed, afflicted city 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 hands 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,

—

A Journal of the Plague Year

244

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 conse-

quences 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 alreadv 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

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 nor would the people have been there did at Naples ;

able to have helped or assisted one another.

For it must be observed that where the plague was in

its

full

miserable,

force, there indeed the people

and the

But a little before presently after sort

of people ;

consternation it

was

were very

inexpressible.

reached even to that place, or

was gone, they were quite another and I cannot but acknowledge that

—

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 245 common temper of man 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 there was too much of that

kind to be found

the state-Tjf' 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 jiations 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 their manufactures and merchandise, place abroad that is to say, of our growth, would not be touched They were as much afraid of our goods abroad. and indeed they had as they were of our people 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,

A Journal of the Plague Year

246

they were not so very rigid.

In the first there was no 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 There was a of their ports, much less to unlade. 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 This, I believe, was in part carrying them on shore. but it is not at all true, though I do not affirm it unlikely, seeing the danger was really very great, the obstruction

all ;

;

infection being so violent in

London.

was carried into 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 I heard, likewise, that the plague

those countries by

died of it there, but it was not confirmed.

;;

A Journal of the Plague Year 247 On the other hand, though the Spaniards and Portuguese were so shy of us,

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 ist 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 Whitechapel, and but two in all 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 nothing in the carriage. The plague was itself

lost

very terrible, and the distress of the people very great,

you may observe of what I have saidBut the rumour was infinitely greater, and it must not be won-

dered 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 ;

;;

248

A Journal of the Plague Year

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 I say they could not believe these things

the like.

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 thou-

sand in a week, &c., just as we have had it reported London that there was a plague in the city of Naples

1656, in which there died 20,000 people of which I have had very good satisfaction

in the year in a day,

that it was utterly false.

But these extravagant reports were very prejudicial and injurious in themselves, for it was a long time after the plague was quite

to our trade, as well as unjust

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

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, all

that is to say, their goods confiscated, and ships also for if it was true that our manufactures as well as our

A Journal of the Plague Year 249 people were infected, and that it was dangerous to touch or to open and receiye 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, v/hich, 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 But I done, I mean of that kind, by those people. 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 county and of every considerable town necessary, I say, by this means the plague was first or last spread all over the

kingdom, as well

London as in all the cities and

towns, especially in the trading manufacturing towns and seaports ; so that, first or last, all the congreat

siderable places in England were visited more or less, and the kingdom of Ireland in some places, but not so universally.

How

fared with the people in Scot-

land I had no opportunity to inquire. It is to be observed that while the plague continued

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 counties 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 ai 80 violent in

250

A Journal of the Plague Year

the plague spread itself every in

London to such

September, so

all,

way after it had been

a degree as

was in August and

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 out knew nothing of an infection, 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 in-

when they went or at least

fection lying, as I

may say, all below Bridge, nobody

durst appear in business

for

while.

But

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,* 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.

Two particular trades were carried on by watercarriage little

all

the while of the infection, and that with

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. * 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.

A Journal of the Plague Year 251 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 Newcastleupon-Tyne, without which the city would have been greatly distressed ; private houses

and

for

not in the streets only, but in

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

252

A Journal of the Plague Year and rooms hot was a means to

that to keep the houses

propagate the distemper, which was a fermentation and heat already in the blood ; that it was known to spread

hot weather, and abate in cold ; and that all contagious distempers are the worse for heat, because the contagion was nourished and gained strength in hot weather, and was,

and increase

therefore they alleged

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

quick and

heat being

not of the same

tending not to nourish but to consume and dissipate all those noxious fumes which the other kind of heat rather exhaled and stagkind,

but

fierce,

nated than separated and burnt up.

Besides,

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

think with good reason, and the experience of the citizens confirmed it, many houses which had constant fires kept in the rooms haying I

must confess,

A Journal of the Plague Year 253 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 made our whole family so, more than would

believe

otherwise have been.

But I return to the coals as a no

little

trade.

It was with

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 coalsellers, furnished, to

as low as Deptford

go down and take out the coals and Greenwich, and some farther

down. Others delivered great quantities of coals

par-

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 ticular places, where the ships

away, after the ships which brought them were gone, so that the seamen had no communication with the river-men, nor «o much as came near one another.

Yet

all

this

caution could

the distemper getting say,

not effectually prevent

among the

colliery, that

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.

— 254

A Journal of the Plague Year

where, especially at Newcastle and at Sunderland, it carried off a great number of people. Th^ 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 a chald.er; but it soon abated dear, even as high as 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 The fires were ordered thus five days. One at the Custom House, one at Billingsgate, one at Queenhithe, and one at the Three Cranes ; one in Blackfriars, and one at the gate of Bridewell ; one at the corner of Leadenhall 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, I do not and one at the entrance into Bow Church. 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.

A Journal of the Plague Year 255 It remains to give some account of the state of trade

home in England

during this dreadful time, and

he man ufactures and the first breaking out of the infection there was, as it is easy to suppose, a very great fright among the people, and consequently i general stop of trade, except in provisions and necessaries of life ; and even in those things, as there was a yast^number of people fled and a very great number always sFck, 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. FlesTT'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 Whitechapel Bars was sold at 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 particularly as

trade

relates to

the city.

the

;

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 diflicult, a general stop -ofali

those manufactures followed of course which were

usually brought

for exportation ;

and though some-

times 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

;

256

A Journal of the Plague Year

exportation in most parts of England, except in some out-ports and even that was soon stopped, for they ;

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 Londoners' hands, was stopped at once, all

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 of 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 ot 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

and were distressed, so nobody perished for want, at least that the magistrates had any notice given

those as afterwards

fell

sick

that it may be safely averred that

them of. This stagnation of our manufacturing_trade.jn the country would have put the people there to much greater difficulties, but that the master - workmen, and others, to the uttermost of their stocks and strength, kept on making their goods to keep the poor at work, believing that as 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 Done but those masters that were rich could do thus. clothiers

A Journal of the Plague Year 257 4iQd that many were poor

and not able, the manufacEngland suffered greatly, and the poor were pinched all over EnglanA-by the calamity of the

turing trade in

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 yisitation. It is incredible what a trade this made all over the whole kingdom, to make good the want and ;

supply that loss ; so that, in short,

facturing hands in the nation

were

set

all

the

manu-

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

sorts of

goods

;

make a quick vent for all was known such

so that there never

over England for the time as was in the seven years after the plague, and after the fire of

a trade all first

London. It

remains now that

should say something of the

merciful part of this terrible judgment.

The last week

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 in

258

A Journal of the Plague Year

of all diseases, I upbraided him with it, and asked him what he had made his judgment 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 con-

tagion had been as it

was two weeks ago ;

for then

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 And, observe it from me, the next bill will miscarry. 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 fdll 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 inhad 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 fection

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 di^d, 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 for, in more, and 50,000 more would have sickened a word, the whole mass of people began to sicken, and it looked as if none would escape. ;

A Journal of the Plague Year 259 But this remark of my friend's appeared more evident 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 141 3 more, and yet it was seen plainly that there was abundance of people sick, nay, abundance more than ordinary, and abundance fell sick in a

;

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 unaccountI 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

able and, as

sick, but only he alleged tliat so

sick did not die ;

many of those that fell

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

A Journal of the Plague Year

26o

of death not left out of the circumstance 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 infection 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, Also, the insufferable torment of even to the last. 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

great

many

that

thus cast

off their

cautions

more deeply still, and though many escaped, and at least it had this public misyet many died chief attending it, that it made the decrease of burials slower than it would otherwise have been. For as suffered

;

through the city, and 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. this

notion

ran

like lightning

people's heads were possessed with

A Journal of the Plague Year 261 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

the utmost caution in their ordinary conduct, notwithstanding the decrease of the distemper, terrifying

still

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

would not be persuaded but that the bitterit 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, terrors, and

ness of death was past ; and

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 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 provitheir

dence, 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 But it had another effect, which they more cautious.

A Journal of the Plague Year

262

could not check ; for as the

rumour had spread

first

not over the city only, but into the country, it had the like effect,

and the people were so tired with being London, and so eager to come back,

so long from

that they flocked to

town without

fear

forecast,

and began to show themselves in the streets, as if all It was indeed surprising to see the danger was over. 1800 a it, for though there died still from 1000 to week, yet the people flocked to town as it all had been well. The consequence of this was, that the bills increased and if I again 400 the very first week in November might believe the physicians, there was above 3000 ;

fell

sick that week, most of them

new-comers, loo.

One John Cock, a barber in St Martin's-le-Grand, was an eminent example of this ; return

of the people when

the

mean of the hasty 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, tv/o apprentices, and a maidservant. He had not been 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 farailvs and within about five days they all died, except one ;

that

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

wc had reason to expect

for the malignit}'', as I have

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 some sharp frosts;

said,

A Journal of the Plague Year 263 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 "th&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 wasjio_want of tenants for them. I wish I could say that as the city had a new face, 80 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 that were heartily thankful to that Sovereign Hand that had protected them in it would be very uncharitable to so dangerous a time 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 tound 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 v/ere before ; but I will not carry it so far neither.

It would take up a his-

tory 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,

channel as they did before.

and

run in their

own

264 as

A Journal of the Plague Year

Some parts of England were now infected as violently London had been the cities of Norwich, Peter;

borough, 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.

true

we could

not pretend to

coming to London, because it was impossible to know them asunder, so, after many con-

forbid their people

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 sultations, the

the people of

London thought themselves so plague-

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 free

prevail

;

among people that they ran all together proNot the Mahometans, who,

miscuously, sick and well.

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

A Journal of the Plague Year 265 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 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 For it is to be poor, of whom there were very many. 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 People supposed the main charity were now shut. 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 left, neitlier was

;

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

266

A Journal of the Plague Year

great while.

As for the Dutch, th» misunderstandings

between our court and them had broken out into a war the year before, so that our trade that way was wholly interrupted but Spain and Portugal, Italy and Barbary, as also Hamburg and all the ports in the Baltic, these were all shy of us a great while, and would not restore trade with us for many months. The distemper sweeping away such multitudes, as I have observed, many if not all the out-parishes were ;

obliged to

make new burying-grounds, besides

that

have mentiofi^'d'in Bunhill Fields, some of which were continued, and remain in use to this day. But others were left off, and which, I confess, I mention with some reflection, being converted into other uses or built upon afterwards, the dead bodies were disturbed, abused, dug up again, some even before the flesh of them was perished from the bones, and removed like dung or rubbish to other places. Some of those which

came within the reach of my observation are as follow 1.

;

A piece of ground beyond Goswell Street, near

Mount Mill, being some of the remains

of the old

lines or fortifications of the city, where abundance were

buried promiscuously from the parishes of Aldersgate,

Clerkenwell, and even out of the city. as I take it,

This ground, was since made a physic garden, and after

that hcTs been built upon. 2.

A piece of ground just over the Black Ditch, as

called, at the end of Holloway Lane, in Shoreditch parish. It has been since made a yard for keeping hogs, and for other ordinary uses, but is quite out of use as a burying-ground. 3. The upper end of Hand Alley, in Bishopsgate Street, which was then a green field, and was taken in particularly for Bishopsgate parish, though many of the carts out of the city brought their dead thither also, particularly out of the parish of St Ali-hallows on the

was then

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 267 much

Wall.

This place

regret.

It was, as I remember, about two or three years

cannot mention without

was ceased that Sir Robert Clayton came to be possessed of the ground. It was reported, how true I know not, that it fell to the king for want

after the plague

of heirs, all those who had any right to it being carried

Robert Clayton obBut however he came by it, certain it is the ground was let out to build on, or built upon, by his order. The first house built upon it was a large fair house, still standing, which faces the street or way now called Hand Alley, which, though called an alley, is as wide as The houses in the same row with that a street. house northward are built on the very same ground where the poor people were buried, and the bodies, on opening the ground for the foundations, were dug up, some of them remaining so plain to be seen that the women's skulls were distinguished by their long hair, and of others the flesh was not quite perished so that the people began to exclaim loudly against it, and some suggested that it might endanger a return of the contagion ; after which the bones and bodies, as fast as they came at them, were carried to another part of the same ground and thrown all together into a deep pit, dug on purpose, which now is to be ofF by the pestilence, and that Sir

tained a grant of it from

King Charles II.

known in that it is not built on, but is a passage to another house at the upper end of Rose Allov, just against the door of a meeting-house, which has been built there

sadoed square ;

many years since from the

;

and the ground

pali-

of the passage, in a little there lie the bones and remains of near two

oflF

rest

thousand bodies, carried by the dead carts to their grave in that one year. 4. Besides this, there was a piece of ground in Moorfields, by the going into the street which is now called

268

A Journal of the Plague Year

Old Bethlem, which was enlarged much, though not wholly taken in on the same occasion. \_N.B. The author of this journal lies buried in that very ground, being at his own desire, his sister having been buried there a few years before. 3 5. Stepney parish, extending itself from the east part of London to the north, even to the very edge of Shoreditch Churchyard, had a piece of ground taken in to bury their dead close to the said churchyard, and which for that very reason was left open, and is since, I suppose, taken into the same churchyard. And they had also two other burying-places in Spitalfields, one where since a chapel or tabernacle has been built for ease to this great parish, and another in Petticoat Lane. There were no less than five other grounds made use of for the parish of Stepney at that time, one where now stands the parish church of St Paul, Shadwell, and the other where now stands the parish church of St John's at Wapping, both which had not the names of parishes at that time, but were belonging to Stepney

—

parish. I

could name

many more, but these coming within

my particular knowledge, the circumstance, I thought, made it of use to record them. From the whole, it may be observed that they were obliged in this time of distress to take in new burying-grounds in most of the out-parishes for laying the prodigious numbers of people

which died in so short a space of time ; but why care was not taken to keep those places separate from ordinary uses, that so the bodies might rest undisturbed, that I cannot answer for, and must confess I think it was wrong. Who were to blame I know not. I should have mentioned that the Quakers had at that time also a burying- ground set apart to their use, and which they still make use of; and they had also a

A Journal of the Plague Year 269 dead-cart to fetch their dead from their and the famous Solomon Eagle, who, as I mentioned before, had predicted the plague as a judgment, and ran naked through the streets, telling the people that it was come upon them to punish them for their sins, had his own wife died the very next day of the plague, and was carried, one of the first in the Quakers' dead-cart, to their new burying-ground. I might have thronged this account with many more remarkable things which occurred in the time of the infection, and particularly what passed between the Lord Mayor and the Court, which was then at Oxford, and what directions were from time to time received from the Government for their conduct on this critical occasion. But really the Court concerned themselves so little, and that little they did was of so small import, that I do not see it of much moment to mention any part of it here, except that of appointing a monthly fast in the city and the sending the royal charity to the relief of the poor, both which I have mentioned particular

houses

;

before.

Great was the reproach thrown on those physicians

who left their patients during the sickness, and now they came to town again nobody cared to employ them. They were called deserters, and frequently bills were set up upon their doors and written, " Here is a doctor to be let," so that several of those physicians were fain for a while to sit still and look about them, or at least remove their dwellings, and set up in new places and among new acquaintance. The like was the case with the clergy, whom the people were indeed very abusive to, writing verses and scandalous reflections upon them, setting upon the church-door, " Here is

"to be sold," which was worse. It was not the least of our misfortunes, that with our

a pulpit to be let," or sometimes,

270

A Journal of the Plague Year

infection, when it ceased, there did not cease the spirit

of strife and contention, slander and reproach, which was really the great troubler of the nation's peace before. It was said to be the remains of the old animosities, which had so lately involved us all in blood and disorder.

But as the

late

Act of Indemnity had

laid

asleep the quarrel itself, so the Government had recom-

mended family and personal peace upon all

occasions

to the whole nation.

But it could not be obtained, and particularly after the ceasing of the plague in London, when any one that had seen the conditi jn which the people had been

and how they caressed one another at that time, promised to have more charity for the future, and to raise no more reproaches ; I say, any one that had seen them then would have thought they would have come together with another spirit at last. But, I say, The quarrel remained ; the it could not be obtained. Church and the Presbyterians were incompatible. As soon as the plague was removed, the Dissenting ousted ministers who had supplied the pulpits which were deserted by the incumbents retired ; they could expect no other but that they should immediately fall upon them and harass them with their penal laws, accept their preaching v/hile they v/ere sick, and persecute them as soon as they were recovered again ; this even we that were of the Church thought was very hard, and could by no means approve of it. But it was the Government, and we could say nothing to hinder it ; we could only say it was not our doing, and we could not answer for it. in,

On the other hand, the Dissenters reproaching those ministers of the Church with going away and deserting

abandoning the people in their danger, and when they had most need of comfort, and the like, this we could by no means approve, for all men their charge,

A Journal of the Plague Year 271 have not the same faith and the same courage, and the Scripture commands us to judge the most favourably and according to charity. plague is a formidable enemy, and is armed with terrors that every man is not sufficiently fortified to resist or prepared to stand the shock against. It is very certain that a great many of the clergy who were in circumstances to do it withdrew and fled for the

safety of their lives ;

but

'tis

true also that a great

many of them stayed, and many of them fell in the calamity and in the discharge of their duty.

some of the Dissenting turned-out minisand their courage is to be commended and highly valued, but these were not abundance; it cannot be said that they all stayed, and that none retired into the country, any more than it can be said of the Church clergy that they all went away. Neither did all those that went awav go without substituting curates and others in their places, to do the offices needful and to visit the sick, as far as it was practicable so that, upon the whole, an allowance of charity might have been made on both sides, and we should have considered that such a time as this of 1665 is not to be paralleled in history, and that it is not the stoutest courage that will always support men in such cases. I had not said this, but had rather chosen to record the courape and religious zeal of those of both sides, who did hazard themselves for the service of the poor people in their distress, without remembering that any failed in their duty on either side. But the wint of temper It

true

ters stayed,

;

among us has made the

contrary to this

necessary,

some that stayed not only boasting too much of themselves, but reviling those that fled, branding them with cowardice, deserting their flocks, and acting the part of the hireling, and the Hke. I recommend it to the charity of all good people to look back and reflect duly

272

A Journal of the Plague Year

upon the

of the time, and whoever does so not an ordinary strength that could It was not like appearing in the head of

terrors

will see that

support it. an army or charging a body of horse in the field, but it was charging Death itself on his pale horse ; to stay was indeed to die, and it could be esteemed nothing less,

especially as things appeared at the latter end of

August and the beginning of September, and as there was reason to expect them at that time; for no man expected, and I dare say believed, that the distemper would take so sudden a turn as it did, and fall immediately 2000 in a week, when there was such a prodigious number of people sick at that time as it was known there was ; and then it was that many shifted away that had stayed most of the time before. Besides, if God gave strength to some more than to others, was it to boast of their ability to abide the stroke, and upbraid those that had not the same gift and support, or ought not they rather to have been humble and thankful if they were rendered more useful than their brethren ? I

think

such

men,

ought to be recorded to the honour of

well

clergy as

physicians,

surgeons,

apothecaries, magistrates, and officers of every kind, as also all

useful

people

who ventured their lives in

discharge of their duty, as most certainly

all

such as

stayed did to the last degree, and several of all these

kinds did not only venture but lose their lives on that sad occasion. I

was once making a list of all such, I mean of all

those professions and employments I call it, in the way of their sible for a private

particulars.

clergymen, surgeons,

who thus died, as

duty ; but it was impos-

man to come at a certainty in the

I only remember that there died sixteen

two aldermen,

five

physicians,

the

and

liberties

within

city

thirteen

before

the

A Journal of the Plague Year 273 beginning of September. before, the tion,

people,

great

can I

crisis

But this being, as I said and extremity of the infec-

complete

think there

died

list.

inferior

six-and-forty constables

and head-boroughs in the two parishes of Stepney and Whitechapel but I could not carry my list on, for when the violent rage of the distemper in September came upon us, it drove us out of all measures. Men They did then no more die by tale and by number. might put out a weekly bill, and call them seven or 'tis certain they eight thousand, or what they pleased died by heaps, and were buried by heaps, that is to And if I might believe some say, without account. people, who were more abroad and more converthough I was public sant with those things than I enough for one that had no more business to do than I had, I say, if I may believe them, there was not many less buried those first three weeks in September However the others aver than 20,000 per week. ;

;

—

the

truth of

it,

public account ;

yet I

rather choose to keep to the

seven and eight thousand per

week

enough to make good all that I have said of the terror of those times and it is much to the satisfaction of me that write, as well as those that read, to be able to say that everything is set down with moderation, and rather within compass than beyond it. is

;

Upon all these accounts, I say, I could wish, when we were recovered, our conduct had been more distinguished for charity and kindness in remembrance of

the past calamity, and not so much a valuing ourselves upon our boldness in staying, as if all men were cowards that fly from the hand of God, or that those who stay do not sometimes owe their courage to their ignorance and despising the hand of their Maker, which is a criminal kind of desperation, and not a true courage. I cannot but leave it upon record that the civil

A Journal of the Plague Year

274

such

officers,

constables,

head-boroughs.

Lord

Mayor's and sheriffs'-men, as also parish officers, whose business it was to take charge of the poor,

much courage as work was attended with more hazards, and lay more among the poor, who were more subject to be infected, and in the most pititul plight when they were taken with the did their duties in general with as

any, and perhaps with more, because their

But then it must be added to that a great number of them died indeed it was scarce possible it

infection.

;

should be otherwise. I

have not said one word here about the physic

or preparations that we ordinarily made use of on this terrible

occasion

— mean we I

that

went frequently

abroad up and down street, as I did ; much of this was talked of in the books and bills of our quack It doctors, of whom I have said enough already. may, however, be added, that the College of Physicians were daily publishing several preparations,

which

they had considered of in the process of their practice, and which being to be had in print, I avoid repeating

them for that reason.

One thing I could not help observing, what befell one of the quacks, who published that he had a most excellent preservative against the plague, which whothem should never be infected or This man, who, we may reasonably suppose, did not go abroad without some of this excellent preservative in his pocket, yet was taken by the distemper, and carried off in two or three days. I am not of the number of the physic-haters or physic-despisers on the contrary, I have often mentioned the regard I had to the dictates of my particular friend Dr Heath but yet I must acknowledge ever

kept

about

liable to infection.

;

made

use

observed, to

little

keep

or nothing, except, as I have preparation of strong scent to

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 275 have ready, in case I met with anything of offensive smells, or went too near any burying-place or dead body. Neither did I do, what I know some did, keep the spirits always high and hot with cordials and wine, and such things, and which, as I observed, one learned physician used iiimself so much to as that he could not leave them off when the infection was quite gone,

and 80 became a sot for all his life after. I remember my friend the doctor used to say that there was a certain set of drugs and preparations which were all certainly good and useful in the case of an infection, out of v/hich, or with which, physicians might make an infinite variety of medicines, as the ringers of bells make several hundred different rounds of music by the changing and order of sound but in six bells, and that all these preparations shall be really very good : " Therefore," said he. " I do not wonder that so vast a throng of medicines is offered in the present calamity, and almost every physician prescribes

or prepares a different thing, as his judgment or experience guides

him; but,"

the prescriptions of

all

says

my friend, "let all

the physicians in

London be

examined, and it wi'l be found that they are all compounded of the same things, with such variations only as

him to "every man, judging a little of his and manner of his living, and cir-

the particular fancy of the doctor leads

so that, ' says he,

own

constitution

cumstances of his being infected, may direct his own medicines out of the ordinary drugs and preparations.

Only that," says he, " some recommend one thing as most sovereign, and some another. Some," says he, "think that/'///, ruj., which is called itself the antipestilential

made

;

pill,

the best

preparation

that

can be

others think that Venice treacle is sufficient of

itself to resist the

contagion ; and I," says he, "think

276

A Journal of the Plague Year

as both these think, viz., that the last

good to take

beforehand to prevent it, and the last, if touched, to According to this opinion, I several times expel it." took Venice treacle, and a sound sweat upon it, and thought myself as well fortified against the infection as any one could be fortified by the power of physic. As for quackery and mountebanks, of which the town was so full, I listened to none of them, and have observed often since, with some wonder, that for two years after the plague I scarcely saw or heard of one Some fancied they were all of them about town.

swept away in the infection to a man, and were for calling it a particular mark of God's vengeance upon them for leading the poor people into the pit of destruction, merely for the lucre of a little money they got by them ; but I cannot go that length neither. That abundance of them died is certain ; many of them

came within the reach of my own knowledge but I all of them were swept off I much question. ;

that

believe rather they fled their

practices

into

the

upon the people

country, and tried there,

apprehension of the infection before

who were in came among

them. This, however, is certain, not a man of them apThere peared for a great while in or about London. were, indeed, several doctors who published

commending

their

several

physical

cleansing the body, as they call

it,

bills

re-

preparations

for

after

the plague,

and needful, as they said, for such people to take who had been visited and had been cured ; whereas, I must own, I believe that it was the opinion of the most eminent physicians at that time that the plague was itself a sufficient purge, and that those who escaped the infection needed no physic to cleanse their bodies of any other things, the running sores, the tumours, &c., which were broke and kept open by the directions

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 277 of the physicians, having sufficiently cleansed them ; and that all other distempers, and causes of distempers,

were

effectually

carried

off

that

way

;

and

the

physicians gave this as their opinions wherever they

came, the quacks got little business.

There were, indeed, several little hurries which happened after the decrease of the plague, and which, whether they were contrived to fright and disorder the people, as some imagined, I cannot say, but sometimes we were told the plague would return by such a time ; and the famous Solomon Eagle, the naked Quaker I have mentioned, prophesied evil tidings every day ; and several others telling us that London had not been sufficiently scourged, and that sorer and severer strokes were yet behind. Had they stopped there, or had they descended to particulars, and told us that the city should the next year be destroyed by fire, then, indeed, when we had seen it come to pass, we should not have been to blame to have paid more than a common respect to their prophetic spirits should have wondered at them, and have been more serious in our inquiries after the meaning of it, and whence they had the foreknowledge. But

at least we

as they generally told us of a relapse into the plague, we

have had no concern since that about them ; yet by those frequent clamours, we were all kept with some kind of apprehensions constantly upon us ; and if any died suddenly, or if the spotted fevers at any time increased, we were presently alarmed ; much more if the number of the plague increased, for to the end of the year there were always between 200 and 300 of the plague. On any of these occasions, I say, we were alarmed anew. Those who remember the city of London before the fire must remember that there was then no such place as that we now call Newgate Market, but that in the middle of the street which is now called Blow-

;

278

A Journal of the Plague Year

and which had its name from the kill and dress their sheep there (and who, it seems, had a custom to blow up their meat with pipes to make it look thicker and fatter than it was, and were punished there for it by the Lord Mayor) ; I say, from the end of the street towards Newgate there stood two long rows of shambles bladder

Street,

butchers, who used to

for the selling meat. It was in those

shambles that two persons

falling

down dead, as they were buying meat, gave rise to a rumour that the meat was all infected, which, though it mij:ht affright the people, and spoiled the market for two or three days, yet it appeared plainly afterwards that there was nothing of truth in the sugBut nobody can account for the possession gestion. of fear when it takes hold of the mind. However, it pleased God, by the continuing of the winter weather, so to restore the health of the city that by February following we reckoned the distemper quite ceased, and then wc were not so easily frighted again.

There was still a question among the learned, and perplexed the people a little, and that was in what manner to purge the house and goods where the plague had been, and how to render them habitable again, which had been left empty during the time or Abundance of perfumes and preparations the plague. were prescribed by physicians, some of one kind and some of another, in which the people who listened to them put themselves to a great, and indeed, in my opinion, to an unnecessary expense ; and the poorer people, who only set open their windows night and day, burned brimstone, pitch, and gunpowder, and

at first

such things in their rooms, did as well as the best nay, the eager people, wlio, as I said above, came home in haste and at all hazards, found little or no

A Journal of the Plague Year 2 79 inconvenience in their houses, nor in the goods, and did little or nothing to them. However, in general, prudent, cautious people did enter into some measures for airing and sweetening their houses, and

burned perfumes, incense, benjamin, in their rooms close shut up, and then let the air carry it all out with a blast of gunpowder ; others caused large fires to be made all day and all night for several days and nights ; by the same token that two or three were pleased to set their houses on fire, and so effectually sweetened them by burning them down to the ground ; as particularly one at RatclifF, one in Holborn, and one at Westminster ; besides two or three that were set on fire, but the fire was happily got out again before it went far enough to burn down the houses ; and one citizen's servant, I think, it was in Thames Street, carried so much gunpowder into his master's house, for clearing it of the infection, and managed it so foolishly, that he blew up part of the roof of the house. But the time was not fully come that the city was to be purged by fire, nor rosin,

and sulphur

was it far off;

months more I saw it some of our quacking philosophers pretend, the seeds of the plague were

all

for within nine

lying in ashes;

entirely

destroyed,

when,

and

not

before ;

ridiculous to speak of here, since,

notion

too

had the seeds of

the plague remained in the houses, not to be destroyed fire, how has it been that they have not broken out, seeing all those buildings in the suburbs and liberties, all in the great parishes of Stepney, Whitechapcl, Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Shoreditch, Cripplej;atc, and St Giles, where the fire never came, and where the plague raged with the greatest violence, remain still in the same condition they were in before ?

but by

since

But

to leave these things just as I found

them, it

28o was

A Journal of the Plague Year

certain

that

those people

who were more than

ordinarily cautious of their health, did take particular

directions for

what they called seasoning of their

houses, and abundance of costly things were consumed

on that account, which I cannot but say not only seasoned those houses, as they desired, but filled the air with very grateful and wholesome smells, which others had the share of the benefit of as well as those

who were at the expenses of them.

And yet after all, though the poor came to town very precipitantly, as I have said, yet I must say the rich made no such haste. The men of business, indeed, came up, but many of them did not bring their families town till the spring came on, and that they saw reason to depend upon it that the plague would not to

return.

The Court, indeed, came up soon after Christmas, but the nobility and gentry, except such as depended upon and had employment under the administration, did not come so soon. I should have taken notice here, that notwithstanding the violence of the plague in London and in other places, yet it was very observable that it was never on

board the

fleet,

and yet

for

some time there was a

strange press in the river, and even in the streets, for

But it was in the beginning seamen to man the fleet. of the year, when the plague was scarce begun, and not at all come down to that part of the city where they usually press for seamen ; and though a war with the Dutch was not at all grateful to the people at that time, and the seamen went with a kind of reluctancy into the service, and many complained of being dragged into it by force, yet it proved in the event a happy violence to several of them, who had probably perished in the general calamity, and who, after the summer service was over, though they had cause to

—

A Journal of the Plague Year 281 —

lament the desolation of their families, who when they came back, were many of them in their graves yet they had room to be thankful that they were carried out of the reach of it, though so much against their indeed had a hot war with the Dutch wills. that year, and one very great engagement at sea, in which the Dutch were worsted, but we lost a great many men and some ships. But, as 1 observed, the plague was not in the fleet, and when they came to lay up the ships in the river the violent part of it began

to abate. I would be glad if I could close the account of this melancholy year with some particular examples his-

torically ;

mean ot the thankfulness to God, our pre-

server, for our being delivered from this dreadful calamity.

Certainly the circumstance of the deliverance, as well enemy we were delivered from, called

as the terrible

The circumstances of upon the whole nation for it. the deliverance were indeed very remarkable, as I have in part mentioned already, and particularly the dreadful condition which we were all in, when we were, to the surprise of the whole town, made joyful with the hope of a stop of the infection.

Nothing but the immediate finger of God, nothing

The conmedicine ; death raged in every corner ; and had it gone on as it did then, a few weeks more would have cleared the town of all, and everything Men everywhere began to despair ; that had a soul. every heart failed them for fear ; people were made desperate through the anguish of their souls, and the terrors of death sat in the very faces and countenances but omnipotent power, could have done it.

tagion

despised

all

of the people. In that very moment, when we might very well say, "Vain was the help of man," I say, in that very

—

moment it pleased God, with a most agreeable surprise,

282

A Journal of the Plague Year

to cause the fury of it to abate, even of itself ;

and the have said, though infinite numbers were sick, yet fewer died, and the very first week's bill decreased 1843 ; a vast namber indeed It is impossible to express the change that appeared in the very countenances of the people that Thursday morning when the weekly bill came out. It might have been perceived in their countenances that a secret surprise and smile of joy sat on everybody's face. They shook one another by the hands in the streets, who would hardly go on the same side of the way with one another before. Where the streets were not too broad, they would open their windows and call from one house to another, and ask how they did, and if they had heard

malignity declining, as

the good news that the plague was abated.

Some would

return, when they said good news, and ask, " What good

news ? " and when they answered that the plague was abated and the bills decreased almost 2000, they would cry out, " God be praised," and would weep aloud for

them they had heard nothing of it ; and such was the joy of the people that it was, as it were,

joy, telling

life to

them from the grave.

could almost set down

as many extravagant things

done in the excess of their joy as of their grief; but that would be to lessen the value of it. I

must confess myself to have been very much de-

jected just before this happened ; for the prodigious

number that were taken sick the week or two before, besides those that died, was such, and the lamentations

were so great everywhere, that a man must have seemed have acted even against his reason if he had so much as expected to escape and as there was hardly a house bat mine in all my neighbourhood but what was infected, so had it gone on it would not have been long that there would have been any more neighbours to be infected. Indeed it is hardly credible what to

;

A Journal of the Plague Year 283 dreadful havoc the

three weeks had made, for if

last

I might believe the person whose calculations I always

found very well grounded, there were not less than 30,000 people dead and near 100,000 fallen sick in the three weeks I speak of; for the number that sickened was surprising, indeed it was astonishing, and those whose courage upheld them all the time before, sank under it now. In the middle of their distress, when the condition of the city of London was so truly calamitous, just then it pleased God, as it were, by His immediate hand to disarm this enemy ; the poison was taken out of the It was v/onderful ; even the physicians themsting. Wherever they visited selves were surprised at it. they found their paiients better ; either they had sweated kindly, or the tumours were broke, or the carbuncles went down, and the inflammations round them changed colour, or the fever was gone, or the violent headache

was assuaged, or some good symptom was in the case so that in a few days everybody was recovering, whole families that were infected and down, that had ministers praying with them, and expected death every hour, were revived and healed, and none died at all out of them. Nor was this by any new medicine found out, or new method of cure discovered, or by any experience in the operation which the physicians or surgeons attained to ; but it was evidently from the secret invisible hand of Him that had at first sent this disease and let the atheistic part of as a judgment upon us mankind call my saying what they please, it is no enthusiasm ; it was acknowledged at that time by all mankind. The disease was enervated and its malignity spent and let it proceed from whencesoever it wlil, let ;

;

the philosophers search for reasons in nature to account for it by, and labour as much as they will to lessen the debt they owe to their Maker, those physicians who

;

284

A Journal of the Plague Year

had the least share of religion in them were obliged to acknowledge that it was all supernatural, that it was extraordinary, and that no account could be given of it. is a visible summons to us to thankfulness, especially we that were under the

If I should say that this all

its increase, perhaps it may be thought by some, after the sense of the thing was over, an officious canting of religious things, preaching a sermon instead of writing a history, making myself a teacher instead of

terror of

giving my observations of things ; and this restrains me

very much from going on here, as I might otherwise do.

But if ten lepers were healed, and but one returned to give thanks, I desire to be as that one, and to be thankful for

myself.

Nor will I deny but there were abundance of people who, to all appearance, were very thankful at that time ; for their mouths were stopped, even the mouths of those whose hearts were not extraordinary long affected with it. But the impression was so strong at that time that it could not be resisted, no, not by the worst of the people.

was a common thing to meet people in the street and that we knew nothing at all of, expressing their surprise. Going one day through Aldgate, and a pretty many people being passing and repassing, there comes a man out of the end of the Minories, and looking a little up the street and down, he throws his hands abroad, " Lord, what an alteration is here Why, last week I came along here, and hardly anybody was to be seen." Another man, I heard him, adds to his words, " 'Tis all wonderful 'tis all a dream." " Blessed be God," says a third man, It

that were strangers,

" and let us give thanks to Him, for 'tis all His own doing, human help and human skill was at an end." These were all strangers to one another.

But such salutations and in

as these were frequent in the street every day ;

—

A Journal of the Plague Year 285 spite

of a loose behaviour, the very

went along the

streets

giving

common people

God thanlcs for their

deliverance. It was now, as I said before, the people all

had cast off we were

apprehensions, and that too fast ; indeed

no more afraid now to pass by a man with a white cap upon his head, or with a cloth wrapt round his neck, or with his leg limping, occasioned by the sores in his groin, all which were frightful to the last degree but But now the street was fiill of them, the week before. and these poor recovering creatures, give them their due, appeared very sensible of their unexpected deand I should wrong them very much if I liverance should not acknowledge that I believe many of them But I must own, that for the were really thankful. generality of the people, it might too justly be said of them as was said of the children of Israel, after their being delivered from the host of Pharaoh, when they passed the Red Sea, and looked back, and saw the Egyptians overwhelmed in the water, viz., that they sang His praise, but they soon forgot His works. I should be counted cenI can go no farther here. sorious, and perhaps unjust, if I should enter into the unpleasing work of reflecting, whatever cause there was for it, upon the unthankfulness and return of all manner of wickedness among us, which I was so much ;

an eye-witness of myself. I shall conclude the account of this calamitous year therefore with a coarse but sinstanza of my own, which I placed at the end of my ordinary memorandums the same year they were cere

written :

A dreadful plague in London was In the year sixty-five,

Which swept an hundred thousand souls

Away

;

yet I alive 1

H. F.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX. EXTRACTS FROM CONTEMPORARY NARRATIVES IN ILLUSTRATION OF DEFOE'S "JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR." From Dr Hodges' s ^^ Loimologia.*' the monthi of August and September, the con-

INtagion changed having, as

its former slow

and languid pace, and

were, got master of all, made a most

terrible slaughter, so that three, four, or five

thousand

Who

can died in a week, and once eight thousand. The whole express the calamities of such times ? British nation wept for the miseries of her metropolis.

In some houses carcasses lay waiting for burial, and in others, persons in their last agonies ;

in one room might

be heard dying groans, in another the ravings of a delirium, and not far off, relations and friends bewailing

both their loss and the dismal prospect of their own sudden departure ; death was the sure midwife to all children, and infants passed immediately from the womb Who would not burst with grief to see to the grave. the stock for a future generation hang upon the breasts

of a dead mother ? first

Or the marriage-bed changed the

night into a sepulchre, and the unh;ippy pair meet 189

;

290

Appendix

with death in their

first

Some of th* in-

embraces ?

fected ran about staggering like drunken men, and fall

while others lie half dead and expire in the streets and comatose, but never to be waked but by the last trumpet ; some lie vomiting as if they had drunk poison and others fall dead in the market, while they are buying necessaries for the support of life." " In the beginning of September, such was the vio;

more than twelve thousand were carried off weekly. At length the presiding magistrates (the Court having removed to Oxford) in this terrible time, that nothing might be left untried, urged by the extreme peril, determined on lighting fires

lence of the disease, that

in all the streets for three days together.

When this

was in agitation, we, the physicians, opposed all

with

our authority, alleging that the air itself remained

scheme therefore would be But the magistrates, overanxious for the health of the city, and preferring the authority and example of our celebrated Hippocrates, uninfected, and that the

alike useless and expensive.

notwithstanding our expostulations, caused fires every-

where to be lighted. Alas the dispute that had the three days was superseded by the event had scarcely elapsed when the mourning heavens, as if weeping for the innumerable funerals, or rather bewailing the noxious errors that had been committed, extinguished the flames by profuse showers. I leave it to others to decide whether these fires were to be regarded as ominous preludes of the future conflagration or of the burning funeral piles ; but whether !

arisen

through the suffocative effluvia of the coals or of the

dampness of the rainy atmosphere immediately following, that night brought unheard-of destruction, for truly

more than four thousand perished before the morning. Henceforth may those in authority act more cautiously, and from our misfortune posterity take warning, and

Appendix

291

not atiernpt cutes after the manner of quacks by following mistaken analogies."

From Vincent's " God's Terrible Voice in the City." "It was in the year of our Lord 1665 that the plague began in our city of London, after we were warned by the great plague in Holland in the year 1664, and the beginning of it in some remote parts of our land in the same year, not to speak anything

whether there was any signification and influence in the blazing star not long before that appeared in the view of London, and struck some amazement upon the spirits It was in the month of May that the plague of many. was first taken notice of; our bill of mortality did let us know but of three which died of the disease in the

whole year before ; but in the beginning ot May the one in the bill tells us of nine which fell by the plague This heart of the city, the other eight in the suburbs. was the first arrow of warning that was shot from heaven amongst us, and fear quickly begins to creep great thoughts and discourse upon people's hearts there is in the town about the plague, and they cast in their minds whither they should go if the plague should Yet when the next week's bill signifieth to increase. them the decrease from nine to three their minds are

—

;

something appeased, discourse of that subject cools, hopes take place that the black cloud did but threaten and give a few drops ; but the But when in the next bill wind would drive it away. the number of the dead by the plague is mounted from three to fourteen, and in the next to seventeen, and in the next to forty-three, and the disease begins so much to increase and disperse, sinners begin to be startled." " The plague is so deadly, it kills where it comes

fears are hushed, and

without mercy;

kills,

had almost said certainly;

Appendix

292

very few do escape, especially upon its first entrance Few are touched and before its malignity be spent. by it but they are killed by it, and it kills suddenly. As it gives no warning before it comes, suddenly the arrow is shot which woundeth unto the heart, so it gives little time for preparation before

brings to the

Under other diseases men may linger out many

grave.

weeks and months, under some divers years ; but the plague usually killeth within a few days, sometimes within a few hours after its first approach, though the body were never so strong and free from disease before."

" Now [June] the citizens of London are put to a stop in the career of their trade ; they begin to fear

whom they converse withal and deal withal, lest they

Now roses should have come out of infected places. and other sweet flowers wither in the gardens, are disregarded in the markets, and people dare not offer them to their noses lest with their sweet savour that which Rue and wormwood is infectious should be attracted. are taken into the hand, myrrh and zedoary into the mouth, and without some antidote few stir abroad in the morning. Now many houses are shut up where the plague comes and the inhabitants shut in, lest coming It was very abroad they should spread the infection. dismal to behold the red crosses, and read in great Lord, have mercy upon us,' on the doors, and letters, watchmen standing before them with halberts ; and such a solitude about those places, and people passing by them so gingerly and with such fearful looks, as if they had been lined with enemies in ambush that waited to destroy them." *' The plague increaseth [July] and prevaileth exthe number of 470 which died in one week ceedingly by the disease ariseth to 725 the next week, to 1089 the next, to 1843 the next, and to 2010 the next. '

;

Appendix

293

Now the plague compasseth the walls of the city like a it. Now most parishes are

flood, and poureth in upon

infected, both without

and within Qhe walls^ ; yea,

many houses shut up by the plague as

there are not so

by the owners forsaking them for fear of it, and though the inhabitants be so exceedingly decreased by the departure of so many thousands, yet the number of dying Now the countries persons doth increase fearfully. keep guards lest infectious persons should from the city

Most of the rich are now gone, and the middle sort will not stay behind

bring the disease unto them.

but the poor are forced through poverty to stay and

The very sinking fears they have had of the plague hath brought the plague and death Some by the sight of a coffin in the upon many. streets have fallen into a shivering, and immediately the disease has assaulted them and Sergeant Death hath arrested them, and clapt to the doors of their houses upon them, from whence they have come forth no more till they have been brought to their graves." " It would be endless to speak of what we have seen and heard of some in their frenzy rising out of their beds and leaping about their rooms ; others crying and roaring at their windows ; some coming forth almost naked, and running into the streets. Strange things have others spoken and done when the disease was upon them but it was very sad to hear of one who, being sick and alone, and, it is like, frantic, burnt himself in his bed." " In August how dreadful is the increase Now the cloud is very black, and the storm comes down upon us very sharp. Now Death rides triumphantly on his pale horse through our streets, and breaks into every house almost where any inhabitants are to be found. Now people fall as thick as the leaves in autumn, when they are shaken by a mighty wind. Now there abide the storm.

;

Appendix

294

a dismal solitude in London streets ; every day looks with the face of a Sabbath-day, observed with greater solemnity than it used to be in the city. Now shops are shut in, people rare and very few that walk about, insomuch that the grass begins to spring up in some places, and a deep silence almost in every place, especially within the walls ; no prancing horses, no rattling is

coaches, no calling in customers, nor offering wares

no London

cries

be heard,

sounding

in the ears.

If any voice

the groans of dying persons, breathing

forth their last, and the funeral knells of them that are

ready to be carried to their graves. Now shutting up of visited houses (there being so many) is at an end, and most of the well are mingled among the sick, which otherwise would have got no help. Now in some

where the people did generally stay, not one house in an hundred but what is infected ; and in many houses half the family is swept away ; in some the whole, from the eldest to the youngest : few escape Never did so many but with the death of one or two. husbands and wives die together ; never did so many parents carry their children with them to the grave, and go together into the same house under earth, who had lived together in the same house upon it. Now the nights are too short to bury the dead the whole day, though at so great a length, is hardly sufficient to light the dead that fall thereon into their graves. could hardly go forth but we should meet many coffins, and see many with sores and limping in the streets." " Now [September^ the grave doth open its mouth multitudes in the valley without measure. Multitudes of the shadow of death, thronging daily into eternity The churchyards now are stuffed so full with dead corpses that they are in many places swelled two or three feet higher than they were before, and new ground is broken up to bury the dead." places,

Appendix

295

From Boghurst^s " Loimograph'ta" " The wind blowing westward so long together (from before Christmas until July) was the cause the plague began first at the west end of the city, as at St Giles's and St Martin's, Westminster. Afterwards it gradually insinuated and crept down Holborn and the Strand, and then into the city, and at last to the east end of the suburbs ; so that it was half a year at the west end of the city before the east end and Stepney were infected, which was about the middle of July. Southwark, being the south suburb, was infected almost as soon as the west end." " The disease spread not altogether by contagion at first,

nor began only at one place, and spread farther

and spreading sore doth all upon several places of the city and suburbs like rain even at the first as St Giles's, St Martin's, Chancery Lane, Southwark, Houndsditch, and some places within the city, as at Proctors' Houses." " Almost all that caught the disease with fear died and

farther, as an eating

over the body, but

fell

—

About the begin-

with tokens in two or three days.

ning most men got the disease with fuddling, surfeiting, overheating themselves, and by disorderly living." *'

The plague is a most acute disease, for though

some died eight, ten, twelve, or twenty days after they had been sick, yet the greatest part died before five or six days, and in the summer about half that were sick died, but towards winter three parts in four lived ;

but

none died suddenly, as though stricken with lightning or an apoplexy, as authors write in several countries,

and Diemerbroek seems to believe but I saw none die under twenty or twenty-four hours." " One friend growing melancholy for another was one main cause of its going through a family, especially ;

;

Appendix

296

when they were shut up, which bred a sad apprehension

and consternation on

shut up in dark cellars.

their .

spirits, especially being

As soon as any house is

sound people should be had out of it, and not shut up therein to be murdered." " Of all the common hackney prostitutes of Lutener's Lane, Dog Yard, Cross Lane, Baldwin's Gardens, Hatton Garden, and other places ; the common criers of oranges, oysters, fruit, &c. ; all the impudent, drunken, drabbing bayles and fellows, and many others of the Rouge Route, there are but few missing." " Those that die of the plague, die a very easy death generally: first, because it was speedy; secondly,

infected, all the

They did but because they died without convulsions. of a sudden fetch their breath a little thick and short, and were presently gone, just as you squeeze wind So that I have heard some say, out of a bladder.

—

How much am I bound to God, who takes me away And commonly they say by such an easy death * they are not sick when death is just at hand, and talk familiarly with you when they are ready to die, and expect no other themselves." " Though at first I was much baffled in giving judgment, yet afterwards by use and long observation of '

the particulars I arrived at a greater skill ; for I ren-

dered myself familiar with the disease, knowing that the means to do any good must be not to be fearful wherefore I commonly dressed forty sores in a day, held the pulse of patients sweating in their beds half a quarter of an hour together, let blood, administered clysters to the sick, held them up in their beds to keep them from strangling and choking, half an hour together commonly, and suffered their breathing in

when they were dying

eat

and

drank with them, especially those that had sores ;

sat

face

several

times

;

down by their bedsides and upon their beds, discoursing

Appendix with them an hour together.

297

If I had time I stayed

by them to see them die, and see the manner of their death, and closed up their mouth and eyes for they died with their mouth and eyes very much open and staring. Then if people had nobody to help them (for help was scarce at such a time and place), I helped to lay them forth out of the bed, and afterwards into the coffin ; and, last of all, accompanied them to the ground." " Some would sift them [letters] in a sieve, some wash them first in water, and then dry them at the fire some air them at the top of a house, a hedge, or a pole, two or three days before they opened them ; some would lay them between two cold stones two or three days some set them before the fire like a toast. Some would not receive them but on a long pole a countryman delivered one thus to my wife, at the shop-door, because he would not venture near her." " People in the country were so apprehensive of danger from everything coming from London that they kept watch and ward ai if they would have kept the wind out of towns, forcing some to lie and die in ditches and under hedges and trees, and to lie unburied At Gloucester, for a prey to dogs and fowls of the air. the Mayor of the city, being an apothecary, would not suffer pipes of wine to be brought into the city that came from London, but being brought in, would have had them drawn through the river to wash off the but at last it was agreed they should be infection so the vintner's excused by pouring water on them man took a dish of water and poured on them, and sprinkled each vessel a little, and so made them wholesome, notwithstanding they had come a hundred miles in the air, and it had rained on them much by the ;

;

way."

Appendix

298

From AUin s Letters (*' Architologia^ 1856"). « I am, through mercy, yet well in middest of death, and that, too, approaching neerer and neerer not many doores off, and the pitt open dayly within view of my chamber window. The Lord fitt mee and all of us for our last end Surely, if my friends be afrayd of my letters, I would not be afrayd of :

The sickness yet increaseth this bill is 249 more then y^ last, viz. of all diseases, 5568 of the Plague, 4237 but rather in verity 5000, though not

theirs.

—

;

many in

the

bill

of y® Plague.

Here are many

who weare amulets made of the poison of the toad, which, if there be no infection, workes nothing, but, upon any infection invadeing from time to time, raise a blister, w'=^ a plaister heales, and so they are well phaps I may by y® next get the true p'paratlon of it, and send you. The sickness at Yarmouth, Dover, and Southampton I heare is much increasing yet : 3 houses last weeke shutt up in Dover. I saw this day some 'prima materia' in o'' streetes " {^Aug. 24). " Y® sicknesse encreased very much last bill, viz.

1928 increase; y® totall, 7496; of y* Plague, 6102. Since that

bill I have not pticularly heard anything whether still increasing or not, but feare, by the dolefull and almost universall and continuall ringing and tolling of bells, it doth increase. I am sure it approacheth to mee, I meane my concernem* for it hath pleased God to take from mee the best friend I have in y*" world, and one wherein my children stood as much concerned as in myself w*^ reference to what they should have expected from the relations of my wife it is my brother, Peter Smith, who was abroad on Lord's day last, in the morning ; towards evening a little ill, then tooke something to sweate, w°^ yt night brought forth a stiffness under his eare, where :

Appendix

299

he had a swelling y* could not be brought to rise and he dyed Thursday night breake, but choacked him last. I blesse God I am well ; was not with my brother after wee see what it would bee, as little else upon every distemp here can be expected: it is a " greate mercy now counted to dve of another disease ;

{Sept. 2).

" These 3 dayes hath bene sea cole

fires

made

the streetes about every 12*^ doore, but that will not do y® worke of stopping God's hand ;

nothing but repent-

ance will do that, of w*^^ no signe yett, but oppressions,

&c. yet increasing " [Sept. j). " I heare also y* above 7 score d''*, apothecarys, and surgeons are dead of this distemp in and about y* City since this visitation. God is resolved to staine the pride of all glory ; there is no boasting before

Him, and much lesse ag^' Him" {Sept. 11). " It

In our parish this

yet increasing.

bill

50: y* whole bill is 8297 Plague 7 165 Much rageing now increased in all this weeke 607. Freind, get a piece of angell gold, if in the city. you can of Eliz. coine (y* is y® best), w*^'^ is phylosophicall gold, and keepe it allways in yo' mouth when you walke out or any sicke persons come to you: you will find strange effects of it for good in freedome of breathing, &c. as I have done if you lye w'^'' it in your mouth w'^'out y"^ teeth, as I doe, viz. in one side betweene your cheke and gumms, and so turning it sometimes on one side, sometimes on y® other (Sept. 22). raised about

;

" Some visited,

fresh

besides

houses

divers

more of them

or are imployed in

parishes

come

are

still

towne, the aireing of other's houses that

{Dec. 7). " Divers psons and familyes at their returne home to the City have mett with what they fled from, in

" ;

Appendix

300

80 much that I feare

an increase.

and heare

this weekes bill

hath

I heare there is a new blazing starr seene

wecke, 4 or 5 niahts together, about noith-east" {Dec. 12). " Y** sicknes is now agayne increaseing, as by y* totalis doth appeare, but yet is increased in the sicknes 33, and wholly in the City; divers fresh houses, since the returne of fresh psons hither, visited and swept (Dec. 14). last

From Pepys's " Diary.'*

—

" June "jih. The hottest day that ever I felt in my This day, much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and ' Lord, have mercy upon us,' writ there which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that to my remembrance I ever saw." " June lyth. It struck me very deep this afternoon going with a hackney coach from [the] Lord Trealife.

;

—

surer's down Holborne, the Coachman I

found to drive and came down hardly able to stand, and told me that he was suddenly struck very sick, and almost blind, he could not see so I light and went into another coach, with a sad heart for the poor man, and for myself also, lest he should have been struck with the Plague." " June 20th. This day I informed myself that there died four or five at Westminster, of the Plague, in several houses upon Sunday last, in Bell Alley, over easily

and

easily,

at last stood

still,

—

against the Palace-gate."

—

" June 2ist. I find all the town going out of town, the coaches and carriages being all full of people going into the country."

"June 25/A

The

Plague increases

mightily,

this day seeing a house, at a bitt-maker's over

against

;

Appendix

301

St Clement's Church, in the open street, shut up which is a sad sight." " June 28th. In my way to Westminster Hall I obierved seyeral Plague houses in King's Street and the

—

Palace."

—

To Whitehall, where the court was of waggons and people ready to go out of town. This end of the town every day grows very bad of the Plague. The Mortality Bill is come to 267 ; which is about ninety more than the last. Home ; calling at Somerset House, where all were packing up too." " Ju/y 6th. I could not see Lord Brouncker, nor had much mind, one of the great houses within two doors of him ^in Covent Garden] being shut up : and Lord the number of houses visited, which this day I observed through the town, quite round in my way by Lang Lane and London Wall." " July 22nd. I by coach home, not meeting with but two coaches, and but two carts from White Hall to my own house, that I could observe, and the streets mighty thin of people." ^^ July igth. Walked to RedrifF, where I hear the sickness is, and, indeed, it is scattered almost everywhere. My Lady Carteret did this day give me a bottle of Plague water home with me." " August 30/A. I went forth and walked towards Moorfields to see (God forgive my presumption!) whether I could see any dead corpse going to the grave ; but, as God would have it, did not. But IjOrd how everybody looks, and discourses in the street of death, and nothing else, and few people going up and down, that the town is like a place distressed and forsaken." " September 6th. To London, and there I saw fires burning in the streets, through the whole city, by the Lord Mayor's order. Thence by water to the " June 2gfh.

full

—

Appendix

302

Duke of Albemarle's (at Whitehall) all the way fires on each side of the Thames and strange to see in :

broad daylight, two or three burials upon the Bankside, one at the very heels of another doubtless all of the Plague ; and yet at least forty or fifty people going along with every one of them." :

September i^th.

— And Lord!

to see

how I did

endeavour all I could to talk with as few as I could, there being now no observation of shutting up of houses infected, that to be sure we do converse and meet with' people that have the Plague upon them."

—

" September loth. To Lambeth but Lord wha sad time it is to see no boats upon the river ; anc :

grass grows all up and down Whitehall Court, an' nobody but wretches in the streets And what worst of all, the Duke (of Albemarle) showed us t number of the Plague this week, brought in last nij from the Lord Mayor; that it is increased about 6 more than the last, which is quite contrary to our ho, and expectations, from the coldness of the late seasc !

—

" October \6th. Walked to the Tower but Lc how empty the streets are and melancholy, so m ;

poor sick, people in the streets full of sores ; anc many sad stories overheard as I walk, everybody ts ing of this dead, and that man sick, and so many in t place, and so many in that. And they tell me thai Westminster, there is never a physician, and but ( apothecary left, all being dead ; yet there are gri. hopes of a great decrease this week. God send it ^^ December I'^th. The Plague is increased agaii this week, notwithstanding there hath been a long day* or two great frosts ; but we hope it is only the effects of the late close warm weather, and if the frost continue the next week, may fall again ; but the town do thicken so much with people, that it is much if the Plague do not grow again upon us."

—

Appendix

303

''December 3 1 j/.— Many of such as I knew very well, are dead; yet to our great joy the town fills again, and shops begin to be open again. Pray continue the Plague's decrease, for that keeps

away from the place of business, and wrack as to public matters."

God

the Court

all

goes to

''January i^th, 1666.— It is a remarkable how infinitely naked all that end of the town,

thing

Corent

Garden,

is at this day, of people ; while the city is again almost as full of people as ever it

was."

From Evelyn's "Diary." "August 28//^.— The contagion still increasing •owing nily

and

now all about us, I sent my wife and whole

(two or three necessary servants excepted) to

brother's at ise myself

Wotton, being resolved to stay at my

and to look after my charge, trusting in providence and goodness of God."

•September

Tth.—l went all along the from Kent Street to St James's, ige, and dangerous to see so many

city

rbs

coffins

le streets,

now thin of people;

and

dismal

exposed

the shops shut up,

mournful silence, as not knowing whose turn be next: there perishing nearly 10,000 poor .tures weekly. I went to ye Duke of Albemarle a l^est-ship, to wait on our infected men, who were a few. aJJ in

light

—Went

" October 1 1 M. through the whole city, when .ving occasion to alight in several places about busimoney,

1C88

>oor

pestiferous

was environed with multitudes of

creatures, begging alms: niversaJly shut up, a dreadful prospect."

THE TKMPLE PKESS, PRINTERS.

the shops

LETCHWORTH

4 la"!

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE

CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

SIGMUND SAMUEL LIBRARY