The people showed a great concern at this, and began to be alarmed all
over the town, and the more because in the last week in December, 1664,
another man died in the same house and of the same distemper. And then
we were easy again for about six weeks, when, none having died with any
marks of infection, it was said the distemper was gone; but after that,
I think it was about the 12th of February, another died in another
house, but in the same parish and in the same manner.
This turned the people's eyes pretty much towards that end of the town;
and, the weekly bills showing an increase of burials in St. Giles's
Parish more than usual, it began to be suspected that the plague was
among the people at that end of the town, and that many had died of it,
though they had taken care to keep it as much from the knowledge of the
public as possible. This possessed the heads of the people very much;
and few cared to go through Drury Lane, or the other streets suspected,
unless they had extraordinary business that obliged them to it.
This increase of the bills stood thus: the usual number of burials in a
week, in the parishes of St. Giles-in-the-Fields and St. Andrew's,
Holborn,[11] were[12] from twelve to seventeen or nineteen each, few
more or less; but, from the time that the plague first began in St.
Giles's Parish, it was observed that the ordinary burials increased in
number considerably. For example:--
Dec. 27 to Jan. 3, St. Giles's 16
St. Andrew's 17
Jan. 3 to Jan. 10, St. Giles's 12
St. Andrew's 25
Jan. 10 to Jan. 17, St. Giles's 18
St. Andrew's 18
Jan. 17 to Jan. 24, St. Giles's 23
St. Andrew's 16
Jan. 24 to Jan. 31, St. Giles's 24
St. Andrew's 15
Jan. 31 to Feb. 7, St. Giles's 21
St. Andrew's 23
Feb. 7 to Feb. 14, St. Giles's 24
Whereof one of the plague.
The like increase of the bills was observed in the parishes of St.
Bride's, adjoining on one side of Holborn Parish, and in the parish of
St. James's, Clerkenwell, adjoining on the other side of Holborn; in
both which parishes the usual numbers that died weekly were from four to
six or eight, whereas at that time they were increased as follows:--
Dec. 20 to Dec. 27, St. Bride's 0
St. James's 8
Dec. 27 to Jan. 3, St. Bride's 6
St. James's 9
Jan. 3 to Jan. 10, St. Bride's 11
St. James's 7
Jan. 10 to Jan. 17, St. Bride's 12
St. James's 9
Jan. 17 to Jan. 24, St. Bride's 9
St. James's 15
Jan. 24 to Jan. 31, St. Bride's 8
St. James's 12
Jan. 31 to Feb. 7, St. Bride's 13
St. James's 5
Feb. 7 to Feb. 14, St. Bride's 12
St. James's 6
Besides this, it was observed, with great uneasiness by the people, that
the weekly bills in general increased very much during these weeks,
although it was at a time of the year when usually the bills are very
moderate.
The usual number of burials within the bills of mortality for a week was
from about two hundred and forty, or thereabouts, to three hundred. The
last was esteemed a pretty high bill; but after this we found the bills
successively increasing, as follows:--
Buried. Increased.
Dec. 20 to Dec. 27 291 0
Dec. 27 to Jan. 3 349 58
Jan. 3 to Jan. 10 394 45
Jan. 10 to Jan. 17 415 21
Jan. 17 to Jan. 24 474 59
This last bill was really frightful, being a higher number than had
been known to have been buried in one week since the preceding
visitation of 1656.
However, all this went off again; and the weather proving cold, and the
frost, which began in December, still continuing very severe, even till
near the end of February, attended with sharp though moderate winds, the
bills decreased again, and the city grew healthy; and everybody began to
look upon the danger as good as over, only that still the burials in St.
Giles's continued high. From the beginning of April, especially, they
stood at twenty-five each week, till the week from the 18th to the 25th,
when there was[13] buried in St. Giles's Parish thirty, whereof two of
the plague, and eight of the spotted fever (which was looked upon as the
same thing); likewise the number that died of the spotted fever in the
whole increased, being eight the week before, and twelve the week above
named.
This alarmed us all again; and terrible apprehensions were among the
people, especially the weather being now changed and growing warm, and
the summer being at hand. However, the next week there seemed to be some
hopes again: the bills were low; the number of the dead in all was but
388; there was none of the plague, and but four of the spotted fever.
But the following week it returned again, and the distemper was spread
into two or three other parishes, viz., St. Andrew's, Holborn, St.
Clement's-Danes; and, to the great affliction of the city, one died
within the walls, in the parish of St. Mary-Wool-Church, that is to say,
in Bearbinder Lane, near Stocks Market: in all, there were nine of the
plague, and six of the spotted fever. It was, however, upon inquiry,
found that this Frenchman who died in Bearbinder Lane was one who,
having lived in Longacre, near the infected houses, had removed for fear
of the distemper, not knowing that he was already infected.
This was the beginning of May, yet the weather was temperate, variable,
and cool enough, and people had still some hopes. That which encouraged
them was, that the city was healthy. The whole ninety-seven parishes
buried but fifty-four, and we began to hope, that, as it was chiefly
among the people at that end of the town, it might go no farther; and
the rather, because the next week, which was from the 9th of May to the
16th, there died but three, of which not one within the whole city or
liberties;[14] and St. Andrew's buried but fifteen, which was very low.
It is 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 three hundred and
forty-seven; and the week above mentioned, but three hundred and
forty-three. 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[15] 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's it was gotten into
several streets, and several families lay all sick together; and
accordingly, in the weekly bill for the next week, the thing began to
show itself. There was indeed but fourteen set down of the plague, but
this was all knavery and collusion; for 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[16] not increased above thirty-two, and the whole
bill being but three hundred and eighty-five, yet there was[17] 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 23d of May to the 30th, when the number of
the plague was seventeen; but the burials in St. Giles's were
fifty-three, a frightful number, of whom they set down but nine of the
plague. But on an examination more strictly by the justices of the
peace, and at the lord mayor's[18] request, it was found there were
twenty more who were really dead of the plague in that parish, but had
been set down of the spotted fever, or other distempers, besides others
concealed.
But those were trifling things to what followed immediately after. For
now the weather set in hot; and from the first week in June, the
infection spread in a dreadful manner, and the bills rise[19] high; the
articles of the fever, spotted fever, and teeth, began to swell: for all
that could conceal their distempers did it to prevent their neighbors
shunning and refusing to converse with them, and also to prevent
authority shutting up their houses, which, though it was not yet
practiced, yet was threatened; and people were extremely terrified at
the thoughts of it.
The second week in June, the parish of St. Giles's, where still the
weight of the infection lay, buried one hundred and twenty, whereof,
though the bills said but sixty-eight of the plague, everybody said
there had been a hundred 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, who[20] I mentioned before, within the whole
ninety-seven parishes. Now, there died four within the city,--one in
Wood Street, one in Fenchurch Street, and two in Crooked Lane. Southwark
was entirely free, having not one yet died on that side of the water.
I lived without Aldgate, about midway between Aldgate Church and
Whitechapel Bars, on the left hand, or north side, of the street; and as
the distemper had not reached to that side of the city, our neighborhood
continued very easy. But at the other end of the town their
consternation was very great; and the richer sort of people, especially
the nobility and gentry from the west part of the city, thronged out of
town, with their families and servants, in an unusual manner. And this
was more particularly seen in Whitechapel; that is to say, the Broad
Street where I lived. Indeed, nothing was to be seen but wagons and
carts, with goods, women, servants, children, etc.; coaches filled with
people of the better sort, and horsemen attending them, and all hurrying
away; then empty wagons and carts appeared, and spare horses with
servants, who it was apparent were returning, or sent from the country
to fetch more people; besides innumerable numbers of men on horseback,
some alone, others with servants, and, generally speaking, all loaded
with baggage, and fitted out for traveling, as any one might perceive by
their appearance.
This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to see, and as it was a
sight which I could not but look on from morning to night (for indeed
there was nothing else of moment to be seen), it filled me with very
serious thoughts of the misery that was coming upon the city, and the
unhappy condition of those that would be left in it.
This hurry of the people was such for some weeks, that there was no
getting at the lord mayor's door without exceeding difficulty; there was
such pressing and crowding there to get passes and certificates of
health for such as traveled abroad; for, without these, there was no
being admitted to pass through the towns upon the road, or to lodge in
any inn. Now, as there had none died in the city for all this time, my
lord mayor gave certificates of health without any difficulty to all
those who lived in the ninety-seven parishes, and to those within the
liberties too, for a while.
This hurry, I say, continued some weeks, that is to say, all the months
of May and June; and the more because it was rumored that an order of
the government was to be issued out, to place turnpikes[21] and barriers
on the road to prevent people's traveling; 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 rumors had any
foundation but in the imagination, especially at first.
I now began to consider seriously with myself concerning my own case,
and how I should dispose of myself; that is to say, whether I should
resolve to stay in London, or shut up my house and flee, as many of my
neighbors did. I have set this particular down so fully, because I know
not but it may be of moment to those who come after me, if they come to
be brought to the same distress and to the same manner of making their
choice; and therefore I desire this account may pass with them rather
for a direction to themselves to act by than a history of my actings,
seeing it may not be of one farthing value to them to note what became
of me.
I had two important things before me: the one was the carrying on my
business and shop, which was considerable, and in which was embarked all
my effects in the world; and the other was the preservation of my life
in so dismal a calamity as I saw apparently was coming upon the whole
city, and which, however great it was, my fears perhaps, as well as
other people's, represented to be much greater than it could be.
The first consideration was of great moment to me. My trade was a
saddler, and as my dealings were chiefly not by a shop or chance trade,
but among the merchants trading to the English colonies in America, so
my effects lay very much in the hands of such. I was a single man, it is
true; but I had a family of servants, who[22] I kept at my business; had
a house, shop, and warehouses filled with goods; and in short to leave
them all as things in such a case must be left, that is to say, without
any overseer or person fit to be trusted with them, had been to hazard
the loss, not only of my trade, but of my goods, and indeed of all I had
in the world.
I had an elder brother at the same time in London, and not many years
before come over from Portugal; and, advising with him, his answer was
in the three words, the same that was given in another case[23] quite
different, viz., "Master, save thyself." In a word, he was for my
retiring into the country, as he resolved to do himself, with his
family; telling me, what he had, it seems, heard abroad, that the best
preparation for the plague was to run away from it. As to my argument of
losing my trade, my goods, or debts, he quite confuted me: he told me
the same thing which I argued for my staying, viz., that I would trust
God with my safety and health was the strongest repulse[24] to my
pretensions of losing my trade and my goods. "For," says he, "is it not
as reasonable that you should trust God with the chance or risk of
losing your trade, as that you should stay in so eminent a point of
danger, and trust him with your life?"
I could not argue that I was in any strait as to a place where to go,
having several friends and relations in Northamptonshire, whence our
family first came from; and particularly, I had an only sister in
Lincolnshire, very willing to receive and entertain me.
My brother, who had already sent his wife and two children into
Bedfordshire, and resolved to follow them, pressed my going very
earnestly; and I had once resolved to comply with his desires, but at
that time could get no horse: for though it is true all the people did
not go out of the city of London, yet I may venture to say, that in a
manner all the horses did; for there was hardly a horse to be bought or
hired in the whole city for some weeks. Once I resolved to travel on
foot with one servant, and, as many did, lie at no inn, but carry a
soldier's tent with us, and so lie in the fields, the weather being very
warm, and no danger from taking cold. I say, as many did, because
several did so at last, especially those who had been in the armies, in
the war[25] which had not been many years past: and I must needs say,
that, speaking of second causes, had most of the people that traveled
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 who[26] 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.
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.[27]
These thoughts quite turned my resolutions again; and when I came to
discourse with my brother again, I told him that I inclined to stay and
take my lot in that station in which God had placed me; and that it
seemed to be made more especially my duty, on the account of what I have
said.
My brother, though a very religious man himself, laughed at all I had
suggested about its being an intimation from Heaven, and told me several
stories of such foolhardy people, as he called them, as I was; that I
ought indeed to submit to it as a work of Heaven if I had been any way
disabled by distempers or diseases, and that then, not being able to go,
I ought to acquiesce in the direction of Him, who, having been my Maker,
had an undisputed right of sovereignty in disposing of me; and that then
there had been no difficulty to determine which was the call of his
providence, and which was not; but that I should take it as an
intimation from Heaven that I should not go out of town, only because I
could not hire a horse to go, or my fellow was run away that was to
attend me, was ridiculous, since at the 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
attend the presumption of the Turks and Mohammedans 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[28] notions, and of every man's end being predetermined,
and unalterably beforehand decreed, they would go unconcerned into
infected places, and converse with infected persons, by which means they
died at the rate of ten or fifteen thousand a week, whereas the
Europeans, or Christian merchants, who kept themselves retired and
reserved, generally escaped the contagion.
Upon these arguments my brother changed my resolutions again, and I
began to resolve to go, and accordingly made all things ready; for, in
short, the infection increased round me, and the bills were risen to
almost seven hundred a week, and my brother told me he would venture to
stay no longer. I desired him to let me consider of it but till the next
day, and I would resolve; and as I had already prepared everything as
well as I could, as to my business and who[29] to intrust my affairs
with, I had little to do but to resolve.
I went home that evening greatly oppressed in my mind, irresolute, and
not knowing what to do. I had set the evening wholly apart to consider
seriously about it, and was all alone; for already people had, as it
were by a general consent, taken up the custom of not going out of doors
after sunset: the reasons I shall have occasion to say more of by and
by.
In the retirement of this evening I endeavored 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 call a direction to stay, I ought
to suppose it contained a promise of being preserved, if I obeyed.
This lay close to me;[30] and my mind seemed more and more encouraged to
stay than ever, and supported with a secret satisfaction that I should
be kept.[31] Add to this, that turning over the Bible which lay before
me, and while my thoughts were more than ordinary serious upon the
question, I cried out, "Well, I know not what to do, Lord direct me!"
and the like. And at that juncture I happened to stop turning over the
book at the Ninety-first Psalm, and, casting my eye on the second verse,
I read to the seventh verse exclusive, and after that included the
tenth, as follows: "I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my
fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from
the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover
thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth
shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the
terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the
pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that
wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand
at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes
shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast
made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation;
there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy
dwelling," etc.
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,[32] 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
intrust 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,[33] and afterwards fetched around farther into Buckinghamshire
or Bedfordshire, to a retreat he had found out there for his family.
It was a very ill time to be sick in; for if any one complained, it was
immediately said he had the plague; and though I had, indeed, no
symptoms of that distemper, yet, being very ill both in my head and in
my stomach, I was not without apprehension that I really was infected.
But in about three days I grew better. The third night I rested well,
sweated a little, and was much refreshed. The apprehensions of its
being the infection went also quite away with my illness, and I went
about my business as usual.
These things, however, put off all my thoughts of going into the
country; and my brother also being gone, I had no more debate either
with him or with myself on that subject.
It was now mid-July; and the plague, which had chiefly raged at the
other end of the town, and, as I said before, in the parishes of St.
Giles's, St. Andrew's, Holborn, and towards Westminster, began now to
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 indifferent healthy still. Nor was it
got then very much over the water into Southwark; for though there died
that week twelve hundred and sixty-eight of all distempers, whereof it
might be supposed above nine hundred died of the plague, yet there was
but twenty-eight in the whole city, within the walls, and but nineteen
in Southwark, Lambeth Parish included; whereas in the parishes of St.
Giles and St. Martin's-in-the-Fields alone, there died four hundred and
twenty-one.
But we perceived the infection kept chiefly in the outparishes, which
being very populous and fuller also of poor, the distemper found more to
prey upon than in the city, as I shall observe afterwards. We perceived,
I say, the distemper to draw our way, viz., by the parishes of
Clerkenwell, Cripplegate, Shoreditch, and Bishopsgate; which last two
parishes joining to Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Stepney, the infection
came at length to spread its utmost rage and violence in those parts,
even when it abated at the western parishes where it began.
It was very strange to observe that in this particular week (from the
4th to the 11th of July), when, as I have observed, there died near four
hundred of the plague in the two parishes of St. Martin's and St.
Giles-in-the-Fields[34] 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 11th of July to the 18th), when the
week's bill was seventeen hundred and sixty-one, 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 eight hundred and
eighty-six, and Clerkenwell one hundred and fifty-five. Of the first,
eight hundred and fifty might well be reckoned to die of the plague; and
of the last, the bill itself said one hundred and forty-five 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 it was
safe; and having the key in my pocket, I used to go into the house, and
over most of the rooms, to see that all was well. For though it be
something wonderful to tell that any should have hearts so hardened, in
the midst of such a calamity, as to rob and steal, yet certain it is
that all sorts of villainies, and even levities and debaucheries, were
then practiced in the town as openly as ever: I will not say quite as
frequently, because the number of people were[35] many ways lessened.
But the city itself began now to be visited too, I mean within the
walls. But the number of people there were[35] indeed extremely lessened
by so great a multitude having been gone into the country; and even all
this month of July they continued to flee, though not in such multitudes
as formerly. In August, indeed, they fled in such a manner, that I began
to think there would be really none but magistrates and servants left in
the city.
As they fled now out of the city, so I should observe that the
court[36] 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, Southwark, and
altogether; for as to the particular part called the city, or within the
walls, that was not yet much infected. But in the whole, the face of
things, I say, was much altered. Sorrow and sadness sat upon every face,
and though some part were not yet overwhelmed, yet all looked deeply
concerned; and as we saw it apparently coming on, so every one looked on
himself and his family as in the utmost danger. Were it possible to
represent those times exactly to those that did not see them, and give
the reader due ideas of the horror that everywhere presented itself, it
must make just impressions upon their minds, and fill them with
surprise. London might well be said to be all in tears. The mourners did
not go about the streets,[37] indeed; for nobody put on black, or made a
formal dress of mourning for their nearest friends: but the voice of
mourning was truly heard in the streets. The shrieks of women and
children at the windows and doors of their houses, where their nearest
relations were perhaps dying, or just dead, were so frequent to be heard
as we passed the streets, that it was enough to pierce the stoutest
heart in the world to hear them. Tears and lamentations were seen almost
in every house, especially in the first part of the visitation; for
towards the latter end, men's hearts were hardened, and death was so
always before their eyes that they did not so much concern themselves
for the loss of their friends, expecting that themselves should be
summoned the next hour.
Business led me out sometimes to the other end of the town, even when
the sickness was chiefly there. And as the thing was new to me, as well
as to everybody else, it was a most surprising thing to see those
streets, which were usually so thronged, now grown desolate, and so few
people to be seen in them, that if I had been a stranger, and at a loss
for my way, I might sometimes have gone the length of a whole street, I
mean of the by-streets, and see[38] nobody to direct me, except watchmen
set at the doors of such houses as were shut up; of which I shall speak
presently.
One day, being at that part of the town on some special business,
curiosity led me to observe things more than usually; and indeed I
walked a great way where I had no business. I went up Holborn, and there
the street was full of people; but they walked in the middle of the
great street, neither on one side or[39] other, because, as I suppose,
they would not mingle with anybody that came out of houses, or meet with
smells and scents from houses, that might be infected.
The inns of court were all shut up, nor were very many of the lawyers in
the Temple,[40] or Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn, to be seen there.
Everybody was at peace, there was no occasion for lawyers; besides, it
being in the time of the vacation too, they were generally gone into the
country. Whole rows of houses in some places were shut close up, the
inhabitants all fled, and only a watchman or two left.
When I speak of rows of houses being shut up, I do not mean shut up by
the magistrates, but that great numbers of persons followed the court,
by the necessity of their employments, and other dependencies; and as
others retired, really frighted with the distemper, it was a mere
desolating of some of the streets. But the fright was not yet near so
great in the city, abstractedly so called,[41] and particularly because,
though they were at first in a most inexpressible consternation, yet, as
I have observed that the distemper intermitted often at first, so they
were, as it were, alarmed and unalarmed again, and this several times,
till it began to be familiar to them; and that even when it appeared
violent, yet seeing it did not presently spread into the city, or the
east or south parts, the people began to take courage, and to be, as I
may say, a little hardened. It is true, a vast many people fled, as I
have observed; yet they were chiefly from the west end of the town, and
from that we call the heart of the city, that is to say, among the
wealthiest of the people, and such persons as were unincumbered with
trades and business. But of the rest, the generality staid, and seemed
to abide the worst; so that in the place we call the liberties, and in
the suburbs, in Southwark, and in the east part, such as Wapping,
Ratcliff, Stepney, Rotherhithe, and the like, the people generally
staid, except here and there a few wealthy families, who, as above, did
not depend upon their business.
It must not be forgot here that the city and suburbs were prodigiously
full of people at the time of this visitation, I mean at the time that
it began. For though I have lived to see a further increase, and mighty
throngs of people settling in London, more than ever; yet we had always
a notion that 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[42]
such that the town was computed to have in it above a hundred thousand
people more than ever it held before. Nay, some took upon them to say
it had twice as many, because all the ruined families of the royal party
flocked hither, all the soldiers set up trades here, and abundance of
families settled here. Again: the court brought with it a great flux of
pride and new fashions; all people were gay and luxurious, and the joy
of the restoration had brought a vast many families to London.[43]
But I must go back again to the beginning of this surprising time. While
the fears of the people were young, they were increased strangely by
several odd accidents, which put altogether, it was really a wonder the
whole body of the people did not rise as one man, and abandon their
dwellings, leaving the place as a space of ground designed by Heaven for
an Aceldama,[44] doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth, and
that all that would be found in it would perish with it. I shall name
but a few of these things; but sure they were so many, and so many
wizards and cunning people propagating them, that I have often wondered
there was any (women especially) left behind.
In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for several months
before the plague, as there did, the year after, another a little before
the fire. The old women, and the phlegmatic hypochondriac[45] 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 color, and its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow, but
that the comet before the fire was bright and sparkling, or, as others
said, flaming, and its motion swift and furious; and that, accordingly,
one foretold a heavy judgment, slow but severe, terrible, and
frightful, as was the plague, but the other foretold a stroke, sudden,
swift, and fiery, as was the conflagration. Nay, so particular some
people were, that, as they looked upon that comet preceding the fire,
they fancied that they not only saw it pass swiftly and fiercely, and
could perceive the motion with their eye, but even they heard it; that
it made a rushing, mighty noise, fierce and terrible, though at a
distance, and but just perceivable.
I saw both these stars, and, I must confess, had had so much of the
common notion of such things in my head, that I was apt to look upon
them as the forerunners and warnings of God's judgments, and, especially
when the plague had followed the first, I yet saw another of the like
kind, I could not but say, God had not yet sufficiently scourged the
city.
The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely increased by the
error of the times, in which I think the people, from what principle I
cannot imagine, were more addicted to prophecies, and astrological
conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales, than ever they were before
or since.[46] 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,"[47] "Gadbury's
Astrological Predictions," "Poor Robin's Almanack,"[48] and the like;
also several pretended religious books,--one entitled "Come out of Her,
my People, lest ye be Partaker of her Plagues;"[49] another called "Fair
Warning;" another, "Britain's Remembrancer;" and many such,--all, or
most part of which, foretold directly or covertly the ruin of the city.
Nay, some were so enthusiastically bold as to run about the streets with
their oral predictions, pretending they were sent to preach to the city;
and one in particular, who, like Jonah[50] to Nineveh, cried in the
streets, "Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed." I will not be
positive whether he said "yet forty days," or "yet a few days." Another
ran about naked, except a pair of drawers about his waist, crying day
and night, like a man that Josephus[51] mentions, who cried, "Woe to
Jerusalem!" a little before the destruction of that city: so this poor
naked creature cried, "Oh, the great and the dreadful God!" and said no
more, but repeated those words continually, with a voice and countenance
full of horror, a swift pace, and nobody could ever find him to stop, or
rest, or take any sustenance, at least that ever I could hear of. I met
this poor creature several times in the streets, and would have spoke to
him, but he would not enter into speech with me, or any one else, but
kept on his dismal cries continually.
These things terrified the people to the last degree, and especially
when two or three times, as I have mentioned already, they found one or
two in the bills dead of the plague at St. Giles's.
Next to these public things were the dreams of old women; or, I should
say, the interpretation of old women upon other people's dreams; and
these put abundance of people even out of their wits. Some heard voices
warning them to be gone, for that there would be such a plague in London
so that the living would not be able to bury the dead; others saw
apparitions in the air: and I must be allowed to say of both, I hope
without breach of charity, that they heard voices that never spake, and
saw sights that never appeared. But the imagination of the people was
really turned wayward and possessed; and no wonder if they who were
poring continually at the clouds saw shapes and figures,
representations and appearances, which had nothing in them but air and
vapor. Here they told us they saw a flaming sword held in a hand, coming
out of a cloud, with a point hanging directly over the city. There they
saw hearses and coffins in the air carrying to be buried. And there
again, heaps of dead bodies lying unburied and the like, just as the
imagination of the poor terrified people furnished them with matter to
work upon.
So hypochondriac fancies represent
Ships, armies, battles in the firmament;
Till steady eyes the exhalations solve,
And all to its first matter, cloud, resolve.
I could fill this account with the strange relations such people give
every day of what they have seen; and every one was so positive of their
having seen what they pretended to see, that there was no contradicting
them, without breach of friendship, or being accounted rude and
unmannerly on the one hand, and profane and impenetrable on the other.
One time before the plague was begun, otherwise than as I have said in
St. Giles's (I think it was in March), seeing a crowd of people in the
street, I joined with them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all
staring up into the air to see what a woman told them appeared plain to
her, which was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in his
hand, waving it or brandishing it over his head. She described every
part of the figure to the life, showed them the motion and the form, and
the poor people came into it so eagerly and with so much readiness.
"Yes, I see it all plainly," says one: "there's the sword as plain as
can be." Another saw the angel; one saw his very face, and cried out
what a glorious creature he was. One saw one thing, and one another. I
looked as earnestly as the rest, but perhaps not with so much
willingness to be imposed upon; and I said, indeed, that I could see
nothing but a white cloud, bright on one side, by the shining of the sun
upon the other part. The woman endeavored to show it me, but could not
make me confess that I saw it; which, indeed, if I had, I must have
lied. But the woman, turning to me, looked me in the face, and fancied I
laughed, in which her imagination deceived her too, for I really did not
laugh, but was seriously reflecting how the poor people were terrified
by the force of their own imagination. However, she turned to 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 she, and I found there
was no persuading them that I did not laugh at them, and that I should
be rather mobbed by them than be able to undeceive them. So I left them,
and this appearance passed for as real as the blazing star itself.
Another encounter I had in the open day also; and this was in going
through a narrow passage from Petty France[52] into Bishopsgate
churchyard, by a row of almshouses. 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
almshouses are on the left, and a dwarf wall with a palisade 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 the palisades into
the burying place, and as many people as the narrowness of the place
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 amazement to him in the world
that everybody did not see it as well as he. On a sudden he would cry,
"There it is! Now it comes this way!" then, "'Tis turned back!" till at
length he persuaded the people into so firm a belief of it, that one
fancied he saw it; and thus he came every day, making a strange hubbub,
considering it was so narrow a passage, till Bishopsgate clock struck
eleven; and then the ghost would seem to start, and, as if he were
called away, disappeared on a sudden.
I looked earnestly every way, and at the very moment that this man
directed, but could not see the least appearance of anything. But so
positive was this poor man that he gave them vapors[53] in abundance,
and sent them away trembling and frightened, till at length few people
that knew of it cared to go through that passage, and hardly anybody by
night on any account whatever.
This ghost, as the poor man affirmed, made signs to the houses and to
the ground and to the people, plainly intimating (or else they so
understanding it) that abundance of people should come to be buried in
that churchyard, as indeed happened. But then 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.
Some endeavors 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 done in it, as I am informed; the
government being unwilling to exasperate the people, who were, as I may
say, all out of their wits already.
Neither can I acquit those ministers that in their sermons rather sunk
than lifted up the hearts of their hearers. Many of them, I doubt not,
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.
One mischief always introduces another. These terrors and apprehensions
of the people led them to 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,[54] and
astrologers, to know their fortunes, or, as it is vulgarly expressed, to
have their fortunes told them, their nativities[55] calculated, and the
like. And this folly presently made the town swarm with a wicked
generation of pretenders to magic, to the "black art," as they called
it, and I know not what, nay, to a thousand worse dealings with the
devil than they were really guilty of. And this trade grew so open and
so generally practiced, 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,[56] 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,[57] or of Merlin's[58] head, and the like.
With what blind, absurd, and ridiculous stuff these oracles of the devil
pleased and satisfied the people, I really know not; but certain it is,
that innumerable attendants crowded about their doors every day: and if
but a grave fellow in a velvet jacket, a band,[59] 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[60] in crowds, and ask
them[60] questions as they went along.
The case of poor servants was very dismal, as I shall have occasion to
mention again by and by; for it was apparent a prodigious number of them
would be turned away. And it was so, and of them abundance perished,
and particularly those whom these false prophets flattered with hopes
that they should be kept in their services, and carried with their
masters and mistresses into the country; and had not public charity
provided for these poor creatures, whose number was exceeding great (and
in all cases of this nature must be so), they would have been in the
worst condition of any people in the city.
These things agitated the minds of the common people for many months
while the first apprehensions were upon them, and while the plague was
not, as I may say, yet broken out. But I must also not forget that the
more serious part of the inhabitants behaved after another manner. The
government encouraged their devotion, and appointed public prayers, and
days of fasting and humiliation, to make public confession of sin, and
implore the mercy of God to avert the dreadful judgment which hangs over
their heads; and it is not to be expressed with what alacrity the people
of all persuasions embraced the occasion, how they flocked to the
churches and meetings, and they were all so thronged that there was
often no coming near, even 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 another, kept family fasts, to
which they admitted their near relations only; so that, in a word, those
people who were really serious and religious applied themselves in a
truly Christian manner to the proper work of repentance and humiliation,
as a Christian people ought to do.
Again, the public showed that they would bear their share in these
things. The very court, which was then gay and luxurious, put on a face
of just concern for the public danger. All the plays and interludes[61]
which, after the manner of the French court,[62] had been set up and
began to increase among us, were forbid to act;[63] 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,[64] merry-andrews,[64] puppet shows, ropedancers, and
such like doings, which had bewitched the common people, shut their
shops, finding indeed no trade, for the minds of the people were
agitated with other things, and a kind of sadness and horror at these
things sat upon the countenances even of the common people. Death was
before their eyes, and everybody began to think of their graves, not of
mirth and diversions.
But even these wholesome reflections, which, rightly managed, would have
most happily led the people to fall upon their knees, make confession of
their sins, and look up to their merciful Savior for pardon, imploring
his compassion on them in such a time of their distress, by which we
might have been as a second Nineveh, had a quite contrary extreme in the
common people, who, ignorant and stupid in their reflections as they
were brutishly wicked and thoughtless before, were now led by their
fright to extremes of folly, and, as I said before, that they ran to
conjurers and witches and all sorts of deceivers, to know what should
become of them, who fed their fears and kept them always alarmed and
awake, on purpose to delude them and pick their pockets: so they were as
mad upon their running after quacks and mountebanks, and every
practicing old woman for medicines and remedies, storing themselves with
such multitudes of pills, potions, and preservatives, as they were
called, that they not only spent their money, but poisoned themselves
beforehand, for fear of the poison of the infection, and prepared their
bodies for the plague, instead of preserving them against it. On the
other hand, it was 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 people to come to them for remedies, which was generally
set off with such flourishes as these; viz., "INFALLIBLE preventitive
pills against the plague;" "NEVER-FAILING preservatives against the
infection;" "SOVEREIGN cordials against the corruption of air;" "EXACT
regulations for the conduct of the body in case of infection;"
"Antipestilential pills;" "INCOMPARABLE drink against the plague, never
found out before;" "An UNIVERSAL remedy for the plague;" "The ONLY TRUE
plague water;" "The ROYAL ANTIDOTE against all kinds of infection;" and
such a number more that I cannot reckon up, and, if I could, would fill
a book of themselves to set them down.
Others set up bills to summon people to their lodgings for direction and
advice in the case of infection. These had specious titles also, such as
these:--
An eminent High-Dutch physician, newly come over from Holland,
where he resided during all the time of the great plague,
last year, in Amsterdam, and cured multitudes of people that
actually had the plague upon them.
An Italian gentlewoman just arrived from Naples, having a
choice secret to prevent infection, which she found out by
her great experience, and did wonderful cures with it in the
late plague there, wherein there died 20,000 in one day.
An ancient gentlewoman having practiced with great success in
the late plague in this city, anno 1636, gives her advice
only to the female sex. To be spoken with, etc.
An experienced physician, who has long studied the doctrine of
antidotes against all sorts of poison and infection, has,
after forty years' practice, arrived at such skill as may,
with God's blessing, direct persons how to prevent being
touched by any contagious distemper whatsoever. He directs
the poor gratis.
I take notice of these by way of specimen. I could give you two or three
dozen of the like, and yet have abundance left behind. It is sufficient
from these to apprise any one of the humor of those times, and how a set
of thieves and pickpockets not only robbed and cheated the poor people
of their money, but poisoned their bodies with odious and fatal
preparations; some with mercury, and some with other things as bad,
perfectly remote from the thing pretended to, and rather hurtful than
serviceable to the body in case an infection followed.
I cannot omit a subtlety of one of those quack operators with which he
gulled the poor people to crowd about him, but did nothing for them
without money. He had, it seems, added to his bills, which he gave out
in the streets, this advertisement in capital letters; viz., "He gives
advice to the poor for nothing."
Abundance of 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 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 that they should never have the plague,
no, though they lived in the house with people that were infected. This
made the people all resolve to have it, but then the price of that was
so much (I think it was half a crown[65]). "But, sir," says one poor
woman, "I am a poor almswoman, and am kept by the parish; and your bills
say you give the poor your help for nothing."--"Ay, good woman," says
the doctor, "so I do, as I published there. I give my advice, but not my
physic!"--"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 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 them to be imposed
upon by all sorts of pretenders and by every mountebank. There is no
doubt but these quacking sort of fellows raised great gains out of the
miserable people; for we daily found the crowds that ran after them were
infinitely greater, and their doors were more thronged, than those of
Dr. Brooks, Dr. Upton, Dr. Hodges, Dr. Berwick, or any, though the most
famous men of the time; and I was told that some of them got five
pounds[66] a day by their physic.
But there was still another madness beyond all this, which may serve to
give an idea of the distracted humor of the poor people at that time,
and this was their following a worse sort of deceivers than any of
these; for these petty thieves only deluded them to pick their pockets
and get their money (in which their wickedness, whatever it was, lay
chiefly on the side of the deceiver's deceiving, not upon the deceived);
but, in this part I am going to mention, it lay chiefly in the people
deceived, or equally in both. And this was in wearing charms,
philters,[67] exorcisms,[68] amulets,[69] and I know not what
preparations to fortify the body against the plague, as if the plague
was not the hand of God, but a kind of a possession of an evil spirit,
and it was to be kept off with crossings,[70] signs of the zodiac,[71]
papers tied up with so many knots, and certain words or figures written
on them, as particularly the word "Abracadabra,"[72] formed in triangle
or pyramid; thus,--
A B R A C A D A B R A
A B R A C A D A B R
A B R A C A D A B
A B R A C A D A
A B R A C A D
A B R A C A
A B R A C
A B R A
A B R
A B
A