before the plague, as there did the year after, a little before the great
fire; the old women and the weak-minded portion 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 the plague was; but the other foretold
a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, like 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 the eye, but they even heard it; that it
made a rushing, mighty noise, fierce and terrible, though at a distance and
but just perceivable.
I saw both these stars, and I must confess, had so much of the common
notion of such things in my head that I was apt to look upon them as the
forerunners and warnings of God's 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 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
evolutions, are calculated, or pretended to be calculated; so that they
cannot be so perfectly called the forerunners or foretellers, much less the
procurers of such events as pestilence, war, fire, and the like.
But let my thoughts, and the thoughts of the philosophers, be or have been
what they will, these things had a more than ordinary influence upon the
minds of the common people, and they had, almost universally, melancholy
apprehensions of some dreadful calamity and judgment coming upon the city;
and this principally from the sight of this comet, and the little alarm
that was given in December by two people dying in St. Giles.
The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely increased by the
error of the times; in which, I think the people, from what principles
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 frightened them
terribly; such as _Lilly's Almanack, Gadbury's Allogical Predictions,
Poor Robin's Almanack_, and the like; also several pretended religious
books--one entitled _Come out of her, my people, lest you be partaker
of her plagues_; another, called _Fair Warning_; another, _Britain's
Remembrancer_; and many such, all or most part of which foretold directly
or covertly the ruin of the city: nay, some were so enthusiastically bold
as to run about the streets with their oral predictions, pretending they
were sent to preach to the city; and one in particular, who like Jonah
to Nineveh, cried in the streets, "Yet forty days, and London shall be
destroyed." I will not be positive whether he said "yet forty days" or "yet
a few days."
Another ran about naked, except a pair of drawers about his waist, crying
day and night. As a man that Josephus mentions, who cried, "Woe to
Jerusalem!" a little before the destruction of that city, so this poor
naked creature cried, "O the great and the dreadful God!" and said no more,
but repeated these words continually, with a voice and countenance full of
horror, a swift pace; and nobody could ever find him to stop or rest or
take any sustenance, at least that ever I could hear of. I met this poor
creature several times in the streets, and would have spoken to him, but he
would not enter into conversation with me, or anyone 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.
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's, St. Clement Danes, etc., and it was with
good success; for in several streets where the plague broke out, after
strictly guarding the houses that were infected, and taking care to bury
those that died immediately after they were known to be dead, the plague
ceased in those streets. It was also observed that the plague decreased
sooner in those parishes, after they had been visited in detail, than it
did in the parishes of Bishopsgate, Shoreditch, Aldgate, Whitechapel,
Stepney, and others; the early care taken in that manner being a great
check to it.
This shutting up of houses was a method first taken, as I understand, in
the plague which happened in 1603, on the accession of King James I to the
crown; and the power of shutting people up in their own houses was granted
by an 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, viz., June, 1665; when the numbers infected within the
city were but few, the last bill for the ninety-two parishes being but
four. By these means, when there died about one thousand a week in the
whole, the number in the city was but twenty-eight; and the city was more
healthy in proportion than any other place all the time of the infection.
These orders of my lord mayor were published, as I have said, toward the
end of June. They came into operation from July ist, and were as follows:
"_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, surgeons, and nurse-keepers, and
buriers, for the persons and places infected, and to minister unto them
oaths for the performance of their offices. And the same statute did also
authorize the giving of other directions, as unto them for the present
necessity should seem good in their discretions. It is now upon special
consideration thought very expedient for preventing and avoiding of
infection of sickness (if it shall so please Almighty God) that these
officers be appointed, and these orders hereafter duly observed."
Then follow the orders giving these officers instructions in detail and
prescribing the extent and limits of their several duties. Next, "_Orders
concerning infected houses and persons sick of the plague._" These had
reference to the "notice to be given of the sickness," "sequestration of
the sick," "airing the stuff," "shutting up of the house," "burial of
the dead," "forbidding infected stuff to be sold, and of persons leaving
infected houses," "marking of infected houses," and "regulating hackney
coaches that have been used to convey infected persons."
Lastly there followed "_Orders for cleansing and keeping the streets and
houses sweet_" and "_Orders concerning loose persons and idle assemblies_"
such as "beggars," "plays," "feasts," and "tippling-houses."
"(Signed) SIR JOHN LAWRENCE, _Lord Mayor_.
SIR GEORGE WATERMAN,
SIR CHARLES DOE,
_Sheriffs_."
I need not say that these orders extended only to such places as were
within the lord mayor's jurisdiction; so it is requisite to observe that
the justices of the peace, within those parishes, and those places called
the hamlets and out-parts, took the same method: as I remember, the orders
for shutting up of houses did not take place so soon on our side, because,
as I said before, the plague did not reach the eastern parts of the town,
at least not begin to be very violent, till the beginning of August.
Now, indeed, it was coming on amain; for the burials that same week were in
the next adjoining parishes thus:
The next week To the
prodigiously 1st of
increased, as Aug. thus
St. Leonard's, Shoreditch ... 64 84 110
St. Botolph, Bishopsgate .... 65 105 116
St. Giles, Cripplegate.......213 421 554
--- --- ---
342 610 780
The shutting up of houses was at first considered a very cruel and
unchristian thing, and the poor people so confined made bitter
lamentations; complaints were also daily brought to my lord mayor, of
houses causelessly--and some maliciously--shut up. I cannot say, but, upon
inquiry, many that complained so loudly were found in a condition to be
continued; and others again, inspection being made upon the sick person, on
his being content to be carried to the pesthouse, were released.
Indeed, many people perished in these miserable confinements, which it
is 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
at first very clamorous and uneasy, and several acts of violence were
committed on the men who were set to watch the houses so shut up; also
several people broke out by force, in many places, as I shall observe by
and by; still it was a public good that justified the private mischief;
and there was no obtaining the least mitigation by any application to
magistrates. This put the people upon all manner of stratagems, in order,
if possible, to get out; and it would fill a little volume to set down the
arts used by the people of such houses to shut the eyes of the watchmen who
were employed, to deceive them, and to escape or break out from them. A few
incidents on this head may prove not uninteresting.
As I went along Houndsditch one morning, about eight o'clock, there was a
great noise; it is true, indeed, there was not much crowd, because people
were not very free to gather or to stay long together; but the outcry was
loud enough to prompt my curiosity, and I called to one that looked out of
a window, and asked what was the matter.
A watchman, it seems, had been employed to keep his post at the door of a
house which was infected, or said to be infected, and was shut up; he had
been there all night for two nights together, as he told his story, and the
day watchman had been there one day, and had now come to relieve him; all
this while no noise had been heard in the house, no light had been seen;
they called for nothing, sent him no errands, which was the chief business
of the watchman; 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, wrapped only in a green rug, and carried her away.
The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when he heard that noise
and crying, as above, and nobody answered a great while; but at last one
looked out, and said, with an angry, quick tone, "What do ye want, that ye
make such a knocking?" He answered: "I am the watchman! how do you do?
what is the matter?" The person answered: "What is that to you? Stop the
dead-cart." This, it seems, was about one o'clock; soon after, as the
fellow said, he stopped the dead-cart, and then knocked again, but nobody
answered: he continued knocking, and the bellman called out several times,
"Bring out your dead!" but nobody answered, till the man that drove the
cart, being called to other houses, would stay no longer, and drove away.
The watchman knew not what to make of all this, so he let them alone
till the day watchman came to relieve him, giving him an account of the
particulars. They knocked at the door a great while, but nobody answered;
and they observed that the window or casement at which the person had
looked out continued open, being up two pair of stairs. Upon this the two
men, to satisfy their curiosity, got a long ladder, and one of them went
up to the window and looked into the room, where he saw a woman lying dead
upon the floor in a dismal manner, having no clothes on her but her shift.
Although he called aloud, and knocked hard on the floor with his long
staff, yet nobody stirred or answered; neither could he hear any noise in
the house.
Upon this he came down again and acquainted his fellow, who went up also,
and, finding the case as above, they resolved either to acquaint the lord
mayor or some other magistrate with it. The magistrate, it seems, upon
the information of the two men, ordered the house to be broken open, a
constable and other persons being appointed to be present, that nothing
might be plundered; and accordingly it was so done, when nobody was found
in the house but that young woman, who, having been infected, and past
recovery, the rest had left her to die by herself. Everyone was gone,
having found some way to delude the watchman and to get open the door or
get out at some back door or over the tops of the houses, so that he knew
nothing of it; and as to those cries and shrieks which the watchman had
heard, it was supposed they were the passionate cries of the family at
the bitter parting, which, to be sure, it was to them all, this being the
sister to the mistress of the house.
Many such escapes were made out of infected houses, as particularly when
the watchman was sent some errand, that is to say, for necessaries, such as
food and physic, to fetch physicians if they would come, or surgeons, or
nurses, or to order the dead-cart, and the like. Now, when he went it was
his duty to lock up the outer door of the house and take the key away with
him; but to evade this and cheat the watchman, people got two or three keys
made to their locks, or they found means to unscrew the locks, open the
door, and go out as they pleased. This way of escape being found out, the
officers afterward 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 near Aldgate, a whole
family was shut up and locked in because the maidservant was ill: 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
pesthouse, 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 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-story high, where she could not cry out or call to
anybody for help.
The watchman went and fetched a nurse as he was appointed, and brought her
to them the same evening; during this interval the master of the house took
the opportunity of breaking a large hole through his shop into a stall
where formerly a cobbler had sat, before or under his shop window, but the
tenant, as may be supposed, at such a dismal time as that, was dead or
removed, and so he had the key in his own keeping. Having made his way
into this stall, which he could not have done if the man had been at the
door--the noise he was obliged to make being such as would have alarmed the
watchman--I say, having made his way into this stall, he sat still till the
watchman returned with the nurse, and all the next day also. But the night
following, having contrived to send the watchman another trifling errand,
he conveyed himself and all his family out of the house, and left the nurse
and the watchman to bury the poor woman, that is, to throw her into the
cart and take care of the house.
I could give a great many such stories as these which in the long course of
that dismal year I met with, that is, heard of, and which are very certain
to be true or very near the truth; that is to say, true in general, for no
man could at such a time learn all the particulars. There was, likewise,
violence used with the watchmen, as was reported, in abundance of places;
and I believe that, from the beginning of the visitation to the end, not
less than eighteen or twenty of them were killed or so severely wounded as
to be taken up for dead; which was supposed to have been done by the people
in the infected houses which were shut up, and where they attempted to come
out and were opposed.
For example, not far from Coleman Street they blowed 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 story high, two that were
left sick calling out for help. Care was taken to give the latter nurses
to look after them, but the fugitives were not found till after the plague
abated, when 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 or
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 to shoot the
poor wretch if he stirred or called for help.
In other cases some had gardens and walls or palings between them and
their neighbors; or yards and back houses; and these, by friendship and
entreaties, would get leave to get over those walls or palings, and so go
out at their neighbors' doors, or, by giving money to their servants, get
them to let them through in the night; so that, in short, the shutting up
of houses was in no wise to be depended upon. Neither did it answer the end
at all; serving more to make the people desperate and drive them to violent
extremities in their attempts to break out.
But what was still worse, those that did thus break out spread the
infection by wandering about with the distemper upon them; and many that
did so were driven to dreadful exigencies and extremities and perished in
the streets or fields or dropped down with 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; the houses and villages on the road refusing to admit
them to lodge, whether infected or no, they perished by the roadside.
On the other hand, when the plague at first seized a family, that is to
say, when any one of the family had gone out and unwarily or otherwise
caught the distemper and brought it home, it was certainly known by the
family before it was known to the officers who were appointed to examine
into the circumstances of all sick persons when they heard of their being
sick.
I remember--and while I am writing this story I think I hear the very
shrieks--a certain lady had an only daughter, a young maiden about nineteen
years old and who was possessed of a very considerable fortune. The young
woman, her mother, and the maid had been out for some purpose, for the
house was not shut up; but about two hours after they came home the young
lady complained she was not well; in a quarter of an hour more she vomited
and had a violent pain in her head. "Pray God," says her mother, in a
terrible fright, "my child has not the distemper!" The pain in her head
increasing, her mother ordered the bed to be warmed, and resolved to
put her to bed, and prepared to give her things to sweat, which was the
ordinary remedy to be taken when the first apprehensions of the distemper
began.
While the bed was being aired, the mother undressed the young woman, and,
on looking over her body with a candle, immediately discovered the fatal
tokens. 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
bring horror upon the stoutest heart in the world. Overcome by fright, she
first fainted, then recovered, then ran all over the house, up the stairs
and down the stairs, like one distracted. Thus she 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 dead from that moment; for the gangrene which
occasions the spots had spread over her whole body, and she died in less
than two hours: but still the mother continued crying out, not knowing
anything more of her child, several hours after she was dead.
I went all the first part of the time freely about the streets, though not
so freely as to run myself into apparent danger, except when they dug the
great pit in the church-yard of our parish of Aldgate. A terrible pit it
was, and I could not resist the curiosity to go and see it. So far as I
could 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 nearly twenty feet deep afterward, when they
could go no deeper, for the water.
They had dug several pits in another ground when the distemper began to
spread in our parish, and especially when the dead-carts began to go about,
which in our parish was not 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 two hundred to four hundred
a week. They could not dig them larger, because of the order of the
magistrates confining them to leave no bodies within six feet of the
surface. Besides, the water coming on at about seventeen or eighteen feet,
they could not well put more in one pit. But now at the beginning of
September, the plague being at its height, and the number of burials in our
parish increasing to more than were 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 church-wardens
knew the condition of the parish better than they did; for the pit being
finished September 4th, I think they began to bury in it on the 6th, and by
the 20th, which was just two weeks, they had thrown into it one thousand
one hundred fourteen bodies, when they were obliged to fill it up, the
bodies being within six feet of the surface.
It was about September 10th that my curiosity led or rather drove me to
go and see this pit again, when there had been about four hundred people
buried in it; and I was not content to see it in the daytime, as I had done
before, for then there would have been nothing to see but the loose earth;
for all the bodies that were thrown in were immediately covered with earth
by those they called the buriers, but I resolved to go in the night and see
some of the bodies thrown in.
There was a strict order against 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, wrapped in blankets or rags, and throw
themselves in and bury themselves.