ORDERS CONCERNING LOOSE PERSONS AND IDLE ASSEMBLIES.

Beggars.

‘Forasmuch as nothing is more complained of than the multitude of

rogues and wandering beggars that swarm in every place about the

city, being a great cause of the spreading of the infection, and

will not be avoided, notwithstanding any orders that have been

given to the contrary: It is therefore now ordered, that such

constables, and others whom this matter may any way concern, take

special care that no wandering beggars be suffered in the streets

of this city in any fashion or manner whatsoever, upon the

penalty provided by the law, to be duly and severely executed

upon them.

Plays.

‘That all plays, bear-baitings, games, singing of ballads,

buckler-play, or such-like causes of assemblies of people be

utterly prohibited, and the parties offending severely punished

by every alderman in his ward.

Feasting prohibited.

‘That all public feasting, and particularly by the companies of

this city, and dinners at taverns, ale-houses, and other places

of common entertainment, be forborne till further order and

allowance; and that the money thereby spared be preserved and

employed for the benefit and relief of the poor visited with the

infection.

Tippling-houses.

‘That disorderly tippling in taverns, ale-houses, coffee-houses,

and cellars be severely looked unto, as the common sin of this

time and greatest occasion of dispersing the plague. And that no

company or person be suffered to remain or come into any tavern,

ale-house, or coffee-house to drink after nine of the clock in

the evening, according to the ancient law and custom of this

city, upon the penalties ordained in that behalf.

‘And for the better execution of these orders, and such other

rules and directions as, upon further consideration, shall be

found needful: It is ordered and enjoined that the aldermen,

deputies, and common councilmen shall meet together weekly, once,

twice, thrice or oftener (as cause shall require), at some one

general place accustomed in their respective wards (being clear

from infection of the plague), to consult how the said orders may

be duly put in execution; not intending that any dwelling in or

near places infected shall come to the said meeting while their

coming may be doubtful. And the said aldermen, and deputies, and

common councilmen in their several wards may put in execution any

other good orders that by them at their said meetings shall be

conceived and devised for preservation of his Majesty’s subjects

from the infection.

‘SIR JOHN LAWRENCE, Lord Mayor.

SIR GEORGE WATERMAN

SIR CHARLES

DOE, Sheriffs.’

I need not say that these orders extended only to such places as

were within the Lord Mayor’s jurisdiction, so it is requisite to

observe that the justices of Peace within those parishes and

places as were called the Hamlets and out-parts took the same

method. As I remember, the orders for shutting up of houses did

not take Place so soon on our side, because, as I said before,

the plague did not reach to these eastern parts of the town at

least, nor begin to be very violent, till the beginning of

August. For example, the whole bill from the 11th to the 18th of

July was 1761, yet there died but 71 of the plague in all those

parishes we call the Tower Hamlets, and they were as follows:—

- The next week And to the 1st

- was thus: of Aug. thus:

Aldgate 14 34 65

Stepney 33 58 76

Whitechappel 21 48 79

St Katherine, Tower 2 4 4

Trinity, Minories 1 1 4

- —- —- —-

- 71 145 228

It was indeed coming on amain, for the burials that same week

were in the next adjoining parishes thus:—

- The next week

- prodigiously To the 1st of

- increased, as: Aug. thus:

St Leonard’s, Shoreditch 64 84 110

St Botolph’s, Bishopsgate 65 105 116

St Giles’s, Cripplegate 213 421 554

- —- —- —-

- 342 610 780

This shutting up of houses was at first counted a very cruel and

unchristian method, and the poor people so confined made bitter

lamentations. Complaints of the severity of it were also daily

brought to my Lord Mayor, of houses causelessly (and some

maliciously) shut up. I cannot say; but upon inquiry many that

complained so loudly were found in a condition to be continued;

and others again, inspection being made upon the sick person, and

the sickness not appearing infectious, or if uncertain, yet on

his being content to be carried to the pest-house, were released.

It is true that the locking up the doors of people’s houses, and

setting a watchman there night and day to prevent their stirring

out or any coming to them, when perhaps the sound people in the

family might have escaped if they had been removed from the sick,

looked very hard and cruel; and many people perished in these

miserable confinements which, ’tis reasonable to believe, would

not have been distempered if they had had liberty, though the

plague was in the house; at which the people were very clamorous

and uneasy at first, and several violences were committed and

injuries offered to the men who were set to watch the houses so

shut up; also several people broke out by force in many places,

as I shall observe by-and-by. But it was a public good that

justified the private mischief, and there was no obtaining the

least mitigation by any application to magistrates or government

at that time, at least not that I heard of. This put the people

upon all manner of stratagem in order, if possible, to get out;

and it would fill a little volume to set down the arts used by

the people of such houses to shut the eyes of the watchmen who

were employed, to deceive them, and to escape or break out from

them, in which frequent scuffles and some mischief happened; of

which by itself.

As I went along Houndsditch one morning about eight o’clock there

was a great noise. It is true, indeed, there was not much crowd,

because people were not very free to gather together, or to stay

long together when they were there; nor did I stay long there.

But the outcry was loud enough to prompt my curiosity, and I

called to one that looked out of a window, and asked what was the

matter.

A watchman, it seems, had been employed to keep his post at the

door of a house which was infected, or said to be infected, and

was shut up. He had been there all night for two nights together,

as he told his story, and the day-watchman had been there one

day, and was now come to relieve him. All this while no noise had

been heard in the house, no light had been seen; they called for

nothing, sent him of no errands, which used to be the chief

business of the watchmen; neither had they given him any

disturbance, as he said, from the Monday afternoon, when he heard

great crying and screaming in the house, which, as he supposed,

was occasioned by some of the family dying just at that time. It

seems, the night before, the dead-cart, as it was called, had

been stopped there, and a servant-maid had been brought down to

the door dead, and the buriers or bearers, as they were called,

put her into the cart, wrapt only in a green rug, and carried her

away.

The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when he heard

that noise and crying, as above, and nobody answered a great

while; but at last one looked out and said with an angry, quick

tone, and yet a kind of crying voice, or a voice of one that was

crying, ‘What d’ye want, that ye make such a knocking?’ He

answered, ‘I am the watchman! How do you do? What is the matter?’

The person answered, ‘What is that to you? Stop the dead-cart.’

This, it seems, was about one o’clock. Soon after, as the fellow

said, he stopped the dead-cart, and then knocked again, but

nobody answered. He continued knocking, and the bellman called

out several times, ‘Bring out your dead’; but nobody answered,

till the man that drove the cart, being called to other houses,

would stay no longer, and drove away.

The watchman knew not what to make of all this, so he let them

alone till the morning-man or day-watchman, as they called him,

came to relieve him. Giving him an account of the particulars,

they knocked at the door a great while, but nobody answered; and

they observed that the window or casement at which the person had

looked out who had answered before continued open, being up two

pair of stairs.

Upon this the two men, to satisfy their curiosity, got a long

ladder, and one of them went up to the window and looked into the

room, where he saw a woman lying dead upon the floor in a dismal

manner, having no clothes on her but her shift. But though he

called aloud, and putting in his long staff, knocked hard on the

floor, yet nobody stirred or answered; neither could he hear any

noise in the house.

He came down again upon this, and acquainted his fellow, who went

up also; and finding it just so, they resolved to acquaint either

the Lord Mayor or some other magistrate of it, but did not offer

to go in at the window. The magistrate, it seems, upon the

information of the two men, ordered the house to be broke open, a

constable and other persons being appointed to be present, that

nothing might be plundered; and accordingly it was so done, when

nobody was found in the house but that young woman, who having

been infected and past recovery, the rest had left her to die by

herself, and were every one gone, having found some way to delude

the watchman, and to get open the door, or get out at some

back-door, or over the tops of the houses, so that he knew

nothing of it; and as to those cries and shrieks which he heard,

it was supposed they were the passionate cries of the family at

the bitter parting, which, to be sure, it was to them all, this

being the sister to the mistress of the family. The man of the

house, his wife, several children, and servants, being all gone

and fled, whether sick or sound, that I could never learn; nor,

indeed, did I make much inquiry after it.

Many such escapes were made out of infected houses, as

particularly when the watchman was sent of some errand; for it

was his business to go of any errand that the family sent him of;

that is to say, for necessaries, such as food and physic; to

fetch physicians, if they would come, or surgeons, or nurses, or

to order the dead-cart, and the like; but with this condition,

too, that when he went he was to lock up the outer door of the

house and take the key away with him, To evade this, and cheat

the watchmen, people got two or three keys made to their locks,

or they found ways to unscrew the locks such as were screwed on,

and so take off the lock, being in the inside of the house, and

while they sent away the watchman to the market, to the

bakehouse, or for one trifle or another, open the door and go out

as often as they pleased. But this being found out, the officers

afterwards had orders to padlock up the doors on the outside, and

place bolts on them as they thought fit.

At another house, as I was informed, in the street next within

Aldgate, a whole family was shut up and locked in because the

maid-servant was taken sick. The master of the house had

complained by his friends to the next alderman and to the Lord

Mayor, and had consented to have the maid carried to the

pest-house, but was refused; so the door was marked with a red

cross, a padlock on the outside, as above, and a watchman set to

keep the door, according to public order.

After the master of the house found there was no remedy, but that

he, his wife, and his children were to be locked up with this

poor distempered servant, he called to the watchman, and told him

he must go then and fetch a nurse for them to attend this poor

girl, for that it would be certain death to them all to oblige

them to nurse her; and told him plainly that if he would not do

this, the maid must perish either of the distemper or be starved

for want of food, for he was resolved none of his family should

go near her; and she lay in the garret four storey high, where

she could not cry out, or call to anybody for help.

The watchman consented to that, and went and fetched a nurse, as

he was appointed, and brought her to them the same evening.

During this interval the master of the house took his opportunity

to break a large hole through his shop into a bulk or stall,

where formerly a cobbler had sat, before or under his

shop-window; but the tenant, as may be supposed at such a dismal

time as that, was dead or removed, and so he had the key in his

own keeping. Having made his way into this stall, which he could

not have done if the man had been at the door, the noise he was

obliged to make being such as would have alarmed the watchman; I

say, having made his way into this stall, he sat still till the

watchman returned with the nurse, and all the next day also. But

the night following, having contrived to send the watchman of

another trifling errand, which, as I take it, was to an

apothecary’s for a plaister for the maid, which he was to stay

for the making up, or some other such errand that might secure

his staying some time; in that time he conveyed himself and all

his family out of the house, and left the nurse and the watchman

to bury the poor wench—that is, throw her into the cart—and take

care of the house.

I could give a great many such stories as these, diverting

enough, which in the long course of that dismal year I met

with—that is, heard of—and which are very certain to be true, or

very near the truth; that is to say, true in the general: for no

man could at such a time learn all the particulars. There was

likewise violence used with the watchmen, as was reported, in

abundance of places; and I believe that from the beginning of the

visitation to the end, there was not less than eighteen or twenty

of them killed, or so wounded as to be taken up for dead, which

was supposed to be done by the people in the infected houses

which were shut up, and where they attempted to come out and were

opposed.

Nor, indeed, could less be expected, for here were so many

prisons in the town as there were houses shut up; and as the

people shut up or imprisoned so were guilty of no crime, only

shut up because miserable, it was really the more intolerable to

them.

It had also this difference, that every prison, as we may call

it, had but one jailer, and as he had the whole house to guard,

and that many houses were so situated as that they had several

ways out, some more, some less, and some into several streets, it

was impossible for one man so to guard all the passages as to

prevent the escape of people made desperate by the fright of

their circumstances, by the resentment of their usage, or by the

raging of the distemper itself; so that they would talk to the

watchman on one side of the house, while the family made their

escape at another.

For example, in Coleman Street there are abundance of alleys, as

appears still. A house was shut up in that they call White’s

Alley; and this house had a back-window, not a door, into a court

which had a passage into Bell Alley. A watchman was set by the

constable at the door of this house, and there he stood, or his

comrade, night and day, while the family went all away in the

evening out at that window into the court, and left the poor

fellows warding and watching for near a fortnight.

Not far from the same place they blew up a watchman with

gunpowder, and burned the poor fellow dreadfully; and while he

made hideous cries, and nobody would venture to come near to help

him, the whole family that were able to stir got out at the

windows one storey high, two that were left sick calling out for

help. Care was taken to give them nurses to look after them, but

the persons fled were never found, till after the plague was

abated they returned; but as nothing could be proved, so nothing

could be done to them.

It is to be considered, too, that as these were prisons without

bars and bolts, which our common prisons are furnished with, so

the people let themselves down out of their windows, even in the

face of the watchman, bringing swords or pistols in their hands,

and threatening the poor wretch to shoot him if he stirred or

called for help.

In other cases, some had gardens, and walls or pales, between

them and their neighbours, or yards and back-houses; and these,

by friendship and entreaties, would get leave to get over those

walls or pales, and so go out at their neighbours’ doors; or, by

giving money to their servants, get them to let them through in

the night; so that in short, the shutting up of houses was in no

wise to be depended upon. Neither did it answer the end at all,

serving more to make the people desperate, and drive them to such

extremities as that they would break out at all adventures.

And that which was still worse, those that did thus break out

spread the infection farther by their wandering about with the

distemper upon them, in their desperate circumstances, than they

would otherwise have done; for whoever considers all the

particulars in such cases must acknowledge, and we cannot doubt

but the severity of those confinements made many people

desperate, and made them run out of their houses at all hazards,

and with the plague visibly upon them, not knowing either whither

to go or what to do, or, indeed, what they did; and many that did

so were driven to dreadful exigencies and extremities, and

perished in the streets or fields for mere want, or dropped down

by the raging violence of the fever upon them. Others wandered

into the country, and went forward any way, as their desperation

guided them, not knowing whither they went or would go: till,

faint and tired, and not getting any relief, the houses and

villages on the road refusing to admit them to lodge whether

infected or no, they have perished by the roadside or gotten into

barns and died there, none daring to come to them or relieve

them, though perhaps not infected, for nobody would believe them.

On the other hand, when the plague at first seized a family that

is to say, when any body of the family had gone out and unwarily

or otherwise catched the distemper and brought it home—it was

certainly known by the family before it was known to the

officers, who, as you will see by the order, were appointed to

examine into the circumstances of all sick persons when they

heard of their being sick.

In this interval, between their being taken sick and the

examiners coming, the master of the house had leisure and liberty

to remove himself or all his family, if he knew whither to go,

and many did so. But the great disaster was that many did thus

after they were really infected themselves, and so carried the

disease into the houses of those who were so hospitable as to

receive them; which, it must be confessed, was very cruel and

ungrateful.

And this was in part the reason of the general notion, or scandal

rather, which went about of the temper of people infected:

namely, that they did not take the least care or make any scruple

of infecting others, though I cannot say but there might be some

truth in it too, but not so general as was reported. What natural

reason could be given for so wicked a thing at a time when they

might conclude themselves just going to appear at the bar of

Divine justice I know not. I am very well satisfied that it

cannot be reconciled to religion and principle any more than it

can be to generosity and Humanity, but I may speak of that again.

I am speaking now of people made desperate by the apprehensions

of their being shut up, and their breaking out by stratagem or

force, either before or after they were shut up, whose misery was

not lessened when they were out, but sadly increased. On the

other hand, many that thus got away had retreats to go to and

other houses, where they locked themselves up and kept hid till

the plague was over; and many families, foreseeing the approach

of the distemper, laid up stores of provisions sufficient for

their whole families, and shut themselves up, and that so

entirely that they were neither seen or heard of till the

infection was quite ceased, and then came abroad sound and well.

I might recollect several such as these, and give you the

particulars of their management; for doubtless it was the most

effectual secure step that could be taken for such whose

circumstances would not admit them to remove, or who had not

retreats abroad proper for the case; for in being thus shut up

they were as if they had been a hundred miles off. Nor do I

remember that any one of those families miscarried. Among these,

several Dutch merchants were particularly remarkable, who kept

their houses like little garrisons besieged suffering none to go

in or out or come near them, particularly one in a court in

Throgmorton Street whose house looked into Draper’s Garden.

But I come back to the case of families infected and shut up by

the magistrates. The misery of those families is not to be

expressed; and it was generally in such houses that we heard the

most dismal shrieks and outcries of the poor people, terrified

and even frighted to death by the sight of the condition of their

dearest relations, and by the terror of being imprisoned as they

were.

I remember, and while I am writing this story I think I hear the

very sound of it, a certain lady had an only daughter, a young

maiden about nineteen years old, and who was possessed of a very

considerable fortune. They were only lodgers in the house where

they were. The young woman, her mother, and the maid had been

abroad on some occasion, I do not remember what, for the house

was not shut up; but about two hours after they came home the

young lady complained she was not well; in a quarter of an hour

more she vomited and had a violent pain in her head. ‘Pray God’,

says her mother, in a terrible fright, ‘my child has not the

distemper!’ The pain in her head increasing, her mother ordered

the bed to be warmed, and resolved to put her to bed, and

prepared to give her things to sweat, which was the ordinary

remedy to be taken when the first apprehensions of the distemper

began.

While the bed was airing the mother undressed the young woman,

and just as she was laid down in the bed, she, looking upon her

body with a candle, immediately discovered the fatal tokens on

the inside of her thighs. Her mother, not being able to contain

herself, threw down her candle and shrieked out in such a

frightful manner that it was enough to place horror upon the

stoutest heart in the world; nor was it one scream or one cry,

but the fright having seized her spirits, she—fainted first, then

recovered, then ran all over the house, up the stairs and down

the stairs, like one distracted, and indeed really was

distracted, and continued screeching and crying out for several

hours void of all sense, or at least government of her senses,

and, as I was told, never came thoroughly to herself again. As to

the young maiden, she was a dead corpse from that moment, for the

gangrene which occasions the spots had spread [over] her whole

body, and she died in less than two hours. But still the mother

continued crying out, not knowing anything more of her child,

several hours after she was dead. It is so long ago that I am not

certain, but I think the mother never recovered, but died in two

or three weeks after.

This was an extraordinary case, and I am therefore the more

particular in it, because I came so much to the knowledge of it;

but there were innumerable such-like cases, and it was seldom

that the weekly bill came in but there were two or three put in,

‘frighted’; that is, that may well be called frighted to death.

But besides those who were so frighted as to die upon the spot,

there were great numbers frighted to other extremes, some

frighted out of their senses, some out of their memory, and some

out of their understanding. But I return to the shutting up of

houses.

As several people, I say, got out of their houses by stratagem

after they were shut up, so others got out by bribing the

watchmen, and giving them money to let them go privately out in

the night. I must confess I thought it at that time the most

innocent corruption or bribery that any man could be guilty of,

and therefore could not but pity the poor men, and think it was

hard when three of those watchmen were publicly whipped through

the streets for suffering people to go out of houses shut up.

But notwithstanding that severity, money prevailed with the poor

men, and many families found means to make sallies out, and

escape that way after they had been shut up; but these were

generally such as had some places to retire to; and though there

was no easy passing the roads any whither after the 1st of

August, yet there were many ways of retreat, and particularly, as

I hinted, some got tents and set them up in the fields, carrying

beds or straw to lie on, and provisions to eat, and so lived in

them as hermits in a cell, for nobody would venture to come near

them; and several stories were told of such, some comical, some

tragical, some who lived like wandering pilgrims in the deserts,

and escaped by making themselves exiles in such a manner as is

scarce to be credited, and who yet enjoyed more liberty than was

to be expected in such cases.

I have by me a story of two brothers and their kinsman, who being

single men, but that had stayed in the city too long to get away,

and indeed not knowing where to go to have any retreat, nor

having wherewith to travel far, took a course for their own

preservation, which though in itself at first desperate, yet was

so natural that it may be wondered that no more did so at that

time. They were but of mean condition, and yet not so very poor

as that they could not furnish themselves with some little

conveniences such as might serve to keep life and soul together;

and finding the distemper increasing in a terrible manner, they

resolved to shift as well as they could, and to be gone.

One of them had been a soldier in the late wars, and before that

in the Low Countries, and having been bred to no particular

employment but his arms, and besides being wounded, and not able

to work very hard, had for some time been employed at a baker’s

of sea-biscuit in Wapping.

The brother of this man was a seaman too, but somehow or other

had been hurt of one leg, that he could not go to sea, but had

worked for his living at a sailmaker’s in Wapping, or

thereabouts; and being a good husband, had laid up some money,

and was the richest of the three.

The third man was a joiner or carpenter by trade, a handy fellow,

and he had no wealth but his box or basket of tools, with the

help of which he could at any time get his living, such a time as

this excepted, wherever he went—and he lived near Shadwell.

They all lived in Stepney parish, which, as I have said, being

the last that was infected, or at least violently, they stayed

there till they evidently saw the plague was abating at the west

part of the town, and coming towards the east, where they lived.

The story of those three men, if the reader will be content to

have me give it in their own persons, without taking upon me to

either vouch the particulars or answer for any mistakes, I shall

give as distinctly as I can, believing the history will be a very

good pattern for any poor man to follow, in case the like public

desolation should happen here; and if there may be no such

occasion, which God of His infinite mercy grant us, still the

story may have its uses so many ways as that it will, I hope,

never be said that the relating has been unprofitable.

I say all this previous to the history, having yet, for the

present, much more to say before I quit my own part.

I went all the first part of the time freely about the streets,

though not so freely as to run myself into apparent danger,

except when they dug the great pit in the churchyard of our

parish of Aldgate. A terrible pit it was, and I could not resist

my curiosity to go and see it. As near as I may judge, it was

about forty feet in length, and about fifteen or sixteen feet

broad, and at the time I first looked at it, about nine feet

deep; but it was said they dug it near twenty feet deep

afterwards in one part of it, till they could go no deeper for

the water; for they had, it seems, dug several large pits before

this. For though the plague was long a-coming to our parish, yet,

when it did come, there was no parish in or about London where it

raged with such violence as in the two parishes of Aldgate and

Whitechappel.

I say they had dug several pits in another ground, when the

distemper began to spread in our parish, and especially when the

dead-carts began to go about, which was not, in our parish, till

the beginning of August. Into these pits they had put perhaps

fifty or sixty bodies each; then they made larger holes wherein

they buried all that the cart brought in a week, which, by the

middle to the end of August, came to from 200 to 400 a week; and

they could not well dig them larger, because of the order of the

magistrates confining them to leave no bodies within six feet of

the surface; and the water coming on at about seventeen or

eighteen feet, they could not well, I say, put more in one pit.

But now, at the beginning of September, the plague raging in a

dreadful manner, and the number of burials in our parish

increasing to more than was ever buried in any parish about

London of no larger extent, they ordered this dreadful gulf to be

dug—for such it was, rather than a pit.

They had supposed this pit would have supplied them for a month

or more when they dug it, and some blamed the churchwardens for

suffering such a frightful thing, telling them they were making

preparations to bury the whole parish, and the like; but time

made it appear the churchwardens knew the condition of the parish

better than they did: for, the pit being finished the 4th of

September, I think, they began to bury in it the 6th, and by the

20th, which was just two weeks, they had thrown into it 1114

bodies when they were obliged to fill it up, the bodies being

then come to lie within six feet of the surface. I doubt not but

there may be some ancient persons alive in the parish who can

justify the fact of this, and are able to show even in what place

of the churchyard the pit lay better than I can. The mark of it

also was many years to be seen in the churchyard on the surface,

lying in length parallel with the passage which goes by the west

wall of the churchyard out of Houndsditch, and turns east again

into Whitechappel, coming out near the Three Nuns’ Inn.

It was about the 10th of September that my curiosity led, or

rather drove, me to go and see this pit again, when there had

been near 400 people buried in it; and I was not content to see

it in the day-time, as I had done before, for then there would

have been nothing to have been seen but the loose earth; for all

the bodies that were thrown in were immediately covered with

earth by those they called the buriers, which at other times were

called bearers; but I resolved to go in the night and see some of

them thrown in.

There was a strict order to prevent people coming to those pits,

and that was only to prevent infection. But after some time that

order was more necessary, for people that were infected and near

their end, and delirious also, would run to those pits, wrapt in

blankets or rugs, and throw themselves in, and, as they said,

bury themselves. I cannot say that the officers suffered any

willingly to lie there; but I have heard that in a great pit in

Finsbury, in the parish of Cripplegate, it lying open then to the

fields, for it was not then walled about, [many] came and threw

themselves in, and expired there, before they threw any earth

upon them; and that when they came to bury others and found them

there, they were quite dead, though not cold.

This may serve a little to describe the dreadful condition of

that day, though it is impossible to say anything that is able to

give a true idea of it to those who did not see it, other than

this, that it was indeed very, very, very dreadful, and such as

no tongue can express.

I got admittance into the churchyard by being acquainted with the

sexton who attended; who, though he did not refuse me at all, yet

earnestly persuaded me not to go, telling me very seriously (for

he was a good, religious, and sensible man) that it was indeed

their business and duty to venture, and to run all hazards, and

that in it they might hope to be preserved; but that I had no

apparent call to it but my own curiosity, which, he said, he

believed I would not pretend was sufficient to justify my running

that hazard. I told him I had been pressed in my mind to go, and

that perhaps it might be an instructing sight, that might not be

without its uses. ‘Nay,’ says the good man, ‘if you will venture

upon that score, name of God go in; for, depend upon it, ’twill

be a sermon to you, it may be, the best that ever you heard in

your life. ’Tis a speaking sight,’ says he, ‘and has a voice with

it, and a loud one, to call us all to repentance’; and with that

he opened the door and said, ‘Go, if you will.’

His discourse had shocked my resolution a little, and I stood

wavering for a good while, but just at that interval I saw two

links come over from the end of the Minories, and heard the

bellman, and then appeared a dead-cart, as they called it, coming

over the streets; so I could no longer resist my desire of seeing

it, and went in. There was nobody, as I could perceive at first,

in the churchyard, or going into it, but the buriers and the

fellow that drove the cart, or rather led the horse and cart; but

when they came up to the pit they saw a man go to and again,

muffled up in a brown Cloak, and making motions with his hands

under his cloak, as if he was in great agony, and the buriers

immediately gathered about him, supposing he was one of those

poor delirious or desperate creatures that used to pretend, as I

have said, to bury themselves. He said nothing as he walked

about, but two or three times groaned very deeply and loud, and

sighed as he would break his heart.

When the buriers came up to him they soon found he was neither a

person infected and desperate, as I have observed above, or a

person distempered—in mind, but one oppressed with a dreadful

weight of grief indeed, having his wife and several of his

children all in the cart that was just come in with him, and he

followed in an agony and excess of sorrow. He mourned heartily,

as it was easy to see, but with a kind of masculine grief that

could not give itself vent by tears; and calmly defying the

buriers to let him alone, said he would only see the bodies

thrown in and go away, so they left importuning him. But no

sooner was the cart turned round and the bodies shot into the pit

promiscuously, which was a surprise to him, for he at least

expected they would have been decently laid in, though indeed he

was afterwards convinced that was impracticable; I say, no sooner

did he see the sight but he cried out aloud, unable to contain

himself. I could not hear what he said, but he went backward two

or three steps and fell down in a swoon. The buriers ran to him

and took him up, and in a little while he came to himself, and

they led him away to the Pie Tavern over against the end of

Houndsditch, where, it seems, the man was known, and where they

took care of him. He looked into the pit again as he went away,

but the buriers had covered the bodies so immediately with

throwing in earth, that though there was light enough, for there

were lanterns, and candles in them, placed all night round the

sides of the pit, upon heaps of earth, seven or eight, or perhaps

more, yet nothing could be seen.

This was a mournful scene indeed, and affected me almost as much

as the rest; but the other was awful and full of terror. The cart

had in it sixteen or seventeen bodies; some were wrapt up in

linen sheets, some in rags, some little other than naked, or so

loose that what covering they had fell from them in the shooting

out of the cart, and they fell quite naked among the rest; but

the matter was not much to them, or the indecency much to any one

else, seeing they were all dead, and were to be huddled together

into the common grave of mankind, as we may call it, for here was

no difference made, but poor and rich went together; there was no

other way of burials, neither was it possible there should, for

coffins were not to be had for the prodigious numbers that fell

in such a calamity as this.

It was reported by way of scandal upon the buriers, that if any

corpse was delivered to them decently wound up, as we called it

then, in a winding-sheet tied over the head and feet, which some

did, and which was generally of good linen; I say, it was

reported that the buriers were so wicked as to strip them in the

cart and carry them quite naked to the ground. But as I cannot

easily credit anything so vile among Christians, and at a time so

filled with terrors as that was, I can only relate it and leave

it undetermined.

Innumerable stories also went about of the cruel behaviours and

practices of nurses who tended the sick, and of their hastening

on the fate of those they tended in their sickness. But I shall

say more of this in its place.

I was indeed shocked with this sight; it almost overwhelmed me,

and I went away with my heart most afflicted, and full of the

afflicting thoughts, such as I cannot describe just at my going

out of the church, and turning up the street towards my own

house, I saw another cart with links, and a bellman going before,

coming out of Harrow Alley in the Butcher Row, on the other side

of the way, and being, as I perceived, very full of dead bodies,

it went directly over the street also toward the church. I stood

a while, but I had no stomach to go back again to see the same

dismal scene over again, so I went directly home, where I could

not but consider with thankfulness the risk I had run, believing

I had gotten no injury, as indeed I had not.

Here the poor unhappy gentleman’s grief came into my head again,

and indeed I could not but shed tears in the reflection upon it,

perhaps more than he did himself; but his case lay so heavy upon

my mind that I could not prevail with myself, but that I must go

out again into the street, and go to the Pie Tavern, resolving to

inquire what became of him.

It was by this time one o’clock in the morning, and yet the poor

gentleman was there. The truth was, the people of the house,

knowing him, had entertained him, and kept him there all the

night, notwithstanding the danger of being infected by him,

though it appeared the man was perfectly sound himself.

It is with regret that I take notice of this tavern. The people

were civil, mannerly, and an obliging sort of folks enough, and

had till this time kept their house open and their trade going

on, though not so very publicly as formerly: but there was a

dreadful set of fellows that used their house, and who, in the

middle of all this horror, met there every night, behaved with

all the revelling and roaring extravagances as is usual for such

people to do at other times, and, indeed, to such an offensive

degree that the very master and mistress of the house grew first

ashamed and then terrified at them.

They sat generally in a room next the street, and as they always

kept late hours, so when the dead-cart came across the street-end

to go into Houndsditch, which was in view of the tavern windows,

they would frequently open the windows as soon as they heard the

bell and look out at them; and as they might often hear sad

lamentations of people in the streets or at their windows as the

carts went along, they would make their impudent mocks and jeers

at them, especially if they heard the poor people call upon God

to have mercy upon them, as many would do at those times in their

ordinary passing along the streets.

These gentlemen, being something disturbed with the clutter of

bringing the poor gentleman into the house, as above, were first

angry and very high with the master of the house for suffering

such a fellow, as they called him, to be brought out of the grave

into their house; but being answered that the man was a

neighbour, and that he was sound, but overwhelmed with the

calamity of his family, and the like, they turned their anger

into ridiculing the man and his sorrow for his wife and children,

taunted him with want of courage to leap into the great pit and

go to heaven, as they jeeringly expressed it, along with them,

adding some very profane and even blasphemous expressions.

They were at this vile work when I came back to the house, and,

as far as I could see, though the man sat still, mute and

disconsolate, and their affronts could not divert his sorrow, yet

he was both grieved and offended at their discourse. Upon this I

gently reproved them, being well enough acquainted with their

characters, and not unknown in person to two of them.

They immediately fell upon me with ill language and oaths, asked

me what I did out of my grave at such a time when so many

honester men were carried into the churchyard, and why I was not

at home saying my prayers against the dead-cart came for me, and

the like.

I was indeed astonished at the impudence of the men, though not

at all discomposed at their treatment of me. However, I kept my

temper. I told them that though I defied them or any man in the

world to tax me with any dishonesty, yet I acknowledged that in

this terrible judgement of God many better than I were swept away

and carried to their grave. But to answer their question

directly, the case was, that I was mercifully preserved by that

great God whose name they had blasphemed and taken in vain by

cursing and swearing in a dreadful manner, and that I believed I

was preserved in particular, among other ends of His goodness,

that I might reprove them for their audacious boldness in

behaving in such a manner and in such an awful time as this was,

especially for their jeering and mocking at an honest gentleman

and a neighbour (for some of them knew him), who, they saw, was

overwhelmed with sorrow for the breaches which it had pleased God

to make upon his family.

I cannot call exactly to mind the hellish, abominable raillery

which was the return they made to that talk of mine: being

provoked, it seems, that I was not at all afraid to be free with

them; nor, if I could remember, would I fill my account with any

of the words, the horrid oaths, curses, and vile expressions,

such as, at that time of the day, even the worst and ordinariest

people in the street would not use; for, except such hardened

creatures as these, the most wicked wretches that could be found

had at that time some terror upon their minds of the hand of that

Power which could thus in a moment destroy them.

But that which was the worst in all their devilish language was,

that they were not afraid to blaspheme God and talk

atheistically, making a jest of my calling the plague the hand of

God; mocking, and even laughing, at the word judgement, as if the

providence of God had no concern in the inflicting such a

desolating stroke; and that the people calling upon God as they

saw the carts carrying away the dead bodies was all enthusiastic,

absurd, and impertinent.

I made them some reply, such as I thought proper, but which I

found was so far from putting a check to their horrid way of

speaking that it made them rail the more, so that I confess it

filled me with horror and a kind of rage, and I came away, as I

told them, lest the hand of that judgement which had visited the

whole city should glorify His vengeance upon them, and all that

were near them.

They received all reproof with the utmost contempt, and made the

greatest mockery that was possible for them to do at me, giving

me all the opprobrious, insolent scoffs that they could think of

for preaching to them, as they called it, which indeed grieved

me, rather than angered me; and I went away, blessing God,

however, in my mind that I had not spared them, though they had

insulted me so much.

They continued this wretched course three or four days after

this, continually mocking and jeering at all that showed

themselves religious or serious, or that were any way touched

with the sense of the terrible judgement of God upon us; and I

was informed they flouted in the same manner at the good people

who, notwithstanding the contagion, met at the church, fasted,

and prayed to God to remove His hand from them.

I say, they continued this dreadful course three or four days—I

think it was no more—when one of them, particularly he who asked

the poor gentleman what he did out of his grave, was struck from

Heaven with the plague, and died in a most deplorable manner;

and, in a word, they were every one of them carried into the

great pit which I have mentioned above, before it was quite

filled up, which was not above a fortnight or thereabout.

These men were guilty of many extravagances, such as one would

think human nature should have trembled at the thoughts of at

such a time of general terror as was then upon us, and

particularly scoffing and mocking at everything which they

happened to see that was religious among the people, especially

at their thronging zealously to the place of public worship to

implore mercy from Heaven in such a time of distress; and this

tavern where they held their dub being within view of the

church-door, they had the more particular occasion for their

atheistical profane mirth.

But this began to abate a little with them before the accident

which I have related happened, for the infection increased so

violently at this part of the town now, that people began to be

afraid to come to the church; at least such numbers did not

resort thither as was usual. Many of the clergymen likewise were

dead, and others gone into the country; for it really required a

steady courage and a strong faith for a man not only to venture

being in town at such a time as this, but likewise to venture to

come to church and perform the office of a minister to a

congregation, of whom he had reason to believe many of them were

actually infected with the plague, and to do this every day, or

twice a day, as in some places was done.

It is true the people showed an extraordinary zeal in these

religious exercises, and as the church-doors were always open,

people would go in single at all times, whether the minister was

officiating or no, and locking themselves into separate pews,

would be praying to God with great fervency and devotion.

Others assembled at meeting-houses, every one as their different

opinions in such things guided, but all were promiscuously the

subject of these men’s drollery, especially at the beginning of

the visitation.

It seems they had been checked for their open insulting religion

in this manner by several good people of every persuasion, and

that, and the violent raging of the infection, I suppose, was the

occasion that they had abated much of their rudeness for some

time before, and were only roused by the spirit of ribaldry and

atheism at the clamour which was made when the gentleman was

first brought in there, and perhaps were agitated by the same

devil, when I took upon me to reprove them; though I did it at

first with all the calmness, temper, and good manners that I

could, which for a while they insulted me the more for thinking

it had been in fear of their resentment, though afterwards they

found the contrary.

I went home, indeed, grieved and afflicted in my mind at the

abominable wickedness of those men, not doubting, however, that

they would be made dreadful examples of God’s justice; for I

looked upon this dismal time to be a particular season of Divine

vengeance, and that God would on this occasion single out the

proper objects of His displeasure in a more especial and

remarkable manner than at another time; and that though I did

believe that many good people would, and did, fall in the common

calamity, and that it was no certain rule to judge of the eternal

state of any one by their being distinguished in such a time of

general destruction neither one way or other; yet, I say, it

could not but seem reasonable to believe that God would not think

fit to spare by His mercy such open declared enemies, that should

insult His name and Being, defy His vengeance, and mock at His

worship and worshippers at such a time; no, not though His mercy

had thought fit to bear with and spare them at other times; that

this was a day of visitation, a day of God’s anger, and those

words came into my thought, Jer. v. 9: ‘Shall I not visit for

these things? saith the Lord: and shall not My soul be avenged of

such a nation as this?’

These things, I say, lay upon my mind, and I went home very much

grieved and oppressed with the horror of these men’s wickedness,

and to think that anything could be so vile, so hardened, and

notoriously wicked as to insult God, and His servants, and His

worship in such a manner, and at such a time as this was, when He

had, as it were, His sword drawn in His hand on purpose to take

vengeance not on them only, but on the whole nation.

I had, indeed, been in some passion at first with them—though it

was really raised, not by any affront they had offered me

personally, but by the horror their blaspheming tongues filled me

with. However, I was doubtful in my thoughts whether the

resentment I retained was not all upon my own private account,

for they had given me a great deal of ill language too—I mean

personally; but after some pause, and having a weight of grief

upon my mind, I retired myself as soon as I came home, for I

slept not that night; and giving God most humble thanks for my

preservation in the eminent danger I had been in, I set my mind

seriously and with the utmost earnestness to pray for those

desperate wretches, that God would pardon them, open their eyes,

and effectually humble them.

By this I not only did my duty, namely, to pray for those who

despitefully used me, but I fully tried my own heart, to my full

satisfaction, that it was not filled with any spirit of

resentment as they had offended me in particular; and I humbly

recommend the method to all those that would know, or be certain,

how to distinguish between their zeal for the honour of God and

the effects of their private passions and resentment.

But I must go back here to the particular incidents which occur

to my thoughts of the time of the visitation, and particularly to

the time of their shutting up houses in the first part of their

sickness; for before the sickness was come to its height people

had more room to make their observations than they had afterward;

but when it was in the extremity there was no such thing as

communication with one another, as before.

During the shutting up of houses, as I have said, some violence

was offered to the watchmen. As to soldiers, there were none to

be found. The few guards which the king then had, which were

nothing like the number entertained since, were dispersed, either

at Oxford with the Court, or in quarters in the remoter parts of

the country, small detachments excepted, who did duty at the

Tower and at Whitehall, and these but very few. Neither am I

positive that there was any other guard at the Tower than the

warders, as they called them, who stand at the gate with gowns

and caps, the same as the yeomen of the guard, except the

ordinary gunners, who were twenty-four, and the officers

appointed to look after the magazine, who were called armourers.

As to trained bands, there was no possibility of raising any;

neither, if the Lieutenancy, either of London or Middlesex, had

ordered the drums to beat for the militia, would any of the

companies, I believe, have drawn together, whatever risk they had

run.

This made the watchmen be the less regarded, and perhaps

occasioned the greater violence to be used against them. I

mention it on this score to observe that the setting watchmen

thus to keep the people in was, first of all, not effectual, but

that the people broke out, whether by force or by stratagem, even

almost as often as they pleased; and, second, that those that did

thus break out were generally people infected who, in their

desperation, running about from one place to another, valued not

whom they injured: and which perhaps, as I have said, might give

birth to report that it was natural to the infected people to

desire to infect others, which report was really false.

And I know it so well, and in so many several cases, that I could

give several relations of good, pious, and religious people who,

when they have had the distemper, have been so far from being

forward to infect others that they have forbid their own family

to come near them, in hopes of their being preserved, and have

even died without seeing their nearest relations lest they should

be instrumental to give them the distemper, and infect or

endanger them. If, then, there were cases wherein the infected

people were careless of the injury they did to others, this was

certainly one of them, if not the chief, namely, when people who

had the distemper had broken out from houses which were so shut

up, and having been driven to extremities for provision or for

entertainment, had endeavoured to conceal their condition, and

have been thereby instrumental involuntarily to infect others who

have been ignorant and unwary.

This is one of the reasons why I believed then, and do believe

still, that the shutting up houses thus by force, and

restraining, or rather imprisoning, people in their own houses,

as I said above, was of little or no service in the whole. Nay, I

am of opinion it was rather hurtful, having forced those

desperate people to wander abroad with the plague upon them, who

would otherwise have died quietly in their beds.

I remember one citizen who, having thus broken out of his house

in Aldersgate Street or thereabout, went along the road to

Islington; he attempted to have gone in at the Angel Inn, and

after that the White Horse, two inns known still by the same

signs, but was refused; after which he came to the Pied Bull, an

inn also still continuing the same sign. He asked them for

lodging for one night only, pretending to be going into

Lincolnshire, and assuring them of his being very sound and free

from the infection, which also at that time had not reached much

that way.

They told him they had no lodging that they could spare but one

bed up in the garret, and that they could spare that bed for one

night, some drovers being expected the next day with cattle; so,

if he would accept of that lodging, he might have it, which he

did. So a servant was sent up with a candle with him to show him

the room. He was very well dressed, and looked like a person not

used to lie in a garret; and when he came to the room he fetched

a deep sigh, and said to the servant, ‘I have seldom lain in such

a lodging as this. ‘However, the servant assuring him again that

they had no better, ‘Well,’ says he, ‘I must make shift; this is

a dreadful time; but it is but for one night.’ So he sat down

upon the bedside, and bade the maid, I think it was, fetch him up

a pint of warm ale. Accordingly the servant went for the ale, but

some hurry in the house, which perhaps employed her other ways,

put it out of her head, and she went up no more to him.

The next morning, seeing no appearance of the gentleman, somebody

in the house asked the servant that had showed him upstairs what

was become of him. She started. ‘Alas I,’ says she, ‘I never

thought more of him. He bade me carry him some warm ale, but I

forgot.’ Upon which, not the maid, but some other person was sent

up to see after him, who, coming into the room, found him stark

dead and almost cold, stretched out across the bed. His clothes

were pulled off, his jaw fallen, his eyes open in a most

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

of his hands, so that it was plain he died soon after the maid

left him; and ’tis probable, had she gone up with the ale, she

had found him dead in a few minutes after he sat down upon the

bed. The alarm was great in the house, as anyone may suppose,

they having been free from the distemper till that disaster,

which, bringing the infection to the house, spread it immediately

to other houses round about it. I do not remember how many died

in the house itself, but I think the maid-servant who went up

first with him fell presently ill by the fright, and several

others; for, whereas there died but two in Islington of the

plague the week before, there died seventeen the week after,

whereof fourteen were of the plague. This was in the week from

the 11th of July to the 18th.

There was one shift that some families had, and that not a few,

when their houses happened to be infected, and that was this: the

families who, in the first breaking-out of the distemper, fled

away into the country and had retreats among their friends,

generally found some or other of their neighbours or relations to

commit the charge of those houses to for the safety of the goods

and the like. Some houses were, indeed, entirely locked up, the

doors padlocked, the windows and doors having deal boards nailed

over them, and only the inspection of them committed to the

ordinary watchmen and parish officers; but these were but few.

It was thought that there were not less than 10,000 houses

forsaken of the inhabitants in the city and suburbs, including

what was in the out-parishes and in Surrey, or the side of the

water they called Southwark. This was besides the numbers of

lodgers, and of particular persons who were fled out of other

families; so that in all it was computed that about 200,000

people were fled and gone. But of this I shall speak again. But I

mention it here on this account, namely, that it was a rule with

those who had thus two houses in their keeping or care, that if

anybody was taken sick in a family, before the master of the

family let the examiners or any other officer know of it, he

immediately would send all the rest of his family, whether

children or servants, as it fell out to be, to such other house

which he had so in charge, and then giving notice of the sick

person to the examiner, have a nurse or nurses appointed, and

have another person to be shut up in the house with them (which

many for money would do), so to take charge of the house in case

the person should die.

This was, in many cases, the saving a whole family, who, if they

had been shut up with the sick person, would inevitably have

perished. But, on the other hand, this was another of the

inconveniences of shutting up houses; for the apprehensions and

terror of being shut up made many run away with the rest of the

family, who, though it was not publicly known, and they were not

quite sick, had yet the distemper upon them; and who, by having

an uninterrupted liberty to go about, but being obliged still to

conceal their circumstances, or perhaps not knowing it

themselves, gave the distemper to others, and spread the

infection in a dreadful manner, as I shall explain further

hereafter.

And here I may be able to make an observation or two of my own,

which may be of use hereafter to those into whose hands these may

come, if they should ever see the like dreadful visitation. (1)

The infection generally came into the houses of the citizens by

the means of their servants, whom they were obliged to send up

and down the streets for necessaries; that is to say, for food or

physic, to bakehouses, brew-houses, shops, &c.; and who going

necessarily through the streets into shops, markets, and the

like, it was impossible but that they should, one way or other,

meet with distempered people, who conveyed the fatal breath into

them, and they brought it home to the families to which they

belonged. (2) It was a great mistake that such a great city as

this had but one pest-house; for had there been, instead of one

pest-house—viz., beyond Bunhill Fields, where, at most, they

could receive, perhaps, two hundred or three hundred people—I

say, had there, instead of that one, been several pest-houses,

every one able to contain a thousand people, without lying two in

a bed, or two beds in a room; and had every master of a family,

as soon as any servant especially had been taken sick in his

house, been obliged to send them to the next pest-house, if they

were willing, as many were, and had the examiners done the like

among the poor people when any had been stricken with the

infection; I say, had this been done where the people were

willing (not otherwise), and the houses not been shut, I am

persuaded, and was all the while of that opinion, that not so

many, by several thousands, had died; for it was observed, and I

could give several instances within the compass of my own

knowledge, where a servant had been taken sick, and the family

had either time to send him out or retire from the house and

leave the sick person, as I have said above, they had all been

preserved; whereas when, upon one or more sickening in a family,

the house has been shut up, the whole family have perished, and

the bearers been obliged to go in to fetch out the dead bodies,

not being able to bring them to the door, and at last none left

to do it.

(3) This put it out of question to me, that the calamity was

spread by infection; that is to say, by some certain steams or

fumes, which the physicians call effluvia, by the breath, or by

the sweat, or by the stench of the sores of the sick persons, or

some other way, perhaps, beyond even the reach of the physicians

themselves, which effluvia affected the sound who came within

certain distances of the sick, immediately penetrating the vital

parts of the said sound persons, putting their blood into an

immediate ferment, and agitating their spirits to that degree

which it was found they were agitated; and so those newly

infected persons communicated it in the same manner to others.

And this I shall give some instances of, that cannot but convince

those who seriously consider it; and I cannot but with some

wonder find some people, now the contagion is over, talk of its

being an immediate stroke from Heaven, without the agency of

means, having commission to strike this and that particular

person, and none other—which I look upon with contempt as the

effect of manifest ignorance and enthusiasm; likewise the opinion

of others, who talk of infection being carried on by the air

only, by carrying with it vast numbers of insects and invisible

creatures, who enter into the body with the breath, or even at

the pores with the air, and there generate or emit most acute

poisons, or poisonous ovae or eggs, which mingle themselves with

the blood, and so infect the body: a discourse full of learned

simplicity, and manifested to be so by universal experience; but

I shall say more to this case in its order.

I must here take further notice that nothing was more fatal to

the inhabitants of this city than the supine negligence of the

people themselves, who, during the long notice or warning they

had of the visitation, made no provision for it by laying in

store of provisions, or of other necessaries, by which they might

have lived retired and within their own houses, as I have

observed others did, and who were in a great measure preserved by

that caution; nor were they, after they were a little hardened to

it, so shy of conversing with one another, when actually

infected, as they were at first: no, though they knew it.

I acknowledge I was one of those thoughtless ones that had made

so little provision that my servants were obliged to go out of

doors to buy every trifle by penny and halfpenny, just as before

it began, even till my experience showing me the folly, I began

to be wiser so late that I had scarce time to store myself

sufficient for our common subsistence for a month.

I had in family only an ancient woman that managed the house, a

maid-servant, two apprentices, and myself; and the plague

beginning to increase about us, I had many sad thoughts about

what course I should take, and how I should act. The many dismal

objects which happened everywhere as I went about the streets,

had filled my mind with a great deal of horror for fear of the

distemper, which was indeed very horrible in itself, and in some

more than in others. The swellings, which were generally in the

neck or groin, when they grew hard and would not break, grew so

painful that it was equal to the most exquisite torture; and

some, not able to bear the torment, threw themselves out at

windows or shot themselves, or otherwise made themselves away,

and I saw several dismal objects of that kind. Others, unable to

contain themselves, vented their pain by incessant roarings, and

such loud and lamentable cries were to be heard as we walked

along the streets that would pierce the very heart to think of,

especially when it was to be considered that the same dreadful

scourge might be expected every moment to seize upon ourselves.

I cannot say but that now I began to faint in my resolutions; my

heart failed me very much, and sorely I repented of my rashness.

When I had been out, and met with such terrible things as these I

have talked of, I say I repented my rashness in venturing to

abide in town. I wished often that I had not taken upon me to

stay, but had gone away with my brother and his family.

Terrified by those frightful objects, I would retire home

sometimes and resolve to go out no more; and perhaps I would keep

those resolutions for three or four days, which time I spent in

the most serious thankfulness for my preservation and the

preservation of my family, and the constant confession of my

sins, giving myself up to God every day, and applying to Him with

fasting, humiliation, and meditation. Such intervals as I had I

employed in reading books and in writing down my memorandums of

what occurred to me every day, and out of which afterwards I took

most of this work, as it relates to my observations without

doors. What I wrote of my private meditations I reserve for

private use, and desire it may not be made public on any account

whatever.

I also wrote other meditations upon divine subjects, such as

occurred to me at that time and were profitable to myself, but

not fit for any other view, and therefore I say no more of that.

I had a very good friend, a physician, whose name was Heath, whom

I frequently visited during this dismal time, and to whose advice

I was very much obliged for many things which he directed me to

take, by way of preventing the infection when I went out, as he

found I frequently did, and to hold in my mouth when I was in the

streets. He also came very often to see me, and as he was a good

Christian as well as a good physician, his agreeable conversation

was a very great support to me in the worst of this terrible

time.

It was now the beginning of August, and the plague grew very

violent and terrible in the place where I lived, and Dr Heath

coming to visit me, and finding that I ventured so often out in

the streets, earnestly persuaded me to lock myself up and my

family, and not to suffer any of us to go out of doors; to keep

all our windows fast, shutters and curtains close, and never to

open them; but first, to make a very strong smoke in the room

where the window or door was to be opened, with rozen and pitch,

brimstone or gunpowder and the like; and we did this for some

time; but as I had not laid in a store of provision for such a

retreat, it was impossible that we could keep within doors

entirely. However, I attempted, though it was so very late, to do

something towards it; and first, as I had convenience both for

brewing and baking, I went and bought two sacks of meal, and for

several weeks, having an oven, we baked all our own bread; also I

bought malt, and brewed as much beer as all the casks I had would

hold, and which seemed enough to serve my house for five or six

weeks; also I laid in a quantity of salt butter and Cheshire

cheese; but I had no flesh-meat, and the plague raged so

violently among the butchers and slaughter-houses on the other

side of our street, where they are known to dwell in great

numbers, that it was not advisable so much as to go over the

street among them.

And here I must observe again, that this necessity of going out

of our houses to buy provisions was in a great measure the ruin

of the whole city, for the people catched the distemper on these

occasions one of another, and even the provisions themselves were

often tainted; at least I have great reason to believe so; and

therefore I cannot say with satisfaction what I know is repeated

with great assurance, that the market-people and such as brought

provisions to town were never infected. I am certain the butchers

of Whitechappel, where the greatest part of the flesh-meat was

killed, were dreadfully visited, and that at least to such a

degree that few of their shops were kept open, and those that

remained of them killed their meat at Mile End and that way, and

brought it to market upon horses.

However, the poor people could not lay up provisions, and there

was a necessity that they must go to market to buy, and others to

send servants or their children; and as this was a necessity

which renewed itself daily, it brought abundance of unsound

people to the markets, and a great many that went thither sound

brought death home with them.

It is true people used all possible precaution. When any one

bought a joint of meat in the market they would not take it off

the butcher’s hand, but took it off the hooks themselves. On the

other hand, the butcher would not touch the money, but have it

put into a pot full of vinegar, which he kept for that purpose.

The buyer carried always small money to make up any odd sum, that

they might take no change. They carried bottles of scents and

perfumes in their hands, and all the means that could be used

were used, but then the poor could not do even these things, and

they went at all hazards.

Innumerable dismal stories we heard every day on this very

account. Sometimes a man or woman dropped down dead in the very

markets, for many people that had the plague upon them knew

nothing of it till the inward gangrene had affected their vitals,

and they died in a few moments. This caused that many died

frequently in that manner in the streets suddenly, without any

warning; others perhaps had time to go to the next bulk or stall,

or to any door-porch, and just sit down and die, as I have said

before.

These objects were so frequent in the streets that when the

plague came to be very raging on one side, there was scarce any

passing by the streets but that several dead bodies would be

lying here and there upon the ground. On the other hand, it is

observable that though at first the people would stop as they

went along and call to the neighbours to come out on such an

occasion, yet afterward no notice was taken of them; but that if

at any time we found a corpse lying, go across the way and not

come near it; or, if in a narrow lane or passage, go back again

and seek some other way to go on the business we were upon; and

in those cases the corpse was always left till the officers had

notice to come and take them away, or till night, when the

bearers attending the dead-cart would take them up and carry them

away. Nor did those undaunted creatures who performed these

offices fail to search their pockets, and sometimes strip off

their clothes if they were well dressed, as sometimes they were,

and carry off what they could get.

But to return to the markets. The butchers took that care that if

any person died in the market they had the officers always at

hand to take them up upon hand-barrows and carry them to the next

churchyard; and this was so frequent that such were not entered

in the weekly bill, ‘Found dead in the streets or fields’, as is

the case now, but they went into the general articles of the

great distemper.

But now the fury of the distemper increased to such a degree that

even the markets were but very thinly furnished with provisions

or frequented with buyers compared to what they were before; and

the Lord Mayor caused the country people who brought provisions

to be stopped in the streets leading into the town, and to sit

down there with their goods, where they sold what they brought,

and went immediately away; and this encouraged the country people

greatly-to do so, for they sold their provisions at the very

entrances into the town, and even in the fields, as particularly

in the fields beyond Whitechappel, in Spittlefields; also in St

George’s Fields in Southwark, in Bunhill Fields, and in a great

field called Wood’s Close, near Islington. Thither the Lord

Mayor, aldermen, and magistrates sent their officers and servants

to buy for their families, themselves keeping within doors as

much as possible, and the like did many other people; and after

this method was taken the country people came with great

cheerfulness, and brought provisions of all sorts, and very

seldom got any harm, which, I suppose, added also to that report

of their being miraculously preserved.

As for my little family, having thus, as I have said, laid in a

store of bread, butter, cheese, and beer, I took my friend and

physician’s advice, and locked myself up, and my family, and

resolved to suffer the hardship of living a few months without

flesh-meat, rather than to purchase it at the hazard of our

lives.

But though I confined my family, I could not prevail upon my

unsatisfied curiosity to stay within entirely myself; and though

I generally came frighted and terrified home, yet I could not

restrain; only that indeed I did not do it so frequently as at

first.

I had some little obligations, indeed, upon me to go to my

brother’s house, which was in Coleman Street parish and which he

had left to my care, and I went at first every day, but

afterwards only once or twice a week.

In these walks I had many dismal scenes before my eyes, as

particularly of persons falling dead in the streets, terrible

shrieks and screechings of women, who, in their agonies, would

throw open their chamber windows and cry out in a dismal,

surprising manner. It is impossible to describe the variety of

postures in which the passions of the poor people would express

themselves.

Passing through Tokenhouse Yard, in Lothbury, of a sudden a

casement violently opened just over my head, and a woman gave

three frightful screeches, and then cried, ‘Oh! death, death,

death!’ in a most inimitable tone, and which struck me with

horror and a chillness in my very blood. There was nobody to be

seen in the whole street, neither did any other window open, for

people had no curiosity now in any case, nor could anybody help

one another, so I went on to pass into Bell Alley.

Just in Bell Alley, on the right hand of the passage, there was a

more terrible cry than that, though it was not so directed out at

the window; but the whole family was in a terrible fright, and I

could hear women and children run screaming about the rooms like

distracted, when a garret-window opened and somebody from a

window on the other side the alley called and asked, ‘What is the

matter?’ upon which, from the first window, it was answered, ‘Oh

Lord, my old master has hanged himself!’ The other asked again,

‘Is he quite dead?’ and the first answered, ‘Ay, ay, quite dead;

quite dead and cold!’ This person was a merchant and a deputy

alderman, and very rich. I care not to mention the name, though I

knew his name too, but that would be an hardship to the family,

which is now flourishing again.

But this is but one; it is scarce credible what dreadful cases

happened in particular families every day. People in the rage of

the distemper, or in the torment of their swellings, which was

indeed intolerable, running out of their own government, raving

and distracted, and oftentimes laying violent hands upon

themselves, throwing themselves out at their windows, shooting

themselves &c.; mothers murdering their own children in their

lunacy, some dying of mere grief as a passion, some of mere

fright and surprise without any infection at all, others frighted

into idiotism and foolish distractions, some into despair and

lunacy, others into melancholy madness.

The pain of the swelling was in particular very violent, and to

some intolerable; the physicians and surgeons may be said to have

tortured many poor creatures even to death. The swellings in some

grew hard, and they applied violent drawing-plaisters or

poultices to break them, and if these did not do they cut and

scarified them in a terrible manner. In some those swellings were

made hard partly by the force of the distemper and partly by

their being too violently drawn, and were so hard that no

instrument could cut them, and then they burnt them with

caustics, so that many died raving mad with the torment, and some

in the very operation. In these distresses, some, for want of

help to hold them down in their beds, or to look to them, laid

hands upon themselves as above. Some broke out into the streets,

perhaps naked, and would run directly down to the river if they

were not stopped by the watchman or other officers, and plunge

themselves into the water wherever they found it.

It often pierced my very soul to hear the groans and cries of

those who were thus tormented, but of the two this was counted

the most promising particular in the whole infection, for if

these swellings could be brought to a head, and to break and run,

or, as the surgeons call it, to digest, the patient generally

recovered; whereas those who, like the gentlewoman’s daughter,

were struck with death at the beginning, and had the tokens come

out upon them, often went about indifferent easy till a little

before they died, and some till the moment they dropped down, as

in apoplexies and epilepsies is often the case. Such would be

taken suddenly very sick, and would run to a bench or bulk, or

any convenient place that offered itself, or to their own houses

if possible, as I mentioned before, and there sit down, grow

faint, and die. This kind of dying was much the same as it was

with those who die of common mortifications, who die swooning,

and, as it were, go away in a dream. Such as died thus had very

little notice of their being infected at all till the gangrene

was spread through their whole body; nor could physicians

themselves know certainly how it was with them till they opened

their breasts or other parts of their body and saw the tokens.

We had at this time a great many frightful stories told us of

nurses and watchmen who looked after the dying people; that is to

say, hired nurses who attended infected people, using them

barbarously, starving them, smothering them, or by other wicked

means hastening their end, that is to say, murdering of them; and

watchmen, being set to guard houses that were shut up when there

has been but one person left, and perhaps that one lying sick,

that they have broke in and murdered that body, and immediately

thrown them out into the dead-cart! And so they have gone scarce

cold to the grave.

I cannot say but that some such murders were committed, and I

think two were sent to prison for it, but died before they could

be tried; and I have heard that three others, at several times,

were excused for murders of that kind; but I must say I believe

nothing of its being so common a crime as some have since been

pleased to say, nor did it seem to be so rational where the

people were brought so low as not to be able to help themselves,

for such seldom recovered, and there was no temptation to commit

a murder, at least none equal to the fact, where they were sure

persons would die in so short a time, and could not live.

That there were a great many robberies and wicked practices

committed even in this dreadful time I do not deny. The power of

avarice was so strong in some that they would run any hazard to

steal and to plunder; and particularly in houses where all the

families or inhabitants have been dead and carried out, they

would break in at all hazards, and without regard to the danger

of infection, take even the clothes off the dead bodies and the

bed-clothes from others where they lay dead.

This, I suppose, must be the case of a family in Houndsditch,

where a man and his daughter, the rest of the family being, as I

suppose, carried away before by the dead-cart, were found stark

naked, one in one chamber and one in another, lying dead on the

floor, and the clothes of the beds, from whence ’tis supposed

they were rolled off by thieves, stolen and carried quite away.

It is indeed to be observed that the women were in all this

calamity the most rash, fearless, and desperate creatures, and as

there were vast numbers that went about as nurses to tend those

that were sick, they committed a great many petty thieveries in

the houses where they were employed; and some of them were

publicly whipped for it, when perhaps they ought rather to have

been hanged for examples, for numbers of houses were robbed on

these occasions, till at length the parish officers were sent to

recommend nurses to the sick, and always took an account whom it

was they sent, so as that they might call them to account if the

house had been abused where they were placed.

But these robberies extended chiefly to wearing-clothes, linen,

and what rings or money they could come at when the person died

who was under their care, but not to a general plunder of the

houses; and I could give you an account of one of these nurses,

who, several years after, being on her deathbed, confessed with

the utmost horror the robberies she had committed at the time of

her being a nurse, and by which she had enriched herself to a

great degree. But as for murders, I do not find that there was

ever any proof of the facts in the manner as it has been

reported, except as above.

They did tell me, indeed, of a nurse in one place that laid a wet

cloth upon the face of a dying patient whom she tended, and so

put an end to his life, who was just expiring before; and another

that smothered a young woman she was looking to when she was in a

fainting fit, and would have come to herself; some that killed

them by giving them one thing, some another, and some starved

them by giving them nothing at all. But these stories had two

marks of suspicion that always attended them, which caused me

always to slight them and to look on them as mere stories that

people continually frighted one another with. First, that

wherever it was that we heard it, they always placed the scene at

the farther end of the town, opposite or most remote from where

you were to hear it. If you heard it in Whitechappel, it had

happened at St Giles’s, or at Westminster, or Holborn, or that

end of the town. If you heard of it at that end of the town, then

it was done in Whitechappel, or the Minories, or about

Cripplegate parish. If you heard of it in the city, why, then it

happened in Southwark; and if you heard of it in Southwark, then

it was done in the city, and the like.

In the next place, of what part soever you heard the story, the

particulars were always the same, especially that of laying a wet

double cloth on a dying man’s face, and that of smothering a

young gentlewoman; so that it was apparent, at least to my

judgement, that there was more of tale than of truth in those

things.

However, I cannot say but it had some effect upon the people, and

particularly that, as I said before, they grew more cautious whom

they took into their houses, and whom they trusted their lives

with, and had them always recommended if they could; and where

they could not find such, for they were not very plenty, they

applied to the parish officers.

But here again the misery of that time lay upon the poor who,

being infected, had neither food or physic, neither physician or

apothecary to assist them, or nurse to attend them. Many of those

died calling for help, and even for sustenance, out at their

windows in a most miserable and deplorable manner; but it must be

added that whenever the cases of such persons or families were

represented to my Lord Mayor they always were relieved.

It is true, in some houses where the people were not very poor,

yet where they had sent perhaps their wives and children away,

and if they had any servants they had been dismissed;—I say it is

true that to save the expenses, many such as these shut

themselves in, and not having help, died alone.

A neighbour and acquaintance of mine, having some money owing to

him from a shopkeeper in Whitecross Street or thereabouts, sent

his apprentice, a youth about eighteen years of age, to endeavour

to get the money. He came to the door, and finding it shut,

knocked pretty hard; and, as he thought, heard somebody answer

within, but was not sure, so he waited, and after some stay

knocked again, and then a third time, when he heard somebody

coming downstairs.

At length the man of the house came to the door; he had on his

breeches or drawers, and a yellow flannel waistcoat, no

stockings, a pair of slipped-shoes, a white cap on his head, and,

as the young man said, ‘death in his face’.

When he opened the door, says he, ‘What do you disturb me thus

for?’ The boy, though a little surprised, replied, ‘I come from

such a one, and my master sent me for the money which he says you

know of.’ ‘Very well, child,’ returns the living ghost; ‘call as

you go by at Cripplegate Church, and bid them ring the bell’; and

with these words shut the door again, and went up again, and died

the same day; nay, perhaps the same hour. This the young man told

me himself, and I have reason to believe it. This was while the

plague was not come to a height. I think it was in June, towards

the latter end of the month; it must be before the dead-carts

came about, and while they used the ceremony of ringing the bell

for the dead, which was over for certain, in that parish at

least, before the month of July, for by the 25th of July there

died 550 and upwards in a week, and then they could no more bury

in form, rich or poor.

I have mentioned above that notwithstanding this dreadful

calamity, yet the numbers of thieves were abroad upon all

occasions, where they had found any prey, and that these were

generally women. It was one morning about eleven O’clock, I had

walked out to my brother’s house in Coleman Street parish, as I

often did, to see that all was safe.

My brother’s house had a little court before it, and a brick wall

and a gate in it, and within that several warehouses where his

goods of several sorts lay. It happened that in one of these

warehouses were several packs of women’s high-crowned hats, which

came out of the country and were, as I suppose, for exportation:

whither, I know not.

I was surprised that when I came near my brother’s door, which

was in a place they called Swan Alley, I met three or four women

with high-crowned hats on their heads; and, as I remembered

afterwards, one, if not more, had some hats likewise in their

hands; but as I did not see them come out at my brother’s door,

and not knowing that my brother had any such goods in his

warehouse, I did not offer to say anything to them, but went

across the way to shun meeting them, as was usual to do at that

time, for fear of the plague. But when I came nearer to the gate

I met another woman with more hats come out of the gate. ‘What

business, mistress,’ said I, ‘have you had there?’ ‘There are

more people there,’ said she; ‘I have had no more business there

than they.’ I was hasty to get to the gate then, and said no more

to her, by which means she got away. But just as I came to the

gate, I saw two more coming across the yard to come out with hats

also on their heads and under their arms, at which I threw the

gate to behind me, which having a spring lock fastened itself;

and turning to the women, ‘Forsooth,’ said I, ‘what are you doing

here?’ and seized upon the hats, and took them from them. One of

them, who, I confess, did not look like a thief—‘Indeed,’ says

she, ‘we are wrong, but we were told they were goods that had no

owner. Be pleased to take them again; and look yonder, there are

more such customers as we.’ She cried and looked pitifully, so I

took the hats from her and opened the gate, and bade them be

gone, for I pitied the women indeed; but when I looked towards

the warehouse, as she directed, there were six or seven more, all

women, fitting themselves with hats as unconcerned and quiet as

if they had been at a hatter’s shop buying for their money.

I was surprised, not at the sight of so many thieves only, but at

the circumstances I was in; being now to thrust myself in among

so many people, who for some weeks had been so shy of myself that

if I met anybody in the street I would cross the way from them.

They were equally surprised, though on another account. They all

told me they were neighbours, that they had heard anyone might

take them, that they were nobody’s goods, and the like. I talked

big to them at first, went back to the gate and took out the key,

so that they were all my prisoners, threatened to lock them all

into the warehouse, and go and fetch my Lord Mayor’s officers for

them.

They begged heartily, protested they found the gate open, and the

warehouse door open; and that it had no doubt been broken open by

some who expected to find goods of greater value: which indeed

was reasonable to believe, because the lock was broke, and a

padlock that hung to the door on the outside also loose, and an

abundance of the hats carried away.

At length I considered that this was not a time to be cruel and

rigorous; and besides that, it would necessarily oblige me to go

much about, to have several people come to me, and I go to

several whose circumstances of health I knew nothing of; and that

even at this time the plague was so high as that there died 4000

a week; so that in showing my resentment, or even in seeking

justice for my brother’s goods, I might lose my own life; so I

contented myself with taking the names and places where some of

them lived, who were really inhabitants in the neighbourhood, and

threatening that my brother should call them to an account for it

when he returned to his habitation.

Then I talked a little upon another foot with them, and asked

them how they could do such things as these in a time of such

general calamity, and, as it were, in the face of God’s most

dreadful judgements, when the plague was at their very doors,

and, it may be, in their very houses, and they did not know but

that the dead-cart might stop at their doors in a few hours to

carry them to their graves.

I could not perceive that my discourse made much impression upon

them all that while, till it happened that there came two men of

the neighbourhood, hearing of the disturbance, and knowing my

brother, for they had been both dependents upon his family, and

they came to my assistance. These being, as I said, neighbours,

presently knew three of the women and told me who they were and

where they lived; and it seems they had given me a true account

of themselves before.

This brings these two men to a further remembrance. The name of

one was John Hayward, who was at that time undersexton of the

parish of St Stephen, Coleman Street. By undersexton was

understood at that time gravedigger and bearer of the dead. This

man carried, or assisted to carry, all the dead to their graves

which were buried in that large parish, and who were carried in

form; and after that form of burying was stopped, went with the

dead-cart and the bell to fetch the dead bodies from the houses

where they lay, and fetched many of them out of the chambers and

houses; for the parish was, and is still, remarkable

particularly, above all the parishes in London, for a great

number of alleys and thoroughfares, very long, into which no

carts could come, and where they were obliged to go and fetch the

bodies a very long way; which alleys now remain to witness it,

such as White’s Alley, Cross Key Court, Swan Alley, Bell Alley,

White Horse Alley, and many more. Here they went with a kind of

hand-barrow and laid the dead bodies on it, and carried them out

to the carts; which work he performed and never had the distemper

at all, but lived about twenty years after it, and was sexton of

the parish to the time of his death. His wife at the same time

was a nurse to infected people, and tended many that died in the

parish, being for her honesty recommended by the parish officers;

yet she never was infected neither.

He never used any preservative against the infection, other than

holding garlic and rue in his mouth, and smoking tobacco. This I

also had from his own mouth. And his wife’s remedy was washing

her head in vinegar and sprinkling her head-clothes so with

vinegar as to keep them always moist, and if the smell of any of

those she waited on was more than ordinary offensive, she snuffed

vinegar up her nose and sprinkled vinegar upon her head-clothes,

and held a handkerchief wetted with vinegar to her mouth.

It must be confessed that though the plague was chiefly among the

poor, yet were the poor the most venturous and fearless of it,

and went about their employment with a sort of brutal courage; I

must call it so, for it was founded neither on religion nor

prudence; scarce did they use any caution, but ran into any

business which they could get employment in, though it was the

most hazardous. Such was that of tending the sick, watching

houses shut up, carrying infected persons to the pest-house, and,

which was still worse, carrying the dead away to their graves.

It was under this John Hayward’s care, and within his bounds,

that the story of the piper, with which people have made

themselves so merry, happened, and he assured me that it was

true. It is said that it was a blind piper; but, as John told me,

the fellow was not blind, but an ignorant, weak, poor man, and

usually walked his rounds about ten o’clock at night and went

piping along from door to door, and the people usually took him

in at public-houses where they knew him, and would give him drink

and victuals, and sometimes farthings; and he in return would

pipe and sing and talk simply, which diverted the people; and

thus he lived. It was but a very bad time for this diversion

while things were as I have told, yet the poor fellow went about

as usual, but was almost starved; and when anybody asked how he

did he would answer, the dead cart had not taken him yet, but

that they had promised to call for him next week.

It happened one night that this poor fellow, whether somebody had

given him too much drink or no—John Hayward said he had not drink

in his house, but that they had given him a little more victuals

than ordinary at a public-house in Coleman Street—and the poor

fellow, having not usually had a bellyful for perhaps not a good

while, was laid all along upon the top of a bulk or stall, and

fast asleep, at a door in the street near London Wall, towards

Cripplegate, and that upon the same bulk or stall the people of

some house, in the alley of which the house was a corner, hearing

a bell which they always rang before the cart came, had laid a

body really dead of the plague just by him, thinking, too, that

this poor fellow had been a dead body, as the other was, and laid

there by some of the neighbours.

Accordingly, when John Hayward with his bell and the cart came

along, finding two dead bodies lie upon the stall, they took them

up with the instrument they used and threw them into the cart,

and, all this while the piper slept soundly.

From hence they passed along and took in other dead bodies, till,

as honest John Hayward told me, they almost buried him alive in

the cart; yet all this while he slept soundly. At length the cart

came to the place where the bodies were to be thrown into the

ground, which, as I do remember, was at Mount Mill; and as the

cart usually stopped some time before they were ready to shoot

out the melancholy load they had in it, as soon as the cart

stopped the fellow awaked and struggled a little to get his head

out from among the dead bodies, when, raising himself up in the

cart, he called out, ‘Hey! where am I?’ This frighted the fellow

that attended about the work; but after some pause John Hayward,

recovering himself, said, ‘Lord, bless us! There’s somebody in

the cart not quite dead!’ So another called to him and said, ‘Who

are you?’ The fellow answered, ‘I am the poor piper. Where am I?’

‘Where are you?’ says Hayward. ‘Why, you are in the dead-cart,

and we are going to bury you.’ ‘But I an’t dead though, am I?’

says the piper, which made them laugh a little though, as John

said, they were heartily frighted at first; so they helped the

poor fellow down, and he went about his business.

I know the story goes he set up his pipes in the cart and

frighted the bearers and others so that they ran away; but John

Hayward did not tell the story so, nor say anything of his piping

at all; but that he was a poor piper, and that he was carried

away as above I am fully satisfied of the truth of.

It is to be noted here that the dead-carts in the city were not

confined to particular parishes, but one cart went through

several parishes, according as the number of dead presented; nor

were they tied to carry the dead to their respective parishes,

but many of the dead taken up in the city were carried to the

burying-ground in the out-parts for want of room.

I have already mentioned the surprise that this judgement was at

first among the people. I must be allowed to give some of my

observations on the more serious and religious part. Surely never

city, at least of this bulk and magnitude, was taken in a

condition so perfectly unprepared for such a dreadful visitation,

whether I am to speak of the civil preparations or religious.

They were, indeed, as if they had had no warning, no expectation,

no apprehensions, and consequently the least provision imaginable

was made for it in a public way. For example, the Lord Mayor and

sheriffs had made no provision as magistrates for the regulations

which were to be observed. They had gone into no measures for

relief of the poor. The citizens had no public magazines or

storehouses for corn or meal for the subsistence of the poor,

which if they had provided themselves, as in such cases is done

abroad, many miserable families who were now reduced to the

utmost distress would have been relieved, and that in a better

manner than now could be done.

The stock of the city’s money I can say but little to. The

Chamber of London was said to be exceedingly rich, and it may be

concluded that they were so, by the vast of money issued from

thence in the rebuilding the public edifices after the fire of

London, and in building new works, such as, for the first part,

the Guildhall, Blackwell Hall, part of Leadenhall, half the

Exchange, the Session House, the Compter, the prisons of Ludgate,

Newgate, &c., several of the wharfs and stairs and landing-places

on the river; all which were either burned down or damaged by the

great fire of London, the next year after the plague; and of the

second sort, the Monument, Fleet Ditch with its bridges, and the

Hospital of Bethlem or Bedlam, &c. But possibly the managers of

the city’s credit at that time made more conscience of breaking

in upon the orphan’s money to show charity to the distressed

citizens than the managers in the following years did to beautify

the city and re-edify the buildings; though, in the first case,

the losers would have thought their fortunes better bestowed, and

the public faith of the city have been less subjected to scandal

and reproach.

It must be acknowledged that the absent citizens, who, though

they were fled for safety into the country, were yet greatly

interested in the welfare of those whom they left behind, forgot

not to contribute liberally to the relief of the poor, and large

sums were also collected among trading towns in the remotest

parts of England; and, as I have heard also, the nobility and the

gentry in all parts of England took the deplorable condition of

the city into their consideration, and sent up large sums of

money in charity to the Lord Mayor and magistrates for the relief

of the poor. The king also, as I was told, ordered a thousand

pounds a week to be distributed in four parts: one quarter to the

city and liberty of Westminster; one quarter or part among the

inhabitants of the Southwark side of the water; one quarter to

the liberty and parts within of the city, exclusive of the city

within the walls; and one-fourth part to the suburbs in the

county of Middlesex, and the east and north parts of the city.

But this latter I only speak of as a report.

Certain it is, the greatest part of the poor or families who

formerly lived by their labour, or by retail trade, lived now on

charity; and had there not been prodigious sums of money given by

charitable, well-minded Christians for the support of such, the

city could never have subsisted. There were, no question,

accounts kept of their charity, and of the just distribution of

it by the magistrates. But as such multitudes of those very

officers died through whose hands it was distributed, and also

that, as I have been told, most of the accounts of those things

were lost in the great fire which happened in the very next year,

and which burnt even the chamberlain’s office and many of their

papers, so I could never come at the particular account, which I

used great endeavours to have seen.

It may, however, be a direction in case of the approach of a like

visitation, which God keep the city from;—I say, it may be of use

to observe that by the care of the Lord Mayor and aldermen at

that time in distributing weekly great sums of money for relief

of the poor, a multitude of people who would otherwise have

perished, were relieved, and their lives preserved. And here let

me enter into a brief state of the case of the poor at that time,

and what way apprehended from them, from whence may be judged

hereafter what may be expected if the like distress should come

upon the city.

At the beginning of the plague, when there was now no more hope

but that the whole city would be visited; when, as I have said,

all that had friends or estates in the country retired with their

families; and when, indeed, one would have thought the very city

itself was running out of the gates, and that there would be

nobody left behind; you may be sure from that hour all trade,

except such as related to immediate subsistence, was, as it were,

at a full stop.

This is so lively a case, and contains in it so much of the real

condition of the people, that I think I cannot be too particular

in it, and therefore I descend to the several arrangements or

classes of people who fell into immediate distress upon this

occasion. For example:

1. All master-workmen in manufactures, especially such as

belonged to ornament and the less necessary parts of the people’s

dress, clothes, and furniture for houses, such as riband-weavers

and other weavers, gold and silver lace makers, and gold and

silver wire drawers, sempstresses, milliners, shoemakers,

hatmakers, and glovemakers; also upholsterers, joiners,

cabinet-makers, looking-glass makers, and innumerable trades

which depend upon such as these;—I say, the master-workmen in

such stopped their work, dismissed their journeymen and workmen,

and all their dependents.

2. As merchandising was at a full stop, for very few ships

ventured to come up the river and none at all went out, so all

the extraordinary officers of the customs, likewise the watermen,

carmen, porters, and all the poor whose labour depended upon the

merchants, were at once dismissed and put out of business.

3. All the tradesmen usually employed in building or repairing of

houses were at a full stop, for the people were far from wanting

to build houses when so many thousand houses were at once

stripped of their inhabitants; so that this one article turned

all the ordinary workmen of that kind out of business, such as

bricklayers, masons, carpenters, joiners, plasterers, painters,

glaziers, smiths, plumbers, and all the labourers depending on

such.

4. As navigation was at a stop, our ships neither coming in or

going out as before, so the seamen were all out of employment,

and many of them in the last and lowest degree of distress; and

with the seamen were all the several tradesmen and workmen

belonging to and depending upon the building and fitting out of

ships, such as ship-carpenters, caulkers, ropemakers, dry

coopers, sailmakers, anchorsmiths, and other smiths; blockmakers,

carvers, gunsmiths, ship-chandlers, ship-carvers, and the like.

The masters of those perhaps might live upon their substance, but

the traders were universally at a stop, and consequently all

their workmen discharged. Add to these that the river was in a

manner without boats, and all or most part of the watermen,

lightermen, boat-builders, and lighter-builders in like manner

idle and laid by.

5. All families retrenched their living as much as possible, as

well those that fled as those that stayed; so that an innumerable

multitude of footmen, serving-men, shopkeepers, journeymen,

merchants’ bookkeepers, and such sort of people, and especially

poor maid-servants, were turned off, and left friendless and

helpless, without employment and without habitation, and this was

really a dismal article.

I might be more particular as to this part, but it may suffice to

mention in general, all trades being stopped, employment ceased:

the labour, and by that the bread, of the poor were cut off; and

at first indeed the cries of the poor were most lamentable to

hear, though by the distribution of charity their misery that way

was greatly abated. Many indeed fled into the counties, but

thousands of them having stayed in London till nothing but

desperation sent them away, death overtook them on the road, and

they served for no better than the messengers of death; indeed,

others carrying the infection along with them, spread it very

unhappily into the remotest parts of the kingdom.