Many of these were the miserable objects of despair which I have

mentioned before, and were removed by the destruction which

followed. These might be said to perish not by the infection

itself but by the consequence of it; indeed, namely, by hunger

and distress and the want of all things: being without lodging,

without money, without friends, without means to get their bread,

or without anyone to give it them; for many of them were without

what we call legal settlements, and so could not claim of the

parishes, and all the support they had was by application to the

magistrates for relief, which relief was (to give the magistrates

their due) carefully and cheerfully administered as they found it

necessary, and those that stayed behind never felt the want and

distress of that kind which they felt who went away in the manner

above noted.

Let any one who is acquainted with what multitudes of people get

their daily bread in this city by their labour, whether

artificers or mere workmen—I say, let any man consider what must

be the miserable condition of this town if, on a sudden, they

should be all turned out of employment, that labour should cease,

and wages for work be no more.

This was the case with us at that time; and had not the sums of

money contributed in charity by well-disposed people of every

kind, as well abroad as at home, been prodigiously great, it had

not been in the power of the Lord Mayor and sheriffs to have kept

the public peace. Nor were they without apprehensions, as it was,

that desperation should push the people upon tumults, and cause

them to rifle the houses of rich men and plunder the markets of

provisions; in which case the country people, who brought

provisions very freely and boldly to town, would have been

terrified from coming any more, and the town would have sunk

under an unavoidable famine.

But the prudence of my Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen

within the city, and of the justices of peace in the out-parts,

was such, and they were supported with money from all parts so

well, that the poor people were kept quiet, and their wants

everywhere relieved, as far as was possible to be done.

Two things besides this contributed to prevent the mob doing any

mischief. One was, that really the rich themselves had not laid

up stores of provisions in their houses as indeed they ought to

have done, and which if they had been wise enough to have done,

and locked themselves entirely up, as some few did, they had

perhaps escaped the disease better. But as it appeared they had

not, so the mob had no notion of finding stores of provisions

there if they had broken in as it is plain they were sometimes

very near doing, and which, if they had, they had finished the

ruin of the whole city, for there were no regular troops to have

withstood them, nor could the trained bands have been brought

together to defend the city, no men being to be found to bear

arms.

But the vigilance of the Lord Mayor and such magistrates as could

be had (for some, even of the aldermen, were dead, and some

absent) prevented this; and they did it by the most kind and

gentle methods they could think of, as particularly by relieving

the most desperate with money, and putting others into business,

and particularly that employment of watching houses that were

infected and shut up. And as the number of these were very great

(for it was said there was at one time ten thousand houses shut

up, and every house had two watchmen to guard it, viz., one by

night and the other by day), this gave opportunity to employ a

very great number of poor men at a time.

The women and servants that were turned off from their places

were likewise employed as nurses to tend the sick in all places,

and this took off a very great number of them.

And, which though a melancholy article in itself, yet was a

deliverance in its kind: namely, the plague, which raged in a

dreadful manner from the middle of August to the middle of

October, carried off in that time thirty or forty thousand of

these very people which, had they been left, would certainly have

been an insufferable burden by their poverty; that is to say, the

whole city could not have supported the expense of them, or have

provided food for them; and they would in time have been even

driven to the necessity of plundering either the city itself or

the country adjacent, to have subsisted themselves, which would

first or last have put the whole nation, as well as the city,

into the utmost terror and confusion.

It was observable, then, that this calamity of the people made

them very humble; for now for about nine weeks together there

died near a thousand a day, one day with another, even by the

account of the weekly bills, which yet, I have reason to be

assured, never gave a full account, by many thousands; the

confusion being such, and the carts working in the dark when they

carried the dead, that in some places no account at all was kept,

but they worked on, the clerks and sextons not attending for

weeks together, and not knowing what number they carried. This

account is verified by the following bills of mortality:—

- Of all of the

- Diseases. Plague

From August 8 to August 15 5319 3880

” ” 15 ” 22 5568 4237

” ” 22 ” 29 7496 6102

” ” 29 to September 5 8252 6988

” September 5 ” 12 7690 6544

” ” 12 ” 19 8297 7165

” ” 19 ” 26 6460 5533

” ” 26 to October 3 5720 4979

” October 3 ” 10 5068 4327

- ——- ——-

- 59,870 49,705

So that the gross of the people were carried off in these two

months; for, as the whole number which was brought in to die of

the plague was but 68,590, here is 50,000 of them, within a

trifle, in two months; I say 50,000, because, as there wants 295

in the number above, so there wants two days of two months in the

account of time.

Now when I say that the parish officers did not give in a full

account, or were not to be depended upon for their account, let

any one but consider how men could be exact in such a time of

dreadful distress, and when many of them were taken sick

themselves and perhaps died in the very time when their accounts

were to be given in; I mean the parish clerks, besides inferior

officers; for though these poor men ventured at all hazards, yet

they were far from being exempt from the common calamity,

especially if it be true that the parish of Stepney had, within

the year, 116 sextons, gravediggers, and their assistants; that

is to say, bearers, bellmen, and drivers of carts for carrying

off the dead bodies.

Indeed the work was not of a nature to allow them leisure to take

an exact tale of the dead bodies, which were all huddled together

in the dark into a pit; which pit or trench no man could come

nigh but at the utmost peril. I observed often that in the

parishes of Aldgate and Cripplegate, Whitechappel and Stepney,

there were five, six, seven, and eight hundred in a week in the

bills; whereas if we may believe the opinion of those that lived

in the city all the time as well as I, there died sometimes 2000

a week in those parishes; and I saw it under the hand of one that

made as strict an examination into that part as he could, that

there really died an hundred thousand people of the plague in

that one year whereas in the bills, the articles of the plague,

it was but 68,590.

If I may be allowed to give my opinion, by what I saw with my

eyes and heard from other people that were eye-witnesses, I do

verily believe the same, viz., that there died at least 100,000

of the plague only, besides other distempers and besides those

which died in the fields and highways and secret Places out of

the compass of the communication, as it was called, and who were

not put down in the bills though they really belonged to the body

of the inhabitants. It was known to us all that abundance of poor

despairing creatures who had the distemper upon them, and were

grown stupid or melancholy by their misery, as many were,

wandered away into the fields and Woods, and into secret uncouth

places almost anywhere, to creep into a bush or hedge and die.

The inhabitants of the villages adjacent would, in pity, carry

them food and set it at a distance, that they might fetch it, if

they were able; and sometimes they were not able, and the next

time they went they should find the poor wretches lie dead and

the food untouched. The number of these miserable objects were

many, and I know so many that perished thus, and so exactly

where, that I believe I could go to the very place and dig their

bones up still; for the country people would go and dig a hole at

a distance from them, and then with long poles, and hooks at the

end of them, drag the bodies into these pits, and then throw the

earth in from as far as they could cast it, to cover them, taking

notice how the wind blew, and so coming on that side which the

seamen call to windward, that the scent of the bodies might blow

from them; and thus great numbers went out of the world who were

never known, or any account of them taken, as well within the

bills of mortality as without.

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

for I seldom walked into the fields, except towards Bethnal Green

and Hackney, or as hereafter. But when I did walk, I always saw a

great many poor wanderers at a distance; but I could know little

of their cases, for whether it were in the street or in the

fields, if we had seen anybody coming, it was a general method to

walk away; yet I believe the account is exactly true.

As this puts me upon mentioning my walking the streets and

fields, I cannot omit taking notice what a desolate place the

city was at that time. The great street I lived in (which is

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

mean of the suburbs as well as the liberties) all the side where

the butchers lived, especially without the bars, was more like a

green field than a paved street, and the people generally went in

the middle with the horses and carts. It is true that the

farthest end towards Whitechappel Church was not all paved, but

even the part that was paved was full of grass also; but this

need not seem strange, since the great streets within the city,

such as Leadenhall Street, Bishopsgate Street, Cornhill, and even

the Exchange itself, had grass growing in them in several places;

neither cart or coach were seen in the streets from morning to

evening, except some country carts to bring roots and beans, or

peas, hay, and straw, to the market, and those but very few

compared to what was usual. As for coaches, they were scarce used

but to carry sick people to the pest-house, and to other

hospitals, and some few to carry physicians to such places as

they thought fit to venture to visit; for really coaches were

dangerous things, and people did not care to venture into them,

because they did not know who might have been carried in them

last, and sick, infected people were, as I have said, ordinarily

carried in them to the pest-houses, and sometimes people expired

in them as they went along.

It is true, when the infection came to such a height as I have

now mentioned, there were very few physicians which cared to stir

abroad to sick houses, and very many of the most eminent of the

faculty were dead, as well as the surgeons also; for now it was

indeed a dismal time, and for about a month together, not taking

any notice of the bills of mortality, I believe there did not die

less than 1500 or 1700 a day, one day with another.

One of the worst days we had in the whole time, as I thought, was

in the beginning of September, when, indeed, good people began to

think that God was resolved to make a full end of the people in

this miserable city. This was at that time when the plague was

fully come into the eastern parishes. The parish of Aldgate, if I

may give my opinion, buried above a thousand a week for two

weeks, though the bills did not say so many;—but it surrounded me

at so dismal a rate that there was not a house in twenty

uninfected in the Minories, in Houndsditch, and in those parts of

Aldgate parish about the Butcher Row and the alleys over against

me. I say, in those places death reigned in every corner.

Whitechappel parish was in the same condition, and though much

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

the bills, and in my opinion near twice as many. Whole families,

and indeed whole streets of families, were swept away together;

insomuch that it was frequent for neighbours to call to the

bellman to go to such-and-such houses and fetch out the people,

for that they were all dead.

And, indeed, the work of removing the dead bodies by carts was

now grown so very odious and dangerous that it was complained of

that the bearers did not take care to clear such houses where all

the inhabitants were dead, but that sometimes the bodies lay

several days unburied, till the neighbouring families were

offended with the stench, and consequently infected; and this

neglect of the officers was such that the churchwardens and

constables were summoned to look after it, and even the justices

of the Hamlets were obliged to venture their lives among them to

quicken and encourage them, for innumerable of the bearers died

of the distemper, infected by the bodies they were obliged to

come so near. And had it not been that the number of poor people

who wanted employment and wanted bread (as I have said before)

was so great that necessity drove them to undertake anything and

venture anything, they would never have found people to be

employed. And then the bodies of the dead would have lain above

ground, and have perished and rotted in a dreadful manner.

But the magistrates cannot be enough commended in this, that they

kept such good order for the burying of the dead, that as fast as

any of these they employed to carry off and bury the dead fell

sick or died, as was many times the case, they immediately

supplied the places with others, which, by reason of the great

number of poor that was left out of business, as above, was not

hard to do. This occasioned, that notwithstanding the infinite

number of people which died and were sick, almost all together,

yet they were always cleared away and carried off every night, so

that it was never to be said of London that the living were not

able to bury the dead.

As the desolation was greater during those terrible times, so the

amazement of the people increased, and a thousand unaccountable

things they would do in the violence of their fright, as others

did the same in the agonies of their distemper, and this part was

very affecting. Some went roaring and crying and wringing their

hands along the street; some would go praying and lifting up

their hands to heaven, calling upon God for mercy. I cannot say,

indeed, whether this was not in their distraction, but, be it so,

it was still an indication of a more serious mind, when they had

the use of their senses, and was much better, even as it was,

than the frightful yellings and cryings that every day, and

especially in the evenings, were heard in some streets. I suppose

the world has heard of the famous Solomon Eagle, an enthusiast.

He, though not infected at all but in his head, went about

denouncing of judgement upon the city in a frightful manner,

sometimes quite naked, and with a pan of burning charcoal on his

head. What he said, or pretended, indeed I could not learn.

I will not say whether that clergyman was distracted or not, or

whether he did it in pure zeal for the poor people, who went

every evening through the streets of Whitechappel, and, with his

hands lifted up, repeated that part of the Liturgy of the Church

continually, ‘Spare us, good Lord; spare Thy people, whom Thou

has redeemed with Thy most precious blood.’ I say, I cannot speak

positively of these things, because these were only the dismal

objects which represented themselves to me as I looked through my

chamber windows (for I seldom opened the casements), while I

confined myself within doors during that most violent raging of

the pestilence; when, indeed, as I have said, many began to

think, and even to say, that there would none escape; and indeed

I began to think so too, and therefore kept within doors for

about a fortnight and never stirred out. But I could not hold it.

Besides, there were some people who, notwithstanding the danger,

did not omit publicly to attend the worship of God, even in the

most dangerous times; and though it is true that a great many

clergymen did shut up their churches, and fled, as other people

did, for the safety of their lives, yet all did not do so. Some

ventured to officiate and to keep up the assemblies of the people

by constant prayers, and sometimes sermons or brief exhortations

to repentance and reformation, and this as long as any would come

to hear them. And Dissenters did the like also, and even in the

very churches where the parish ministers were either dead or

fled; nor was there any room for making difference at such a time

as this was.

It was indeed a lamentable thing to hear the miserable

lamentations of poor dying creatures calling out for ministers to

comfort them and pray with them, to counsel them and to direct

them, calling out to God for pardon and mercy, and confessing

aloud their past sins. It would make the stoutest heart bleed to

hear how many warnings were then given by dying penitents to

others not to put off and delay their repentance to the day of

distress; that such a time of calamity as this was no time for

repentance, was no time to call upon God. I wish I could repeat

the very sound of those groans and of those exclamations that I

heard from some poor dying creatures when in the height of their

agonies and distress, and that I could make him that reads this

hear, as I imagine I now hear them, for the sound seems still to

ring in my ears.

If I could but tell this part in such moving accents as should

alarm the very soul of the reader, I should rejoice that I

recorded those things, however short and imperfect.

It pleased God that I was still spared, and very hearty and sound

in health, but very impatient of being pent up within doors

without air, as I had been for fourteen days or thereabouts; and

I could not restrain myself, but I would go to carry a letter for

my brother to the post-house. Then it was indeed that I observed

a profound silence in the streets. When I came to the post-house,

as I went to put in my letter I saw a man stand in one corner of

the yard and talking to another at a window, and a third had

opened a door belonging to the office. In the middle of the yard

lay a small leather purse with two keys hanging at it, with money

in it, but nobody would meddle with it. I asked how long it had

lain there; the man at the window said it had lain almost an

hour, but that they had not meddled with it, because they did not

know but the person who dropped it might come back to look for

it. I had no such need of money, nor was the sum so big that I

had any inclination to meddle with it, or to get the money at the

hazard it might be attended with; so I seemed to go away, when

the man who had opened the door said he would take it up, but so

that if the right owner came for it he should be sure to have it.

So he went in and fetched a pail of water and set it down hard by

the purse, then went again and fetch some gunpowder, and cast a

good deal of powder upon the purse, and then made a train from

that which he had thrown loose upon the purse. The train reached

about two yards. After this he goes in a third time and fetches

out a pair of tongs red hot, and which he had prepared, I

suppose, on purpose; and first setting fire to the train of

powder, that singed the purse and also smoked the air

sufficiently. But he was not content with that, but he then takes

up the purse with the tongs, holding it so long till the tongs

burnt through the purse, and then he shook the money out into the

pail of water, so he carried it in. The money, as I remember, was

about thirteen shilling and some smooth groats and brass

farthings.

There might perhaps have been several poor people, as I have

observed above, that would have been hardy enough to have

ventured for the sake of the money; but you may easily see by

what I have observed that the few people who were spared were

very careful of themselves at that time when the distress was so

exceeding great.

Much about the same time I walked out into the fields towards

Bow; for I had a great mind to see how things were managed in the

river and among the ships; and as I had some concern in shipping,

I had a notion that it had been one of the best ways of securing

one’s self from the infection to have retired into a ship; and

musing how to satisfy my curiosity in that point, I turned away

over the fields from Bow to Bromley, and down to Blackwall to the

stairs which are there for landing or taking water.

Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank, or sea-wall, as they

call it, by himself. I walked a while also about, seeing the

houses all shut up. At last I fell into some talk, at a distance,

with this poor man; first I asked him how people did thereabouts.

‘Alas, sir!’ says he, ‘almost desolate; all dead or sick. Here

are very few families in this part, or in that village’ (pointing

at Poplar), ‘where half of them are not dead already, and the

rest sick.’ Then he pointing to one house, ‘There they are all

dead’, said he, ‘and the house stands open; nobody dares go into

it. A poor thief’, says he, ‘ventured in to steal something, but

he paid dear for his theft, for he was carried to the churchyard

too last night.’ Then he pointed to several other houses.

‘There’, says he, ‘they are all dead, the man and his wife, and

five children. There’, says he, ‘they are shut up; you see a

watchman at the door’; and so of other houses. ‘Why,’ says I,

‘what do you here all alone?’ ‘Why,’ says he, ‘I am a poor,

desolate man; it has pleased God I am not yet visited, though my

family is, and one of my children dead.’ ‘How do you mean, then,’

said I, ‘that you are not visited?’ ‘Why,’ says he, ‘that’s my

house’ (pointing to a very little, low-boarded house), ‘and there

my poor wife and two children live,’ said he, ‘if they may be

said to live, for my wife and one of the children are visited,

but I do not come at them.’ And with that word I saw the tears

run very plentifully down his face; and so they did down mine

too, I assure you.

‘But,’ said I, ‘why do you not come at them? How can you abandon

your own flesh and blood?’ ‘Oh, sir,’ says he, ‘the Lord forbid!

I do not abandon them; I work for them as much as I am able; and,

blessed be the Lord, I keep them from want’; and with that I

observed he lifted up his eyes to heaven, with a countenance that

presently told me I had happened on a man that was no hypocrite,

but a serious, religious, good man, and his ejaculation was an

expression of thankfulness that, in such a condition as he was

in, he should be able to say his family did not want. ‘Well,’

says I, ‘honest man, that is a great mercy as things go now with

the poor. But how do you live, then, and how are you kept from

the dreadful calamity that is now upon us all?’ ‘Why, sir,’ says

he, ‘I am a waterman, and there’s my boat,’ says he, ‘and the

boat serves me for a house. I work in it in the day, and I sleep

in it in the night; and what I get I lay down upon that stone,’

says he, showing me a broad stone on the other side of the

street, a good way from his house; ‘and then,’ says he, ‘I

halloo, and call to them till I make them hear; and they come and

fetch it.’

‘Well, friend,’ says I, ‘but how can you get any money as a

waterman? Does any body go by water these times?’ ‘Yes, sir,’

says he, ‘in the way I am employed there does. Do you see there,’

says he, ‘five ships lie at anchor’ (pointing down the river a

good way below the town), ‘and do you see’, says he, ‘eight or

ten ships lie at the chain there, and at anchor yonder?’

(pointing above the town). ‘All those ships have families on

board, of their merchants and owners, and such-like, who have

locked themselves up and live on board, close shut in, for fear

of the infection; and I tend on them to fetch things for them,

carry letters, and do what is absolutely necessary, that they may

not be obliged to come on shore; and every night I fasten my boat

on board one of the ship’s boats, and there I sleep by myself,

and, blessed be God, I am preserved hitherto.’

‘Well,’ said I, ‘friend, but will they let you come on board

after you have been on shore here, when this is such a terrible

place, and so infected as it is?’

‘Why, as to that,’ said he, ‘I very seldom go up the ship-side,

but deliver what I bring to their boat, or lie by the side, and

they hoist it on board. If I did, I think they are in no danger

from me, for I never go into any house on shore, or touch

anybody, no, not of my own family; but I fetch provisions for

them.’

‘Nay,’ says I, ‘but that may be worse, for you must have those

provisions of somebody or other; and since all this part of the

town is so infected, it is dangerous so much as to speak with

anybody, for the village’, said I, ‘is, as it were, the beginning

of London, though it be at some distance from it.’

‘That is true,’ added he; ‘but you do not understand me right; I

do not buy provisions for them here. I row up to Greenwich and

buy fresh meat there, and sometimes I row down the river to

Woolwich and buy there; then I go to single farm-houses on the

Kentish side, where I am known, and buy fowls and eggs and

butter, and bring to the ships, as they direct me, sometimes one,

sometimes the other. I seldom come on shore here, and I came now

only to call on my wife and hear how my family do, and give them

a little money, which I received last night.’

‘Poor man!’ said I; ‘and how much hast thou gotten for them?’

‘I have gotten four shillings,’ said he, ‘which is a great sum,

as things go now with poor men; but they have given me a bag of

bread too, and a salt fish and some flesh; so all helps out.’

‘Well,’ said I, ‘and have you given it them yet?’

‘No,’ said he; ‘but I have called, and my wife has answered that

she cannot come out yet, but in half-an-hour she hopes to come,

and I am waiting for her. Poor woman!’ says he, ‘she is brought

sadly down. She has a swelling, and it is broke, and I hope she

will recover; but I fear the child will die, but it is the Lord—’

Here he stopped, and wept very much.

‘Well, honest friend,’ said I, ‘thou hast a sure Comforter, if

thou hast brought thyself to be resigned to the will of God; He

is dealing with us all in judgement.’

‘Oh, sir!’ says he, ‘it is infinite mercy if any of us are

spared, and who am I to repine!’

‘Sayest thou so?’ said I, ‘and how much less is my faith than

thine?’ And here my heart smote me, suggesting how much better

this poor man’s foundation was on which he stayed in the danger

than mine; that he had nowhere to fly; that he had a family to

bind him to attendance, which I had not; and mine was mere

presumption, his a true dependence and a courage resting on God;

and yet that he used all possible caution for his safety.

I turned a little way from the man while these thoughts engaged

me, for, indeed, I could no more refrain from tears than he.

At length, after some further talk, the poor woman opened the

door and called, ‘Robert, Robert’. He answered, and bid her stay

a few moments and he would come; so he ran down the common stairs

to his boat and fetched up a sack, in which was the provisions he

had brought from the ships; and when he returned he hallooed

again. Then he went to the great stone which he showed me and

emptied the sack, and laid all out, everything by themselves, and

then retired; and his wife came with a little boy to fetch them

away, and called and said such a captain had sent such a thing,

and such a captain such a thing, and at the end adds, ‘God has

sent it all; give thanks to Him.’ When the poor woman had taken

up all, she was so weak she could not carry it at once in, though

the weight was not much neither; so she left the biscuit, which

was in a little bag, and left a little boy to watch it till she

came again.

‘Well, but’, says I to him, ‘did you leave her the four shillings

too, which you said was your week’s pay?’

‘Yes, yes,’ says he; ‘you shall hear her own it.’ So he calls

again, ‘Rachel, Rachel,’ which it seems was her name, ‘did you

take up the money?’ ‘Yes,’ said she. ‘How much was it?’ said he.

‘Four shillings and a groat,’ said she. ‘Well, well,’ says he,

‘the Lord keep you all’; and so he turned to go away.

As I could not refrain contributing tears to this man’s story, so

neither could I refrain my charity for his assistance. So I

called him, ‘Hark thee, friend,’ said I, ‘come hither, for I

believe thou art in health, that I may venture thee’; so I pulled

out my hand, which was in my pocket before, ‘Here,’ says I, ‘go

and call thy Rachel once more, and give her a little more comfort

from me. God will never forsake a family that trust in Him as

thou dost.’ So I gave him four other shillings, and bid him go

lay them on the stone and call his wife.

I have not words to express the poor man’s thankfulness, neither

could he express it himself but by tears running down his face.

He called his wife, and told her God had moved the heart of a

stranger, upon hearing their condition, to give them all that

money, and a great deal more such as that he said to her. The

woman, too, made signs of the like thankfulness, as well to

Heaven as to me, and joyfully picked it up; and I parted with no

money all that year that I thought better bestowed.

I then asked the poor man if the distemper had not reached to

Greenwich. He said it had not till about a fortnight before; but

that then he feared it had, but that it was only at that end of

the town which lay south towards Deptford Bridge; that he went

only to a butcher’s shop and a grocer’s, where he generally

bought such things as they sent him for, but was very careful.

I asked him then how it came to pass that those people who had so

shut themselves up in the ships had not laid in sufficient stores

of all things necessary. He said some of them had—but, on the

other hand, some did not come on board till they were frighted

into it and till it was too dangerous for them to go to the

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

on two ships, which he showed me, that had laid in little or

nothing but biscuit bread and ship beer, and that he had bought

everything else almost for them. I asked him if there was any

more ships that had separated themselves as those had done. He

told me yes, all the way up from the point, right against

Greenwich, to within the shore of Limehouse and Redriff, all the

ships that could have room rid two and two in the middle of the

stream, and that some of them had several families on board. I

asked him if the distemper had not reached them. He said he

believed it had not, except two or three ships whose people had

not been so watchful to keep the seamen from going on shore as

others had been, and he said it was a very fine sight to see how

the ships lay up the Pool.

When he said he was going over to Greenwich as soon as the tide

began to come in, I asked if he would let me go with him and

bring me back, for that I had a great mind to see how the ships

were ranged, as he had told me. He told me, if I would assure him

on the word of a Christian and of an honest man that I had not

the distemper, he would. I assured him that I had not; that it

had pleased God to preserve me; that I lived in Whitechappel, but

was too impatient of being so long within doors, and that I had

ventured out so far for the refreshment of a little air, but that

none in my house had so much as been touched with it.

‘Well, sir,’ says he, ‘as your charity has been moved to pity me

and my poor family, sure you cannot have so little pity left as

to put yourself into my boat if you were not sound in health

which would be nothing less than killing me and ruining my whole

family.’ The poor man troubled me so much when he spoke of his

family with such a sensible concern and in such an affectionate

manner, that I could not satisfy myself at first to go at all. I

told him I would lay aside my curiosity rather than make him

uneasy, though I was sure, and very thankful for it, that I had

no more distemper upon me than the freshest man in the world.

Well, he would not have me put it off neither, but to let me see

how confident he was that I was just to him, now importuned me to

go; so when the tide came up to his boat I went in, and he

carried me to Greenwich. While he bought the things which he had

in his charge to buy, I walked up to the top of the hill under

which the town stands, and on the east side of the town, to get a

prospect of the river. But it was a surprising sight to see the

number of ships which lay in rows, two and two, and some places

two or three such lines in the breadth of the river, and this not

only up quite to the town, between the houses which we call

Ratcliff and Redriff, which they name the Pool, but even down the

whole river as far as the head of Long Reach, which is as far as

the hills give us leave to see it.

I cannot guess at the number of ships, but I think there must be

several hundreds of sail; and I could not but applaud the

contrivance: for ten thousand people and more who attended ship

affairs were certainly sheltered here from the violence of the

contagion, and lived very safe and very easy.

I returned to my own dwelling very well satisfied with my day’s

journey, and particularly with the poor man; also I rejoiced to

see that such little sanctuaries were provided for so many

families in a time of such desolation. I observed also that, as

the violence of the plague had increased, so the ships which had

families on board removed and went farther off, till, as I was

told, some went quite away to sea, and put into such harbours and

safe roads on the north coast as they could best come at.

But it was also true that all the people who thus left the land

and lived on board the ships were not entirely safe from the

infection, for many died and were thrown overboard into the

river, some in coffins, and some, as I heard, without coffins,

whose bodies were seen sometimes to drive up and down with the

tide in the river.

But I believe I may venture to say that in those ships which were

thus infected it either happened where the people had recourse to

them too late, and did not fly to the ship till they had stayed

too long on shore and had the distemper upon them (though perhaps

they might not perceive it) and so the distemper did not come to

them on board the ships, but they really carried it with them; or

it was in these ships where the poor waterman said they had not

had time to furnish themselves with provisions, but were obliged

to send often on shore to buy what they had occasion for, or

suffered boats to come to them from the shore. And so the

distemper was brought insensibly among them.

And here I cannot but take notice that the strange temper of the

people of London at that time contributed extremely to their own

destruction. The plague began, as I have observed, at the other

end of the town, namely, in Long Acre, Drury Lane, &c., and came

on towards the city very gradually and slowly. It was felt at

first in December, then again in February, then again in April,

and always but a very little at a time; then it stopped till May,

and even the last week in May there was but seventeen, and all at

that end of the town; and all this while, even so long as till

there died above 3000 a week, yet had the people in Redriff, and

in Wapping and Ratcliff, on both sides of the river, and almost

all Southwark side, a mighty fancy that they should not be

visited, or at least that it would not be so violent among them.

Some people fancied the smell of the pitch and tar, and such

other things as oil and rosin and brimstone, which is so much

used by all trades relating to shipping, would preserve them.

Others argued it, because it was in its extreamest violence in

Westminster and the parish of St Giles and St Andrew, &c., and

began to abate again before it came among them—which was true

indeed, in part. For example—

From the 8th to the 15th August—

- St Giles-in-the-Fields 242

- Cripplegate 886

- Stepney 197

- St Margaret, Bermondsey 24

- Rotherhithe 3

- Total this week 4030

From the 15th to the 22nd August—

- St Giles-in-the-Fields 175

- Cripplegate 847

- Stepney 273

- St Margaret, Bermondsey 36

- Rotherhithe 2

- Total this week 5319

N.B.—That it was observed the numbers mentioned in Stepney parish

at that time were generally all on that side where Stepney parish

joined to Shoreditch, which we now call Spittlefields, where the

parish of Stepney comes up to the very wall of Shoreditch

Churchyard, and the plague at this time was abated at St

Giles-in-the-Fields, and raged most violently in Cripplegate,

Bishopsgate, and Shoreditch parishes; but there was not ten

people a week that died of it in all that part of Stepney parish

which takes in Limehouse, Ratcliff Highway, and which are now the

parishes of Shadwell and Wapping, even to St Katherine’s by the

Tower, till after the whole month of August was expired. But they

paid for it afterwards, as I shall observe by-and-by.

This, I say, made the people of Redriff and Wapping, Ratcliff and

Limehouse, so secure, and flatter themselves so much with the

plague’s going off without reaching them, that they took no care

either to fly into the country or shut themselves up. Nay, so far

were they from stirring that they rather received their friends

and relations from the city into their houses, and several from

other places really took sanctuary in that part of the town as a

place of safety, and as a place which they thought God would pass

over, and not visit as the rest was visited.

And this was the reason that when it came upon them they were

more surprised, more unprovided, and more at a loss what to do

than they were in other places; for when it came among them

really and with violence, as it did indeed in September and

October, there was then no stirring out into the country, nobody

would suffer a stranger to come near them, no, nor near the towns

where they dwelt; and, as I have been told, several that wandered

into the country on Surrey side were found starved to death in

the woods and commons, that country being more open and more

woody than any other part so near London, especially about

Norwood and the parishes of Camberwell, Dullege, and Lusum,

where, it seems, nobody durst relieve the poor distressed people

for fear of the infection.

This notion having, as I said, prevailed with the people in that

part of the town, was in part the occasion, as I said before,

that they had recourse to ships for their retreat; and where they

did this early and with prudence, furnishing themselves so with

provisions that they had no need to go on shore for supplies or

suffer boats to come on board to bring them,—I say, where they

did so they had certainly the safest retreat of any people

whatsoever; but the distress was such that people ran on board,

in their fright, without bread to eat, and some into ships that

had no men on board to remove them farther off, or to take the

boat and go down the river to buy provisions where it might be

done safely, and these often suffered and were infected on board

as much as on shore.

As the richer sort got into ships, so the lower rank got into

hoys, smacks, lighters, and fishing-boats; and many, especially

watermen, lay in their boats; but those made sad work of it,

especially the latter, for, going about for provision, and

perhaps to get their subsistence, the infection got in among them

and made a fearful havoc; many of the watermen died alone in

their wherries as they rid at their roads, as well as above

bridge as below, and were not found sometimes till they were not

in condition for anybody to touch or come near them.

Indeed, the distress of the people at this seafaring end of the

town was very deplorable, and deserved the greatest

commiseration. But, alas! this was a time when every one’s

private safety lay so near them that they had no room to pity the

distresses of others; for every one had death, as it were, at his

door, and many even in their families, and knew not what to do or

whither to fly.

This, I say, took away all compassion; self-preservation, indeed,

appeared here to be the first law. For the children ran away from

their parents as they languished in the utmost distress. And in

some places, though not so frequent as the other, parents did the

like to their children; nay, some dreadful examples there were,

and particularly two in one week, of distressed mothers, raving

and distracted, killing their own children; one whereof was not

far off from where I dwelt, the poor lunatic creature not living

herself long enough to be sensible of the sin of what she had

done, much less to be punished for it.

It is not, indeed, to be wondered at: for the danger of immediate

death to ourselves took away all bowels of love, all concern for

one another. I speak in general, for there were many instances of

immovable affection, pity, and duty in many, and some that came

to my knowledge, that is to say, by hearsay; for I shall not take

upon me to vouch the truth of the particulars.

To introduce one, let me first mention that one of the most

deplorable cases in all the present calamity was that of women

with child, who, when they came to the hour of their sorrows, and

their pains come upon them, could neither have help of one kind

or another; neither midwife or neighbouring women to come near

them. Most of the midwives were dead, especially of such as

served the poor; and many, if not all the midwives of note, were

fled into the country; so that it was next to impossible for a

poor woman that could not pay an immoderate price to get any

midwife to come to her—and if they did, those they could get were

generally unskilful and ignorant creatures; and the consequence

of this was that a most unusual and incredible number of women

were reduced to the utmost distress. Some were delivered and

spoiled by the rashness and ignorance of those who pretended to

lay them. Children without number were, I might say, murdered by

the same but a more justifiable ignorance: pretending they would

save the mother, whatever became of the child; and many times

both mother and child were lost in the same manner; and

especially where the mother had the distemper, there nobody would

come near them and both sometimes perished. Sometimes the mother

has died of the plague, and the infant, it may be, half born, or

born but not parted from the mother. Some died in the very pains

of their travail, and not delivered at all; and so many were the

cases of this kind that it is hard to judge of them.

Something of it will appear in the unusual numbers which are put

into the weekly bills (though I am far from allowing them to be

able to give anything of a full account) under the articles of—

Child-bed. Abortive and Still-born. Chrisoms and Infants.

Take the weeks in which the plague was most violent, and compare

them with the weeks before the distemper began, even in the same

year. For example:—

Child-bed. Abortive. Still-born.

From January 3 to January 10 7 1 13

” ” 10 ” 17 8 6 11

” ” 17 ” 24 9 5 15

” ” 24 ” 31 3 2 9

” ” 31 to February 7 3 3 8

” February 7 ” 14 6 2 11

” ” 14 ” 21 5 2 13

” ” 21 ” 28 2 2 10

” ” 28 to March 7 5 1 10

- —- —- ——

- 48 24 100

From August 1 to August 8 25 5 11

” ” 8 ” 15 23 6 8

” ” 15 ” 22 28 4 4

” ” 22 ” 29 40 6 10

” ” 29 to September 5 38 2 11

September 5 ” 12 39 23 ...

” ” 12 ” 19 42 5 17

” ” 19 ” 26 42 6 10

” ” 26 to October 3 14 4 9

- —- — —-

- 291 61 80

To the disparity of these numbers it is to be considered and

allowed for, that according to our usual opinion who were then

upon the spot, there were not one-third of the people in the town

during the months of August and September as were in the months

of January and February. In a word, the usual number that used to

die of these three articles, and, as I hear, did die of them the

year before, was thus:—

1664. 1665.

Child-bed 189 Child-bed 625

Abortive and still-born 458 Abortive and still-born 617

- —— ——

- 647 1242

This inequality, I say, is exceedingly augmented when the numbers

of people are considered. I pretend not to make any exact

calculation of the numbers of people which were at this time in

the city, but I shall make a probable conjecture at that part

by-and-by. What I have said now is to explain the misery of those

poor creatures above; so that it might well be said, as in the

Scripture, Woe be to those who are with child, and to those which

give suck in that day. For, indeed, it was a woe to them in

particular.

I was not conversant in many particular families where these

things happened, but the outcries of the miserable were heard

afar off. As to those who were with child, we have seen some

calculation made; 291 women dead in child-bed in nine weeks, out

of one-third part of the number of whom there usually died in

that time but eighty-four of the same disaster. Let the reader

calculate the proportion.

There is no room to doubt but the misery of those that gave suck

was in proportion as great. Our bills of mortality could give but

little light in this, yet some it did. There were several more

than usual starved at nurse, but this was nothing. The misery was

where they were, first, starved for want of a nurse, the mother

dying and all the family and the infants found dead by them,

merely for want; and, if I may speak my opinion, I do believe

that many hundreds of poor helpless infants perished in this

manner. Secondly, not starved, but poisoned by the nurse. Nay,

even where the mother has been nurse, and having received the

infection, has poisoned, that is, infected the infant with her

milk even before they knew they were infected themselves; nay,

and the infant has died in such a case before the mother. I

cannot but remember to leave this admonition upon record, if ever

such another dreadful visitation should happen in this city, that

all women that are with child or that give suck should be gone,

if they have any possible means, out of the place, because their

misery, if infected, will so much exceed all other people’s.

I could tell here dismal stories of living infants being found

sucking the breasts of their mothers, or nurses, after they have

been dead of the plague. Of a mother in the parish where I lived,

who, having a child that was not well, sent for an apothecary to

view the child; and when he came, as the relation goes, was

giving the child suck at her breast, and to all appearance was

herself very well; but when the apothecary came close to her he

saw the tokens upon that breast with which she was suckling the

child. He was surprised enough, to be sure, but, not willing to

fright the poor woman too much, he desired she would give the

child into his hand; so he takes the child, and going to a cradle

in the room, lays it in, and opening its cloths, found the tokens

upon the child too, and both died before he could get home to

send a preventive medicine to the father of the child, to whom he

had told their condition. Whether the child infected the

nurse-mother or the mother the child was not certain, but the

last most likely. Likewise of a child brought home to the parents

from a nurse that had died of the plague, yet the tender mother

would not refuse to take in her child, and laid it in her bosom,

by which she was infected; and died with the child in her arms

dead also.

It would make the hardest heart move at the instances that were

frequently found of tender mothers tending and watching with

their dear children, and even dying before them, and sometimes

taking the distemper from them and dying, when the child for whom

the affectionate heart had been sacrificed has got over it and

escaped.

The like of a tradesman in East Smithfield, whose wife was big

with child of her first child, and fell in labour, having the

plague upon her. He could neither get midwife to assist her or

nurse to tend her, and two servants which he kept fled both from

her. He ran from house to house like one distracted, but could

get no help; the utmost he could get was, that a watchman, who

attended at an infected house shut up, promised to send a nurse

in the morning. The poor man, with his heart broke, went back,

assisted his wife what he could, acted the part of the midwife,

brought the child dead into the world, and his wife in about an

hour died in his arms, where he held her dead body fast till the

morning, when the watchman came and brought the nurse as he had

promised; and coming up the stairs (for he had left the door

open, or only latched), they found the man sitting with his dead

wife in his arms, and so overwhelmed with grief that he died in a

few hours after without any sign of the infection upon him, but

merely sunk under the weight of his grief.

I have heard also of some who, on the death of their relations,

have grown stupid with the insupportable sorrow; and of one, in

particular, who was so absolutely overcome with the pressure upon

his spirits that by degrees his head sank into his body, so

between his shoulders that the crown of his head was very little

seen above the bone of his shoulders; and by degrees losing both

voice and sense, his face, looking forward, lay against his

collarbone and could not be kept up any otherwise, unless held up

by the hands of other people; and the poor man never came to

himself again, but languished near a year in that condition, and

died. Nor was he ever once seen to lift up his eyes or to look

upon any particular object.

I cannot undertake to give any other than a summary of such

passages as these, because it was not possible to come at the

particulars, where sometimes the whole families where such things

happened were carried off by the distemper. But there were

innumerable cases of this kind which presented to the eye and the

ear, even in passing along the streets, as I have hinted above.

Nor is it easy to give any story of this or that family which

there was not divers parallel stories to be met with of the same

kind.

But as I am now talking of the time when the plague raged at the

easternmost part of the town—how for a long time the people of

those parts had flattered themselves that they should escape, and

how they were surprised when it came upon them as it did; for,

indeed, it came upon them like an armed man when it did come;—I

say, this brings me back to the three poor men who wandered from

Wapping, not knowing whither to go or what to do, and whom I

mentioned before; one a biscuit-baker, one a sailmaker, and the

other a joiner, all of Wapping, or there-abouts.

The sleepiness and security of that part, as I have observed, was

such that they not only did not shift for themselves as others

did, but they boasted of being safe, and of safety being with

them; and many people fled out of the city, and out of the

infected suburbs, to Wapping, Ratcliff, Limehouse, Poplar, and

such Places, as to Places of security; and it is not at all

unlikely that their doing this helped to bring the plague that

way faster than it might otherwise have come. For though I am

much for people flying away and emptying such a town as this upon

the first appearance of a like visitation, and that all people

who have any possible retreat should make use of it in time and

be gone, yet I must say, when all that will fly are gone, those

that are left and must stand it should stand stock-still where

they are, and not shift from one end of the town or one part of

the town to the other; for that is the bane and mischief of the

whole, and they carry the plague from house to house in their

very clothes.

Wherefore were we ordered to kill all the dogs and cats, but

because as they were domestic animals, and are apt to run from

house to house and from street to street, so they are capable of

carrying the effluvia or infectious streams of bodies infected

even in their furs and hair? And therefore it was that, in the

beginning of the infection, an order was published by the Lord

Mayor, and by the magistrates, according to the advice of the

physicians, that all the dogs and cats should be immediately

killed, and an officer was appointed for the execution.

It is incredible, if their account is to be depended upon, what a

prodigious number of those creatures were destroyed. I think they

talked of forty thousand dogs, and five times as many cats; few

houses being without a cat, some having several, sometimes five

or six in a house. All possible endeavours were used also to

destroy the mice and rats, especially the latter, by laying

ratsbane and other poisons for them, and a prodigious multitude

of them were also destroyed.

I often reflected upon the unprovided condition that the whole

body of the people were in at the first coming of this calamity

upon them, and how it was for want of timely entering into

measures and managements, as well public as private, that all the

confusions that followed were brought upon us, and that such a

prodigious number of people sank in that disaster, which, if

proper steps had been taken, might, Providence concurring, have

been avoided, and which, if posterity think fit, they may take a

caution and warning from. But I shall come to this part again.

I come back to my three men. Their story has a moral in every

part of it, and their whole conduct, and that of some whom they

joined with, is a pattern for all poor men to follow, or women

either, if ever such a time comes again; and if there was no

other end in recording it, I think this a very just one, whether

my account be exactly according to fact or no.

Two of them are said to be brothers, the one an old soldier, but

now a biscuit-maker; the other a lame sailor, but now a

sailmaker; the third a joiner. Says John the biscuit-maker one

day to Thomas his brother, the sailmaker, ‘Brother Tom, what will

become of us? The plague grows hot in the city, and increases

this way. What shall we do?’

‘Truly,’ says Thomas, ‘I am at a great loss what to do, for I

find if it comes down into Wapping I shall be turned out of my

lodging.’ And thus they began to talk of it beforehand.

John. Turned out of your lodging, Tom! If you are, I don’t know

who will take you in; for people are so afraid of one another

now, there’s no getting a lodging anywhere.

Thomas. Why, the people where I lodge are good, civil people, and

have kindness enough for me too; but they say I go abroad every

day to my work, and it will be dangerous; and they talk of

locking themselves up and letting nobody come near them.

John. Why, they are in the right, to be sure, if they resolve to

venture staying in town.

Thomas. Nay, I might even resolve to stay within doors too, for,

except a suit of sails that my master has in hand, and which I am

just finishing, I am like to get no more work a great while.

There’s no trade stirs now. Workmen and servants are turned off

everywhere, so that I might be glad to be locked up too; but I do

not see they will be willing to consent to that, any more than to

the other.

John. Why, what will you do then, brother? And what shall I do?

for I am almost as bad as you. The people where I lodge are all

gone into the country but a maid, and she is to go next week, and

to shut the house quite up, so that I shall be turned adrift to

the wide world before you, and I am resolved to go away too, if I

knew but where to go.

Thomas. We were both distracted we did not go away at first; then

we might have travelled anywhere. There’s no stirring now; we

shall be starved if we pretend to go out of town. They won’t let

us have victuals, no, not for our money, nor let us come into the

towns, much less into their houses.

John. And that which is almost as bad, I have but little money to

help myself with neither.

Thomas. As to that, we might make shift, I have a little, though

not much; but I tell you there’s no stirring on the road. I know

a couple of poor honest men in our street have attempted to

travel, and at Barnet, or Whetstone, or thereabouts, the people

offered to fire at them if they pretended to go forward, so they

are come back again quite discouraged.

John. I would have ventured their fire if I had been there. If I

had been denied food for my money they should have seen me take

it before their faces, and if I had tendered money for it they

could not have taken any course with me by law.

Thomas. You talk your old soldier’s language, as if you were in

the Low Countries now, but this is a serious thing. The people

have good reason to keep anybody off that they are not satisfied

are sound, at such a time as this, and we must not plunder them.

John. No, brother, you mistake the case, and mistake me too. I

would plunder nobody; but for any town upon the road to deny me

leave to pass through the town in the open highway, and deny me

provisions for my money, is to say the town has a right to starve

me to death, which cannot be true.

Thomas. But they do not deny you liberty to go back again from

whence you came, and therefore they do not starve you.

John. But the next town behind me will, by the same rule, deny me

leave to go back, and so they do starve me between them. Besides,

there is no law to prohibit my travelling wherever I will on the

road.

Thomas. But there will be so much difficulty in disputing with

them at every town on the road that it is not for poor men to do

it or undertake it, at such a time as this is especially.

John. Why, brother, our condition at this rate is worse than

anybody else’s, for we can neither go away nor stay here. I am of

the same mind with the lepers of Samaria: ‘If we stay here we are

sure to die’, I mean especially as you and I are stated, without

a dwelling-house of our own, and without lodging in anybody

else’s. There is no lying in the street at such a time as this;

we had as good go into the dead-cart at once. Therefore I say, if

we stay here we are sure to die, and if we go away we can but

die; I am resolved to be gone.

Thomas. You will go away. Whither will you go, and what can you

do? I would as willingly go away as you, if I knew whither. But

we have no acquaintance, no friends. Here we were born, and here

we must die.

John. Look you, Tom, the whole kingdom is my native country as

well as this town. You may as well say I must not go out of my

house if it is on fire as that I must not go out of the town I

was born in when it is infected with the plague. I was born in

England, and have a right to live in it if I can.

Thomas. But you know every vagrant person may by the laws of

England be taken up, and passed back to their last legal

settlement.

John. But how shall they make me vagrant? I desire only to travel

on, upon my lawful occasions.

Thomas. What lawful occasions can we pretend to travel, or rather

wander upon? They will not be put off with words.

John. Is not flying to save our lives a lawful occasion? And do

they not all know that the fact is true? We cannot be said to

dissemble.

Thomas. But suppose they let us pass, whither shall we go?

John. Anywhere, to save our lives; it is time enough to consider

that when we are got out of this town. If I am once out of this

dreadful place, I care not where I go.

Thomas. We shall be driven to great extremities. I know not what

to think of it.

John. Well, Tom, consider of it a little.

This was about the beginning of July; and though the plague was

come forward in the west and north parts of the town, yet all

Wapping, as I have observed before, and Redriff, and Ratdiff, and

Limehouse, and Poplar, in short, Deptford and Greenwich, all both

sides of the river from the Hermitage, and from over against it,

quite down to Blackwall, was entirely free; there had not one

person died of the plague in all Stepney parish, and not one on

the south side of Whitechappel Road, no, not in any parish; and

yet the weekly bill was that very week risen up to 1006.

It was a fortnight after this before the two brothers met again,

and then the case was a little altered, and the plague was

exceedingly advanced and the number greatly increased; the bill

was up at 2785, and prodigiously increasing, though still both

sides of the river, as below, kept pretty well. But some began to

die in Redriff, and about five or six in Ratcliff Highway, when

the sailmaker came to his brother John express, and in some

fright; for he was absolutely warned out of his lodging, and had

only a week to provide himself. His brother John was in as bad a

case, for he was quite out, and had only begged leave of his

master, the biscuit-maker, to lodge in an outhouse belonging to

his workhouse, where he only lay upon straw, with some

biscuit-sacks, or bread-sacks, as they called them, laid upon it,

and some of the same sacks to cover him.

Here they resolved (seeing all employment being at an end, and no

work or wages to be had), they would make the best of their way

to get out of the reach of the dreadful infection, and, being as

good husbands as they could, would endeavour to live upon what

they had as long as it would last, and then work for more if they

could get work anywhere, of any kind, let it be what it would.

While they were considering to put this resolution in practice in

the best manner they could, the third man, who was acquainted

very well with the sailmaker, came to know of the design, and got

leave to be one of the number; and thus they prepared to set out.

It happened that they had not an equal share of money; but as the

sailmaker, who had the best stock, was, besides his being lame,

the most unfit to expect to get anything by working in the

country, so he was content that what money they had should all go

into one public stock, on condition that whatever any one of them

could gain more than another, it should without any grudging be

all added to the public stock.

They resolved to load themselves with as little baggage as

possible because they resolved at first to travel on foot, and to

go a great way that they might, if possible, be effectually safe;

and a great many consultations they had with themselves before

they could agree about what way they should travel, which they

were so far from adjusting that even to the morning they set out

they were not resolved on it.

At last the seaman put in a hint that determined it. ‘First,’

says he, ‘the weather is very hot, and therefore I am for

travelling north, that we may not have the sun upon our faces and

beating on our breasts, which will heat and suffocate us; and I

have been told’, says he, ‘that it is not good to overheat our

blood at a time when, for aught we know, the infection may be in

the very air. In the next place,’ says he, ‘I am for going the

way that may be contrary to the wind, as it may blow when we set

out, that we may not have the wind blow the air of the city on

our backs as we go.’ These two cautions were approved of, if it

could be brought so to hit that the wind might not be in the

south when they set out to go north.

John the baker, who had been a soldier, then put in his opinion.

‘First,’ says he, ‘we none of us expect to get any lodging on the

road, and it will be a little too hard to lie just in the open

air. Though it be warm weather, yet it may be wet and damp, and

we have a double reason to take care of our healths at such a

time as this; and therefore,’ says he, ‘you, brother Tom, that

are a sailmaker, might easily make us a little tent, and I will

undertake to set it up every night, and take it down, and a fig

for all the inns in England; if we have a good tent over our

heads we shall do well enough.’

The joiner opposed this, and told them, let them leave that to

him; he would undertake to build them a house every night with

his hatchet and mallet, though he had no other tools, which

should be fully to their satisfaction, and as good as a tent.

The soldier and the joiner disputed that point some time, but at

last the soldier carried it for a tent. The only objection

against it was, that it must be carried with them, and that would

increase their baggage too much, the weather being hot; but the

sailmaker had a piece of good hap, fell in which made that easy,

for his master whom he worked for, having a rope-walk as well as

sailmaking trade, had a little, poor horse that he made no use of

then; and being willing to assist the three honest men, he gave

them the horse for the carrying their baggage; also for a small

matter of three days’ work that his man did for him before he

went, he let him have an old top-gallant sail that was worn out,

but was sufficient and more than enough to make a very good tent.

The soldier showed how to shape it, and they soon by his

direction made their tent, and fitted it with poles or staves for

the purpose; and thus they were furnished for their journey,

viz., three men, one tent, one horse, one gun—for the soldier

would not go without arms, for now he said he was no more a

biscuit-baker, but a trooper.

The joiner had a small bag of tools such as might be useful if he

should get any work abroad, as well for their subsistence as his

own. What money they had they brought all into one public stock,

and thus they began their journey. It seems that in the morning

when they set out the wind blew, as the sailor said, by his

pocket-compass, at N.W. by W. So they directed, or rather

resolved to direct, their course N.W.

But then a difficulty came in their way, that, as they set out

from the hither end of Wapping, near the Hermitage, and that the

plague was now very violent, especially on the north side of the

city, as in Shoreditch and Cripplegate parish, they did not think

it safe for them to go near those parts; so they went away east

through Ratcliff Highway as far as Ratcliff Cross, and leaving

Stepney Church still on their left hand, being afraid to come up

from Ratcliff Cross to Mile End, because they must come just by

the churchyard, and because the wind, that seemed to blow more

from the west, blew directly from the side of the city where the

plague was hottest. So, I say, leaving Stepney they fetched a

long compass, and going to Poplar and Bromley, came into the

great road just at Bow.

Here the watch placed upon Bow Bridge would have questioned them,

but they, crossing the road into a narrow way that turns out of

the hither end of the town of Bow to Old Ford, avoided any

inquiry there, and travelled to Old Ford. The constables

everywhere were upon their guard not so much, it seems, to stop

people passing by as to stop them from taking up their abode in

their towns, and withal because of a report that was newly raised

at that time: and that, indeed, was not very improbable, viz.,

that the poor people in London, being distressed and starved for

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

arms and had raised a tumult, and that they would come out to all

the towns round to plunder for bread. This, I say, was only a

rumour, and it was very well it was no more. But it was not so

far off from being a reality as it has been thought, for in a few

weeks more the poor people became so desperate by the calamity

they suffered that they were with great difficulty kept from

going out into the fields and towns, and tearing all in pieces

wherever they came; and, as I have observed before, nothing

hindered them but that the plague raged so violently and fell in

upon them so furiously that they rather went to the grave by

thousands than into the fields in mobs by thousands; for, in the

parts about the parishes of St Sepulcher, Clarkenwell,

Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, and Shoreditch, which were the places

where the mob began to threaten, the distemper came on so

furiously that there died in those few parishes even then, before

the plague was come to its height, no less than 5361 people in

the first three weeks in August; when at the same time the parts

about Wapping, Radcliff, and Rotherhithe were, as before

described, hardly touched, or but very lightly; so that in a word

though, as I said before, the good management of the Lord Mayor

and justices did much to prevent the rage and desperation of the

people from breaking out in rabbles and tumults, and in short

from the poor plundering the rich,—I say, though they did much,

the dead-carts did more: for as I have said that in five parishes

only there died above 5000 in twenty days, so there might be

probably three times that number sick all that time; for some

recovered, and great numbers fell sick every day and died

afterwards. Besides, I must still be allowed to say that if the

bills of mortality said five thousand, I always believed it was

near twice as many in reality, there being no room to believe

that the account they gave was right, or that indeed they were

among such confusions as I saw them in, in any condition to keep

an exact account.

But to return to my travellers. Here they were only examined, and

as they seemed rather coming from the country than from the city,

they found the people the easier with them; that they talked to

them, let them come into a public-house where the constable and

his warders were, and gave them drink and some victuals which

greatly refreshed and encouraged them; and here it came into

their heads to say, when they should be inquired of afterwards,

not that they came from London, but that they came out of Essex.

To forward this little fraud, they obtained so much favour of the

constable at Old Ford as to give them a certificate of their

passing from Essex through that village, and that they had not

been at London; which, though false in the common acceptance of

London in the county, yet was literally true, Wapping or Ratcliff

being no part either of the city or liberty.

This certificate directed to the next constable that was at

Homerton, one of the hamlets of the parish of Hackney, was so

serviceable to them that it procured them, not a free passage

there only, but a full certificate of health from a justice of

the peace, who upon the constable’s application granted it

without much difficulty; and thus they passed through the long

divided town of Hackney (for it lay then in several separated

hamlets), and travelled on till they came into the great north

road on the top of Stamford Hill.

By this time they began to be weary, and so in the back-road from

Hackney, a little before it opened into the said great road, they

resolved to set up their tent and encamp for the first night,

which they did accordingly, with this addition, that finding a

barn, or a building like a barn, and first searching as well as

they could to be sure there was nobody in it, they set up their

tent, with the head of it against the barn. This they did also

because the wind blew that night very high, and they were but

young at such a way of lodging, as well as at the managing their

tent.

Here they went to sleep; but the joiner, a grave and sober man,

and not pleased with their lying at this loose rate the first

night, could not sleep, and resolved, after trying to sleep to no

purpose, that he would get out, and, taking the gun in his hand,

stand sentinel and guard his companions. So with the gun in his

hand, he walked to and again before the barn, for that stood in

the field near the road, but within the hedge. He had not been

long upon the scout but he heard a noise of people coming on, as

if it had been a great number, and they came on, as he thought,

directly towards the barn. He did not presently awake his

companions; but in a few minutes more, their noise growing louder

and louder, the biscuit-baker called to him and asked him what

was the matter, and quickly started out too. The other, being the

lame sailmaker and most weary, lay still in the tent.

As they expected, so the people whom they had heard came on

directly to the barn, when one of our travellers challenged, like

soldiers upon the guard, with ‘Who comes there?’ The people did

not answer immediately, but one of them speaking to another that

was behind him, ‘Alas! alas! we are all disappointed,’ says he.

‘Here are some people before us; the barn is taken up.’

They all stopped upon that, as under some surprise, and it seems

there was about thirteen of them in all, and some women among

them. They consulted together what they should do, and by their

discourse our travellers soon found they were poor, distressed

people too, like themselves, seeking shelter and safety; and

besides, our travellers had no need to be afraid of their coming

up to disturb them, for as soon as they heard the words, ‘Who

comes there?’ these could hear the women say, as if frighted, ‘Do

not go near them. How do you know but they may have the plague?’

And when one of the men said, ‘Let us but speak to them’, the

women said, ‘No, don’t by any means. We have escaped thus far by

the goodness of God; do not let us run into danger now, we

beseech you.’

Our travellers found by this that they were a good, sober sort of

people, and flying for their lives, as they were; and, as they

were encouraged by it, so John said to the joiner, his comrade,

‘Let us encourage them too as much as we can’; so he called to

them, ‘Hark ye, good people,’ says the joiner, ‘we find by your

talk that you are flying from the same dreadful enemy as we are.

Do not be afraid of us; we are only three poor men of us. If you

are free from the distemper you shall not be hurt by us. We are

not in the barn, but in a little tent here in the outside, and we

will remove for you; we can set up our tent again immediately

anywhere else’; and upon this a parley began between the joiner,

whose name was Richard, and one of their men, who said his name

was Ford.

Ford. And do you assure us that you are all sound men?

Richard. Nay, we are concerned to tell you of it, that you may

not be uneasy or think yourselves in danger; but you see we do

not desire you should put yourselves into any danger, and

therefore I tell you that we have not made use of the barn, so we

will remove from it, that you may be safe and we also.

Ford. That is very kind and charitable; but if we have reason to

be satisfied that you are sound and free from the visitation, why

should we make you remove now you are settled in your lodging,

and, it may be, are laid down to rest? We will go into the barn,

if you please, to rest ourselves a while, and we need not disturb

you.

Richard. Well, but you are more than we are. I hope you will

assure us that you are all of you sound too, for the danger is as

great from you to us as from us to you.

Ford. Blessed be God that some do escape, though it is but few;

what may be our portion still we know not, but hitherto we are

preserved.

Richard. What part of the town do you come from? Was the plague

come to the places where you lived?

Ford. Ay, ay, in a most frightful and terrible manner, or else we

had not fled away as we do; but we believe there will be very few

left alive behind us.

Richard. What part do you come from?

Ford. We are most of us of Cripplegate parish, only two or three

of Clerkenwell parish, but on the hither side.

Richard. How then was it that you came away no sooner?

Ford. We have been away some time, and kept together as well as

we could at the hither end of Islington, where we got leave to

lie in an old uninhabited house, and had some bedding and

conveniences of our own that we brought with us; but the plague

is come up into Islington too, and a house next door to our poor

dwelling was infected and shut up; and we are come away in a

fright.

Richard. And what way are you going?

Ford. As our lot shall cast us; we know not whither, but God will

guide those that look up to Him.

They parleyed no further at that time, but came all up to the

barn, and with some difficulty got into it. There was nothing but

hay in the barn, but it was almost full of that, and they

accommodated themselves as well as they could, and went to rest;

but our travellers observed that before they went to sleep an

ancient man who it seems was father of one of the women, went to

prayer with all the company, recommending themselves to the

blessing and direction of Providence, before they went to sleep.

It was soon day at that time of the year, and as Richard the

joiner had kept guard the first part of the night, so John the

soldier relieved him, and he had the post in the morning, and

they began to be acquainted with one another. It seems when they

left Islington they intended to have gone north, away to

Highgate, but were stopped at Holloway, and there they would not

let them pass; so they crossed over the fields and hills to the

eastward, and came out at the Boarded River, and so avoiding the

towns, they left Hornsey on the left hand and Newington on the

right hand, and came into the great road about Stamford Hill on

that side, as the three travellers had done on the other side.

And now they had thoughts of going over the river in the marshes,

and make forwards to Epping Forest, where they hoped they should

get leave to rest. It seems they were not poor, at least not so

poor as to be in want; at least they had enough to subsist them

moderately for two or three months, when, as they said, they were

in hopes the cold weather would check the infection, or at least

the violence of it would have spent itself, and would abate, if

it were only for want of people left alive to be infected.

This was much the fate of our three travellers, only that they

seemed to be the better furnished for travelling, and had it in

their view to go farther off; for as to the first, they did not

propose to go farther than one day’s journey, that so they might

have intelligence every two or three days how things were at

London.

But here our travellers found themselves under an unexpected

inconvenience: namely that of their horse, for by means of the

horse to carry their baggage they were obliged to keep in the

road, whereas the people of this other band went over the fields

or roads, path or no path, way or no way, as they pleased;

neither had they any occasion to pass through any town, or come

near any town, other than to buy such things as they wanted for

their necessary subsistence, and in that indeed they were put to

much difficulty; of which in its place.

But our three travellers were obliged to keep the road, or else

they must commit spoil, and do the country a great deal of damage

in breaking down fences and gates to go over enclosed fields,

which they were loth to do if they could help it.

Our three travellers, however, had a great mind to join

themselves to this company and take their lot with them; and

after some discourse they laid aside their first design which

looked northward, and resolved to follow the other into Essex; so

in the morning they took up their tent and loaded their horse,

and away they travelled all together.

They had some difficulty in passing the ferry at the river-side,

the ferryman being afraid of them; but after some parley at a

distance, the ferryman was content to bring his boat to a place

distant from the usual ferry, and leave it there for them to take

it; so putting themselves over, he directed them to leave the

boat, and he, having another boat, said he would fetch it again,

which it seems, however, he did not do for above eight days.

Here, giving the ferryman money beforehand, they had a supply of

victuals and drink, which he brought and left in the boat for

them; but not without, as I said, having received the money

beforehand. But now our travellers were at a great loss and

difficulty how to get the horse over, the boat being small and

not fit for it: and at last could not do it without unloading the

baggage and making him swim over.

From the river they travelled towards the forest, but when they

came to Walthamstow the people of that town denied to admit them,

as was the case everywhere. The constables and their watchmen

kept them off at a distance and parleyed with them. They gave the

same account of themselves as before, but these gave no credit to

what they said, giving it for a reason that two or three

companies had already come that way and made the like pretences,

but that they had given several people the distemper in the towns

where they had passed; and had been afterwards so hardly used by

the country (though with justice, too, as they had deserved) that

about Brentwood, or that way, several of them perished in the

fields—whether of the plague or of mere want and distress they

could not tell.

This was a good reason indeed why the people of Walthamstow

should be very cautious, and why they should resolve not to

entertain anybody that they were not well satisfied of. But, as

Richard the joiner and one of the other men who parleyed with

them told them, it was no reason why they should block up the

roads and refuse to let people pass through the town, and who

asked nothing of them but to go through the street; that if their

people were afraid of them, they might go into their houses and

shut their doors; they would neither show them civility nor

incivility, but go on about their business.

The constables and attendants, not to be persuaded by reason,

continued obstinate, and would hearken to nothing; so the two men

that talked with them went back to their fellows to consult what

was to be done. It was very discouraging in the whole, and they

knew not what to do for a good while; but at last John the

soldier and biscuit-maker, considering a while, ‘Come,’ says he,

‘leave the rest of the parley to me.’ He had not appeared yet, so

he sets the joiner, Richard, to work to cut some poles out of the

trees and shape them as like guns as he could, and in a little

time he had five or six fair muskets, which at a distance would

not be known; and about the part where the lock of a gun is he

caused them to wrap cloth and rags such as they had, as soldiers

do in wet weather to preserve the locks of their pieces from

rust; the rest was discoloured with clay or mud, such as they

could get; and all this while the rest of them sat under the

trees by his direction, in two or three bodies, where they made

fires at a good distance from one another.

While this was doing he advanced himself and two or three with

him, and set up their tent in the lane within sight of the

barrier which the town’s men had made, and set a sentinel just by

it with the real gun, the only one they had, and who walked to

and fro with the gun on his shoulder, so as that the people of

the town might see them. Also, he tied the horse to a gate in the

hedge just by, and got some dry sticks together and kindled a

fire on the other side of the tent, so that the people of the

town could see the fire and the smoke, but could not see what

they were doing at it.

After the country people had looked upon them very earnestly a

great while, and, by all that they could see, could not but

suppose that they were a great many in company, they began to be

uneasy, not for their going away, but for staying where they

were; and above all, perceiving they had horses and arms, for

they had seen one horse and one gun at the tent, and they had

seen others of them walk about the field on the inside of the

hedge by the side of the lane with their muskets, as they took

them to be, shouldered; I say, upon such a sight as this, you may

be assured they were alarmed and terribly frighted, and it seems

they went to a justice of the peace to know what they should do.

What the justice advised them to I know not, but towards the

evening they called from the barrier, as above, to the sentinel

at the tent.

‘What do you want?’ says John.[1]

[1] It seems John was in the tent, but hearing them call, he

steps out, and taking the gun upon his shoulder, talked to them

as if he had been the sentinel placed there upon the guard by

some officer that was his superior. [Footnote in the original.]

‘Why, what do you intend to do?’ says the constable. ‘To do,’

says John; ‘what would you have us to do?’ Constable. Why don’t

you be gone? What do you stay there for?

John. Why do you stop us on the king’s highway, and pretend to

refuse us leave to go on our way?

Constable. We are not bound to tell you our reason, though we did

let you know it was because of the plague.

John. We told you we were all sound and free from the plague,

which we were not bound to have satisfied you of, and yet you

pretend to stop us on the highway.

Constable. We have a right to stop it up, and our own safety

obliges us to it. Besides, this is not the king’s highway; ’tis a

way upon sufferance. You see here is a gate, and if we do let

people pass here, we make them pay toll.

John. We have a right to seek our own safety as well as you, and

you may see we are flying for our lives: and ’tis very

unchristian and unjust to stop us.

Constable. You may go back from whence you came; we do not hinder

you from that.

John. No; it is a stronger enemy than you that keeps us from

doing that, or else we should not have come hither.

Constable. Well, you may go any other way, then.

John. No, no; I suppose you see we are able to send you going,

and all the people of your parish, and come through your town

when we will; but since you have stopped us here, we are content.

You see we have encamped here, and here we will live. We hope you

will furnish us with victuals.

Constable. We furnish you! What mean you by that?

John. Why, you would not have us starve, would you? If you stop

us here, you must keep us.

Constable. You will be ill kept at our maintenance.

John. If you stint us, we shall make ourselves the better

allowance.

Constable. Why, you will not pretend to quarter upon us by force,

will you?

John. We have offered no violence to you yet. Why do you seem to

oblige us to it? I am an old soldier, and cannot starve, and if

you think that we shall be obliged to go back for want of

provisions, you are mistaken.

Constable. Since you threaten us, we shall take care to be strong

enough for you. I have orders to raise the county upon you.

John. It is you that threaten, not we. And since you are for

mischief, you cannot blame us if we do not give you time for it;

we shall begin our march in a few minutes.[2]

[2] This frighted the constable and the people that were with

him, that they immediately changed their note.

Constable. What is it you demand of us?

John. At first we desired nothing of you but leave to go through

the town; we should have offered no injury to any of you, neither

would you have had any injury or loss by us. We are not thieves,

but poor people in distress, and flying from the dreadful plague

in London, which devours thousands every week. We wonder how you

could be so unmerciful!

Constable. Self-preservation obliges us.

John. What! To shut up your compassion in a case of such distress

as this?

Constable. Well, if you will pass over the fields on your left

hand, and behind that part of the town, I will endeavour to have

gates opened for you.

John. Our horsemen[3] cannot pass with our baggage that way; it

does not lead into the road that we want to go, and why should

you force us out of the road? Besides, you have kept us here all

day without any provisions but such as we brought with us. I

think you ought to send us some provisions for our relief.

[3] They had but one horse among them. [Footnotes in the

original.]

Constable. If you will go another way we will send you some

provisions.

John. That is the way to have all the towns in the county stop up

the ways against us.

Constable. If they all furnish you with food, what will you be

the worse? I see you have tents; you want no lodging.

John. Well, what quantity of provisions will you send us?

Constable. How many are you?

John. Nay, we do not ask enough for all our company; we are in

three companies. If you will send us bread for twenty men and

about six or seven women for three days, and show us the way over

the field you speak of, we desire not to put your people into any

fear for us; we will go out of our way to oblige you, though we

are as free from infection as you are.[4]

[4] Here he called to one of his men, and bade him order Captain

Richard and his people to march the lower way on the side of the

marches, and meet them in the forest; which was all a sham, for

they had no Captain Richard, or any such company. [Footnote in

the original.]

Constable. And will you assure us that your other people shall

offer us no new disturbance?

John. No, no you may depend on it.

Constable. You must oblige yourself, too, that none of your

people shall come a step nearer than where the provisions we send

you shall be set down.

John. I answer for it we will not.

Accordingly they sent to the place twenty loaves of bread and

three or four large pieces of good beef, and opened some gates,

through which they passed; but none of them had courage so much

as to look out to see them go, and, as it was evening, if they

had looked they could not have seen them as to know how few they

were.

This was John the soldier’s management. But this gave such an

alarm to the county, that had they really been two or three

hundred the whole county would have been raised upon them, and

they would have been sent to prison, or perhaps knocked on the

head.

They were soon made sensible of this, for two days afterwards

they found several parties of horsemen and footmen also about, in

pursuit of three companies of men, armed, as they said, with

muskets, who were broke out from London and had the plague upon

them, and that were not only spreading the distemper among the

people, but plundering the country.

As they saw now the consequence of their case, they soon saw the

danger they were in; so they resolved by the advice also of the

old soldier to divide themselves again. John and his two

comrades, with the horse, went away, as if towards Waltham; the

other in two companies, but all a little asunder, and went

towards Epping.

The first night they encamped all in the forest, and not far off

of one another, but not setting up the tent, lest that should

discover them. On the other hand, Richard went to work with his

axe and his hatchet, and cutting down branches of trees, he built

three tents or hovels, in which they all encamped with as much

convenience as they could expect.

The provisions they had at Walthamstow served them very

plentifully this night; and as for the next, they left it to

Providence. They had fared so well with the old soldier’s conduct

that they now willingly made him their leader, and the first of

his conduct appeared to be very good. He told them that they were

now at a proper distance enough from London; that as they need

not be immediately beholden to the country for relief, so they

ought to be as careful the country did not infect them as that

they did not infect the country; that what little money they had,

they must be as frugal of as they could; that as he would not

have them think of offering the country any violence, so they

must endeavour to make the sense of their condition go as far

with the country as it could. They all referred themselves to his

direction, so they left their three houses standing, and the next

day went away towards Epping. The captain also (for so they now

called him), and his two fellow-travellers, laid aside their

design of going to Waltham, and all went together.

When they came near Epping they halted, choosing out a proper

place in the open forest, not very near the highway, but not far

out of it on the north side, under a little cluster of low

pollard-trees. Here they pitched their little camp—which

consisted of three large tents or huts made of poles which their

carpenter, and such as were his assistants, cut down and fixed in

the ground in a circle, binding all the small ends together at

the top and thickening the sides with boughs of trees and bushes,

so that they were completely close and warm. They had, besides

this, a little tent where the women lay by themselves, and a hut

to put the horse in.

It happened that the next day, or next but one, was market-day at

Epping, when Captain John and one of the other men went to market

and bought some provisions; that is to say, bread, and some

mutton and beef; and two of the women went separately, as if they

had not belonged to the rest, and bought more. John took the

horse to bring it home, and the sack which the carpenter carried

his tools in, to put it in. The carpenter went to work and made

them benches and stools to sit on, such as the wood he could get

would afford, and a kind of table to dine on.

They were taken no notice of for two or three days, but after

that abundance of people ran out of the town to look at them, and

all the country was alarmed about them. The people at first

seemed afraid to come near them; and, on the other hand, they

desired the people to keep off, for there was a rumour that the

plague was at Waltham, and that it had been in Epping two or

three days; so John called out to them not to come to them,

‘for,’ says he, ‘we are all whole and sound people here, and we

would not have you bring the plague among us, nor pretend we

brought it among you.’

After this the parish officers came up to them and parleyed with

them at a distance, and desired to know who they were, and by

what authority they pretended to fix their stand at that place.

John answered very frankly, they were poor distressed people from

London who, foreseeing the misery they should be reduced to if

plague spread into the city, had fled out in time for their

lives, and, having no acquaintance or relations to fly to, had

first taken up at Islington; but, the plague being come into that

town, were fled farther; and as they supposed that the people of

Epping might have refused them coming into their town, they had

pitched their tents thus in the open field and in the forest,

being willing to bear all the hardships of such a disconsolate

lodging rather than have any one think or be afraid that they

should receive injury by them.

At first the Epping people talked roughly to them, and told them

they must remove; that this was no place for them; and that they

pretended to be sound and well, but that they might be infected

with the plague for aught they knew, and might infect the whole

country, and they could not suffer them there.

John argued very calmly with them a great while, and told them

that London was the place by which they—that is, the townsmen of

Epping and all the country round them—subsisted; to whom they

sold the produce of their lands, and out of whom they made their

rent of their farms; and to be so cruel to the inhabitants of

London, or to any of those by whom they gained so much, was very

hard, and they would be loth to have it remembered hereafter, and

have it told how barbarous, how inhospitable, and how unkind they

were to the people of London when they fled from the face of the

most terrible enemy in the world; that it would be enough to make

the name of an Epping man hateful through all the city, and to

have the rabble stone them in the very streets whenever they came

so much as to market; that they were not yet secure from being

visited themselves, and that, as he heard, Waltham was already;

that they would think it very hard that when any of them fled for

fear before they were touched, they should be denied the liberty

of lying so much as in the open fields.

The Epping men told them again, that they, indeed, said they were

sound and free from the infection, but that they had no assurance

of it; and that it was reported that there had been a great

rabble of people at Walthamstow, who made such pretences of being

sound as they did, but that they threatened to plunder the town

and force their way, whether the parish officers would or no;

that there were near two hundred of them, and had arms and tents

like Low Country soldiers; that they extorted provisions from the

town, by threatening them with living upon them at free quarter,

showing their arms, and talking in the language of soldiers; and

that several of them being gone away toward Rumford and

Brentwood, the country had been infected by them, and the plague

spread into both those large towns, so that the people durst not

go to market there as usual; that it was very likely they were

some of that party; and if so, they deserved to be sent to the

county jail, and be secured till they had made satisfaction for

the damage they had done, and for the terror and fright they had

put the country into.

John answered that what other people had done was nothing to

them; that they assured them they were all of one company; that

they had never been more in number than they saw them at that

time (which, by the way, was very true); that they came out in

two separate companies, but joined by the way, their cases being

the same; that they were ready to give what account of themselves

anybody could desire of them, and to give in their names and

places of abode, that so they might be called to an account for

any disorder that they might be guilty of; that the townsmen

might see they were content to live hardly, and only desired a

little room to breathe in on the forest where it was wholesome;

for where it was not they could not stay, and would decamp if

they found it otherwise there.

‘But,’ said the townsmen, ‘we have a great charge of poor upon

our hands already, and we must take care not to increase it; we

suppose you can give us no security against your being chargeable

to our parish and to the inhabitants, any more than you can of

being dangerous to us as to the infection.’

‘Why, look you,’ says John, ‘as to being chargeable to you, we

hope we shall not. If you will relieve us with provisions for our

present necessity, we will be very thankful; as we all lived

without charity when we were at home, so we will oblige ourselves

fully to repay you, if God pleases to bring us back to our own

families and houses in safety, and to restore health to the

people of London.

‘As to our dying here: we assure you, if any of us die, we that

survive will bury them, and put you to no expense, except it

should be that we should all die; and then, indeed, the last man

not being able to bury himself, would put you to that single

expense which I am persuaded’, says John, ‘he would leave enough

behind him to pay you for the expense of.

‘On the other hand,’ says John, ‘if you shut up all bowels of

compassion, and not relieve us at all, we shall not extort

anything by violence or steal from any one; but when what little

we have is spent, if we perish for want, God’s will be done.’

John wrought so upon the townsmen, by talking thus rationally and

smoothly to them, that they went away; and though they did not

give any consent to their staying there, yet they did not molest

them; and the poor people continued there three or four days

longer without any disturbance. In this time they had got some

remote acquaintance with a victualling-house at the outskirts of

the town, to whom they called at a distance to bring some little

things that they wanted, and which they caused to be set down at

a distance, and always paid for very honestly.

During this time the younger people of the town came frequently

pretty near them, and would stand and look at them, and sometimes

talk with them at some space between; and particularly it was

observed that the first Sabbath-day the poor people kept retired,

worshipped God together, and were heard to sing psalms.

These things, and a quiet, inoffensive behaviour, began to get

them the good opinion of the country, and people began to pity

them and speak very well of them; the consequence of which was,

that upon the occasion of a very wet, rainy night, a certain

gentleman who lived in the neighbourhood sent them a little cart

with twelve trusses or bundles of straw, as well for them to

lodge upon as to cover and thatch their huts and to keep them

dry. The minister of a parish not far off, not knowing of the

other, sent them also about two bushels of wheat and half a

bushel of white peas.

They were very thankful, to be sure, for this relief, and

particularly the straw was a very great comfort to them; for

though the ingenious carpenter had made frames for them to lie in

like troughs, and filled them with leaves of trees, and such

things as they could get, and had cut all their tent-cloth out to

make them coverlids, yet they lay damp and hard and unwholesome

till this straw came, which was to them like feather-beds, and,

as John said, more welcome than feather-beds would have been at

another time.

This gentleman and the minister having thus begun, and given an

example of charity to these wanderers, others quickly followed,

and they received every day some benevolence or other from the

people, but chiefly from the gentlemen who dwelt in the country

round them. Some sent them chairs, stools, tables, and such

household things as they gave notice they wanted; some sent them

blankets, rugs, and coverlids, some earthenware, and some kitchen

ware for ordering their food.