A Journal of the Plague Year
by
Daniel Defoe

Part 5 out of 5



But to come to matters of trade. First, foreign exportation being
stopped or at least very much interrupted and rendered difficult, a
general stop of all those manufactures followed of course which were
usually brought for exportation; and though sometimes merchants
abroad were importunate for goods, yet little was sent, the passages
being so generally stopped that the English ships would not be
admitted, as is said already, into their port.

This put a stop to the manufactures that were for exportation in most
parts of England, except in some out-ports; and even that was soon
stopped, for they all had the plague in their turn. But though this was
felt all over England, yet, what was still worse, all intercourse of trade
for home consumption of manufactures, especially those which
usually circulated through the Londoner's hands, was stopped at once,
the trade of the city being stopped.

All kinds of handicrafts in the city, &c., tradesmen and mechanics,
were, as I have said before, out of employ; and this occasioned the
putting-off and dismissing an innumerable number of journeymen and
workmen of all sorts, seeing nothing was done relating to such trades
but what might be said to be absolutely necessary.

This caused the multitude of single people in London to be
unprovided for, as also families whose living depended upon the
labour of the heads of those families; I say, this reduced them to
extreme misery; and I must confess it is for the honour of the city of
London, and will be for many ages, as long as this is to be spoken of,
that they were able to supply with charitable provision the wants of so
many thousands of those as afterwards fell sick and were distressed:
so that it may be safely averred that nobody perished for want, at least
that the magistrates had any notice given them of.

This stagnation of our manufacturing trade in the country would
have put the people there to much greater difficulties, but that the
master-workmen, clothiers and others, to the uttermost of their stocks
and strength, kept on making their goods to keep the poor at work,
believing that soon as the sickness should abate they would have a
quick demand in proportion to the decay of their trade at that time.
But as none but those masters that were rich could do thus, and that
many were poor and not able, the manufacturing trade in England
suffered greatly, and the poor were pinched all over England by the
calamity of the city of London only.

It is true that the next year made them full amends by another
terrible calamity upon the city; so that the city by one calamity
impoverished and weakened the country, and by another calamity,
even terrible too of its kind, enriched the country and made them
again amends; for an infinite quantity of household Stuff, wearing
apparel, and other things, besides whole warehouses filled with
merchandise and manufactures such as come from all parts of
England, were consumed in the fire of London the next year after this
terrible visitation. It is incredible what a trade this made all over the
whole kingdom, to make good the want and to supply that loss; so
that, in short, all the manufacturing hands in the nation were set on
work, and were little enough for several years to supply the market
and answer the demands. All foreign markets also were empty of our
goods by the stop which had been occasioned by the plague, and
before an open trade was allowed again; and the prodigious demand at
home falling in, joined to make a quick vent for all sort of goods; so
that there never was known such a trade all over England for the time
as was in the first seven years after the plague, and after the
fire of London.

It remains now that I should say something of the merciful part of
this terrible judgement. The last week in September, the plague being
come to its crisis, its fury began to assuage. I remember my friend Dr
Heath, coming to see me the week before, told me he was sure that the
violence of it would assuage in a few days; but when I saw the weekly
bill of that week, which was the highest of the whole year, being 8297
of all diseases, I upbraided him with it, and asked him what he had
made his judgement from. His answer, however, was not so much to
seek as I thought it would have been. 'Look you,' says he, 'by the
number which are at this time sick and infected, there should have
been twenty thousand dead the last week instead of eight thousand, if
the inveterate mortal contagion had been as it was two weeks ago; for
then it ordinarily killed in two or three days, now not under eight or
ten; and then not above one in five recovered, whereas I have
observed that now not above two in five miscarry. And, observe it
from me, the next bill will decrease, and you will see many more
people recover than used to do; for though a vast multitude are now
everywhere infected, and as many every day fall sick, yet there will
not so many die as there did, for the malignity of the distemper is
abated'; - adding that he began now to hope, nay, more than hope, that
the infection had passed its crisis and was going off; and accordingly
so it was, for the next week being, as I said, the last in September, the
bill decreased almost two thousand.

It is true the plague was still at a frightful height, and the next bill
was no less than 6460, and the next to that, 5720; but still my friend's
observation was just, and it did appear the people did recover faster
and more in number than they used to do; and indeed, if it had not
been so, what had been the condition of the city of London? For,
according to my friend, there were not fewer than 60,000 people at
that time infected, whereof, as above, 20,477 died, and near 40,000
recovered; whereas, had it been as it was before, 50,000 of that
number would very probably have died, if not more, and 50,000 more
would have sickened; for, in a word, the whole mass of people began
to sicken, and it looked as if none would escape.

But this remark of my friend's appeared more evident in a few
weeks more, for the decrease went on, and another week in October it
decreased 1843, so that the number dead of the plague was but 2665;
and the next week it decreased 1413 more, and yet it was seen plainly
that there was abundance of people sick, nay, abundance more than
ordinary, and abundance fell sick every day but (as above) the
malignity of the disease abated.

Such is the precipitant disposition of our people (whether it is so or
not all over the world, that's none of my particular business to
inquire), but I saw it apparently here, that as upon the first fright of
the infection they shunned one another, and fled from one another's
houses and from the city with an unaccountable and, as I thought,
unnecessary fright, so now, upon this notion spreading, viz., that the
distemper was not so catching as formerly, and that if it was catched it
was not so mortal, and seeing abundance of people who really fell
sick recover again daily, they took to such a precipitant courage, and
grew so entirely regardless of themselves and of the infection, that
they made no more of the plague than of an ordinary fever, nor indeed
so much. They not only went boldly into company with those who
had tumours and carbuncles upon them that were running, and
consequently contagious, but ate and drank with them, nay, into their
houses to visit them, and even, as I was told, into their very chambers
where they lay sick.

This I could not see rational. My friend Dr Heath allowed, and it
was plain to experience, that the distemper was as catching as ever,
and as many fell sick, but only he alleged that so many of those that
fell sick did not die; but I think that while many did die, and that at
best the distemper itself was very terrible, the sores and swellings very
tormenting, and the danger of death not left out of the circumstances
of sickness, though not so frequent as before; all those things, together
with the exceeding tediousness of the cure, the loathsomeness of the
disease, and many other articles, were enough to deter any man living
from a dangerous mixture with the sick people, and make them as
anxious almost to avoid the infections as before.

Nay, there was another thing which made the mere catching of the
distemper frightful, and that was the terrible burning of the caustics
which the surgeons laid on the swellings to bring them to break and to
run, without which the danger of death was very great, even to the
last. Also, the insufferable torment of the swellings, which, though it
might not make people raving and distracted, as they were before, and
as I have given several instances of already, yet they put the patient to
inexpressible torment; and those that fell into it, though they did
escape with life, yet they made bitter complaints of those that had told
them there was no danger, and sadly repented their rashness and folly
in venturing to run into the reach of it.

Nor did this unwary conduct of the people end here, for a great
many that thus cast off their cautions suffered more deeply still, and
though many escaped, yet many died; and at least it had this public
mischief attending it, that it made the decrease of burials slower than
it would otherwise have been. For as this notion ran like lightning
through the city, and people's heads were possessed with it, even as
soon as the first great decrease in the bills appeared, we found that the
two next bills did not decrease in proportion; the reason I take to be
the people's running so rashly into danger, giving up all their former
cautions and care, and all the shyness which they used to practise,
depending that the sickness would not reach them - or that if it did,
they should not die.

The physicians opposed this thoughtless humour of the people with
all their might, and gave out printed directions, spreading them all
over the city and suburbs, advising the people to continue reserved,
and to use still the utmost caution in their ordinary conduct,
notwithstanding the decrease of the distemper, terrifying them with
the danger of bringing a relapse upon the whole city, and telling them
how such a relapse might be more fatal and dangerous than the whole
visitation that had been already; with many arguments and reasons to
explain and prove that part to them, and which are too long to repeat here.

But it was all to no purpose; the audacious creatures were so
possessed with the first joy and so surprised with the satisfaction of
seeing a vast decrease in the weekly bills, that they were impenetrable
by any new terrors, and would not be persuaded but that the bitterness
of death was past; and it was to no more purpose to talk to them than
to an east wind; but they opened shops, went about streets, did
business, and conversed with anybody that came in their way to
converse with, whether with business or without, neither inquiring of
their health or so much as being apprehensive of any danger from
them, though they knew them not to be sound.

This imprudent, rash conduct cost a great many their lives who had
with great care and caution shut themselves up and kept retired, as it
were, from all mankind, and had by that means, under God's
providence, been preserved through all the heat of that infection.

This rash and foolish conduct, I say, of the people went so far that
the ministers took notice to them of it at last, and laid before them
both the folly and danger of it; and this checked it a little, so that they
grew more cautious. But it had another effect, which they could not
check; for as the first rumour had spread not over the city only, but
into the country, it had the like effect: and the people were so tired
with being so long from London, and so eager to come back, that they
flocked to town without fear or forecast, and began to show
themselves in the streets as if all the danger was over. It was indeed
surprising to see it, for though there died still from 1000 to 1800 a
week, yet the people flocked to town as if all had been well.

The consequence of this was, that the bills increased again 400 the
very first week in November; and if I might believe the physicians,
there was above 3000 fell sick that week, most of them new-comers, too.

One John Cock, a barber in St Martin's-le-Grand, was an eminent
example of this; I mean of the hasty return of the people when the
plague was abated. This John Cock had left the town with his whole
family, and locked up his house, and was gone in the country, as many
others did; and finding the plague so decreased in November that
there died but 905 per week of all diseases, he ventured home again.
He had in his family ten persons; that is to say, himself and wife, five
children, two apprentices, and a maid-servant. He had not returned to
his house above a week, and began to open his shop and carry on his
trade, but the distemper broke out in his family, and within about five
days they all died, except one; that is to say, himself, his wife, all his
five children, and his two apprentices; and only the maid remained alive.

But the mercy of God was greater to the rest than we had reason to
expect; for the malignity (as I have said) of the distemper was spent,
the contagion was exhausted, and also the winter weather came on
apace, and the air was clear and cold, with sharp frosts; and this
increasing still, most of those that had fallen sick recovered, and the
health of the city began to return. There were indeed some returns of
the distemper even in the month of December, and the bills increased
near a hundred; but it went off again, and so in a short while things
began to return to their own channel. And wonderful it was to see
how populous the city was again all on a sudden, so that a stranger
could not miss the numbers that were lost. Neither was there any miss
of the inhabitants as to their dwellings - few or no empty houses were
to be seen, or if there were some, there was no want of
tenants for them.

I wish I could say that as the city had a new face, so the manners of
the people had a new appearance. I doubt not but there were many
that retained a sincere sense of their deliverance, and were that
heartily thankful to that Sovereign Hand that had protected them in so
dangerous a time; it would be very uncharitable to judge otherwise in
a city so populous, and where the people were so devout as they were
here in the time of the visitation itself; but except what of this was to
be found in particular families and faces, it must be acknowledged
that the general practice of the people was just as it was before, and
very little difference was to be seen.

Some, indeed, said things were worse; that the morals of the people
declined from this very time; that the people, hardened by the danger
they had been in, like seamen after a storm is over, were more wicked
and more stupid, more bold and hardened, in their vices and immoralities
than they were before; but I will not carry it so far neither. It would
take up a history of no small length to give a particular of all the
gradations by which the course of things in this city came to be
restored again, and to run in their own channel as they did before.

Some parts of England were now infected as violently as London
had been; the cities of Norwich, Peterborough, Lincoln, Colchester,
and other places were now visited; and the magistrates of London
began to set rules for our conduct as to corresponding with those
cities. It is true we could not pretend to forbid their people coming to
London, because it was impossible to know them asunder; so, after
many consultations, the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen were
obliged to drop it. All they could do was to warn and caution the
people not to entertain in their houses or converse with any people
who they knew came from such infected places.

But they might as well have talked to the air, for the people of
London thought themselves so plague-free now that they were past all
admonitions; they seemed to depend upon it that the air was restored,
and that the air was like a man that had had the smallpox, not capable
of being infected again. This revived that notion that the infection
was all in the air, that there was no such thing as contagion from the
sick people to the sound; and so strongly did this whimsy prevail
among people that they ran all together promiscuously, sick and well.
Not the Mahometans, who, prepossessed with the principle of
predestination, value nothing of contagion, let it be in what it will,
could be more obstinate than the people of London; they that were
perfectly sound, and came out of the wholesome air, as we call it, into
the city, made nothing of going into the same houses and chambers,
nay, even into the same beds, with those that had the distemper upon
them, and were not recovered.

Some, indeed, paid for their audacious boldness with the price of
their lives; an infinite number fell sick, and the physicians had more
work than ever, only with this difference, that more of their patients
recovered; that is to say, they generally recovered, but certainly there
were more people infected and fell sick now, when there did not die
above a thousand or twelve hundred in a week, than there was when
there died five or six thousand a week, so entirely negligent were the
people at that time in the great and dangerous case of health and
infection, and so ill were they able to take or accept of the advice of
those who cautioned them for their good.

The people being thus returned, as it were, in general, it was very
strange to find that in their inquiring after their friends, some whole
families were so entirely swept away that there was no remembrance
of them left, neither was anybody to be found to possess or show any
title to that little they had left; for in such cases what was to be found
was generally embezzled and purloined, some gone one way, some another.

It was said such abandoned effects came to the king, as the universal
heir; upon which we are told, and I suppose it was in part true, that the
king granted all such, as deodands, to the Lord Mayor and Court of
Aldermen of London, to be applied to the use of the poor, of whom
there were very many. For it is to be observed, that though the
occasions of relief and the objects of distress were very many more in
the time of the violence of the plague than now after all was over, yet
the distress of the poor was more now a great deal than it was then,
because all the sluices of general charity were now shut. People
supposed the main occasion to be over, and so stopped their hands;
whereas particular objects were still very moving, and the distress of
those that were poor was very great indeed.

Though the health of the city was now very much restored, yet
foreign trade did not begin to stir, neither would foreigners admit our
ships into their ports for a great while. As for the Dutch, the
misunderstandings between our court and them had broken out into a
war the year before, so that our trade that way was wholly interrupted;
but Spain and Portugal, Italy and Barbary, as also Hamburg and all the
ports in the Baltic, these were all shy of us a great while, and would
not restore trade with us for many months.

The distemper sweeping away such multitudes, as I have observed,
many if not all the out-parishes were obliged to make new burying-
grounds, besides that I have mentioned in Bunhill Fields, some of
which were continued, and remain in use to this day. But others were
left off, and (which I confess I mention with some reflection) being
converted into other uses or built upon afterwards, the dead bodies
were disturbed, abused, dug up again, some even before the flesh of
them was perished from the bones, and removed like dung or rubbish
to other places. Some of those which came within the reach of my
observation are as follow:

(1) A piece of ground beyond Goswell Street, near Mount Mill,
being some of the remains of the old lines or fortifications of the city,
where abundance were buried promiscuously from the parishes of Aldersgate,
Clerkenwell, and even out of the city. This ground, as I take it, was
since made a physic garden, and after that has been built upon.

(2) A piece of ground just over the Black Ditch, as it was then
called, at the end of Holloway Lane, in Shoreditch parish. It has been
since made a yard for keeping hogs, and for other ordinary uses, but is
quite out of use as a burying-ground.

(3) The upper end of Hand Alley, in Bishopsgate Street, which was
then a green field, and was taken in particularly for Bishopsgate
parish, though many of the carts out of the city brought their dead
thither also, particularly out of the parish of St All-hallows on the
Wall. This place I cannot mention without much regret. It was, as I
remember, about two or three years after the plague was ceased that
Sir Robert Clayton came to be possessed of the ground. It was
reported, how true I know not, that it fell to the king for want of heirs,
all those who had any right to it being carried off by the pestilence,
and that Sir Robert Clayton obtained a grant of it from King Charles
II. But however he came by it, certain it is the ground was let out to
build on, or built upon, by his order. The first house built upon it was
a large fair house, still standing, which faces the street or way now
called Hand Alley which, though called an alley, is as wide as a street.
The houses in the same row with that house northward are built on the
very same ground where the poor people were buried, and the bodies,
on opening the ground for the foundations, were dug up, some of them
remaining so plain to be seen that the women's skulls were
distinguished by their long hair, and of others the flesh was not quite
perished; so that the people began to exclaim loudly against it, and
some suggested that it might endanger a return of the contagion; after
which the bones and bodies, as fast as they came at them, were carried
to another part of the same ground and thrown all together into a deep
pit, dug on purpose, which now is to be known in that it is not built
on, but is a passage to another house at the upper end of Rose Alley,
just against the door of a meeting-house which has been built there
many years since; and the ground is palisadoed off from the rest of the
passage, in a little square; there lie the bones and remains of near two
thousand bodies, carried by the dead carts to their grave in that one year.

(4) Besides this, there was a piece of ground in Moorfields; by the
going into the street which is now called Old Bethlem, which was
enlarged much, though not wholly taken in on the same occasion.

[N.B. - The author of this journal lies buried in that very ground,
being at his own desire, his sister having been buried there a few
years before.]

(5) Stepney parish, extending itself from the east part of London to
the north, even to the very edge of Shoreditch Churchyard, had a piece
of ground taken in to bury their dead close to the said churchyard, and
which for that very reason was left open, and is since, I suppose, taken
into the same churchyard. And they had also two other burying-places
in Spittlefields, one where since a chapel or tabernacle has been built
for ease to this great parish, and another in Petticoat Lane.

There were no less than five other grounds made use of for the
parish of Stepney at that time: one where now stands the parish church
of St Paul, Shadwell, and the other where now stands the parish
church of St John's at Wapping, both which had not the names of
parishes at that time, but were belonging to Stepney parish.

I could name many more, but these coming within my particular
knowledge, the circumstance, I thought, made it of use to record
them. From the whole, it may be observed that they were obliged in
this time of distress to take in new burying-grounds in most of the out-
parishes for laying the prodigious numbers of people which died in so
short a space of time; but why care was not taken to keep those places
separate from ordinary uses, that so the bodies might rest undisturbed,
that I cannot answer for, and must confess I think it was wrong. Who
were to blame I know not.

I should have mentioned that the Quakers had at that time also a
burying-ground set apart to their use, and which they still make use of;
and they had also a particular dead-cart to fetch their dead from their
houses; and the famous Solomon Eagle, who, as I mentioned before,
had predicted the plague as a judgement, and ran naked through the
streets, telling the people that it was come upon them to punish them
for their sins, had his own wife died the very next day of the plague,
and was carried, one of the first in the Quakers' dead-cart, to their new
burying-ground.

I might have thronged this account with many more remarkable
things which occurred in the time of the infection, and particularly
what passed between the Lord Mayor and the Court, which was then
at Oxford, and what directions were from time to time received from
the Government for their conduct on this critical occasion. But really
the Court concerned themselves so little, and that little they did was of
so small import, that I do not see it of much moment to mention any
part of it here: except that of appointing a monthly fast in the city and
the sending the royal charity to the relief of the poor, both which I
have mentioned before.

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

It was not the least of our misfortunes that with our infection, when
it ceased, there did not cease the spirit of strife and contention, slander
and reproach, which was really the great troubler of the nation's peace
before. It was said to be the remains of the old animosities, which had
so lately involved us all in blood and disorder. But as the late Act of
Indemnity had laid asleep the quarrel itself, so the Government had
recommended family and personal peace upon all occasions to the
whole nation.

But it could not be obtained; and particularly after the ceasing of the
plague in London, when any one that had seen the condition which the
people had been in, and how they caressed one another at that time,
promised to have more charity for the future, and to raise no more
reproaches; I say, any one that had seen them then would have thought
they would have come together with another spirit at last. But, I say,
it could not be obtained. The quarrel remained; the Church and the
Presbyterians were incompatible. As soon as the plague was removed,
the Dissenting ousted ministers who had supplied the pulpits which
were deserted by the incumbents retired; they could expect no other
but that they should immediately fall upon them and harass them with
their penal laws, accept their preaching while they were sick, and
persecute them as soon as they were recovered again; this even we
that were of the Church thought was very hard, and could by no means
approve of it.

But it was the Government, and we could say nothing to hinder it;
we could only say it was not our doing, and we could not answer for it.

On the other hand, the Dissenters reproaching those ministers of the
Church with going away and deserting their charge, abandoning the
people in their danger, and when they had most need of comfort, and
the like: this we could by no means approve, for all men have not the
same faith and the same courage, and the Scripture commands us to
judge the most favourably and according to charity.

A plague is a formidable enemy, and is armed with terrors that every
man is not sufficiently fortified to resist or prepared to stand the shock
against. It is very certain that a great many of the clergy who were in
circumstances to do it withdrew and fled for the safety of their lives;
but 'tis true also that a great many of them stayed, and many of them
fell in the calamity and in the discharge of their duty.

It is true some of the Dissenting turned-out ministers stayed, and
their courage is to be commended and highly valued - but these were
not abundance; it cannot be said that they all stayed, and that none
retired into the country, any more than it can be said of the Church
clergy that they all went away. Neither did all those that went away go
without substituting curates and others in their places, to do the
offices needful and to visit the sick, as far as it was practicable; so
that, upon the whole, an allowance of charity might have been made
on both sides, and we should have considered that such a time as this
of 1665 is not to be paralleled in history, and that it is not the stoutest
courage that will always support men in such cases. I had not said
this, but had rather chosen to record the courage and religious zeal of
those of both sides, who did hazard themselves for the service of the
poor people in their distress, without remembering that any failed in
their duty on either side. But the want of temper among us has made
the contrary to this necessary: some that stayed not only boasting too
much of themselves, but reviling those that fled, branding them with
cowardice, deserting their flocks, and acting the part of the hireling,
and the like. I recommend it to the charity of all good people to look
back and reflect duly upon the terrors of the time, and whoever does
so well see that it is not an ordinary strength that could support it. It
was not like appearing in the head of an army or charging a body of
horse in the field, but it was charging Death itself on his pale horse; to
stay was indeed to die, and it could be esteemed nothing less,
especially as things appeared at the latter end of August and the
beginning of September, and as there was reason to expect them at
that time; for no man expected, and I dare say believed, that the
distemper would take so sudden a turn as it did, and fall immediately
two thousand in a week, when there was such a prodigious number of
people sick at that time as it was known there was; and then it was
that many shifted away that had stayed most of the time before.

Besides, if God gave strength to some more than to others, was it to
boast of their ability to abide the stroke, and upbraid those that had
not the same gift and support, or ought not they rather to have been
humble and thankful if they were rendered more useful than their
brethren?

I think it ought to be recorded to the honour of such men, as well
clergy as physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, magistrates, and officers
of every kind, as also all useful people who ventured their lives in
discharge of their duty, as most certainly all such as stayed did to the
last degree; and several of all these kinds did not only venture but lose
their lives on that sad occasion.

I was once making a list of all such, I mean of all those professions
and employments who thus died, as I call it, in the way of their duty;
but it was impossible for a private man to come at a certainty in the
particulars. I only remember that there died sixteen clergymen, two
aldermen, five physicians, thirteen surgeons, within the city and
liberties before the beginning of September. But this being, as I said
before, the great crisis and extremity of the infection, it can be no
complete list. As to inferior people, I think there died six-and-forty
constables and head-boroughs in the two parishes of Stepney and
Whitechappel; but I could not carry my list oil, for when the violent
rage of the distemper in September came upon us, it drove us out of
all measures. Men did then no more (lie by tale and by number. They
might put out a weekly bill, and call them seven or eight thousand, or
what they pleased; 'tis certain they died by heaps, and were buried by
heaps, that is to say, without account. And if I might believe some
people, who were more abroad and more conversant with those things
than I though I was public enough for one that had no more business
to do than I had, - I say, if I may believe them, there was not many less
buried those first three weeks in September than 20,000 per week.
However, the others aver the truth of it; yet I rather choose to keep to
the public account; seven and eight thousand per week is enough to
make good all that I have said of the terror of those times; -and it is
much to the satisfaction of me that write, as well as those that read, to
be able to say that everything is set down with moderation, and rather
within compass than beyond it.

Upon all these accounts, I say, I could wish, when we were
recovered, our conduct had been more distinguished for charity and
kindness in remembrance of the past calamity, and not so much a
valuing ourselves upon our boldness in staying, as if all men were
cowards that fly from the hand of God, or that those who stay do not
sometimes owe their courage to their ignorance, and despising the
hand of their Maker - which is a criminal kind of desperation, and not
a true courage.

I cannot but leave it upon record that the civil officers, such as
constables, head-boroughs, Lord Mayor's and sheriffs'-men, as also
parish officers, whose business it was to take charge of the poor, did
their duties in general with as much courage as any, and perhaps with
more, because their work was attended with more hazards, and lay
more among the poor, who were more subject to be infected, and in
the most pitiful plight when they were taken with the infection. But
then it must be added, too, that a great number of them died; indeed it
was scarce possible it should be otherwise.

I have not said one word here about the physic or preparations that
we ordinarily made use of on this terrible occasion - I mean we that
went frequently abroad and up down street, as I did; much of this was
talked of in the books and bills of our quack doctors, of whom I have
said enough already. It may, however, be added, that the College of
Physicians were daily publishing several preparations, which they had
considered of in the process of their practice, and which, being to be
had in print, I avoid repeating them for that reason.

One thing I could not help observing: what befell one of the quacks,
who published that he had a most excellent preservative against the
plague, which whoever kept about them should never be infected or
liable to infection. This man, who, we may reasonably suppose, did
not go abroad without some of this excellent preservative in his
pocket, yet was taken by the distemper, and carried off in two or three
days.

I am not of the number of the physic-haters or physic-despisers; on
the contrary, I have often mentioned the regard I had to the dictates of
my particular friend Dr Heath; but yet I must acknowledge I made use
of little or nothing - except, as I have observed, to keep a preparation
of strong scent to have ready, in case I met with anything of offensive
smells or went too near any burying-place or dead body.

Neither did I do what I know some did: keep the spirits always high
and hot with cordials and wine and such things; and which, as I
observed, one learned physician used himself so much to as that he
could not leave them off when the infection was quite gone, and so
became a sot for all his life after.

I remember my friend the doctor used to say that there was a certain
set of drugs and preparations which were all certainly good and useful
in the case of an infection; out of which, or with which, physicians
might make an infinite variety of medicines, as the ringers of bells
make several hundred different rounds of music by the changing and
order or sound but in six bells, and that all these preparations shall be
really very good: 'Therefore,' said he, 'I do not wonder that so vast a
throng of medicines is offered in the present calamity, and almost
every physician prescribes or prepares a different thing, as his
judgement or experience guides him; but', says my friend, 'let all the
prescriptions of all the physicians in London be examined, and it will
be found that they are all compounded of the same things, with such
variations only as the particular fancy of the doctor leads him to; so
that', says he, 'every man, judging a little of his own constitution and
manner of his living, and circumstances of his being infected, may
direct his own medicines out of the ordinary drugs and preparations.
Only that', says he, 'some recommend one thing as most sovereign,
and some another. Some', says he, 'think that pill. ruff., which is
called itself the anti-pestilential pill is the best preparation that can be
made; others think that Venice treacle is sufficient of itself to resist
the contagion; and I', says he, 'think as both these think, viz., that the
last is good to take beforehand to prevent it, and the first, if touched,
to expel it.' According to this opinion, I several times took Venice
treacle, and a sound sweat upon it, and thought myself as well
fortified against the infection as any one could be fortified by the
power of physic.

As for quackery and mountebanks, of which the town was so full, I
listened to none of them, and have observed often since, with some
wonder, that for two years after the plague I scarcely saw or heard of
one of them about town. Some fancied they were all swept away in
the infection to a man, and were for calling it a particular mark of
God's vengeance upon them for leading the poor people into the pit of
destruction, merely for the lucre of a little money they got by them;
but I cannot go that length neither. That abundance of them died is
certain - many of them came within the reach of my own knowledge -
but that all of them were swept off I much question. I believe rather
they fled into the country and tried their practices upon the people
there, who were in apprehension of the infection before it came
among them.

This, however, is certain, not a man of them appeared for a great
while in or about London. There were, indeed, several doctors who
published bills recommending their several physical preparations for
cleansing the body, as they call it, after the plague, and needful, as
they said, for such people to take who had been visited and had been
cured; whereas I must own I believe that it was the opinion of the
most eminent physicians at that time that the plague was itself a
sufficient purge, and that those who escaped the infection needed no
physic to cleanse their bodies of any other things; the running sores,
the tumours, &c., which were broke and kept open by the directions of
the physicians, having sufficiently cleansed them; and that all other
distempers, and causes of distempers, were effectually carried off that
way; and as the physicians gave this as their opinions wherever they
came, the quacks got little business.

There were, indeed, several little hurries which happened after the
decrease of the plague, and which, whether they were contrived to
fright and disorder the people, as some imagined, I cannot say, but
sometimes we were told the plague would return by such a time; and
the famous Solomon Eagle, the naked Quaker I have mentioned,
prophesied evil tidings every day; and several others telling us that
London had not been sufficiently scourged, and that sorer and severer
strokes were yet behind. Had they stopped there, or had they
descended to particulars, and told us that the city should the next year
be destroyed by fire, then, indeed, when we had seen it come to pass,
we should not have been to blame to have paid more than a common
respect to their prophetic spirits; at least we should have wondered at
them, and have been more serious in our inquiries after the meaning
of it, and whence they had the foreknowledge. But as they generally
told us of a relapse into the plague, we have had no concern since that
about them; yet by those frequent clamours, we were all kept with
some kind of apprehensions constantly upon us; and if any died
suddenly, or if the spotted fevers at any time increased, we were
presently alarmed; much more if the number of the plague increased,
for to the end of the year there were always between 200 and 300 of
the plague. On any of these occasions, I say, we were alarmed anew.

Those who remember the city of London before the fire must
remember that there was then no such place as we now call Newgate
Market, but that in the middle of the street which is now called Blow-
bladder Street, and which had its name from the butchers, who used to
kill and dress their sheep there (and who, it seems, had a custom to
blow up their meat with pipes to make it look thicker and fatter than it
was, and were punished there for it by the Lord Mayor); I say, from
the end of the street towards Newgate there stood two long rows of
shambles for the selling meat.

It was in those shambles that two persons falling down dead, as they
were buying meat, gave rise to a rumour that the meat was all
infected; which, though it might affright the people, and spoiled the
market for two or three days, yet it appeared plainly afterwards that
there was nothing of truth in the suggestion. But nobody can account
for the possession of fear when it takes hold of the mind.

However, it Pleased God, by the continuing of the winter weather,
so to restore the health of the city that by February following we
reckoned the distemper quite ceased, and then we were not so easily
frighted again.

There was still a question among the learned, and at first perplexed
the people a little: and that was in what manner to purge the house and
goods where the plague had been, and how to render them habitable
again, which had been left empty during the time of the plague.
Abundance- of perfumes and preparations were prescribed by
physicians, some of one kind and some of another, in which the
people who listened to them put themselves to a great, and indeed, in
my opinion, to an unnecessary expense; and the poorer people, who
only set open their windows night and day, burned brimstone, pitch,
and gunpowder, and such things in their rooms, did as well as the
best; nay, the eager people who, as I said above, came home in haste
and at all hazards, found little or no inconvenience in their houses, nor
in the goods, and did little or nothing to them.

However, in general, prudent, cautious people did enter into some
measures for airing and sweetening their houses, and burned
perfumes, incense, benjamin, rozin, and sulphur in their rooms close
shut up, and then let the air carry it all out with a blast of gunpowder;
others caused large fires to be made all day and all night for several
days and nights; by the same token that two or three were pleased to
set their houses on fire, and so effectually sweetened them by burning
them down to the ground; as particularly one at Ratcliff, one in
Holbourn, and one at Westminster; besides two or three that were set
on fire, but the fire was happily got out again before it went far
enough to bum down the houses; and one citizen's servant, I think it
was in Thames Street, carried so much gunpowder into his master's
house, for clearing it of the infection, and managed it so foolishly, that
he blew up part of the roof of the house. But the time was not fully
come that the city was to he purged by fire, nor was it far off; for
within nine months more I saw it all lying in ashes; when, as some of
our quacking philosophers pretend, the seeds of the plague were
entirely destroyed, and not before; a notion too ridiculous to speak of
here: since, had the seeds of the plague remained in the houses, not to
be destroyed but by fire, how has it been that they have not since
broken out, seeing all those buildings in the suburbs and liberties, all
in the great parishes of Stepney, Whitechappel, Aldgate, Bishopsgate,
Shoreditch, Cripplegate, and St Giles, where the fire never came, and
where the plague raged with the greatest violence, remain still in the
same condition they were in before?

But to leave these things just as I found them, it was certain that
those people who were more than ordinarily cautious of their health,
did take particular directions for what they called seasoning of their
houses, and abundance of costly things were consumed on that
account which I cannot but say not only seasoned those houses, as
they desired, but filled the air with very grateful and wholesome
smells which others had the share of the benefit of as well as those
who were at the expenses of them.

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

The Court, indeed, came up soon after Christmas, but the nobility
and gentry, except such as depended upon and had employment under
the administration, did not come so soon.

I should have taken notice here that, notwithstanding the violence of
the plague in London and in other places, yet it was very observable
that it was never on board the fleet; and yet for some time there was a
strange press in the river, and even in the streets, for seamen to man
the fleet. But it was in the beginning of the year, when the plague was
scarce begun, and not at all come down to that part of the city where
they usually press for seamen; and though a war with the Dutch was
not at all grateful to the people at that time, and the seamen went with
a kind of reluctancy into the service, and many complained of being
dragged into it by force, yet it proved in the event a happy violence to
several of them, who had probably perished in the general calamity,
and who, after the summer service was over, though they had cause to
lament the desolation of their families - who, when they came back,
were many of them in their graves - yet they had room to be thankful
that they were carried out of the reach of it, though so much against
their wills. We indeed had a hot war with the Dutch that year, and
one very great engagement at sea in which the Dutch were worsted,
but we lost a great many men and some ships. But, as I observed, the
plague was not in the fleet, and when they came to lay up the ships in
the river the violent part of it began to abate.

I would be glad if I could close the account of this melancholy year
with some particular examples historically; I mean of the thankfulness
to God, our preserver, for our being delivered from this dreadful
calamity. Certainly the circumstance of the deliverance, as well as the
terrible enemy we were delivered from, called upon the whole nation
for it. The circumstances of the deliverance were indeed very
remarkable, as I have in part mentioned already, and particularly the
dreadful condition which we were all in when we were to the surprise
of the whole town made joyful with the hope of a stop of the infection.

Nothing but the immediate finger of God, nothing but omnipotent
power, could have done it. The contagion despised all medicine;
death raged in every corner; and had it gone on as it did then, a few
weeks more would have cleared the town of all, and everything that
had a soul. Men everywhere began to despair; every heart failed them
for fear; people were made desperate through the anguish of their
souls, and the terrors of death sat in the very faces and countenances
of the people.

In that very moment when we might very well say, 'Vain was the
help of man', - I say, in that very moment it pleased God, with a most
agreeable surprise, to cause the fury of it to abate, even of itself; and
the malignity declining, as I have said, though infinite numbers were
sick, yet fewer died, and the very first weeks' bill decreased 1843; a
vast number indeed!

It is impossible to express the change that appeared in the very
countenances of the people that Thursday morning when the weekly
bill came out. It might have been perceived in their countenances that
a secret surprise and smile of joy sat on everybody's face. They shook
one another by the hands in the streets, who would hardly go on the
same side of the way with one another before. Where the streets were
not too broad they would open their windows and call from one house
to another, and ask how they did, and if they had heard the good news
that the plague was abated. Some would return, when they said good
news, and ask, 'What good news?' and when they answered that the
plague was abated and the bills decreased almost two thousand, they
would cry out, 'God be praised I' and would weep aloud for joy, telling
them they had heard nothing of it; and such was the joy of the people
that it was, as it were, life to them from the grave. I could almost set
down as many extravagant things done in the excess of their joy as of
their grief; but that would be to lessen the value of it.

I must confess myself to have been very much dejected just before
this happened; for the prodigious number that were taken sick the
week or two before, besides those that died, was such, and the
lamentations were so great everywhere, that a man must have seemed
to have acted even against his reason if he had so much as expected to
escape; and as there was hardly a house but mine in all my
neighbourhood but was infected, so had it gone on it would not have
been long that there would have been any more neighbours to be
infected. Indeed it is hardly credible what dreadful havoc the last
three weeks had made, for if I might believe the person whose
calculations I always found very well grounded, there were not less
than 30,000 people dead and near 100.000 fallen sick in the three
weeks I speak of; for the number that sickened was surprising, indeed
it was astonishing, and those whose courage upheld them all the time
before, sank under it now.

In the middle of their distress, when the condition of the city of
London was so truly calamitous, just then it pleased God - as it were
by His immediate hand to disarm this enemy; the poison was taken
out of the sting. It was wonderful; even the physicians themselves
were surprised at it. Wherever they visited they found their patients
better; either they had sweated kindly, or the tumours were broke, or
the carbuncles went down and the inflammations round them changed
colour, or the fever was gone, or the violent headache was assuaged,
or some good symptom was in the case; so that in a few days
everybody was recovering, whole families that were infected and
down, that had ministers praying with them, and expected death every
hour, were revived and healed, and none died at all out of them.

Nor was this by any new medicine found out, or new method of cure
discovered, or by any experience in the operation which the
physicians or surgeons attained to; but it was evidently from the secret
invisible hand of Him that had at first sent this disease as a judgement
upon us; and let the atheistic part of mankind call my saying what
they please, it is no enthusiasm; it was acknowledged at that time by
all mankind. The disease was enervated and its malignity spent; and
let it proceed from whencesoever it will, let the philosophers search
for reasons in nature to account for it by, and labour as much as they
will to lessen the debt they owe to their Maker, those physicians who
had the least share of religion in them were obliged to acknowledge
that it was all supernatural, that it was extraordinary, and that no
account could be given of it.

If I should say that this is a visible summons to us all to
thankfulness, especially we that were under the terror of its increase,
perhaps it may be thought by some, after the sense of the thing was
over, an officious canting of religious things, preaching a sermon
instead of writing a history, making myself a teacher instead of giving
my observations of things; and this restrains me very much from going
on here as I might otherwise do. But if ten lepers Were healed, and
but one returned to give thanks, I desire to be as that one, and to be
thankful for myself.

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

It was a common thing to meet people in the street that were
strangers, and that we knew nothing at all of, expressing their surprise.
Going one day through Aldgate, and a pretty many people being
passing and repassing, there comes a man out of the end of the
Minories, and looking a little up the street and down, he throws his
hands abroad, 'Lord, what an alteration is here I Why, last week I
came along here, and hardly anybody was to he seen.' Another man - I
heard him - adds to his words, "Tis all wonderful; 'tis all a dream.'
'Blessed be God,' says a third man, d and let us give thanks to Him, for
'tis all His own doing, human help and human skill was at an end.'
These were all strangers to one another. But such salutations as these
were frequent in the street every day; and in spite of a loose
behaviour, the very common people went along the streets giving God
thanks for their deliverance.

It was now, as I said before, the people had cast off all
apprehensions, and that too fast; indeed we were no more afraid now
to pass by a man with a white cap upon his head, or with a doth wrapt
round his neck, or with his leg limping, occasioned by the sores in his
groin, all which were frightful to the last degree, but the week before.
But now the street was full of them, and these poor recovering
creatures, give them their due, appeared very sensible of their
unexpected deliverance; and I should wrong them very much if I
should not acknowledge that I believe many of them were really
thankful. But I must own that, for the generality of the people, it
might too justly be said of them as was said of the children of Israel
after their being delivered from the host of Pharaoh, when they passed
the Red Sea, and looked back and saw the Egyptians overwhelmed in
the water: viz., that they sang His praise, but they soon forgot His works.

I can go no farther here. I should be counted censorious, and
perhaps unjust, if I should enter into the unpleasing work of reflecting,
whatever cause there was for it, upon the unthankfulness and return of
all manner of wickedness among us, which I was so much an eye-
witness of myself. I shall conclude the account of this calamitous
year therefore with a coarse but sincere stanza of my own, which I
placed at the end of my ordinary memorandums the same year they
were written: -

A dreadful plague in London was
In the year sixty-five,
Which swept an hundred thousand souls
Away; yet I alive!

H. F.






 


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