Chapter IV: Part 4

There was one shift that some families had, and that not a few,
when their houses happened to be infected, and that was this: the
families who, in the first breaking-out of the distemper, fled
away into the country and had retreats among their friends,
generally found some or other of their neighbours or relations to
commit the charge of those houses to for the safety of the goods
and the like. Some houses were, indeed, entirely locked up, the
doors padlocked, the windows and doors having deal boards nailed
over them, and only the inspection of them committed to the
ordinary watchmen and parish officers; but these were but few.

It was thought that there were not less than 10,000 houses
forsaken of the inhabitants in the city and suburbs, including
what was in the out-parishes and in Surrey, or the side of the
water they called Southwark. This was besides the numbers of
lodgers, and of particular persons who were fled out of other
families; so that in all it was computed that about 200,000
people were fled and gone. But of this I shall speak again. But I
mention it here on this account, namely, that it was a rule with
those who had thus two houses in their keeping or care, that if
anybody was taken sick in a family, before the master of the
family let the examiners or any other officer know of it, he
immediately would send all the rest of his family, whether
children or servants, as it fell out to be, to such other house
which he had so in charge, and then giving notice of the sick
person to the examiner, have a nurse or nurses appointed, and
have another person to be shut up in the house with them (which
many for money would do), so to take charge of the house in case
the person should die.

This was, in many cases, the saving a whole family, who, if they
had been shut up with the sick person, would inevitably have
perished. But, on the other hand, this was another of the
inconveniences of shutting up houses; for the apprehensions and
terror of being shut up made many run away with the rest of the
family, who, though it was not publicly known, and they were not
quite sick, had yet the distemper upon them; and who, by having
an uninterrupted liberty to go about, but being obliged still to
conceal their circumstances, or perhaps not knowing it
themselves, gave the distemper to others, and spread the
infection in a dreadful manner, as I shall explain further
hereafter.

And here I may be able to make an observation or two of my own,
which may be of use hereafter to those into whose hands these may
come, if they should ever see the like dreadful visitation. (1)
The infection generally came into the houses of the citizens by
the means of their servants, whom they were obliged to send up
and down the streets for necessaries; that is to say, for food or
physic, to bakehouses, brew-houses, shops, &c.; and who going
necessarily through the streets into shops, markets, and the
like, it was impossible but that they should, one way or other,
meet with distempered people, who conveyed the fatal breath into
them, and they brought it home to the families to which they
belonged. (2) It was a great mistake that such a great city as
this had but one pest-house; for had there been, instead of one
pest-house—viz., beyond Bunhill Fields, where, at most, they
could receive, perhaps, two hundred or three hundred people—I
say, had there, instead of that one, been several pest-houses,
every one able to contain a thousand people, without lying two in
a bed, or two beds in a room; and had every master of a family,
as soon as any servant especially had been taken sick in his
house, been obliged to send them to the next pest-house, if they
were willing, as many were, and had the examiners done the like
among the poor people when any had been stricken with the
infection; I say, had this been done where the people were
willing (not otherwise), and the houses not been shut, I am
persuaded, and was all the while of that opinion, that not so
many, by several thousands, had died; for it was observed, and I
could give several instances within the compass of my own
knowledge, where a servant had been taken sick, and the family
had either time to send him out or retire from the house and
leave the sick person, as I have said above, they had all been
preserved; whereas when, upon one or more sickening in a family,
the house has been shut up, the whole family have perished, and
the bearers been obliged to go in to fetch out the dead bodies,
not being able to bring them to the door, and at last none left
to do it.

(3) This put it out of question to me, that the calamity was
spread by infection; that is to say, by some certain steams or
fumes, which the physicians call effluvia, by the breath, or by
the sweat, or by the stench of the sores of the sick persons, or
some other way, perhaps, beyond even the reach of the physicians
themselves, which effluvia affected the sound who came within
certain distances of the sick, immediately penetrating the vital
parts of the said sound persons, putting their blood into an
immediate ferment, and agitating their spirits to that degree
which it was found they were agitated; and so those newly
infected persons communicated it in the same manner to others.
And this I shall give some instances of, that cannot but convince
those who seriously consider it; and I cannot but with some
wonder find some people, now the contagion is over, talk of its
being an immediate stroke from Heaven, without the agency of
means, having commission to strike this and that particular
person, and none other—which I look upon with contempt as the
effect of manifest ignorance and enthusiasm; likewise the opinion
of others, who talk of infection being carried on by the air
only, by carrying with it vast numbers of insects and invisible
creatures, who enter into the body with the breath, or even at
the pores with the air, and there generate or emit most acute
poisons, or poisonous ovae or eggs, which mingle themselves with
the blood, and so infect the body: a discourse full of learned
simplicity, and manifested to be so by universal experience; but
I shall say more to this case in its order.

I must here take further notice that nothing was more fatal to
the inhabitants of this city than the supine negligence of the
people themselves, who, during the long notice or warning they
had of the visitation, made no provision for it by laying in
store of provisions, or of other necessaries, by which they might
have lived retired and within their own houses, as I have
observed others did, and who were in a great measure preserved by
that caution; nor were they, after they were a little hardened to
it, so shy of conversing with one another, when actually
infected, as they were at first: no, though they knew it.

I acknowledge I was one of those thoughtless ones that had made
so little provision that my servants were obliged to go out of
doors to buy every trifle by penny and halfpenny, just as before
it began, even till my experience showing me the folly, I began
to be wiser so late that I had scarce time to store myself
sufficient for our common subsistence for a month.

I had in family only an ancient woman that managed the house, a
maid-servant, two apprentices, and myself; and the plague
beginning to increase about us, I had many sad thoughts about
what course I should take, and how I should act. The many dismal
objects which happened everywhere as I went about the streets,
had filled my mind with a great deal of horror for fear of the
distemper, which was indeed very horrible in itself, and in some
more than in others. The swellings, which were generally in the
neck or groin, when they grew hard and would not break, grew so
painful that it was equal to the most exquisite torture; and
some, not able to bear the torment, threw themselves out at
windows or shot themselves, or otherwise made themselves away,
and I saw several dismal objects of that kind. Others, unable to
contain themselves, vented their pain by incessant roarings, and
such loud and lamentable cries were to be heard as we walked
along the streets that would pierce the very heart to think of,
especially when it was to be considered that the same dreadful
scourge might be expected every moment to seize upon ourselves.

I cannot say but that now I began to faint in my resolutions; my
heart failed me very much, and sorely I repented of my rashness.
When I had been out, and met with such terrible things as these I
have talked of, I say I repented my rashness in venturing to
abide in town. I wished often that I had not taken upon me to
stay, but had gone away with my brother and his family.

Terrified by those frightful objects, I would retire home
sometimes and resolve to go out no more; and perhaps I would keep
those resolutions for three or four days, which time I spent in
the most serious thankfulness for my preservation and the
preservation of my family, and the constant confession of my
sins, giving myself up to God every day, and applying to Him with
fasting, humiliation, and meditation. Such intervals as I had I
employed in reading books and in writing down my memorandums of
what occurred to me every day, and out of which afterwards I took
most of this work, as it relates to my observations without
doors. What I wrote of my private meditations I reserve for
private use, and desire it may not be made public on any account
whatever.

I also wrote other meditations upon divine subjects, such as
occurred to me at that time and were profitable to myself, but
not fit for any other view, and therefore I say no more of that.

I had a very good friend, a physician, whose name was Heath, whom
I frequently visited during this dismal time, and to whose advice
I was very much obliged for many things which he directed me to
take, by way of preventing the infection when I went out, as he
found I frequently did, and to hold in my mouth when I was in the
streets. He also came very often to see me, and as he was a good
Christian as well as a good physician, his agreeable conversation
was a very great support to me in the worst of this terrible
time.

It was now the beginning of August, and the plague grew very
violent and terrible in the place where I lived, and Dr Heath
coming to visit me, and finding that I ventured so often out in
the streets, earnestly persuaded me to lock myself up and my
family, and not to suffer any of us to go out of doors; to keep
all our windows fast, shutters and curtains close, and never to
open them; but first, to make a very strong smoke in the room
where the window or door was to be opened, with rozen and pitch,
brimstone or gunpowder and the like; and we did this for some
time; but as I had not laid in a store of provision for such a
retreat, it was impossible that we could keep within doors
entirely. However, I attempted, though it was so very late, to do
something towards it; and first, as I had convenience both for
brewing and baking, I went and bought two sacks of meal, and for
several weeks, having an oven, we baked all our own bread; also I
bought malt, and brewed as much beer as all the casks I had would
hold, and which seemed enough to serve my house for five or six
weeks; also I laid in a quantity of salt butter and Cheshire
cheese; but I had no flesh-meat, and the plague raged so
violently among the butchers and slaughter-houses on the other
side of our street, where they are known to dwell in great
numbers, that it was not advisable so much as to go over the
street among them.

And here I must observe again, that this necessity of going out
of our houses to buy provisions was in a great measure the ruin
of the whole city, for the people catched the distemper on these
occasions one of another, and even the provisions themselves were
often tainted; at least I have great reason to believe so; and
therefore I cannot say with satisfaction what I know is repeated
with great assurance, that the market-people and such as brought
provisions to town were never infected. I am certain the butchers
of Whitechappel, where the greatest part of the flesh-meat was
killed, were dreadfully visited, and that at least to such a
degree that few of their shops were kept open, and those that
remained of them killed their meat at Mile End and that way, and
brought it to market upon horses.

However, the poor people could not lay up provisions, and there
was a necessity that they must go to market to buy, and others to
send servants or their children; and as this was a necessity
which renewed itself daily, it brought abundance of unsound
people to the markets, and a great many that went thither sound
brought death home with them.

It is true people used all possible precaution. When any one
bought a joint of meat in the market they would not take it off
the butcher’s hand, but took it off the hooks themselves. On the
other hand, the butcher would not touch the money, but have it
put into a pot full of vinegar, which he kept for that purpose.
The buyer carried always small money to make up any odd sum, that
they might take no change. They carried bottles of scents and
perfumes in their hands, and all the means that could be used
were used, but then the poor could not do even these things, and
they went at all hazards.

Innumerable dismal stories we heard every day on this very
account. Sometimes a man or woman dropped down dead in the very
markets, for many people that had the plague upon them knew
nothing of it till the inward gangrene had affected their vitals,
and they died in a few moments. This caused that many died
frequently in that manner in the streets suddenly, without any
warning; others perhaps had time to go to the next bulk or stall,
or to any door-porch, and just sit down and die, as I have said
before.

These objects were so frequent in the streets that when the
plague came to be very raging on one side, there was scarce any
passing by the streets but that several dead bodies would be
lying here and there upon the ground. On the other hand, it is
observable that though at first the people would stop as they
went along and call to the neighbours to come out on such an
occasion, yet afterward no notice was taken of them; but that if
at any time we found a corpse lying, go across the way and not
come near it; or, if in a narrow lane or passage, go back again
and seek some other way to go on the business we were upon; and
in those cases the corpse was always left till the officers had
notice to come and take them away, or till night, when the
bearers attending the dead-cart would take them up and carry them
away. Nor did those undaunted creatures who performed these
offices fail to search their pockets, and sometimes strip off
their clothes if they were well dressed, as sometimes they were,
and carry off what they could get.

But to return to the markets. The butchers took that care that if
any person died in the market they had the officers always at
hand to take them up upon hand-barrows and carry them to the next
churchyard; and this was so frequent that such were not entered
in the weekly bill, ‘Found dead in the streets or fields’, as is
the case now, but they went into the general articles of the
great distemper.

But now the fury of the distemper increased to such a degree that
even the markets were but very thinly furnished with provisions
or frequented with buyers compared to what they were before; and
the Lord Mayor caused the country people who brought provisions
to be stopped in the streets leading into the town, and to sit
down there with their goods, where they sold what they brought,
and went immediately away; and this encouraged the country people
greatly-to do so, for they sold their provisions at the very
entrances into the town, and even in the fields, as particularly
in the fields beyond Whitechappel, in Spittlefields; also in St
George’s Fields in Southwark, in Bunhill Fields, and in a great
field called Wood’s Close, near Islington. Thither the Lord
Mayor, aldermen, and magistrates sent their officers and servants
to buy for their families, themselves keeping within doors as
much as possible, and the like did many other people; and after
this method was taken the country people came with great
cheerfulness, and brought provisions of all sorts, and very
seldom got any harm, which, I suppose, added also to that report
of their being miraculously preserved.

As for my little family, having thus, as I have said, laid in a
store of bread, butter, cheese, and beer, I took my friend and
physician’s advice, and locked myself up, and my family, and
resolved to suffer the hardship of living a few months without
flesh-meat, rather than to purchase it at the hazard of our
lives.

But though I confined my family, I could not prevail upon my
unsatisfied curiosity to stay within entirely myself; and though
I generally came frighted and terrified home, yet I could not
restrain; only that indeed I did not do it so frequently as at
first.

I had some little obligations, indeed, upon me to go to my
brother’s house, which was in Coleman Street parish and which he
had left to my care, and I went at first every day, but
afterwards only once or twice a week.

In these walks I had many dismal scenes before my eyes, as
particularly of persons falling dead in the streets, terrible
shrieks and screechings of women, who, in their agonies, would
throw open their chamber windows and cry out in a dismal,
surprising manner. It is impossible to describe the variety of
postures in which the passions of the poor people would express
themselves.

Passing through Tokenhouse Yard, in Lothbury, of a sudden a
casement violently opened just over my head, and a woman gave
three frightful screeches, and then cried, ‘Oh! death, death,
death!’ in a most inimitable tone, and which struck me with
horror and a chillness in my very blood. There was nobody to be
seen in the whole street, neither did any other window open, for
people had no curiosity now in any case, nor could anybody help
one another, so I went on to pass into Bell Alley.

Just in Bell Alley, on the right hand of the passage, there was a
more terrible cry than that, though it was not so directed out at
the window; but the whole family was in a terrible fright, and I
could hear women and children run screaming about the rooms like
distracted, when a garret-window opened and somebody from a
window on the other side the alley called and asked, ‘What is the
matter?’ upon which, from the first window, it was answered, ‘Oh
Lord, my old master has hanged himself!’ The other asked again,
‘Is he quite dead?’ and the first answered, ‘Ay, ay, quite dead;
quite dead and cold!’ This person was a merchant and a deputy
alderman, and very rich. I care not to mention the name, though I
knew his name too, but that would be an hardship to the family,
which is now flourishing again.

But this is but one; it is scarce credible what dreadful cases
happened in particular families every day. People in the rage of
the distemper, or in the torment of their swellings, which was
indeed intolerable, running out of their own government, raving
and distracted, and oftentimes laying violent hands upon
themselves, throwing themselves out at their windows, shooting
themselves &c.; mothers murdering their own children in their
lunacy, some dying of mere grief as a passion, some of mere
fright and surprise without any infection at all, others frighted
into idiotism and foolish distractions, some into despair and
lunacy, others into melancholy madness.

The pain of the swelling was in particular very violent, and to
some intolerable; the physicians and surgeons may be said to have
tortured many poor creatures even to death. The swellings in some
grew hard, and they applied violent drawing-plaisters or
poultices to break them, and if these did not do they cut and
scarified them in a terrible manner. In some those swellings were
made hard partly by the force of the distemper and partly by
their being too violently drawn, and were so hard that no
instrument could cut them, and then they burnt them with
caustics, so that many died raving mad with the torment, and some
in the very operation. In these distresses, some, for want of
help to hold them down in their beds, or to look to them, laid
hands upon themselves as above. Some broke out into the streets,
perhaps naked, and would run directly down to the river if they
were not stopped by the watchman or other officers, and plunge
themselves into the water wherever they found it.

It often pierced my very soul to hear the groans and cries of
those who were thus tormented, but of the two this was counted
the most promising particular in the whole infection, for if
these swellings could be brought to a head, and to break and run,
or, as the surgeons call it, to digest, the patient generally
recovered; whereas those who, like the gentlewoman’s daughter,
were struck with death at the beginning, and had the tokens come
out upon them, often went about indifferent easy till a little
before they died, and some till the moment they dropped down, as
in apoplexies and epilepsies is often the case. Such would be
taken suddenly very sick, and would run to a bench or bulk, or
any convenient place that offered itself, or to their own houses
if possible, as I mentioned before, and there sit down, grow
faint, and die. This kind of dying was much the same as it was
with those who die of common mortifications, who die swooning,
and, as it were, go away in a dream. Such as died thus had very
little notice of their being infected at all till the gangrene
was spread through their whole body; nor could physicians
themselves know certainly how it was with them till they opened
their breasts or other parts of their body and saw the tokens.

We had at this time a great many frightful stories told us of
nurses and watchmen who looked after the dying people; that is to
say, hired nurses who attended infected people, using them
barbarously, starving them, smothering them, or by other wicked
means hastening their end, that is to say, murdering of them; and
watchmen, being set to guard houses that were shut up when there
has been but one person left, and perhaps that one lying sick,
that they have broke in and murdered that body, and immediately
thrown them out into the dead-cart! And so they have gone scarce
cold to the grave.

I cannot say but that some such murders were committed, and I
think two were sent to prison for it, but died before they could
be tried; and I have heard that three others, at several times,
were excused for murders of that kind; but I must say I believe
nothing of its being so common a crime as some have since been
pleased to say, nor did it seem to be so rational where the
people were brought so low as not to be able to help themselves,
for such seldom recovered, and there was no temptation to commit
a murder, at least none equal to the fact, where they were sure
persons would die in so short a time, and could not live.

That there were a great many robberies and wicked practices
committed even in this dreadful time I do not deny. The power of
avarice was so strong in some that they would run any hazard to
steal and to plunder; and particularly in houses where all the
families or inhabitants have been dead and carried out, they
would break in at all hazards, and without regard to the danger
of infection, take even the clothes off the dead bodies and the
bed-clothes from others where they lay dead.

This, I suppose, must be the case of a family in Houndsditch,
where a man and his daughter, the rest of the family being, as I
suppose, carried away before by the dead-cart, were found stark
naked, one in one chamber and one in another, lying dead on the
floor, and the clothes of the beds, from whence ’tis supposed
they were rolled off by thieves, stolen and carried quite away.

It is indeed to be observed that the women were in all this
calamity the most rash, fearless, and desperate creatures, and as
there were vast numbers that went about as nurses to tend those
that were sick, they committed a great many petty thieveries in
the houses where they were employed; and some of them were
publicly whipped for it, when perhaps they ought rather to have
been hanged for examples, for numbers of houses were robbed on
these occasions, till at length the parish officers were sent to
recommend nurses to the sick, and always took an account whom it
was they sent, so as that they might call them to account if the
house had been abused where they were placed.

But these robberies extended chiefly to wearing-clothes, linen,
and what rings or money they could come at when the person died
who was under their care, but not to a general plunder of the
houses; and I could give you an account of one of these nurses,
who, several years after, being on her deathbed, confessed with
the utmost horror the robberies she had committed at the time of
her being a nurse, and by which she had enriched herself to a
great degree. But as for murders, I do not find that there was
ever any proof of the facts in the manner as it has been
reported, except as above.

They did tell me, indeed, of a nurse in one place that laid a wet
cloth upon the face of a dying patient whom she tended, and so
put an end to his life, who was just expiring before; and another
that smothered a young woman she was looking to when she was in a
fainting fit, and would have come to herself; some that killed
them by giving them one thing, some another, and some starved
them by giving them nothing at all. But these stories had two
marks of suspicion that always attended them, which caused me
always to slight them and to look on them as mere stories that
people continually frighted one another with. First, that
wherever it was that we heard it, they always placed the scene at
the farther end of the town, opposite or most remote from where
you were to hear it. If you heard it in Whitechappel, it had
happened at St Giles’s, or at Westminster, or Holborn, or that
end of the town. If you heard of it at that end of the town, then
it was done in Whitechappel, or the Minories, or about
Cripplegate parish. If you heard of it in the city, why, then it
happened in Southwark; and if you heard of it in Southwark, then
it was done in the city, and the like.

In the next place, of what part soever you heard the story, the
particulars were always the same, especially that of laying a wet
double cloth on a dying man’s face, and that of smothering a
young gentlewoman; so that it was apparent, at least to my
judgement, that there was more of tale than of truth in those
things.

However, I cannot say but it had some effect upon the people, and
particularly that, as I said before, they grew more cautious whom
they took into their houses, and whom they trusted their lives
with, and had them always recommended if they could; and where
they could not find such, for they were not very plenty, they
applied to the parish officers.

But here again the misery of that time lay upon the poor who,
being infected, had neither food or physic, neither physician or
apothecary to assist them, or nurse to attend them. Many of those
died calling for help, and even for sustenance, out at their
windows in a most miserable and deplorable manner; but it must be
added that whenever the cases of such persons or families were
represented to my Lord Mayor they always were relieved.

It is true, in some houses where the people were not very poor,
yet where they had sent perhaps their wives and children away,
and if they had any servants they had been dismissed;—I say it is
true that to save the expenses, many such as these shut
themselves in, and not having help, died alone.

A neighbour and acquaintance of mine, having some money owing to
him from a shopkeeper in Whitecross Street or thereabouts, sent
his apprentice, a youth about eighteen years of age, to endeavour
to get the money. He came to the door, and finding it shut,
knocked pretty hard; and, as he thought, heard somebody answer
within, but was not sure, so he waited, and after some stay
knocked again, and then a third time, when he heard somebody
coming downstairs.

At length the man of the house came to the door; he had on his
breeches or drawers, and a yellow flannel waistcoat, no
stockings, a pair of slipped-shoes, a white cap on his head, and,
as the young man said, ‘death in his face’.

When he opened the door, says he, ‘What do you disturb me thus
for?’ The boy, though a little surprised, replied, ‘I come from
such a one, and my master sent me for the money which he says you
know of.’ ‘Very well, child,’ returns the living ghost; ‘call as
you go by at Cripplegate Church, and bid them ring the bell’; and
with these words shut the door again, and went up again, and died
the same day; nay, perhaps the same hour. This the young man told
me himself, and I have reason to believe it. This was while the
plague was not come to a height. I think it was in June, towards
the latter end of the month; it must be before the dead-carts
came about, and while they used the ceremony of ringing the bell
for the dead, which was over for certain, in that parish at
least, before the month of July, for by the 25th of July there
died 550 and upwards in a week, and then they could no more bury
in form, rich or poor.

I have mentioned above that notwithstanding this dreadful
calamity, yet the numbers of thieves were abroad upon all
occasions, where they had found any prey, and that these were
generally women. It was one morning about eleven O’clock, I had
walked out to my brother’s house in Coleman Street parish, as I
often did, to see that all was safe.

My brother’s house had a little court before it, and a brick wall
and a gate in it, and within that several warehouses where his
goods of several sorts lay. It happened that in one of these
warehouses were several packs of women’s high-crowned hats, which
came out of the country and were, as I suppose, for exportation:
whither, I know not.

I was surprised that when I came near my brother’s door, which
was in a place they called Swan Alley, I met three or four women
with high-crowned hats on their heads; and, as I remembered
afterwards, one, if not more, had some hats likewise in their
hands; but as I did not see them come out at my brother’s door,
and not knowing that my brother had any such goods in his
warehouse, I did not offer to say anything to them, but went
across the way to shun meeting them, as was usual to do at that
time, for fear of the plague. But when I came nearer to the gate
I met another woman with more hats come out of the gate. ‘What
business, mistress,’ said I, ‘have you had there?’ ‘There are
more people there,’ said she; ‘I have had no more business there
than they.’ I was hasty to get to the gate then, and said no more
to her, by which means she got away. But just as I came to the
gate, I saw two more coming across the yard to come out with hats
also on their heads and under their arms, at which I threw the
gate to behind me, which having a spring lock fastened itself;
and turning to the women, ‘Forsooth,’ said I, ‘what are you doing
here?’ and seized upon the hats, and took them from them. One of
them, who, I confess, did not look like a thief—‘Indeed,’ says
she, ‘we are wrong, but we were told they were goods that had no
owner. Be pleased to take them again; and look yonder, there are
more such customers as we.’ She cried and looked pitifully, so I
took the hats from her and opened the gate, and bade them be
gone, for I pitied the women indeed; but when I looked towards
the warehouse, as she directed, there were six or seven more, all
women, fitting themselves with hats as unconcerned and quiet as
if they had been at a hatter’s shop buying for their money.

I was surprised, not at the sight of so many thieves only, but at
the circumstances I was in; being now to thrust myself in among
so many people, who for some weeks had been so shy of myself that
if I met anybody in the street I would cross the way from them.

They were equally surprised, though on another account. They all
told me they were neighbours, that they had heard anyone might
take them, that they were nobody’s goods, and the like. I talked
big to them at first, went back to the gate and took out the key,
so that they were all my prisoners, threatened to lock them all
into the warehouse, and go and fetch my Lord Mayor’s officers for
them.

They begged heartily, protested they found the gate open, and the
warehouse door open; and that it had no doubt been broken open by
some who expected to find goods of greater value: which indeed
was reasonable to believe, because the lock was broke, and a
padlock that hung to the door on the outside also loose, and an
abundance of the hats carried away.

At length I considered that this was not a time to be cruel and
rigorous; and besides that, it would necessarily oblige me to go
much about, to have several people come to me, and I go to
several whose circumstances of health I knew nothing of; and that
even at this time the plague was so high as that there died 4000
a week; so that in showing my resentment, or even in seeking
justice for my brother’s goods, I might lose my own life; so I
contented myself with taking the names and places where some of
them lived, who were really inhabitants in the neighbourhood, and
threatening that my brother should call them to an account for it
when he returned to his habitation.

Then I talked a little upon another foot with them, and asked
them how they could do such things as these in a time of such
general calamity, and, as it were, in the face of God’s most
dreadful judgements, when the plague was at their very doors,
and, it may be, in their very houses, and they did not know but
that the dead-cart might stop at their doors in a few hours to
carry them to their graves.

I could not perceive that my discourse made much impression upon
them all that while, till it happened that there came two men of
the neighbourhood, hearing of the disturbance, and knowing my
brother, for they had been both dependents upon his family, and
they came to my assistance. These being, as I said, neighbours,
presently knew three of the women and told me who they were and
where they lived; and it seems they had given me a true account
of themselves before.

This brings these two men to a further remembrance. The name of
one was John Hayward, who was at that time undersexton of the
parish of St Stephen, Coleman Street. By undersexton was
understood at that time gravedigger and bearer of the dead. This
man carried, or assisted to carry, all the dead to their graves
which were buried in that large parish, and who were carried in
form; and after that form of burying was stopped, went with the
dead-cart and the bell to fetch the dead bodies from the houses
where they lay, and fetched many of them out of the chambers and
houses; for the parish was, and is still, remarkable
particularly, above all the parishes in London, for a great
number of alleys and thoroughfares, very long, into which no
carts could come, and where they were obliged to go and fetch the
bodies a very long way; which alleys now remain to witness it,
such as White’s Alley, Cross Key Court, Swan Alley, Bell Alley,
White Horse Alley, and many more. Here they went with a kind of
hand-barrow and laid the dead bodies on it, and carried them out
to the carts; which work he performed and never had the distemper
at all, but lived about twenty years after it, and was sexton of
the parish to the time of his death. His wife at the same time
was a nurse to infected people, and tended many that died in the
parish, being for her honesty recommended by the parish officers;
yet she never was infected neither.

He never used any preservative against the infection, other than
holding garlic and rue in his mouth, and smoking tobacco. This I
also had from his own mouth. And his wife’s remedy was washing
her head in vinegar and sprinkling her head-clothes so with
vinegar as to keep them always moist, and if the smell of any of
those she waited on was more than ordinary offensive, she snuffed
vinegar up her nose and sprinkled vinegar upon her head-clothes,
and held a handkerchief wetted with vinegar to her mouth.

It must be confessed that though the plague was chiefly among the
poor, yet were the poor the most venturous and fearless of it,
and went about their employment with a sort of brutal courage; I
must call it so, for it was founded neither on religion nor
prudence; scarce did they use any caution, but ran into any
business which they could get employment in, though it was the
most hazardous. Such was that of tending the sick, watching
houses shut up, carrying infected persons to the pest-house, and,
which was still worse, carrying the dead away to their graves.

It was under this John Hayward’s care, and within his bounds,
that the story of the piper, with which people have made
themselves so merry, happened, and he assured me that it was
true. It is said that it was a blind piper; but, as John told me,
the fellow was not blind, but an ignorant, weak, poor man, and
usually walked his rounds about ten o’clock at night and went
piping along from door to door, and the people usually took him
in at public-houses where they knew him, and would give him drink
and victuals, and sometimes farthings; and he in return would
pipe and sing and talk simply, which diverted the people; and
thus he lived. It was but a very bad time for this diversion
while things were as I have told, yet the poor fellow went about
as usual, but was almost starved; and when anybody asked how he
did he would answer, the dead cart had not taken him yet, but
that they had promised to call for him next week.

It happened one night that this poor fellow, whether somebody had
given him too much drink or no—John Hayward said he had not drink
in his house, but that they had given him a little more victuals
than ordinary at a public-house in Coleman Street—and the poor
fellow, having not usually had a bellyful for perhaps not a good
while, was laid all along upon the top of a bulk or stall, and
fast asleep, at a door in the street near London Wall, towards
Cripplegate, and that upon the same bulk or stall the people of
some house, in the alley of which the house was a corner, hearing
a bell which they always rang before the cart came, had laid a
body really dead of the plague just by him, thinking, too, that
this poor fellow had been a dead body, as the other was, and laid
there by some of the neighbours.

Accordingly, when John Hayward with his bell and the cart came
along, finding two dead bodies lie upon the stall, they took them
up with the instrument they used and threw them into the cart,
and, all this while the piper slept soundly.

From hence they passed along and took in other dead bodies, till,
as honest John Hayward told me, they almost buried him alive in
the cart; yet all this while he slept soundly. At length the cart
came to the place where the bodies were to be thrown into the
ground, which, as I do remember, was at Mount Mill; and as the
cart usually stopped some time before they were ready to shoot
out the melancholy load they had in it, as soon as the cart
stopped the fellow awaked and struggled a little to get his head
out from among the dead bodies, when, raising himself up in the
cart, he called out, ‘Hey! where am I?’ This frighted the fellow
that attended about the work; but after some pause John Hayward,
recovering himself, said, ‘Lord, bless us! There’s somebody in
the cart not quite dead!’ So another called to him and said, ‘Who
are you?’ The fellow answered, ‘I am the poor piper. Where am I?’
‘Where are you?’ says Hayward. ‘Why, you are in the dead-cart,
and we are going to bury you.’ ‘But I an’t dead though, am I?’
says the piper, which made them laugh a little though, as John
said, they were heartily frighted at first; so they helped the
poor fellow down, and he went about his business.

I know the story goes he set up his pipes in the cart and
frighted the bearers and others so that they ran away; but John
Hayward did not tell the story so, nor say anything of his piping
at all; but that he was a poor piper, and that he was carried
away as above I am fully satisfied of the truth of.

It is to be noted here that the dead-carts in the city were not
confined to particular parishes, but one cart went through
several parishes, according as the number of dead presented; nor
were they tied to carry the dead to their respective parishes,
but many of the dead taken up in the city were carried to the
burying-ground in the out-parts for want of room.

I have already mentioned the surprise that this judgement was at
first among the people. I must be allowed to give some of my
observations on the more serious and religious part. Surely never
city, at least of this bulk and magnitude, was taken in a
condition so perfectly unprepared for such a dreadful visitation,
whether I am to speak of the civil preparations or religious.
They were, indeed, as if they had had no warning, no expectation,
no apprehensions, and consequently the least provision imaginable
was made for it in a public way. For example, the Lord Mayor and
sheriffs had made no provision as magistrates for the regulations
which were to be observed. They had gone into no measures for
relief of the poor. The citizens had no public magazines or
storehouses for corn or meal for the subsistence of the poor,
which if they had provided themselves, as in such cases is done
abroad, many miserable families who were now reduced to the
utmost distress would have been relieved, and that in a better
manner than now could be done.

The stock of the city’s money I can say but little to. The
Chamber of London was said to be exceedingly rich, and it may be
concluded that they were so, by the vast of money issued from
thence in the rebuilding the public edifices after the fire of
London, and in building new works, such as, for the first part,
the Guildhall, Blackwell Hall, part of Leadenhall, half the
Exchange, the Session House, the Compter, the prisons of Ludgate,
Newgate, &c., several of the wharfs and stairs and landing-places
on the river; all which were either burned down or damaged by the
great fire of London, the next year after the plague; and of the
second sort, the Monument, Fleet Ditch with its bridges, and the
Hospital of Bethlem or Bedlam, &c. But possibly the managers of
the city’s credit at that time made more conscience of breaking
in upon the orphan’s money to show charity to the distressed
citizens than the managers in the following years did to beautify
the city and re-edify the buildings; though, in the first case,
the losers would have thought their fortunes better bestowed, and
the public faith of the city have been less subjected to scandal
and reproach.

It must be acknowledged that the absent citizens, who, though
they were fled for safety into the country, were yet greatly
interested in the welfare of those whom they left behind, forgot
not to contribute liberally to the relief of the poor, and large
sums were also collected among trading towns in the remotest
parts of England; and, as I have heard also, the nobility and the
gentry in all parts of England took the deplorable condition of
the city into their consideration, and sent up large sums of
money in charity to the Lord Mayor and magistrates for the relief
of the poor. The king also, as I was told, ordered a thousand
pounds a week to be distributed in four parts: one quarter to the
city and liberty of Westminster; one quarter or part among the
inhabitants of the Southwark side of the water; one quarter to
the liberty and parts within of the city, exclusive of the city
within the walls; and one-fourth part to the suburbs in the
county of Middlesex, and the east and north parts of the city.
But this latter I only speak of as a report.

Certain it is, the greatest part of the poor or families who
formerly lived by their labour, or by retail trade, lived now on
charity; and had there not been prodigious sums of money given by
charitable, well-minded Christians for the support of such, the
city could never have subsisted. There were, no question,
accounts kept of their charity, and of the just distribution of
it by the magistrates. But as such multitudes of those very
officers died through whose hands it was distributed, and also
that, as I have been told, most of the accounts of those things
were lost in the great fire which happened in the very next year,
and which burnt even the chamberlain’s office and many of their
papers, so I could never come at the particular account, which I
used great endeavours to have seen.

It may, however, be a direction in case of the approach of a like
visitation, which God keep the city from;—I say, it may be of use
to observe that by the care of the Lord Mayor and aldermen at
that time in distributing weekly great sums of money for relief
of the poor, a multitude of people who would otherwise have
perished, were relieved, and their lives preserved. And here let
me enter into a brief state of the case of the poor at that time,
and what way apprehended from them, from whence may be judged
hereafter what may be expected if the like distress should come
upon the city.

At the beginning of the plague, when there was now no more hope
but that the whole city would be visited; when, as I have said,
all that had friends or estates in the country retired with their
families; and when, indeed, one would have thought the very city
itself was running out of the gates, and that there would be
nobody left behind; you may be sure from that hour all trade,
except such as related to immediate subsistence, was, as it were,
at a full stop.

This is so lively a case, and contains in it so much of the real
condition of the people, that I think I cannot be too particular
in it, and therefore I descend to the several arrangements or
classes of people who fell into immediate distress upon this
occasion. For example:

1. All master-workmen in manufactures, especially such as
belonged to ornament and the less necessary parts of the people’s
dress, clothes, and furniture for houses, such as riband-weavers
and other weavers, gold and silver lace makers, and gold and
silver wire drawers, sempstresses, milliners, shoemakers,
hatmakers, and glovemakers; also upholsterers, joiners,
cabinet-makers, looking-glass makers, and innumerable trades
which depend upon such as these;—I say, the master-workmen in
such stopped their work, dismissed their journeymen and workmen,
and all their dependents.

2. As merchandising was at a full stop, for very few ships
ventured to come up the river and none at all went out, so all
the extraordinary officers of the customs, likewise the watermen,
carmen, porters, and all the poor whose labour depended upon the
merchants, were at once dismissed and put out of business.

3. All the tradesmen usually employed in building or repairing of
houses were at a full stop, for the people were far from wanting
to build houses when so many thousand houses were at once
stripped of their inhabitants; so that this one article turned
all the ordinary workmen of that kind out of business, such as
bricklayers, masons, carpenters, joiners, plasterers, painters,
glaziers, smiths, plumbers, and all the labourers depending on
such.

4. As navigation was at a stop, our ships neither coming in or
going out as before, so the seamen were all out of employment,
and many of them in the last and lowest degree of distress; and
with the seamen were all the several tradesmen and workmen
belonging to and depending upon the building and fitting out of
ships, such as ship-carpenters, caulkers, ropemakers, dry
coopers, sailmakers, anchorsmiths, and other smiths; blockmakers,
carvers, gunsmiths, ship-chandlers, ship-carvers, and the like.
The masters of those perhaps might live upon their substance, but
the traders were universally at a stop, and consequently all
their workmen discharged. Add to these that the river was in a
manner without boats, and all or most part of the watermen,
lightermen, boat-builders, and lighter-builders in like manner
idle and laid by.

5. All families retrenched their living as much as possible, as
well those that fled as those that stayed; so that an innumerable
multitude of footmen, serving-men, shopkeepers, journeymen,
merchants’ bookkeepers, and such sort of people, and especially
poor maid-servants, were turned off, and left friendless and
helpless, without employment and without habitation, and this was
really a dismal article.