Chapter VI: Part 6

There is no room to doubt but the misery of those that gave suck
was in proportion as great. Our bills of mortality could give but
little light in this, yet some it did. There were several more
than usual starved at nurse, but this was nothing. The misery was
where they were, first, starved for want of a nurse, the mother
dying and all the family and the infants found dead by them,
merely for want; and, if I may speak my opinion, I do believe
that many hundreds of poor helpless infants perished in this
manner. Secondly, not starved, but poisoned by the nurse. Nay,
even where the mother has been nurse, and having received the
infection, has poisoned, that is, infected the infant with her
milk even before they knew they were infected themselves; nay,
and the infant has died in such a case before the mother. I
cannot but remember to leave this admonition upon record, if ever
such another dreadful visitation should happen in this city, that
all women that are with child or that give suck should be gone,
if they have any possible means, out of the place, because their
misery, if infected, will so much exceed all other people’s.

I could tell here dismal stories of living infants being found
sucking the breasts of their mothers, or nurses, after they have
been dead of the plague. Of a mother in the parish where I lived,
who, having a child that was not well, sent for an apothecary to
view the child; and when he came, as the relation goes, was
giving the child suck at her breast, and to all appearance was
herself very well; but when the apothecary came close to her he
saw the tokens upon that breast with which she was suckling the
child. He was surprised enough, to be sure, but, not willing to
fright the poor woman too much, he desired she would give the
child into his hand; so he takes the child, and going to a cradle
in the room, lays it in, and opening its cloths, found the tokens
upon the child too, and both died before he could get home to
send a preventive medicine to the father of the child, to whom he
had told their condition. Whether the child infected the
nurse-mother or the mother the child was not certain, but the
last most likely. Likewise of a child brought home to the parents
from a nurse that had died of the plague, yet the tender mother
would not refuse to take in her child, and laid it in her bosom,
by which she was infected; and died with the child in her arms
dead also.

It would make the hardest heart move at the instances that were
frequently found of tender mothers tending and watching with
their dear children, and even dying before them, and sometimes
taking the distemper from them and dying, when the child for whom
the affectionate heart had been sacrificed has got over it and
escaped.

The like of a tradesman in East Smithfield, whose wife was big
with child of her first child, and fell in labour, having the
plague upon her. He could neither get midwife to assist her or
nurse to tend her, and two servants which he kept fled both from
her. He ran from house to house like one distracted, but could
get no help; the utmost he could get was, that a watchman, who
attended at an infected house shut up, promised to send a nurse
in the morning. The poor man, with his heart broke, went back,
assisted his wife what he could, acted the part of the midwife,
brought the child dead into the world, and his wife in about an
hour died in his arms, where he held her dead body fast till the
morning, when the watchman came and brought the nurse as he had
promised; and coming up the stairs (for he had left the door
open, or only latched), they found the man sitting with his dead
wife in his arms, and so overwhelmed with grief that he died in a
few hours after without any sign of the infection upon him, but
merely sunk under the weight of his grief.

I have heard also of some who, on the death of their relations,
have grown stupid with the insupportable sorrow; and of one, in
particular, who was so absolutely overcome with the pressure upon
his spirits that by degrees his head sank into his body, so
between his shoulders that the crown of his head was very little
seen above the bone of his shoulders; and by degrees losing both
voice and sense, his face, looking forward, lay against his
collarbone and could not be kept up any otherwise, unless held up
by the hands of other people; and the poor man never came to
himself again, but languished near a year in that condition, and
died. Nor was he ever once seen to lift up his eyes or to look
upon any particular object.

I cannot undertake to give any other than a summary of such
passages as these, because it was not possible to come at the
particulars, where sometimes the whole families where such things
happened were carried off by the distemper. But there were
innumerable cases of this kind which presented to the eye and the
ear, even in passing along the streets, as I have hinted above.
Nor is it easy to give any story of this or that family which
there was not divers parallel stories to be met with of the same
kind.

But as I am now talking of the time when the plague raged at the
easternmost part of the town—how for a long time the people of
those parts had flattered themselves that they should escape, and
how they were surprised when it came upon them as it did; for,
indeed, it came upon them like an armed man when it did come;—I
say, this brings me back to the three poor men who wandered from
Wapping, not knowing whither to go or what to do, and whom I
mentioned before; one a biscuit-baker, one a sailmaker, and the
other a joiner, all of Wapping, or there-abouts.

The sleepiness and security of that part, as I have observed, was
such that they not only did not shift for themselves as others
did, but they boasted of being safe, and of safety being with
them; and many people fled out of the city, and out of the
infected suburbs, to Wapping, Ratcliff, Limehouse, Poplar, and
such Places, as to Places of security; and it is not at all
unlikely that their doing this helped to bring the plague that
way faster than it might otherwise have come. For though I am
much for people flying away and emptying such a town as this upon
the first appearance of a like visitation, and that all people
who have any possible retreat should make use of it in time and
be gone, yet I must say, when all that will fly are gone, those
that are left and must stand it should stand stock-still where
they are, and not shift from one end of the town or one part of
the town to the other; for that is the bane and mischief of the
whole, and they carry the plague from house to house in their
very clothes.

Wherefore were we ordered to kill all the dogs and cats, but
because as they were domestic animals, and are apt to run from
house to house and from street to street, so they are capable of
carrying the effluvia or infectious streams of bodies infected
even in their furs and hair? And therefore it was that, in the
beginning of the infection, an order was published by the Lord
Mayor, and by the magistrates, according to the advice of the
physicians, that all the dogs and cats should be immediately
killed, and an officer was appointed for the execution.

It is incredible, if their account is to be depended upon, what a
prodigious number of those creatures were destroyed. I think they
talked of forty thousand dogs, and five times as many cats; few
houses being without a cat, some having several, sometimes five
or six in a house. All possible endeavours were used also to
destroy the mice and rats, especially the latter, by laying
ratsbane and other poisons for them, and a prodigious multitude
of them were also destroyed.

I often reflected upon the unprovided condition that the whole
body of the people were in at the first coming of this calamity
upon them, and how it was for want of timely entering into
measures and managements, as well public as private, that all the
confusions that followed were brought upon us, and that such a
prodigious number of people sank in that disaster, which, if
proper steps had been taken, might, Providence concurring, have
been avoided, and which, if posterity think fit, they may take a
caution and warning from. But I shall come to this part again.

I come back to my three men. Their story has a moral in every
part of it, and their whole conduct, and that of some whom they
joined with, is a pattern for all poor men to follow, or women
either, if ever such a time comes again; and if there was no
other end in recording it, I think this a very just one, whether
my account be exactly according to fact or no.

Two of them are said to be brothers, the one an old soldier, but
now a biscuit-maker; the other a lame sailor, but now a
sailmaker; the third a joiner. Says John the biscuit-maker one
day to Thomas his brother, the sailmaker, ‘Brother Tom, what will
become of us? The plague grows hot in the city, and increases
this way. What shall we do?’

‘Truly,’ says Thomas, ‘I am at a great loss what to do, for I
find if it comes down into Wapping I shall be turned out of my
lodging.’ And thus they began to talk of it beforehand.

John. Turned out of your lodging, Tom! If you are, I don’t know
who will take you in; for people are so afraid of one another
now, there’s no getting a lodging anywhere.

Thomas. Why, the people where I lodge are good, civil people, and
have kindness enough for me too; but they say I go abroad every
day to my work, and it will be dangerous; and they talk of
locking themselves up and letting nobody come near them.

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

Thomas. Nay, I might even resolve to stay within doors too, for,
except a suit of sails that my master has in hand, and which I am
just finishing, I am like to get no more work a great while.
There’s no trade stirs now. Workmen and servants are turned off
everywhere, so that I might be glad to be locked up too; but I do
not see they will be willing to consent to that, any more than to
the other.

John. Why, what will you do then, brother? And what shall I do?
for I am almost as bad as you. The people where I lodge are all
gone into the country but a maid, and she is to go next week, and
to shut the house quite up, so that I shall be turned adrift to
the wide world before you, and I am resolved to go away too, if I
knew but where to go.

Thomas. We were both distracted we did not go away at first; then
we might have travelled anywhere. There’s no stirring now; we
shall be starved if we pretend to go out of town. They won’t let
us have victuals, no, not for our money, nor let us come into the
towns, much less into their houses.

John. And that which is almost as bad, I have but little money to
help myself with neither.

Thomas. As to that, we might make shift, I have a little, though
not much; but I tell you there’s no stirring on the road. I know
a couple of poor honest men in our street have attempted to
travel, and at Barnet, or Whetstone, or thereabouts, the people
offered to fire at them if they pretended to go forward, so they
are come back again quite discouraged.

John. I would have ventured their fire if I had been there. If I
had been denied food for my money they should have seen me take
it before their faces, and if I had tendered money for it they
could not have taken any course with me by law.

Thomas. You talk your old soldier’s language, as if you were in
the Low Countries now, but this is a serious thing. The people
have good reason to keep anybody off that they are not satisfied
are sound, at such a time as this, and we must not plunder them.

John. No, brother, you mistake the case, and mistake me too. I
would plunder nobody; but for any town upon the road to deny me
leave to pass through the town in the open highway, and deny me
provisions for my money, is to say the town has a right to starve
me to death, which cannot be true.

Thomas. But they do not deny you liberty to go back again from
whence you came, and therefore they do not starve you.

John. But the next town behind me will, by the same rule, deny me
leave to go back, and so they do starve me between them. Besides,
there is no law to prohibit my travelling wherever I will on the
road.

Thomas. But there will be so much difficulty in disputing with
them at every town on the road that it is not for poor men to do
it or undertake it, at such a time as this is especially.

John. Why, brother, our condition at this rate is worse than
anybody else’s, for we can neither go away nor stay here. I am of
the same mind with the lepers of Samaria: ‘If we stay here we are
sure to die’, I mean especially as you and I are stated, without
a dwelling-house of our own, and without lodging in anybody
else’s. There is no lying in the street at such a time as this;
we had as good go into the dead-cart at once. Therefore I say, if
we stay here we are sure to die, and if we go away we can but
die; I am resolved to be gone.

Thomas. You will go away. Whither will you go, and what can you
do? I would as willingly go away as you, if I knew whither. But
we have no acquaintance, no friends. Here we were born, and here
we must die.

John. Look you, Tom, the whole kingdom is my native country as
well as this town. You may as well say I must not go out of my
house if it is on fire as that I must not go out of the town I
was born in when it is infected with the plague. I was born in
England, and have a right to live in it if I can.

Thomas. But you know every vagrant person may by the laws of
England be taken up, and passed back to their last legal
settlement.

John. But how shall they make me vagrant? I desire only to travel
on, upon my lawful occasions.

Thomas. What lawful occasions can we pretend to travel, or rather
wander upon? They will not be put off with words.

John. Is not flying to save our lives a lawful occasion? And do
they not all know that the fact is true? We cannot be said to
dissemble.

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

John. Anywhere, to save our lives; it is time enough to consider
that when we are got out of this town. If I am once out of this
dreadful place, I care not where I go.

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

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

This was about the beginning of July; and though the plague was
come forward in the west and north parts of the town, yet all
Wapping, as I have observed before, and Redriff, and Ratdiff, and
Limehouse, and Poplar, in short, Deptford and Greenwich, all both
sides of the river from the Hermitage, and from over against it,
quite down to Blackwall, was entirely free; there had not one
person died of the plague in all Stepney parish, and not one on
the south side of Whitechappel Road, no, not in any parish; and
yet the weekly bill was that very week risen up to 1006.

It was a fortnight after this before the two brothers met again,
and then the case was a little altered, and the plague was
exceedingly advanced and the number greatly increased; the bill
was up at 2785, and prodigiously increasing, though still both
sides of the river, as below, kept pretty well. But some began to
die in Redriff, and about five or six in Ratcliff Highway, when
the sailmaker came to his brother John express, and in some
fright; for he was absolutely warned out of his lodging, and had
only a week to provide himself. His brother John was in as bad a
case, for he was quite out, and had only begged leave of his
master, the biscuit-maker, to lodge in an outhouse belonging to
his workhouse, where he only lay upon straw, with some
biscuit-sacks, or bread-sacks, as they called them, laid upon it,
and some of the same sacks to cover him.

Here they resolved (seeing all employment being at an end, and no
work or wages to be had), they would make the best of their way
to get out of the reach of the dreadful infection, and, being as
good husbands as they could, would endeavour to live upon what
they had as long as it would last, and then work for more if they
could get work anywhere, of any kind, let it be what it would.

While they were considering to put this resolution in practice in
the best manner they could, the third man, who was acquainted
very well with the sailmaker, came to know of the design, and got
leave to be one of the number; and thus they prepared to set out.

It happened that they had not an equal share of money; but as the
sailmaker, who had the best stock, was, besides his being lame,
the most unfit to expect to get anything by working in the
country, so he was content that what money they had should all go
into one public stock, on condition that whatever any one of them
could gain more than another, it should without any grudging be
all added to the public stock.

They resolved to load themselves with as little baggage as
possible because they resolved at first to travel on foot, and to
go a great way that they might, if possible, be effectually safe;
and a great many consultations they had with themselves before
they could agree about what way they should travel, which they
were so far from adjusting that even to the morning they set out
they were not resolved on it.

At last the seaman put in a hint that determined it. ‘First,’
says he, ‘the weather is very hot, and therefore I am for
travelling north, that we may not have the sun upon our faces and
beating on our breasts, which will heat and suffocate us; and I
have been told’, says he, ‘that it is not good to overheat our
blood at a time when, for aught we know, the infection may be in
the very air. In the next place,’ says he, ‘I am for going the
way that may be contrary to the wind, as it may blow when we set
out, that we may not have the wind blow the air of the city on
our backs as we go.’ These two cautions were approved of, if it
could be brought so to hit that the wind might not be in the
south when they set out to go north.

John the baker, who had been a soldier, then put in his opinion.
‘First,’ says he, ‘we none of us expect to get any lodging on the
road, and it will be a little too hard to lie just in the open
air. Though it be warm weather, yet it may be wet and damp, and
we have a double reason to take care of our healths at such a
time as this; and therefore,’ says he, ‘you, brother Tom, that
are a sailmaker, might easily make us a little tent, and I will
undertake to set it up every night, and take it down, and a fig
for all the inns in England; if we have a good tent over our
heads we shall do well enough.’

The joiner opposed this, and told them, let them leave that to
him; he would undertake to build them a house every night with
his hatchet and mallet, though he had no other tools, which
should be fully to their satisfaction, and as good as a tent.

The soldier and the joiner disputed that point some time, but at
last the soldier carried it for a tent. The only objection
against it was, that it must be carried with them, and that would
increase their baggage too much, the weather being hot; but the
sailmaker had a piece of good hap, fell in which made that easy,
for his master whom he worked for, having a rope-walk as well as
sailmaking trade, had a little, poor horse that he made no use of
then; and being willing to assist the three honest men, he gave
them the horse for the carrying their baggage; also for a small
matter of three days’ work that his man did for him before he
went, he let him have an old top-gallant sail that was worn out,
but was sufficient and more than enough to make a very good tent.
The soldier showed how to shape it, and they soon by his
direction made their tent, and fitted it with poles or staves for
the purpose; and thus they were furnished for their journey,
viz., three men, one tent, one horse, one gun—for the soldier
would not go without arms, for now he said he was no more a
biscuit-baker, but a trooper.

The joiner had a small bag of tools such as might be useful if he
should get any work abroad, as well for their subsistence as his
own. What money they had they brought all into one public stock,
and thus they began their journey. It seems that in the morning
when they set out the wind blew, as the sailor said, by his
pocket-compass, at N.W. by W. So they directed, or rather
resolved to direct, their course N.W.

But then a difficulty came in their way, that, as they set out
from the hither end of Wapping, near the Hermitage, and that the
plague was now very violent, especially on the north side of the
city, as in Shoreditch and Cripplegate parish, they did not think
it safe for them to go near those parts; so they went away east
through Ratcliff Highway as far as Ratcliff Cross, and leaving
Stepney Church still on their left hand, being afraid to come up
from Ratcliff Cross to Mile End, because they must come just by
the churchyard, and because the wind, that seemed to blow more
from the west, blew directly from the side of the city where the
plague was hottest. So, I say, leaving Stepney they fetched a
long compass, and going to Poplar and Bromley, came into the
great road just at Bow.

Here the watch placed upon Bow Bridge would have questioned them,
but they, crossing the road into a narrow way that turns out of
the hither end of the town of Bow to Old Ford, avoided any
inquiry there, and travelled to Old Ford. The constables
everywhere were upon their guard not so much, it seems, to stop
people passing by as to stop them from taking up their abode in
their towns, and withal because of a report that was newly raised
at that time: and that, indeed, was not very improbable, viz.,
that the poor people in London, being distressed and starved for
want of work, and by that means for want of bread, were up in
arms and had raised a tumult, and that they would come out to all
the towns round to plunder for bread. This, I say, was only a
rumour, and it was very well it was no more. But it was not so
far off from being a reality as it has been thought, for in a few
weeks more the poor people became so desperate by the calamity
they suffered that they were with great difficulty kept from
going out into the fields and towns, and tearing all in pieces
wherever they came; and, as I have observed before, nothing
hindered them but that the plague raged so violently and fell in
upon them so furiously that they rather went to the grave by
thousands than into the fields in mobs by thousands; for, in the
parts about the parishes of St Sepulcher, Clarkenwell,
Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, and Shoreditch, which were the places
where the mob began to threaten, the distemper came on so
furiously that there died in those few parishes even then, before
the plague was come to its height, no less than 5361 people in
the first three weeks in August; when at the same time the parts
about Wapping, Radcliff, and Rotherhithe were, as before
described, hardly touched, or but very lightly; so that in a word
though, as I said before, the good management of the Lord Mayor
and justices did much to prevent the rage and desperation of the
people from breaking out in rabbles and tumults, and in short
from the poor plundering the rich,—I say, though they did much,
the dead-carts did more: for as I have said that in five parishes
only there died above 5000 in twenty days, so there might be
probably three times that number sick all that time; for some
recovered, and great numbers fell sick every day and died
afterwards. Besides, I must still be allowed to say that if the
bills of mortality said five thousand, I always believed it was
near twice as many in reality, there being no room to believe
that the account they gave was right, or that indeed they were
among such confusions as I saw them in, in any condition to keep
an exact account.

But to return to my travellers. Here they were only examined, and
as they seemed rather coming from the country than from the city,
they found the people the easier with them; that they talked to
them, let them come into a public-house where the constable and
his warders were, and gave them drink and some victuals which
greatly refreshed and encouraged them; and here it came into
their heads to say, when they should be inquired of afterwards,
not that they came from London, but that they came out of Essex.

To forward this little fraud, they obtained so much favour of the
constable at Old Ford as to give them a certificate of their
passing from Essex through that village, and that they had not
been at London; which, though false in the common acceptance of
London in the county, yet was literally true, Wapping or Ratcliff
being no part either of the city or liberty.

This certificate directed to the next constable that was at
Homerton, one of the hamlets of the parish of Hackney, was so
serviceable to them that it procured them, not a free passage
there only, but a full certificate of health from a justice of
the peace, who upon the constable’s application granted it
without much difficulty; and thus they passed through the long
divided town of Hackney (for it lay then in several separated
hamlets), and travelled on till they came into the great north
road on the top of Stamford Hill.

By this time they began to be weary, and so in the back-road from
Hackney, a little before it opened into the said great road, they
resolved to set up their tent and encamp for the first night,
which they did accordingly, with this addition, that finding a
barn, or a building like a barn, and first searching as well as
they could to be sure there was nobody in it, they set up their
tent, with the head of it against the barn. This they did also
because the wind blew that night very high, and they were but
young at such a way of lodging, as well as at the managing their
tent.

Here they went to sleep; but the joiner, a grave and sober man,
and not pleased with their lying at this loose rate the first
night, could not sleep, and resolved, after trying to sleep to no
purpose, that he would get out, and, taking the gun in his hand,
stand sentinel and guard his companions. So with the gun in his
hand, he walked to and again before the barn, for that stood in
the field near the road, but within the hedge. He had not been
long upon the scout but he heard a noise of people coming on, as
if it had been a great number, and they came on, as he thought,
directly towards the barn. He did not presently awake his
companions; but in a few minutes more, their noise growing louder
and louder, the biscuit-baker called to him and asked him what
was the matter, and quickly started out too. The other, being the
lame sailmaker and most weary, lay still in the tent.

As they expected, so the people whom they had heard came on
directly to the barn, when one of our travellers challenged, like
soldiers upon the guard, with ‘Who comes there?’ The people did
not answer immediately, but one of them speaking to another that
was behind him, ‘Alas! alas! we are all disappointed,’ says he.
‘Here are some people before us; the barn is taken up.’

They all stopped upon that, as under some surprise, and it seems
there was about thirteen of them in all, and some women among
them. They consulted together what they should do, and by their
discourse our travellers soon found they were poor, distressed
people too, like themselves, seeking shelter and safety; and
besides, our travellers had no need to be afraid of their coming
up to disturb them, for as soon as they heard the words, ‘Who
comes there?’ these could hear the women say, as if frighted, ‘Do
not go near them. How do you know but they may have the plague?’
And when one of the men said, ‘Let us but speak to them’, the
women said, ‘No, don’t by any means. We have escaped thus far by
the goodness of God; do not let us run into danger now, we
beseech you.’

Our travellers found by this that they were a good, sober sort of
people, and flying for their lives, as they were; and, as they
were encouraged by it, so John said to the joiner, his comrade,
‘Let us encourage them too as much as we can’; so he called to
them, ‘Hark ye, good people,’ says the joiner, ‘we find by your
talk that you are flying from the same dreadful enemy as we are.
Do not be afraid of us; we are only three poor men of us. If you
are free from the distemper you shall not be hurt by us. We are
not in the barn, but in a little tent here in the outside, and we
will remove for you; we can set up our tent again immediately
anywhere else’; and upon this a parley began between the joiner,
whose name was Richard, and one of their men, who said his name
was Ford.

Ford. And do you assure us that you are all sound men?

Richard. Nay, we are concerned to tell you of it, that you may
not be uneasy or think yourselves in danger; but you see we do
not desire you should put yourselves into any danger, and
therefore I tell you that we have not made use of the barn, so we
will remove from it, that you may be safe and we also.

Ford. That is very kind and charitable; but if we have reason to
be satisfied that you are sound and free from the visitation, why
should we make you remove now you are settled in your lodging,
and, it may be, are laid down to rest? We will go into the barn,
if you please, to rest ourselves a while, and we need not disturb
you.

Richard. Well, but you are more than we are. I hope you will
assure us that you are all of you sound too, for the danger is as
great from you to us as from us to you.

Ford. Blessed be God that some do escape, though it is but few;
what may be our portion still we know not, but hitherto we are
preserved.

Richard. What part of the town do you come from? Was the plague
come to the places where you lived?

Ford. Ay, ay, in a most frightful and terrible manner, or else we
had not fled away as we do; but we believe there will be very few
left alive behind us.

Richard. What part do you come from?

Ford. We are most of us of Cripplegate parish, only two or three
of Clerkenwell parish, but on the hither side.

Richard. How then was it that you came away no sooner?

Ford. We have been away some time, and kept together as well as
we could at the hither end of Islington, where we got leave to
lie in an old uninhabited house, and had some bedding and
conveniences of our own that we brought with us; but the plague
is come up into Islington too, and a house next door to our poor
dwelling was infected and shut up; and we are come away in a
fright.

Richard. And what way are you going?

Ford. As our lot shall cast us; we know not whither, but God will
guide those that look up to Him.

They parleyed no further at that time, but came all up to the
barn, and with some difficulty got into it. There was nothing but
hay in the barn, but it was almost full of that, and they
accommodated themselves as well as they could, and went to rest;
but our travellers observed that before they went to sleep an
ancient man who it seems was father of one of the women, went to
prayer with all the company, recommending themselves to the
blessing and direction of Providence, before they went to sleep.

It was soon day at that time of the year, and as Richard the
joiner had kept guard the first part of the night, so John the
soldier relieved him, and he had the post in the morning, and
they began to be acquainted with one another. It seems when they
left Islington they intended to have gone north, away to
Highgate, but were stopped at Holloway, and there they would not
let them pass; so they crossed over the fields and hills to the
eastward, and came out at the Boarded River, and so avoiding the
towns, they left Hornsey on the left hand and Newington on the
right hand, and came into the great road about Stamford Hill on
that side, as the three travellers had done on the other side.
And now they had thoughts of going over the river in the marshes,
and make forwards to Epping Forest, where they hoped they should
get leave to rest. It seems they were not poor, at least not so
poor as to be in want; at least they had enough to subsist them
moderately for two or three months, when, as they said, they were
in hopes the cold weather would check the infection, or at least
the violence of it would have spent itself, and would abate, if
it were only for want of people left alive to be infected.

This was much the fate of our three travellers, only that they
seemed to be the better furnished for travelling, and had it in
their view to go farther off; for as to the first, they did not
propose to go farther than one day’s journey, that so they might
have intelligence every two or three days how things were at
London.

But here our travellers found themselves under an unexpected
inconvenience: namely that of their horse, for by means of the
horse to carry their baggage they were obliged to keep in the
road, whereas the people of this other band went over the fields
or roads, path or no path, way or no way, as they pleased;
neither had they any occasion to pass through any town, or come
near any town, other than to buy such things as they wanted for
their necessary subsistence, and in that indeed they were put to
much difficulty; of which in its place.

But our three travellers were obliged to keep the road, or else
they must commit spoil, and do the country a great deal of damage
in breaking down fences and gates to go over enclosed fields,
which they were loth to do if they could help it.

Our three travellers, however, had a great mind to join
themselves to this company and take their lot with them; and
after some discourse they laid aside their first design which
looked northward, and resolved to follow the other into Essex; so
in the morning they took up their tent and loaded their horse,
and away they travelled all together.

They had some difficulty in passing the ferry at the river-side,
the ferryman being afraid of them; but after some parley at a
distance, the ferryman was content to bring his boat to a place
distant from the usual ferry, and leave it there for them to take
it; so putting themselves over, he directed them to leave the
boat, and he, having another boat, said he would fetch it again,
which it seems, however, he did not do for above eight days.

Here, giving the ferryman money beforehand, they had a supply of
victuals and drink, which he brought and left in the boat for
them; but not without, as I said, having received the money
beforehand. But now our travellers were at a great loss and
difficulty how to get the horse over, the boat being small and
not fit for it: and at last could not do it without unloading the
baggage and making him swim over.

From the river they travelled towards the forest, but when they
came to Walthamstow the people of that town denied to admit them,
as was the case everywhere. The constables and their watchmen
kept them off at a distance and parleyed with them. They gave the
same account of themselves as before, but these gave no credit to
what they said, giving it for a reason that two or three
companies had already come that way and made the like pretences,
but that they had given several people the distemper in the towns
where they had passed; and had been afterwards so hardly used by
the country (though with justice, too, as they had deserved) that
about Brentwood, or that way, several of them perished in the
fields—whether of the plague or of mere want and distress they
could not tell.

This was a good reason indeed why the people of Walthamstow
should be very cautious, and why they should resolve not to
entertain anybody that they were not well satisfied of. But, as
Richard the joiner and one of the other men who parleyed with
them told them, it was no reason why they should block up the
roads and refuse to let people pass through the town, and who
asked nothing of them but to go through the street; that if their
people were afraid of them, they might go into their houses and
shut their doors; they would neither show them civility nor
incivility, but go on about their business.

The constables and attendants, not to be persuaded by reason,
continued obstinate, and would hearken to nothing; so the two men
that talked with them went back to their fellows to consult what
was to be done. It was very discouraging in the whole, and they
knew not what to do for a good while; but at last John the
soldier and biscuit-maker, considering a while, ‘Come,’ says he,
‘leave the rest of the parley to me.’ He had not appeared yet, so
he sets the joiner, Richard, to work to cut some poles out of the
trees and shape them as like guns as he could, and in a little
time he had five or six fair muskets, which at a distance would
not be known; and about the part where the lock of a gun is he
caused them to wrap cloth and rags such as they had, as soldiers
do in wet weather to preserve the locks of their pieces from
rust; the rest was discoloured with clay or mud, such as they
could get; and all this while the rest of them sat under the
trees by his direction, in two or three bodies, where they made
fires at a good distance from one another.

While this was doing he advanced himself and two or three with
him, and set up their tent in the lane within sight of the
barrier which the town’s men had made, and set a sentinel just by
it with the real gun, the only one they had, and who walked to
and fro with the gun on his shoulder, so as that the people of
the town might see them. Also, he tied the horse to a gate in the
hedge just by, and got some dry sticks together and kindled a
fire on the other side of the tent, so that the people of the
town could see the fire and the smoke, but could not see what
they were doing at it.

After the country people had looked upon them very earnestly a
great while, and, by all that they could see, could not but
suppose that they were a great many in company, they began to be
uneasy, not for their going away, but for staying where they
were; and above all, perceiving they had horses and arms, for
they had seen one horse and one gun at the tent, and they had
seen others of them walk about the field on the inside of the
hedge by the side of the lane with their muskets, as they took
them to be, shouldered; I say, upon such a sight as this, you may
be assured they were alarmed and terribly frighted, and it seems
they went to a justice of the peace to know what they should do.
What the justice advised them to I know not, but towards the
evening they called from the barrier, as above, to the sentinel
at the tent.

‘What do you want?’ says John.[1]

[1] It seems John was in the tent, but hearing them call, he
steps out, and taking the gun upon his shoulder, talked to them
as if he had been the sentinel placed there upon the guard by
some officer that was his superior. [Footnote in the original.]

‘Why, what do you intend to do?’ says the constable. ‘To do,’
says John; ‘what would you have us to do?’ Constable. Why don’t
you be gone? What do you stay there for?

John. Why do you stop us on the king’s highway, and pretend to
refuse us leave to go on our way?

Constable. We are not bound to tell you our reason, though we did
let you know it was because of the plague.

John. We told you we were all sound and free from the plague,
which we were not bound to have satisfied you of, and yet you
pretend to stop us on the highway.

Constable. We have a right to stop it up, and our own safety
obliges us to it. Besides, this is not the king’s highway; ’tis a
way upon sufferance. You see here is a gate, and if we do let
people pass here, we make them pay toll.

John. We have a right to seek our own safety as well as you, and
you may see we are flying for our lives: and ’tis very
unchristian and unjust to stop us.

Constable. You may go back from whence you came; we do not hinder
you from that.

John. No; it is a stronger enemy than you that keeps us from
doing that, or else we should not have come hither.

Constable. Well, you may go any other way, then.

John. No, no; I suppose you see we are able to send you going,
and all the people of your parish, and come through your town
when we will; but since you have stopped us here, we are content.
You see we have encamped here, and here we will live. We hope you
will furnish us with victuals.

Constable. We furnish you! What mean you by that?

John. Why, you would not have us starve, would you? If you stop
us here, you must keep us.

Constable. You will be ill kept at our maintenance.

John. If you stint us, we shall make ourselves the better
allowance.

Constable. Why, you will not pretend to quarter upon us by force,
will you?

John. We have offered no violence to you yet. Why do you seem to
oblige us to it? I am an old soldier, and cannot starve, and if
you think that we shall be obliged to go back for want of
provisions, you are mistaken.

Constable. Since you threaten us, we shall take care to be strong
enough for you. I have orders to raise the county upon you.

John. It is you that threaten, not we. And since you are for
mischief, you cannot blame us if we do not give you time for it;
we shall begin our march in a few minutes.[2]

[2] This frighted the constable and the people that were with
him, that they immediately changed their note.

Constable. What is it you demand of us?

John. At first we desired nothing of you but leave to go through
the town; we should have offered no injury to any of you, neither
would you have had any injury or loss by us. We are not thieves,
but poor people in distress, and flying from the dreadful plague
in London, which devours thousands every week. We wonder how you
could be so unmerciful!

Constable. Self-preservation obliges us.

John. What! To shut up your compassion in a case of such distress
as this?

Constable. Well, if you will pass over the fields on your left
hand, and behind that part of the town, I will endeavour to have
gates opened for you.

John. Our horsemen[3] cannot pass with our baggage that way; it
does not lead into the road that we want to go, and why should
you force us out of the road? Besides, you have kept us here all
day without any provisions but such as we brought with us. I
think you ought to send us some provisions for our relief.

[3] They had but one horse among them. [Footnotes in the
original.]

Constable. If you will go another way we will send you some
provisions.

John. That is the way to have all the towns in the county stop up
the ways against us.

Constable. If they all furnish you with food, what will you be
the worse? I see you have tents; you want no lodging.

John. Well, what quantity of provisions will you send us?

Constable. How many are you?

John. Nay, we do not ask enough for all our company; we are in
three companies. If you will send us bread for twenty men and
about six or seven women for three days, and show us the way over
the field you speak of, we desire not to put your people into any
fear for us; we will go out of our way to oblige you, though we
are as free from infection as you are.[4]

[4] Here he called to one of his men, and bade him order Captain
Richard and his people to march the lower way on the side of the
marches, and meet them in the forest; which was all a sham, for
they had no Captain Richard, or any such company. [Footnote in
the original.]

Constable. And will you assure us that your other people shall
offer us no new disturbance?

John. No, no you may depend on it.

Constable. You must oblige yourself, too, that none of your
people shall come a step nearer than where the provisions we send
you shall be set down.

John. I answer for it we will not.

Accordingly they sent to the place twenty loaves of bread and
three or four large pieces of good beef, and opened some gates,
through which they passed; but none of them had courage so much
as to look out to see them go, and, as it was evening, if they
had looked they could not have seen them as to know how few they
were.

This was John the soldier’s management. But this gave such an
alarm to the county, that had they really been two or three
hundred the whole county would have been raised upon them, and
they would have been sent to prison, or perhaps knocked on the
head.

They were soon made sensible of this, for two days afterwards
they found several parties of horsemen and footmen also about, in
pursuit of three companies of men, armed, as they said, with
muskets, who were broke out from London and had the plague upon
them, and that were not only spreading the distemper among the
people, but plundering the country.

As they saw now the consequence of their case, they soon saw the
danger they were in; so they resolved by the advice also of the
old soldier to divide themselves again. John and his two
comrades, with the horse, went away, as if towards Waltham; the
other in two companies, but all a little asunder, and went
towards Epping.

The first night they encamped all in the forest, and not far off
of one another, but not setting up the tent, lest that should
discover them. On the other hand, Richard went to work with his
axe and his hatchet, and cutting down branches of trees, he built
three tents or hovels, in which they all encamped with as much
convenience as they could expect.

The provisions they had at Walthamstow served them very
plentifully this night; and as for the next, they left it to
Providence. They had fared so well with the old soldier’s conduct
that they now willingly made him their leader, and the first of
his conduct appeared to be very good. He told them that they were
now at a proper distance enough from London; that as they need
not be immediately beholden to the country for relief, so they
ought to be as careful the country did not infect them as that
they did not infect the country; that what little money they had,
they must be as frugal of as they could; that as he would not
have them think of offering the country any violence, so they
must endeavour to make the sense of their condition go as far
with the country as it could. They all referred themselves to his
direction, so they left their three houses standing, and the next
day went away towards Epping. The captain also (for so they now
called him), and his two fellow-travellers, laid aside their
design of going to Waltham, and all went together.

When they came near Epping they halted, choosing out a proper
place in the open forest, not very near the highway, but not far
out of it on the north side, under a little cluster of low
pollard-trees. Here they pitched their little camp—which
consisted of three large tents or huts made of poles which their
carpenter, and such as were his assistants, cut down and fixed in
the ground in a circle, binding all the small ends together at
the top and thickening the sides with boughs of trees and bushes,
so that they were completely close and warm. They had, besides
this, a little tent where the women lay by themselves, and a hut
to put the horse in.