Chapter II: Introduction (2)

The inns of court were all shut up, nor were very many of the lawyers in the Temple,[40] or Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn, to be seen there. Everybody was at peace, there was no occasion for lawyers; besides, it being in the time of the vacation too, they were generally gone into the country. Whole rows of houses in some places were shut close up, the inhabitants all fled, and only a watchman or two left.

When I speak of rows of houses being shut up, I do not mean shut up by the magistrates, but that great numbers of persons followed the court, by the necessity of their employments, and other dependencies; and as others retired, really frighted with the distemper, it was a mere desolating of some of the streets. But the fright was not yet near so great in the city, abstractedly so called,[41] and particularly because, though they were at first in a most inexpressible consternation, yet, as I have observed that the distemper intermitted often at first, so they were, as it were, alarmed and unalarmed again, and this several times, till it began to be familiar to them; and that even when it appeared violent, yet seeing it did not presently spread into the city, or the east or south parts, the people began to take courage, and to be, as I may say, a little hardened. It is true, a vast many people fled, as I have observed; yet they were chiefly from the west end of the town, and from that we call the heart of the city, that is to say, among the wealthiest of the people, and such persons as were unincumbered with trades and business. But of the rest, the generality staid, and seemed to abide the worst; so that in the place we call the liberties, and in the suburbs, in Southwark, and in the east part, such as Wapping, Ratcliff, Stepney, Rotherhithe, and the like, the people generally staid, except here and there a few wealthy families, who, as above, did not depend upon their business.

It must not be forgot here that the city and suburbs were prodigiously full of people at the time of this visitation, I mean at the time that it began. For though I have lived to see a further increase, and mighty throngs of people settling in London, more than ever; yet we had always a notion that numbers of people which--the wars being over, the armies disbanded, and the royal family and the monarchy being restored--had flocked to London to settle in business, or to depend upon and attend the court for rewards of services, preferments, and the like, was[42] such that the town was computed to have in it above a hundred thousand people more than ever it held before. Nay, some took upon them to say it had twice as many, because all the ruined families of the royal party flocked hither, all the soldiers set up trades here, and abundance of families settled here. Again: the court brought with it a great flux of pride and new fashions; all people were gay and luxurious, and the joy of the restoration had brought a vast many families to London.[43]

But I must go back again to the beginning of this surprising time. While the fears of the people were young, they were increased strangely by several odd accidents, which put altogether, it was really a wonder the whole body of the people did not rise as one man, and abandon their dwellings, leaving the place as a space of ground designed by Heaven for an Aceldama,[44] doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth, and that all that would be found in it would perish with it. I shall name but a few of these things; but sure they were so many, and so many wizards and cunning people propagating them, that I have often wondered there was any (women especially) left behind.

In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for several months before the plague, as there did, the year after, another a little before the fire. The old women, and the phlegmatic hypochondriac[45] part of the other sex (whom I could almost call old women too), remarked, especially afterward, though not till both those judgments were over, that those two comets passed directly over the city, and that so very near the houses that it was plain they imported something peculiar to the city alone; that the comet before the pestilence was of a faint, dull, languid color, and its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow, but that the comet before the fire was bright and sparkling, or, as others said, flaming, and its motion swift and furious; and that, accordingly, one foretold a heavy judgment, slow but severe, terrible, and frightful, as was the plague, but the other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, as was the conflagration. Nay, so particular some people were, that, as they looked upon that comet preceding the fire, they fancied that they not only saw it pass swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the motion with their eye, but even they heard it; that it made a rushing, mighty noise, fierce and terrible, though at a distance, and but just perceivable.

I saw both these stars, and, I must confess, had had so much of the common notion of such things in my head, that I was apt to look upon them as the forerunners and warnings of God's judgments, and, especially when the plague had followed the first, I yet saw another of the like kind, I could not but say, God had not yet sufficiently scourged the city.

The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely increased by the error of the times, in which I think the people, from what principle I cannot imagine, were more addicted to prophecies, and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales, than ever they were before or since.[46] Whether this unhappy temper was originally raised by the follies of some people who got money by it, that is to say, by printing predictions and prognostications, I know not. But certain it is, books frighted them terribly, such as "Lilly's Almanack,"[47] "Gadbury's Astrological Predictions," "Poor Robin's Almanack,"[48] and the like; also several pretended religious books,--one entitled "Come out of Her, my People, lest ye be Partaker of her Plagues;"[49] another called "Fair Warning;" another, "Britain's Remembrancer;" and many such,--all, or most part of which, foretold directly or covertly the ruin of the city. Nay, some were so enthusiastically bold as to run about the streets with their oral predictions, pretending they were sent to preach to the city; and one in particular, who, like Jonah[50] to Nineveh, cried in the streets, "Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed." I will not be positive whether he said "yet forty days," or "yet a few days." Another ran about naked, except a pair of drawers about his waist, crying day and night, like a man that Josephus[51] mentions, who cried, "Woe to Jerusalem!" a little before the destruction of that city: so this poor naked creature cried, "Oh, the great and the dreadful God!" and said no more, but repeated those words continually, with a voice and countenance full of horror, a swift pace, and nobody could ever find him to stop, or rest, or take any sustenance, at least that ever I could hear of. I met this poor creature several times in the streets, and would have spoke to him, but he would not enter into speech with me, or any one else, but kept on his dismal cries continually.

These things terrified the people to the last degree, and especially when two or three times, as I have mentioned already, they found one or two in the bills dead of the plague at St. Giles's.

Next to these public things were the dreams of old women; or, I should say, the interpretation of old women upon other people's dreams; and these put abundance of people even out of their wits. Some heard voices warning them to be gone, for that there would be such a plague in London so that the living would not be able to bury the dead; others saw apparitions in the air: and I must be allowed to say of both, I hope without breach of charity, that they heard voices that never spake, and saw sights that never appeared. But the imagination of the people was really turned wayward and possessed; and no wonder if they who were poring continually at the clouds saw shapes and figures, representations and appearances, which had nothing in them but air and vapor. Here they told us they saw a flaming sword held in a hand, coming out of a cloud, with a point hanging directly over the city. There they saw hearses and coffins in the air carrying to be buried. And there again, heaps of dead bodies lying unburied and the like, just as the imagination of the poor terrified people furnished them with matter to work upon.

So hypochondriac fancies represent
Ships, armies, battles in the firmament;
Till steady eyes the exhalations solve,
And all to its first matter, cloud, resolve.

I could fill this account with the strange relations such people give every day of what they have seen; and every one was so positive of their having seen what they pretended to see, that there was no contradicting them, without breach of friendship, or being accounted rude and unmannerly on the one hand, and profane and impenetrable on the other. One time before the plague was begun, otherwise than as I have said in St. Giles's (I think it was in March), seeing a crowd of people in the street, I joined with them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all staring up into the air to see what a woman told them appeared plain to her, which was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in his hand, waving it or brandishing it over his head. She described every part of the figure to the life, showed them the motion and the form, and the poor people came into it so eagerly and with so much readiness. "Yes, I see it all plainly," says one: "there's the sword as plain as can be." Another saw the angel; one saw his very face, and cried out what a glorious creature he was. One saw one thing, and one another. I looked as earnestly as the rest, but perhaps not with so much willingness to be imposed upon; and I said, indeed, that I could see nothing but a white cloud, bright on one side, by the shining of the sun upon the other part. The woman endeavored to show it me, but could not make me confess that I saw it; which, indeed, if I had, I must have lied. But the woman, turning to me, looked me in the face, and fancied I laughed, in which her imagination deceived her too, for I really did not laugh, but was seriously reflecting how the poor people were terrified by the force of their own imagination. However, she turned to me, called me profane fellow and a scoffer, told me that it was a time of God's anger, and dreadful judgments were approaching, and that despisers such as I should wander and perish.

The people about her seemed disgusted as well as she, and I found there was no persuading them that I did not laugh at them, and that I should be rather mobbed by them than be able to undeceive them. So I left them, and this appearance passed for as real as the blazing star itself.

Another encounter I had in the open day also; and this was in going through a narrow passage from Petty France[52] into Bishopsgate churchyard, by a row of almshouses. There are two churchyards to Bishopsgate Church or Parish. One we go over to pass from the place called Petty France into Bishopsgate Street, coming out just by the church door; the other is on the side of the narrow passage where the almshouses are on the left, and a dwarf wall with a palisade on it on the right hand, and the city wall on the other side more to the right.

In this narrow passage stands a man looking through the palisades into the burying place, and as many people as the narrowness of the place would admit to stop without hindering the passage of others; and he was talking mighty eagerly to them, and pointing, now to one place, then to another, and affirming that he saw a ghost walking upon such a gravestone there. He described the shape, the posture, and the movement of it so exactly, that it was the greatest amazement to him in the world that everybody did not see it as well as he. On a sudden he would cry, "There it is! Now it comes this way!" then, "'Tis turned back!" till at length he persuaded the people into so firm a belief of it, that one fancied he saw it; and thus he came every day, making a strange hubbub, considering it was so narrow a passage, till Bishopsgate clock struck eleven; and then the ghost would seem to start, and, as if he were called away, disappeared on a sudden.

I looked earnestly every way, and at the very moment that this man directed, but could not see the least appearance of anything. But so positive was this poor man that he gave them vapors[53] in abundance, and sent them away trembling and frightened, till at length few people that knew of it cared to go through that passage, and hardly anybody by night on any account whatever.

This ghost, as the poor man affirmed, made signs to the houses and to the ground and to the people, plainly intimating (or else they so understanding it) that abundance of people should come to be buried in that churchyard, as indeed happened. But then he saw such aspects I must acknowledge I never believed, nor could I see anything of it myself, though I looked most earnestly to see it if possible.

Some endeavors were used to suppress the printing of such books as terrified the people, and to frighten the dispersers of them, some of whom were taken up, but nothing done in it, as I am informed; the government being unwilling to exasperate the people, who were, as I may say, all out of their wits already.

Neither can I acquit those ministers that in their sermons rather sunk than lifted up the hearts of their hearers. Many of them, I doubt not, did it for the strengthening the resolution of the people, and especially for quickening them to repentance; but it certainly answered not their end, at least not in proportion to the injury it did another way.

One mischief always introduces another. These terrors and apprehensions of the people led them to a thousand weak, foolish, and wicked things, which they wanted not a sort of people really wicked to encourage them to; and this was running about to fortune tellers, cunning men,[54] and astrologers, to know their fortunes, or, as it is vulgarly expressed, to have their fortunes told them, their nativities[55] calculated, and the like. And this folly presently made the town swarm with a wicked generation of pretenders to magic, to the "black art," as they called it, and I know not what, nay, to a thousand worse dealings with the devil than they were really guilty of. And this trade grew so open and so generally practiced, that it became common to have signs and inscriptions set up at doors, "Here lives a fortune teller," "Here lives an astrologer," "Here you may have your nativity calculated," and the like; and Friar Bacon's brazen head,[56] which was the usual sign of these people's dwellings, was to be seen almost in every street, or else the sign of Mother Shipton,[57] or of Merlin's[58] head, and the like.

With what blind, absurd, and ridiculous stuff these oracles of the devil pleased and satisfied the people, I really know not; but certain it is, that innumerable attendants crowded about their doors every day: and if but a grave fellow in a velvet jacket, a band,[59] and a black cloak, which was the habit those quack conjurers generally went in, was but seen in the streets, the people would follow them[60] in crowds, and ask them[60] questions as they went along.

The case of poor servants was very dismal, as I shall have occasion to mention again by and by; for it was apparent a prodigious number of them would be turned away. And it was so, and of them abundance perished, and particularly those whom these false prophets flattered with hopes that they should be kept in their services, and carried with their masters and mistresses into the country; and had not public charity provided for these poor creatures, whose number was exceeding great (and in all cases of this nature must be so), they would have been in the worst condition of any people in the city.

These things agitated the minds of the common people for many months while the first apprehensions were upon them, and while the plague was not, as I may say, yet broken out. But I must also not forget that the more serious part of the inhabitants behaved after another manner. The government encouraged their devotion, and appointed public prayers, and days of fasting and humiliation, to make public confession of sin, and implore the mercy of God to avert the dreadful judgment which hangs over their heads; and it is not to be expressed with what alacrity the people of all persuasions embraced the occasion, how they flocked to the churches and meetings, and they were all so thronged that there was often no coming near, even to the very doors of the largest churches. Also there were daily prayers appointed morning and evening at several churches, and days of private praying at other places, at all which the people attended, I say, with an uncommon devotion. Several private families, also, as well of one opinion as another, kept family fasts, to which they admitted their near relations only; so that, in a word, those people who were really serious and religious applied themselves in a truly Christian manner to the proper work of repentance and humiliation, as a Christian people ought to do.

Again, the public showed that they would bear their share in these things. The very court, which was then gay and luxurious, put on a face of just concern for the public danger. All the plays and interludes[61] which, after the manner of the French court,[62] had been set up and began to increase among us, were forbid to act;[63] the gaming tables, public dancing rooms, and music houses, which multiplied and began to debauch the manners of the people, were shut up and suppressed; and the jack puddings,[64] merry-andrews,[64] puppet shows, ropedancers, and such like doings, which had bewitched the common people, shut their shops, finding indeed no trade, for the minds of the people were agitated with other things, and a kind of sadness and horror at these things sat upon the countenances even of the common people. Death was before their eyes, and everybody began to think of their graves, not of mirth and diversions.

But even these wholesome reflections, which, rightly managed, would have most happily led the people to fall upon their knees, make confession of their sins, and look up to their merciful Savior for pardon, imploring his compassion on them in such a time of their distress, by which we might have been as a second Nineveh, had a quite contrary extreme in the common people, who, ignorant and stupid in their reflections as they were brutishly wicked and thoughtless before, were now led by their fright to extremes of folly, and, as I said before, that they ran to conjurers and witches and all sorts of deceivers, to know what should become of them, who fed their fears and kept them always alarmed and awake, on purpose to delude them and pick their pockets: so they were as mad upon their running after quacks and mountebanks, and every practicing old woman for medicines and remedies, storing themselves with such multitudes of pills, potions, and preservatives, as they were called, that they not only spent their money, but poisoned themselves beforehand, for fear of the poison of the infection, and prepared their bodies for the plague, instead of preserving them against it. On the other hand, it was incredible, and scarce to be imagined, how the posts of houses and corners of streets were plastered over with doctors' bills, and papers of ignorant fellows quacking and tampering in physic, and inviting people to come to them for remedies, which was generally set off with such flourishes as these; viz., "INFALLIBLE preventitive pills against the plague;" "NEVER-FAILING preservatives against the infection;" "SOVEREIGN cordials against the corruption of air;" "EXACT regulations for the conduct of the body in case of infection;" "Antipestilential pills;" "INCOMPARABLE drink against the plague, never found out before;" "An UNIVERSAL remedy for the plague;" "The ONLY TRUE plague water;" "The ROYAL ANTIDOTE against all kinds of infection;" and such a number more that I cannot reckon up, and, if I could, would fill a book of themselves to set them down.

Others set up bills to summon people to their lodgings for direction and advice in the case of infection. These had specious titles also, such as these:--

An eminent High-Dutch physician, newly come over from Holland,
where he resided during all the time of the great plague,
last year, in Amsterdam, and cured multitudes of people that
actually had the plague upon them.

An Italian gentlewoman just arrived from Naples, having a
choice secret to prevent infection, which she found out by
her great experience, and did wonderful cures with it in the
late plague there, wherein there died 20,000 in one day.

An ancient gentlewoman having practiced with great success in
the late plague in this city, anno 1636, gives her advice
only to the female sex. To be spoken with, etc.

An experienced physician, who has long studied the doctrine of
antidotes against all sorts of poison and infection, has,
after forty years' practice, arrived at such skill as may,
with God's blessing, direct persons how to prevent being
touched by any contagious distemper whatsoever. He directs
the poor gratis.

I take notice of these by way of specimen. I could give you two or three dozen of the like, and yet have abundance left behind. It is sufficient from these to apprise any one of the humor of those times, and how a set of thieves and pickpockets not only robbed and cheated the poor people of their money, but poisoned their bodies with odious and fatal preparations; some with mercury, and some with other things as bad, perfectly remote from the thing pretended to, and rather hurtful than serviceable to the body in case an infection followed.

I cannot omit a subtlety of one of those quack operators with which he gulled the poor people to crowd about him, but did nothing for them without money. He had, it seems, added to his bills, which he gave out in the streets, this advertisement in capital letters; viz., "He gives advice to the poor for nothing."

Abundance of people came to him accordingly, to whom he made a great many fine speeches, examined them of the state of their health and of the constitution of their bodies, and told them many good things to do, which were of no great moment. But the issue and conclusion of all was, that he had a preparation which, if they took such a quantity of every morning, he would pawn his life that they should never have the plague, no, though they lived in the house with people that were infected. This made the people all resolve to have it, but then the price of that was so much (I think it was half a crown[65]). "But, sir," says one poor woman, "I am a poor almswoman, and am kept by the parish; and your bills say you give the poor your help for nothing."--"Ay, good woman," says the doctor, "so I do, as I published there. I give my advice, but not my physic!"--"Alas, sir," says she, "that is a snare laid for the poor then, for you give them your advice for nothing; that is to say, you advise them gratis to buy your physic for their money: so does every shopkeeper with his wares." Here the woman began to give him ill words, and stood at his door all that day, telling her tale to all the people that came, till the doctor, finding she turned away his customers, was obliged to call her upstairs again and give her his box of physic for nothing, which perhaps, too, was good for nothing when she had it.

But to return to the people, whose confusions fitted them to be imposed upon by all sorts of pretenders and by every mountebank. There is no doubt but these quacking sort of fellows raised great gains out of the miserable people; for we daily found the crowds that ran after them were infinitely greater, and their doors were more thronged, than those of Dr. Brooks, Dr. Upton, Dr. Hodges, Dr. Berwick, or any, though the most famous men of the time; and I was told that some of them got five pounds[66] a day by their physic.

But there was still another madness beyond all this, which may serve to give an idea of the distracted humor of the poor people at that time, and this was their following a worse sort of deceivers than any of these; for these petty thieves only deluded them to pick their pockets and get their money (in which their wickedness, whatever it was, lay chiefly on the side of the deceiver's deceiving, not upon the deceived); but, in this part I am going to mention, it lay chiefly in the people deceived, or equally in both. And this was in wearing charms, philters,[67] exorcisms,[68] amulets,[69] and I know not what preparations to fortify the body against the plague, as if the plague was not the hand of God, but a kind of a possession of an evil spirit, and it was to be kept off with crossings,[70] signs of the zodiac,[71] papers tied up with so many knots, and certain words or figures written on them, as particularly the word "Abracadabra,"[72] formed in triangle or pyramid; thus,--

A B R A C A D A B R A
A B R A C A D A B R
A B R A C A D A B
A B R A C A D A
A B R A C A D
A B R A C A
A B R A C
A B R A
A B R
A B
A

Others had the Jesuits' mark in a cross:--

I H
S[73]

Others had nothing but this mark; thus,--

+

I might spend a great deal of my time in exclamations against the follies, and indeed the wickednesses of those things, in a time of such danger, in a matter of such consequence as this of a national infection; but my memorandums of these things relate rather to take notice of the fact, and mention only that it was so. How the poor people found the insufficiency of those things, and how many of them were afterwards carried away in the dead carts, and thrown into the common graves of every parish with these hellish charms and trumpery hanging about their necks, remains to be spoken of as we go along.

All this was the effect of the hurry the people were in, after the first notion of the plague being at hand was among them, and which may be said to be from about Michaelmas,[74] 1664, but more particularly after the two men died in St. Giles's, in the beginning of December; and again after another alarm in February, for when the plague evidently spread itself, they soon began to see the folly of trusting to these unperforming creatures who had gulled them of their money; and then their fears worked another way, namely, to amazement and stupidity, not knowing what course to take or what to do, either to help or to relieve themselves; but they ran about from one neighbor's house to another, and even in the streets, from one door to another, with repeated cries of, "Lord, have mercy upon us! What shall we do?"

I am supposing, now, the plague to have begun, as I have said, and that the magistrates began to take the condition of the people into their serious consideration. What they did as to the regulation of the inhabitants, and of infected families, I shall speak to[75] by itself; but as to the affair of health, it is proper to mention here my having seen the foolish humor of the people in running after quacks, mountebanks, wizards, and fortune tellers, which they did, as above, even to madness. The lord mayor, a very sober and religious gentleman, appointed physicians and surgeons for the relief of the poor, I mean the diseased poor, and in particular ordered the College of Physicians[76] to publish directions for cheap remedies for the poor in all the circumstances of the distemper. This, indeed, was one of the most charitable and judicious things that could be done at that time; for this drove the people from haunting the doors of every disperser of bills, and from taking down blindly and without consideration, poison for physic, and death instead of life.

This direction of the physicians was done by a consultation of the whole college; and as it was particularly calculated for the use of the poor, and for cheap medicines, it was made public, so that everybody might see it, and copies were given gratis to all that desired it. But as it is public and to be seen on all occasions, I need not give the reader of this the trouble of it.

It remains to be mentioned now what public measures were taken by the magistrates for the general safety and to prevent the spreading of the distemper when it broke out. I shall have frequent occasion to speak of the prudence of the magistrates, their charity, their vigilance for the poor and for preserving good order, furnishing provisions, and the like, when the plague was increased as it afterwards was. But I am now upon the order and regulations which they published for the government of infected families.

I mentioned above shutting of houses up, and it is needful to say something particularly to that; for this part of the history of the plague is very melancholy. But the most grievous story must be told.

About June, the lord mayor of London, and the court of aldermen, as I have said, began more particularly to concern themselves for the regulation of the city.

The justices of the peace for Middlesex,[77] by direction of the secretary of state, had begun to shut up houses in the parishes of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, St. Martin's, St. Clement's-Danes, etc., and it was with good success; for in several streets where the plague broke out, upon strict guarding the houses that were infected, and taking care to bury those that died as soon as they were known to be dead, the plague ceased in those streets. It was also observed that the plague decreased sooner in those parishes after they had been visited to the full than it did in the parishes of Bishopsgate, Shoreditch, Aldgate, Whitechapel, Stepney, and others; the early care taken in that manner being a great means to the putting a check to it.

This shutting up of the houses was a method first taken, as I understand, in the plague which happened in 1603, at the coming of King James I. to the crown; and the power of shutting people up in their own houses was granted by act of Parliament, entitled "An Act for the Charitable Relief and Ordering of Persons Infected with Plague." On which act of Parliament the lord mayor and aldermen of the city of London founded the order they made at this time, and which took place the 1st of July, 1665, when the numbers of infected within the city were but few; the last bill for the ninety-two parishes being but four, and some houses having been shut up in the city, and some people being removed to the pesthouse beyond Bunhill Fields, in the way to Islington. I say by these means, when there died near one thousand a week in the whole, the number in the city was but twenty-eight; and the city was preserved more healthy, in proportion, than any other place all the time of the infection.

These orders of my lord mayor's were published, as I have said, the latter end of June, and took place from the 1st of July, and were as follow: viz.,--

ORDERS CONCEIVED AND PUBLISHED BY THE LORD MAYOR AND ALDERMEN OF
THE CITY OF LONDON, CONCERNING THE INFECTION OF THE PLAGUE; 1665.

Whereas in the reign of our late sovereign King James, of happy
memory, an act was made for the charitable relief and ordering of
persons infected with the plague; whereby authority was given to
justices of the peace, mayors, bailiffs, and other head officers,
to appoint within their several limits examiners, searchers,
watchmen, keepers, and buriers, for the persons and places
infected, and to minister unto them oaths for the performance of
their offices; and the same statute did also authorize the giving
of their directions as unto them for other present necessity should
seem good in their discretions: it is now, upon special
consideration, thought very expedient, for preventing and avoiding
of infection of sickness (if it shall please Almighty God), that
these officers following be appointed, and these orders hereafter
duly observed.

_Examiners to be appointed to every Parish._

First, it is thought requisite, and so ordered, that in every
parish there be one, two, or more persons of good sort and credit
chosen by the alderman, his deputy, and common council of every
ward, by the name of examiners, to continue in that office for the
space of two months at least: and if any fit person so appointed
shall refuse to undertake the same, the said parties so refusing to
be committed to prison until they shall conform themselves
accordingly.

_The Examiner's Office._

That these examiners be sworn by the aldermen to inquire and learn
from time to time what houses in every parish be visited, and what
persons be sick, and of what diseases, as near as they can inform
themselves, and, upon doubt in that case, to command restraint of
access until it appear what the disease shall prove; and if they
find any person sick of the infection, to give order to the
constable that the house be shut up; and, if the constable shall be
found remiss and negligent, to give notice thereof to the alderman
of the ward.

_Watchmen._

That to every infected house there be appointed two watchmen,--one
for every day, and the other for the night; and that these watchmen
have a special care that no person go in or out of such infected
houses whereof they have the charge, upon pain of severe
punishment. And the said watchmen to do such further offices as the
sick house shall need and require; and if the watchman be sent upon
any business, to lock up the house and take the key with him; and
the watchman by day to attend until ten o'clock at night, and the
watchman by night until six in the morning.

_Searchers._

That there be a special care to appoint women searchers in every
parish, such as are of honest reputation and of the best sort as
can be got in this kind; and these to be sworn to make due search
and true report, to the utmost of their knowledge, whether the
persons whose bodies they are appointed to search do die of the
infection, or of what other diseases, as near as they can. And that
the physicians who shall be appointed for the cure and prevention
of the infection do call before them the said searchers, who are or
shall be appointed for the several parishes under their respective
cares, to the end they may consider whether they be fitly qualified
for that employment, and charge them from time to time, as they
shall see cause, if they appear defective in their duties.

That no searcher during this time of visitation be permitted to use
any public work or employment, or keep a shop or stall, or be
employed as a laundress, or in any other common employment
whatsoever.

_Chirurgeons._[78]

For better assistance of the searchers, forasmuch as there has been
heretofore great abuse in misreporting the disease, to the further
spreading of the infection, it is therefore ordered that there be
chosen and appointed able and discreet chirurgeons besides those
that do already belong to the pesthouse, amongst whom the city and
liberties to be quartered as they lie most apt and convenient; and
every of these to have one quarter for his limit. And the said
chirurgeons in every of their limits to join with the searchers for
the view of the body, to the end there may be a true report made of
the disease.

And further: that the said chirurgeons shall visit and search such
like persons as shall either send for them, or be named and
directed unto them by the examiners of every parish, and inform
themselves of the disease of the said parties.

And forasmuch as the said chirurgeons are to be sequestered from
all other cures,[79] and kept only to this disease of the
infection, it is ordered that every of the said chirurgeons shall
have twelvepence a body searched by them, to be paid out of the
goods of the party searched, if he be able, or otherwise by the
parish.

_Nurse Keepers._

If any nurse keeper shall remove herself out of any infected house
before twenty-eight days after the decease of any person dying of
the infection, the house to which the said nurse keeper doth so
remove herself shall be shut up until the said twenty-eight days
shall be expired.

ORDERS CONCERNING INFECTED HOUSES, AND PERSONS SICK OF THE PLAGUE.

_Notice to be given of the Sickness._

The master of every house, as soon as any one in his house
complaineth either of botch, or purple, or swelling in any part of
his body, or falleth otherwise dangerously sick without apparent
cause of some other disease, shall give notice thereof to the
examiner of health, within two hours after the said sign shall
appear.

_Sequestration of the Sick._

As soon as any man shall be found by this examiner, chirurgeon, or
searcher, to be sick of the plague, he shall the same night be
sequestered in the same house; and in case he be so sequestered,
then, though he die not, the house wherein he sickened shall be
shut up for a month after the use of the due preservatives taken by
the rest.

_Airing the Stuff._

For sequestration of the goods and stuff of the infection, their
bedding and apparel, and hangings of chambers, must be well aired
with fire, and such perfumes as are requisite, within the infected
house, before they be taken again to use. This to be done by the
appointment of the examiner.

_Shutting up of the House._

If any person shall visit any man known to be infected of the
plague, or entereth willingly into any known infected house, being
not allowed, the house wherein he inhabiteth shall be shut up for
certain days by the examiner's direction.

_None to be removed out of Infected Houses, but, etc._

Item, That none be removed out of the house where he falleth sick
of the infection into any other house in the city (except it be to
the pesthouse or a tent, or unto some such house which the owner of
the said house holdeth in his own hands, and occupieth by his own
servants), and so as security be given to the said parish whither
such remove is made, that the attendance and charge about the said
visited persons shall be observed and charged in all the
particularities before expressed, without any cost of that parish
to which any such remove shall happen to be made, and this remove
to be done by night. And it shall be lawful to any person that hath
two houses to remove either his sound or his infected people to his
spare house at his choice, so as, if he send away first his sound,
he do not after send thither the sick; nor again unto the sick, the
sound; and that the same which he sendeth be for one week at the
least shut up, and secluded from company, for the fear of some
infection at first not appearing.

_Burial of the Dead._

That the burial of the dead by this visitation be at most
convenient hours, always before sunrising, or after sunsetting,
with the privity[80] of the churchwardens, or constable, and not
otherwise; and that no neighbors nor friends be suffered to
accompany the corpse to church, or to enter the house visited, upon
pain of having his house shut up, or be imprisoned.

And that no corpse dying of the infection shall be buried, or
remain in any church, in time of common prayer, sermon, or lecture.
And that no children be suffered, at time of burial of any corpse,
in any church, churchyard, or burying place, to come near the
corpse, coffin, or grave; and that all graves shall be at least six
feet deep.

And further, all public assemblies at other burials are to be
forborne during the continuance of this visitation.

_No Infected Stuff to be uttered._[81]

That no clothes, stuff, bedding, or garments, be suffered to be
carried or conveyed out of any infected houses, and that the criers
and carriers abroad of bedding or old apparel to be sold or pawned
be utterly prohibited and restrained, and no brokers of bedding or
old apparel be permitted to make any public show, or hang forth on
their stalls, shop boards, or windows towards any street, lane,
common way, or passage, any old bedding or apparel to be sold, upon
pain of imprisonment. And if any broker or other person shall buy
any bedding, apparel, or other stuff out of any infected house,
within two months after the infection hath been there, his house
shall be shut up as infected, and so shall continue shut up twenty
days at the least.

_No Person to be conveyed out of any Infected House._

If any person visited[82] do fortune,[83] by negligent looking
unto, or by any other means, to come or be conveyed from a place
infected to any other place, the parish from whence such party hath
come, or been conveyed, upon notice thereof given, shall, at their
charge, cause the said party so visited and escaped to be carried
and brought back again by night; and the parties in this case
offending to be punished at the direction of the alderman of the
ward, and the house of the receiver of such visited person to be
shut up for twenty days.

_Every Visited House to be marked._

That every house visited be marked with a red cross of a foot long,
in the middle of the door, evident to be seen, and with these usual
printed words, that is to say, "Lord have mercy upon us," to be set
close over the same cross, there to continue until lawful opening
of the same house.

_Every Visited House to be watched._

That the constables see every house shut up, and to be attended
with watchmen, which may keep in, and minister necessaries to them
at their own charges, if they be able, or at the common charge if
they be unable. The shutting up to be for the space of four weeks
after all be whole.

That precise order be taken that the searchers, chirurgeons,
keepers, and buriers, are not to pass the streets without holding a
red rod or wand of three foot in length in their hands, open and
evident to be seen; and are not to go into any other house than
into their own, or into that whereunto they are directed or sent
for, but to forbear and abstain from company, especially when they
have been lately used[84] in any such business or attendance.

_Inmates._

That where several inmates are in one and the same house, and any
person in that house happens to be infected, no other person or
family of such house shall be suffered to remove him or themselves
without a certificate from the examiners of the health of that
parish; or, in default thereof, the house whither she or they
remove shall be shut up as is in case of visitation.

_Hackney Coaches._

That care be taken of hackney coachmen, that they may not, as some
of them have been observed to do after carrying of infected persons
to the pesthouse and other places, be admitted to common use till
their coaches be well aired, and have stood unemployed by the space
of five or six days after such service.

ORDERS FOR CLEANSING AND KEEPING OF THE STREETS SWEPT.

_The Streets to be kept Clean._

First, it is thought necessary, and so ordered, that every
householder do cause the street to be daily prepared before his
door, and so to keep it clean swept all the week long.

_That Rakers take it from out the Houses._

That the sweeping and filth of houses be daily carried away by the
rakers, and that the raker shall give notice of his coming by the
blowing of a horn, as hitherto hath been done.

_Laystalls_[85] _to be made far off from the City._

That the laystalls be removed as far as may be out of the city and
common passages, and that no nightman or other be suffered to empty
a vault into any vault or garden near about the city.

_Care to be had of Unwholesome Fish or Flesh, and of Musty Corn._

That special care be taken that no stinking fish, or unwholesome
flesh, or musty corn, or other corrupt fruits, of what sort soever,
be suffered to be sold about the city or any part of the same.

That the brewers and tippling-houses be looked unto for musty and
unwholesome casks.

That no hogs, dogs, or cats, or tame pigeons, or conies, be
suffered to be kept within any part of the city, or any swine to be
or stray in the streets or lanes, but that such swine be impounded
by the beadle[86] or any other officer, and the owner punished
according to the act of common council; and that the dogs be killed
by the dog killers appointed for that purpose.

ORDERS CONCERNING LOOSE PERSONS AND IDLE ASSEMBLIES.

_Beggars._

Forasmuch as nothing is more complained of than the multitude of
rogues and wandering beggars that swarm about in every place about
the city, being a great cause of the spreading of the infection,
and will not be avoided[87] notwithstanding any orders that have
been given to the contrary: it is therefore now ordered that such
constables, and others whom this matter may any way concern, take
special care that no wandering beggars be suffered in the streets
of this city, in any fashion or manner whatsoever, upon the penalty
provided by law to be duly and severely executed upon them.

_Plays._

That all plays, bear baitings,[88] games, singing of ballads,
buckler play,[89] or such like causes of assemblies of people, be
utterly prohibited, and the parties offending severely punished by
every alderman in his ward.

_Feasting prohibited._

That all public feasting, and particularly by the companies[90] of
this city, and dinners in taverns, alehouses, and other places of
public entertainment, be forborne till further order and allowance,
and that the money thereby spared be preserved, and employed for
the benefit and relief of the poor visited with the infection.

_Tippling-Houses._

That disorderly tippling in taverns, alehouses, coffeehouses, and
cellars, be severely looked unto as the common sin of the time, and
greatest occasion of dispersing the plague. And that no company or
person be suffered to remain or come into any tavern, alehouse, or
coffeehouse, to drink, after nine of the clock in the evening,
according to the ancient law and custom of this city, upon the
penalties ordained by law.

And for the better execution of these orders, and such other rules
and directions as upon further consideration shall be found
needful, it is ordered and enjoined that the aldermen, deputies,
and common councilmen shall meet together weekly, once, twice,
thrice, or oftener, as cause shall require, at some one general
place accustomed in their respective wards, being clear from
infection of the plague, to consult how the said orders may be put
in execution, not intending that any dwelling in or near places
infected shall come to the said meeting while their coming may be
doubtful. And the said aldermen, deputies, and common councilmen,
in their several wards, may put in execution any other orders that
by them, at their said meetings, shall be conceived and devised for
the preservation of his Majesty's subjects from the infection.

Sir JOHN LAWRENCE, Lord Mayor.
Sir GEORGE WATERMAN, }
Sir CHARLES DOE, } Sheriffs.

I need not say that these orders extended only to such places as were within the lord mayor's jurisdiction: so it is requisite to observe that the justices of peace within those parishes and places as were called the "hamlets" and "outparts" took the same method. As I remember, the orders for shutting up of houses did not take place so soon on our side, because, as I said before, the plague did not reach to this eastern part of the town at least, nor begin to be violent till the beginning of August. For example, the whole bill from the 11th to the 18th of July was 1,761, yet there died but 71 of the plague in all those parishes we call the Tower Hamlets; and they were as follows:--

Aldgate, 14 { 34 { 65
Stepney, 33 The next { 58 To { 76
Whitechapel, 21 week was { 48 Aug. 1 { 79
St. Kath. Tower.[91] 2 thus: { 4 thus: { 4
Trin. Minories,[92] 1 { 1 { 4
-- --- ---
71 145 228

It was indeed coming on amain, for the burials that same week were, in the next adjoining parishes, thus:--

St. L.[93] Shoreditch 64 The next week { 84 To { 110
St. Bot.[94] Bishopsg. 65 prodigiously { 105 Aug. 1 { 116
St. Giles's Crippl.[95] 213 increased, as { 431 thus: { 554
--- --- ---
342 620 780

This shutting up of houses was at first counted a very cruel and unchristian method, and the poor people so confined made bitter lamentations. Complaints of the severity of it were also daily brought to my lord mayor, of houses causelessly, and some maliciously, shut up. I cannot say but upon inquiry many that complained so loudly were found in a condition to be continued; and others again, inspection being made upon the sick person, and the sickness not appearing infectious, or, if uncertain, yet, on his being content to be carried to the pesthouse, was[96] released.

As I went along Houndsditch one morning, about eight o'clock, there was a great noise. It is true, indeed, there was not much crowd, because the people were not very free to gather together, or to stay long together when they were there, nor did I stay long there; but the outcry was loud enough to prompt my curiosity, and I called to one, who looked out of a window, and asked what was the matter.

A watchman, it seems, had been employed to keep his post at the door of a house which was infected, or said to be infected, and was shut up. He had been there all night, for two nights together, as he told his story, and the day watchman had been there one day, and was now come to relieve him. All this while no noise had been heard in the house, no light had been seen, they called for nothing, sent him of no errands (which used to be the chief business of the watchmen), neither had they given him any disturbance, as he said, from Monday afternoon, when he heard a great crying and screaming in the house, which, as he supposed, was occasioned by some of the family dying just at that time. It seems the night before, the "dead cart," as it was called, had been stopped there, and a servant maid had been brought down to the door dead; and the "buriers" or "bearers," as they were called, put her into the cart, wrapped only in a green rug, and carried her away.