 Section 19 of A Journal from the Plague Gear, by Daniel Defoe. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Dennis Sayers. Section 19 But the magistrates wisely caused the people to be encouraged, made very good bylaws for the regulating of the citizens, keeping good order in the streets, and making everything as eligible as possible to all sorts of people. In the first place, the Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs, the Court of Aldermen, and a certain number of the common councilmen, or their deputies, came to a resolution and published it, vis that they would not quit the city themselves, but that they would be always at hand for the preserving good order in every place and for the doing justice on all occasions, as also for the distributing the public charity to the poor, and, in a word, for the doing the duty and discharging the trust reposed in them by the citizens to the utmost of their power. In pursuance of these orders, the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, etc., held councils every day, more or less, for making such dispositions as they found needful for preserving the civil peace, and though they used people with all possible gentleness and clemency, yet all manner of presumptuous rogues, such as thieves, housebreakers, plunderers of the dead or of the sick, were duly punished, and several declarations were continually published by the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen against such. Also, all constables and church wardens were enjoined to stay in the city upon severe penalties, or to depute such able and sufficient housekeepers as the deputy Aldermen, or common councilmen of the precinct, should approve, and for whom they should give security, and also security in case of mortality, that they would forthwith constitute other constables in their stead. These things re-established the minds of the people very much, especially in the first of their fright, when they talked of making so universal a flight that the city would have been in danger of being entirely deserted of its inhabitants except the poor, and the country of being plundered and laid waste by the multitude. Nor were the magistrates deficient in performing their part as bodily as they promised it, for my Lord Mayor and the sheriffs were continually in the streets and at places of the greatest danger, and though they did not care for having too great a resort of people crowding about them, yet in emergent cases they never denied the people access to them and heard with patience all their grievances and complaints. My Lord Mayor had a low gallery built on purpose in his hall where he stood a little removed from the crowd when any complaint came to be heard, that he might appear with as much safety as possible. Likewise the proper officers, called my Lord Mayor's officers, constantly attended in their turns as they were in waiting, and if any of them were sick or infected, as some of them were, others were instantly employed to fill up and officiate in their places till it was known whether the others should live or die. In like manner the sheriffs and aldermen did in their several stations and wards where they were placed by office, and the sheriffs, officers, or sergeants, were appointed to receive orders from the respective aldermen in their turn so that justice was executed in all cases without interruption. In the next place it was one of their particular cares to see the orders for the freedom of the markets observed, and in this part either the Lord Mayor or one or both of the sheriffs were every market day on horseback to see their orders executed and to see that the country people had all possible encouragement and freedom in their coming to the markets and going back again, and that no nuisances or frightful objects should be seen in the streets to terrify them or make them unwilling to come. Also the bakers were taken under particular order, and the master of the baker's company was, with his court of assistance, directed to see the order of my mayor for their regulation put in execution, and the due size of bread which was weakly appointed by my Lord Mayor observed, and all the bakers were obliged to keep their oven going constantly on pain of losing the privileges of a free man of the City of London. By this means bread was always to be had in plenty and as cheap as usual, as I said above, and provisions were never wanting in the markets, even to such a degree that I often wondered at it and reproached myself with being so temerous and cautious in stirring abroad when the country people came freely and boldly to market as if there had been no manner of infection in the city or danger of catching it. It was indeed one admirable piece of conduct in the said magistrates that the streets were kept constantly clear and free from all manner of frightful objects. Dead bodies or any such things as were indecent or unpleasant, unless where anybody fell down suddenly or died in the streets, as I have said above, and these were generally covered with some cloth or blanket or removed into the next churchyard till night. All the needful works that carried terror with them that were both dismal and dangerous were done in the night. If any diseased bodies were removed or dead bodies buried or infected clothes burnt, it was done in the night. And all the bodies which were thrown into the great pits in these several churchyards or burying grounds, as has been observed, were so removed in the night and everything was covered and closed before day so that in the daytime there was not the least signal of the calamity to be seen or heard of except what was to be observed from the emptiness of the streets and sometimes from the passionate outcries and lamentations of the people out at their windows and from the numbers of houses and shops shut up. Nor was the silence and emptiness of the streets so much in the city as in the outparts, except just at one particular time when, as I have mentioned, the plague came east and spread over all the city. It was indeed a merciful disposition of God that as the plague began at one end of the town first, as has been observed at large, so it proceeded progressively to other parts and did not come on this way, or eastward, till it had spent its fury in the west part of the town. And so as it came on one way it abated another. For example, it began at St. Giles in the Westminster end of the town and it was in its height in all that part by about the middle of July. Viz in St. Giles in the fields, St. Andrews, Halburn, St. Clement Danes, St. Martin in the fields, and in Westminster. The latter end of July it decreased in those parishes and, coming east, it increased, prodigiously, in Cripplegate, St. Sepulchres, St. James, Clarkinwell, and St. Brides and Aldersgate. While it was in all these parishes, the city and all the parishes of the south work side of the water and All-Stepney, Whitechapel, Allgate, Wapping, and Radcliffe were very little touched, so that people went about their business unconcerned, carried on their trades, kept open their shops, and conversed freely with one another in all the city, the east and northeast suburbs, and in Southwick, almost as if the plague had not been among us. Even when the north and northwest suburbs were fully infected, Viz Cripplegate, Clarkinwell, Bishopsgate, and Shortich, yet all the rest were tolerably well. For example, from 25th July to 1st August, the bill stood thus of all diseases, St. Giles Cripplegate, 554, St. Sepulchres, 250, Clarkinwell, 103, Bishopsgate, 116, Shortich, 110, Stepney Parish, 127, Aldgate, 92, Whitechapel, 104, All the 97 parishes within the walls, 228, All the parishes in Southwick, 205, Totaline, 1,889. So that, in short, there died more that week in the two parishes of Cripplegate and St. Sepulchres, by 48, then all the city, all the east suburbs, and all the Southwick parishes put together. This caused the reputation of the city's health to continue all over England, and especially in the counties and markets adjacent. From whence our supply of provisions chiefly came, even much longer than that health itself continued. For when the people came into the streets from the country by Shortich and Bishopsgate, or by Old Street and Smithfield, they would see the out streets empty and the houses and shops shut, and the few people that were stirring there walk in the middle of the streets. But when they came within the city, there things looked better, and the markets and shops were open, and the people walking about the streets as usual, though not quite so many, and this continued till the latter end of August and the beginning of September. But then the case altered quite. The distemper abated in the west, and northwest parishes, and the weight of the infection lay on the city and the eastern suburbs, and the Southwick side, and this in a frightful manner. Then indeed the city began to look dismal, shops to be shut, and the streets desolate. In the high street, indeed, necessity made people stir abroad on many occasions, and there would be in the middle of the day a pretty many people. But in the mornings and evenings, scarce any to be seen even there. No, not in Cornhill and Cheepside. These observations of mine were abundantly confirmed by the weekly bills of mortality for those weeks, an abstract of which, as they respect the parishes, which I have mentioned, and as they make the calculations, I speak of very evident, take as follows. The weekly bill which makes out this decrease of the burials in the west and north side of the city stands thus. St. Giles, Cripplegate, 456. St. Giles in the fields, 140. Clerkenwell, 77. St. Sepeckers, 214. St. Leonard, Shortitch, 183. Stepney Parish, 716. Aldgate, 629. Whitechapel, 532. In the 97 parishes within the walls, 1493 in the eight parishes on the southwork side, 1636, totaling 6076. Here is a strange change of things indeed, and a sad change it was, and had it held for two months more than it did, very few people would have been left alive. But then such, I say, was the merciful disposition of God that when it was thus the west and north part, which had been so dreadfully visited at first, grew, as you see, much better. And as the people disappeared here, they began to look abroad again there, and the next week or two altered it still more, that is, more to the encouragement of the other part of town. For example, September 19th through 26th. St. Giles, Cripplegate, 277. St. Giles in the field, 119. Clarkinwell, 76. St. Sepeckers, 193. St. Leonard, Shortitch, 146. Stepney Parish, 616. Aldgate, 496. Whitechapel, 346. In the 97 parishes within the walls, 1268. In the eight parishes on Southwick side, 1390. Totaling 4927. September 26th through October 3rd. St. Giles, Cripplegate, 196. St. Giles in the fields, 95. Clarkinwell, 48. St. Sepeckers, 137. St. Leonard, Shortitch, 128. Stepney Parish, 674. Aldgate, 372. Whitechapel, 328. In the 97 parishes within the walls, 1149. In the eight parishes on the Southwick side, 4328. And now the misery of the city, and of the said east and south parts, was complete. Indeed, for as you see, the weight of the distemper lay upon those parts, that is to say, the city. The eight parishes over the river, and with the parishes of Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Stepney. And this was the time that the bills came up to such a monstrous height, as that I mentioned before. And that eight or nine, and as I believe, ten or twelve thousand, a week died. For it is my settled opinion that they never could come at any just account of the numbers for the reasons which I have given already. Nay, one of the most imminent physicians, who has since published in Latin an account of those times, and of his observations, says that in one week there died twelve thousand people, and that, particularly, there died four thousand in one night. Though I do not remember that there ever was any such particular night, so remarkably fatal, as that such a number died in it. However, all this confirms what I have said above, of the uncertainty of the bills of mortality, etc., of which I shall say more hereafter. And here let me take leave to enter again, though it may seem a repetition of circumstances, into a description of the miserable condition of the city itself, and of those parts where I lived at this particular time. The city and those other parts, notwithstanding the great numbers of people that were gone into the country, was vastly full of people, and perhaps the fuller because people had for a long time a strong belief that the plague would not come into the city, nor into south work. No, nor into whopping, or Radcliffe at all. Nay, such was the assurance of the people on that head that many removed from the suburbs on the west and north sides into those eastern and south sides as for safety, and, as I verily believe, carried the plague amongst them there, perhaps sooner than they would otherwise have had it. Here, also, I ought to leave a further remark for the use of posterity concerning the manner of peoples infecting one another, namely that it was not the sick people only from whom the plague was immediately received by others that were sound, but the well. To explain myself, by the sick people, I mean those who were known to be sick, had taken their beds, had been under cure, or had swellings or tumors upon them, and the like. These everybody could beware of. They were either in their beds or in such condition as could not be concealed by the well. I mean such as had received the contagion, and had it really upon them and in their blood, yet did not show the consequences of it in their countenances. Nay, even were not sensible of it themselves, as many were not for several days. These breathed death in every place, and upon everybody who came near them. Nay, their very clothes retained the infection. Their hands would infect the things they touched, especially if they were warm and sweaty, and they were generally apt to sweat, too. Now, it was impossible to know these people, nor did they sometimes, as I have said, know themselves to be infected. These were the people that so often dropped down and fainted in the streets, for often times they would go about the streets to the last, till, on a sudden, they would sweat, grow faint, sit down at a door, and die. It is true, finding themselves thus, they would struggle hard to get home to their own doors, or at other times would be just able to go into their houses, and die instantly. Other times they would go about till they had the very tokens come out upon them, and yet not know it, and would die in an hour or two after they came home. But be well as long as they were abroad. These were the dangerous people. These were the people of whom the well people ought to have been afraid. But then, on the other side, it was impossible to know them. And this is the reason why it is impossible, in a visitation, to prevent the spreading of the plague by the utmost human vigilance, vis that it is impossible to know the infected people from the sound, or that the infected people should perfectly know themselves. I knew a man who conversed freely in London all the season of the plague in 1665, and kept about him an antidote or cordial on purpose, to take when he thought himself in any danger. And he had such a rule to know, or have warning of the danger by, as indeed I never met with before or since. How far it may be depended on, I know not. He had a wound in his leg, and whenever he came among any people that were not sound and the infection began to affect him, he said he could know it by that signal, vis, that the wound in his leg would smart, and look pale and white. So as soon as ever he felt it smart it was time for him to withdraw, or to take care of himself taking his drink, which he always carried about him for that purpose. Now it seems he found his wound would smart many times when he was in company, with such who thought themselves to be sound, and who appeared so to one another, but he would presently rise up and say publicly, friends, here is somebody in the room that has the plague, and so would immediately break up the company. It was indeed a faithful monitor to all people, that the plague is not to be avoided by those that converse promiscuously in a town infected, and people have it when they know it not, and that they likewise give it to others when they know not that they have it themselves. And in this case, shutting up the well or removing the sick will not do it, unless they can go back and shut up all those that the sick had conversed with, even before they knew themselves to be sick, and none knows how far to carry that back, or where to stop, for none knows when, or where, or how they may have received the infection, or from whom. This I take to be the reason which makes so many people talk of the air being corrupted and infected, and that they need not be cautious of whom they converse with, for that the contagion was in the air. I have seen them in strange agitations and surprises on this account. I have never come near any infected body, says the disturbed person. I have conversed with none but sound, healthy people, and yet I have gotten the distemper. I am sure I am struck from heaven, says another, and he falls to the serious part. Again the first goes on exclaiming, I have come near no infection or any infected person. I am sure it is in the air. We draw in death when we breathe, and therefore it is the hand of God. There is nowithstanding it. And this at last made many people, being hardened to the danger, grow less concerned at it, and less cautious towards the latter end of the time, and when it was come to its height, again they were at first. Then with a kind of a Turkish predestinarianism they would say, if it please God to strike them, it was all one whether they went abroad or stayed at home. They could not escape it, and therefore they went boldly about, even into infected houses and infected company, visited sick people, and in short lay in the beds with their wives or relations when they were infected. And what was the consequence? But the same that is the consequence in Turkey, and in those countries where they do those things, namely that they were infected too, and died by hundreds and thousands. And the reverence to his providence, which ought always to be on our minds on such occasions as these. Doubtless the visitation itself is a stroke from heaven upon a city, country, or nation where it falls, a messenger of his vengeance, and a loud call to that nation or country, or city to humiliation and repentance, according to that of the prophet Jeremiah chapter 18 verses 7 and 8. At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. Now, to prompt due impressions of the awe of God on the minds of men on such occasions, and not to lessen them, it is that I have left those minutes upon record. I say, therefore, I reflect upon no man for putting the reason of those things upon the immediate hand of God, and the appointment and direction of his providence. Nay, on the contrary, there were many wonderful deliverances of persons from infection, and deliverances of persons when infected, which intimate singular and remarkable providence, in the particular instances to which they refer. And I esteem my own deliverance to be one next to miraculous, and do record it with thankfulness. But when I am speaking of the plague as a distemper arising from natural causes, we must consider it as it was really propagated by natural means, nor is it at all the less a judgment for its being under the conduct of human causes and defects, for as the divine power has formed the whole scheme of nature, and maintains nature in its course. So the same power thinks fit to let his own actings with men, whether of mercy or judgment, to go on in the ordinary course of natural causes, and he is pleased to act by those natural causes as the ordinary means, accepting and reserving to himself, nevertheless, a power to act in a supernatural way when he sees occasion. Now, it is evident that in the case of an infection there is no apparent extraordinary occasion for supernatural operation, but the ordinary course of things appears sufficiently armed, and made capable of all the effects that heaven usually directs by a contagion. Among these causes and effects this of the secret conveyance of infection, imperceptible and unavoidable, is more than sufficient to execute the fierceness of divine vengeance without putting it upon supernaturals and miracle. The acute penetrating nature of the disease itself was such, and the infection was received so imperceptibly, that the most exact caution could not secure us while in the place. But I must be allowed to believe, and I have so many examples fresh in my memory to convince me of it, that I think none can resist their evidence. I say, I must be allowed to believe that no one in this whole nation ever received the sickness or infection, but who received it in the ordinary way of infection from somebody, or the clothes, or touch, or stench of somebody that was infected before. The manner of its coming first to London proves this also. By-goods brought over from Holland, and brought thither from the Levant, the first breaking of it out in a house in Longacre, where those goods were carried, and first opened. It's spreading from that house to other houses by the visible, unwary conversing with those who were sick, and the infecting the parish officers who were employed about the person's dead, and the like. These are known authorities for this great foundation point, that it went on and proceeded from person to person, and from house to house, and no otherwise. In the first house that was infected there died four persons. A neighbor, hearing the mistress of the first house was sick, went to visit her, and went home and gave the distemper to her family, and died, and all her household. A minister, called to pray with the first sick person in the second house, was said to second immediately, and die with several more in his house. Then the physicians began to consider, for they did not at first dream of a general contagion, but the physicians being sent to inspect the bodies, they assured the people that it was neither more or less than the plague. With all its terrifying particulars, and that it threatened an universal infection, so many people having already conversed with the sick or distempered, and having, as might be supposed, received infection from them, that it would be impossible to put a stop to it. Here the opinion of the physicians agreed with my observations afterwards, namely that the danger was spreading insensibly, for the sick could infect none but those that came within reach of the sick person, but that one man who may have really received the infection and knows it not, but goes abroad and about as a sound person, may give the plague to a thousand people, and they to greater numbers in proportion, and neither the person giving the infection or the persons receiving it know anything of it, and perhaps not feel the effects of it for several days after. For example, many persons in the time of this visitation never perceived that they were infected till they found to their unspeakable surprise the tokens come out upon them, after which they seldom lived six hours. For these spots, they called the tokens, were really gangrene spots, or mortified flesh in small knobs as broad as a little silver penny, and hard as a piece of callus or horn, so that when the disease was come up to that length, there was nothing could follow but certain death, and yet, as I said, they knew nothing of their being infected, nor found themselves so much as out of order till those mortal marks were upon them, but everybody must allow that they were infected in a high degree before, and must have been so some time, and consequently their breath, their sweat, their very clothes, were contagious for many days before. This occasioned a vast variety of cases, which physicians would have much more opportunity to remember than I, but some came within the compass of my observation or hearing, of which I shall name a few. A certain citizen who had lived safe and untouched till the month of September, when the weight of the distemper lay more in the city than it had done before, was mighty cheerful and something too bold, as I think it was, in his talk of how secure he was, how cautious he had been, and how he had never come near any sick body, says another citizen, a neighbor of his, to him one day, Do not be too confident, Mr. Blank. It is hard to say who is sick and who is well, for we see men alive and well to outward appearance one hour and dead the next. That is true, says the first man, for he was not a man presumptuously secure, but had escaped a long while, and men, as I said above, especially in the city, began to be over-easy upon that score. That is true, says he, I do not think myself secure, but I hope I have not been in company with any person that there has been any danger in. No, says his neighbor, was not that you at the Bullhead Tavern in Grace Church Street with Mr. Dash the night before last? Yes, says the first, I was, but there was nobody there that we had any reason to think dangerous. Upon which his neighbor said no more, being unwilling to surprise him. But this made him more inquisitive, and as his neighbor appeared backward, he was the more impatient, and, in a kind of warmth, says he aloud, Why, he is not dead, is he? Upon which his neighbor still was silent, but cast up his eyes and said something to himself, at which the first citizen turned pale, and said no more but this, Then I am a dead man too, and went home immediately, and sent for a neighboring apothecary to give him something preventive, for he had not yet found himself ill. But the apothecary, opening his breast, fetched a sigh, and said no more but this, Look up to God, and the man died in a few hours. Now, let any man judge from a case like this, if it is possible for the regulations of magistrates, either by shutting up the sick or removing them, to stop an infection which spreads itself from man to man, even while they are perfectly well and insensible of its approach, and maybe so for many days. It may be proper to ask here how long it may be supposed men might have the seeds of the contagion in them before it discovered itself in this fatal manner, and how long they might go about, seemingly whole, and yet be contagious to all those that came near them. I believe the most experienced physicians cannot answer this question directly any more than I can, and something an ordinary observer may take notice of which may pass their observations. The opinion of physicians abroad seems to be that it may lie dormant in the spirits, or in the blood vessels, a very considerable time. Why else did they exact a quarantine of those who came into their harbors and ports from suspected places? Forty days is, one would think, too long for nature to struggle with such an enemy as this, and not conquer it or yield to it. But I could not think, by my own observation, that they can be infected, so as to be contagious to others, above fifteen or sixteen days at furthest. And on that score it was that when a house was shut up in the city and anyone had died of the plague, but nobody appeared to be ill in the family for sixteen or eighteen days after, they were not so strict, but that they would connive at their going privately abroad, nor would people be much afraid of them afterward, but rather think they were fortified the better, having not been vulnerable, when the enemy was in their own house. But we sometimes found it had lain much longer concealed. Upon the foot of all these observations I must say, though that though providence seemed to direct my conduct, yet it is my opinion, and I must leave it as a prescription, that the best physics against the plague is to run away from it. I know people encourage themselves by saying God is able to keep us in the midst of danger and able to overtake us when we think ourselves out of danger. And this kept thousands in the town whose carcasses went into the great pits by cartloads, and who, if they had fled from the danger, had, I believe, been safe from the disaster, at least, to his probable, they had been safe. And were this very fundamental only duly considered by the people on any future occasion of this, or the light nature, I am persuaded it would put them upon quite different measures for managing the people from those that they took in 1665, or than any that have been taken abroad that I have heard of. In a word they would consider of separating the people into smaller bodies and removing them in time farther from one another, and not let such a contagion as this, which is indeed chiefly dangerous to collected bodies of people, find a million of people in a body together, as was very near the case before, and would certainly be the case if it should ever appear again. The plague, like a great fire, if a few houses only are contiguous where it happens, can only burn a few houses, or if it begins in a single, or as we call it, a lone house, can only burn that lone house where it begins. But if it begins in a close built town or city and gets ahead, there its fury increases, it rages over the whole place, and consumes all it can reach. I could propose many schemes on the foot of which the government of this city, if ever they should be under the apprehensions of such another enemy, God forbid they should, might ease themselves of the greatest part of the dangerous people that belong to them, I mean, such as the begging, starving, and laboring poor, and among them chiefly those who, in case of a siege, are called the useless mouths, who, being then prudently and to their own advantage disposed of, and the wealthy inhabitants disposing of themselves and of their servants and children, the city and its adjacent parts would be so effectually evacuated that there would not be above a tenth part of its people left together for the disease to take hold upon, but suppose them to be a fifth part, and that two hundred and fifty thousand people were left, and if it did seize upon them, they would, by their living so much at large, be much better prepared to defend themselves against the infection, and be less liable to the effects of it than if the same number of people lived close together in one smaller city such as Dublin, or Amsterdam, or the like. It is true, hundreds, yea, thousands of families fled away at this last plague, but then of them many fled too late, and not only died in their flight, but carried the distemper with them into the countries where they went and infected those whom they went among for safety, which confounded the thing, and made that to be a propagation of the distemper, which was the best means to prevent it, and this too is an evidence of it, and brings me back to what I only hinted at before, but must speak more fully to hear, namely that men went about apparently well many days after they had the taint of the disease and their vitals, and after their spirits were so seized as that they could never escape it, and that all the while they did so, they were dangerous to others. I say, this proves that so it was, for such people infected the very towns they went through, as well as the families they went among, and it was by that means that almost all the great towns in England had the distemper among them more or less, and always they would tell you, such a Londoner or such a Londoner brought it down. It must not be omitted that when I speak of those people who were really thus dangerous, I suppose them to be utterly ignorant of their own conditions, for if they really knew their circumstances to be such as indeed they were, they must have been a kind of willful murderers if they would have gone abroad among healthy people, and it would have verified indeed the suggestion which I mentioned above, and which I thought seemed untrue, viz, that the infected people were utterly careless to giving the infection to others, and rather forward to do it than not, and I believe it was partly from this very thing that they raised that suggestion, which I hope was not really true, in fact. I confess no particular case is sufficient to prove a general, but I could name several people within the knowledge of some of their neighbors and families yet living who showed the contrary to an extreme. One man, a master of a family in my neighborhood, having had the distemper, he thought he had it given him by a poor workman whom he employed, and whom he went to his house to see, and went for some work that he wanted to have finished, and he had some apprehensions even while he was at the poor workman's door, but did not discover it fully, but the next day it discovered itself, and he was taken very in upon which he immediately caused himself to be carried into an outbuilding which he had in his yard, and where there was a chamber over a workhouse, the man being a brazier. Here he lay, and here he died, and would be tended by none of his neighbors, but by a nurse from abroad, and would not suffer his wife, nor children, nor servants to come up into the room, lest they should be infected, but sent them his blessings and prayers for them by the nurse, who spoke it to them at a distance, and all this for fear of giving them a distemper, and without which he knew, as they were kept up, they could not have it. And here I must observe also that the plague, as I suppose all distempers do, operated in a different manner on differing constitutions. Some were immediately overwhelmed with it, and it came to violent fevers, vomiting, insufferable headaches, pains in the back, and so up to ravings and raging with those pains. Others, with swellings and tumors in the neck, or groin, or armpits, which till they could be broke, put them into insufferable agonies and torment. While others, as I have observed, were silently infected, lever praying upon their spirits insensibly, and they seen little of it till they fell into swooning and faintings, and death without pain, I am not physician enough to enter into the particular reasons and manner of these differing effects of one and the same distemper, and of its differing operation in several bodies. Nor is it my business here to record the observations which I really made, because the doctors themselves have done that part much more effectually than I can do, and because my opinion may in some things differ from theirs. I am only relating what I know or have heard or believe of the particular cases, and what fell within the compass of my view and the different nature of infection, as it appeared in the particular cases which I have related. But this may be added to that though the former sort of those cases, namely those openly visited, were the worst for themselves as to pain. I mean those that had such fevers, vomiting, headaches, pains, and swellings, because they died in such a dreadful manner. Yet the latter had the worst state of the disease, for in the former they frequently recovered, especially if these swellings broke. But the latter was inevitable death. No cure, no help could be possible. Nothing could follow but death. And it was worse also to others because, as above, it secretly and unperceived by others or by themselves communicated death to those they conversed with, the penetrating poison insinuating itself into their blood in a manner which is impossible to describe, or indeed conceive. This infecting and being infected without so much as its being known to either person is evident from two sorts of cases, which frequently happened at that time, and there is hardly anybody living who was in London during the infection, but must have known several of the cases of both sorts. One. Fathers and mothers have gone about as if they had been well and have believed themselves to be so, till they have insensibly infected and been the destruction of their whole families, which they would have been far from doing if they had the least apprehensions of their being unsound and dangerous themselves. A family whose story I have heard was thus infected by the father, and the distemper began to appear upon some of them even before he found it upon himself. But searching more narrowly, it appeared he had been affected some time, and as soon as he found that his family had been poisoned by himself, he went distracted and would have laid violent hands upon himself, but was kept from that by those who looked to him, and in a few days died. Two. Another particular is that many people having been well to the best of their own judgment, or by the best observation which they could make of themselves for several days, and only finding a decay of appetite, or a light sickness upon their stomachs. Nay, some whose appetite was quite strong and even craving, and only a light pain in their heads, have sent four physicians to know what ailed them, and have been found, to their great surprise, at the brink of death, the tokens upon them, or the play grown up to an incurable height. It was very sad to reflect how such a person, as this last mentioned above, had been a walking destroyer perhaps for a week or a fortnight before that, how he had ruined those that he would have hazarded his life to save, and had been breathing death upon them, even perhaps in his tender kissing and embracing of his own children. Yet, thus certainly it was, and often has been, and I could give many particular cases where it has been so. If then the blow is thus insensibly striking, if the arrow flies thus unseen, and cannot be discovered, to what purpose are all the schemes for shutting up or removing the sick people? Those schemes cannot take place, but upon those that appear to be sick, or to be infected, whereas there are among them, at the same time, thousands of people who seem to be well, but are all that while carrying death with them into all companies which they come into. This frequently puzzled our physicians, and especially the apothecaries and surgeons, who knew not how to discover the sick from the sound. They all allowed that it was really so, that many people had the plague in their very blood, and preying upon their spirits, and were, in themselves, but walking putrified carcasses whose breath was infectious, and their sweat poison, and yet were as well to look on as other people, and even knew it not themselves. I say they all allowed that it was really true, in fact, but they knew not how to propose a discovery. My friend Dr. Heath was of the opinion that it might be known by the smell of their breath, but then he said, who dursts smell to that breath for his information, since to know it he must draw the stench of the plague up into his own brain, in order to distinguish the smell. I have heard it was the opinion of others that it might be distinguished by the parties breathing upon a piece of glass, where the breath condensing there might living creatures be seen by a microscope of strange, monstrous, and frightful shapes, such as dragons, snakes, serpents, and devils, horrible, to behold. But this I very much question the truth of, and we had no microscopes at that time, as I remember, to make the experiment with. It was the opinion also of another learned man that the breath of such a person would poison and instantly kill a bird, not only a small bird, but even a cock or hen, and that if it did not immediately kill the latter, it would cause them to be rupee, as they called it, particularly that if they had laid any eggs at any time they would be all rotten. But those are opinions which I never found supported by any experiment or heard of others that had seen it. So I leave them as I find them, only with this remark, namely, that I think the probabilities are very strong for them. Some have proposed that such persons should breathe hard upon warm water, and that they would leave an unusual scum upon it, or upon several other things, especially such as are of a glutinous substance and are apt to receive a scum, and supported. But from the whole I found that the nature of this contagion was such that it was impossible to discover it at all, or to prevent its being spread from one to another by any human skill. Here was indeed one difficulty which I could never thoroughly get over to this time, and which there is but one way of answering it that I know of, and it is this. Viz. The first person that died of the plague was on December 20th, or there about 1664, and in or about long acre. Wents, the first person had the infection, was generally said to be from a parcel of silks imported from Holland, and first opened in that house. But after this we heard no more of any person dying of the plague or of the distemper being in that place till the 9th of February, which was about seven weeks after, and then one more was buried out of the same house. Then it was hushed, and we were perfectly easy as to the public for a great while, for there were no more entered in the weekly bill to be dead of the plague till the 22nd of April when there were two more buried, not out of the same house, but out of the same street. And as near as I can remember it was out of the next house to the first. This was nine weeks asunder, and after this we had no more till a fortnight, and then it broke out in several streets and spread every way. Now the question seems to lie thus. Where lay the seeds of the infection all this while? How came it to stop so long, and not stop any longer? Either the distemper did not come immediately by contagion from body to body, or if it did, then a body may be capable to continue infected without the disease discovering itself many days, nay, weeks together. Even not a quarantine of days only, but soisantin, not only forty days, but sixty days, or longer. End of Section 20 Denis Ayers in Budesto, California, for LibriVox. Spring, 2007 Section 21 of A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Section 21 It is true there was, as I observed at first, and is well known to many yet living, a very cold winter, and a long frost, which continued three months. And this, the doctors say, might check the infection. But then the learned must allow me to say that if, according to their notion, the disease was, as I may say, only frozen up, it would like a frozen river have turned to its usual force and current when it thawed, whereas the principal recess of this infection, which was from February to April, was after the frost was broken, and the weather mild and warm. But there is another way of solving all this difficulty, which I think my own remembrance of the thing will supply. And that is, the fact is not granted, namely that there died none in those long intervals, viz, from the 20th of December to the 9th of February, and from thence to the 22nd of April. The weekly bills are the only evidence on the other side, and those bills were not of credit enough, at least with me, to support an hypothesis or determine a question of such importance as this. For it was our received opinion at that time, and I believe upon very good grounds, that the fraud lay in the parish officers, searchers and persons appointed to give account of the dead, and what diseases they died of. And as people were very loath at first to have the neighbors believe their houses were infected, so they gave money to procure, or otherwise procured, the dead persons to be returned as dying of other distempers. And this I know was practiced afterwards in many places. I believe I might say in all places where the distemper came, as will be seen, by the vast increase of the numbers placed in the weekly bills under other articles of diseases during the time of the infection. For example, in the months of July and August, when the plague was coming on to its highest pitch, it was very ordinary to have from a thousand to twelve hundred, nay, to almost fifteen hundred a week of other distempers. Not that the numbers of those distempers were really increased to such a degree, but the great number of families and houses where really the infection was obtained the favor to have their dead be returned of other distempers to prevent the shutting up their houses. For example, dead of other diseases beside the plague, from the eighteenth of July to the twenty-fifth nine hundred and forty-two, from the twenty-fifth of July to the first of August one thousand and four, from the first of August to the eighth one thousand two hundred and thirteen, from the eighth to the fifteenth one thousand four hundred and thirty nine, from the fifteenth to the twenty-second one thousand three hundred and thirty-one, from the twenty-second to the twenty-ninth one thousand three hundred and ninety-four, from the twenty-ninth to the fifth of September one thousand two hundred and sixty four, from the fifth of September to the twelfth one thousand fifty-six, from the twelfth to the nineeenth one thousand one hundred and thirty-two, from the nineteenth to the twenty-sixth, nine hundred and twenty-seven. Now it was not doubted, but the greatest parts of these, or a great part of them, were dead of the plague. But the officers were prevailed with to return them as above, and the numbers of some particular articles of Distemper's discovered, is as follows. From August 1st to the 8th, fever three hundred and fourteen, spotted fever one hundred and seventy-four, surfate eighty-five, teeth ninety, for a total of six hundred and sixty-three. From August 8th to the fifteenth, fever three hundred and fifty-three, spotted fever one hundred and ninety, surfate eighty-seven, teeth one hundred and thirteen, for a total of seven hundred and forty-three. From August fifteenth to the twenty-second, three hundred and forty-eight, fever, spotted fever one hundred and sixty-six, surfate seventy-four, teeth one hundred and eleven, for a total of six hundred and ninety-nine. From August twenty-second to the twenty-ninth, fever three hundred and eighty-three, spotted fever one hundred and sixty-five, surfate ninety-nine, teeth one hundred and thirty-three, for a total of seven hundred and eighty. From August twenty-ninth to September fifth, fever three hundred and sixty-four, spotted fever one hundred and fifty-seven, surfate sixty-eight, teeth one hundred and thirty-eight, for a total of seven hundred and twenty-seven. From September fifth to the twelfth, fever three hundred and thirty-two, spotted fever ninety-seven, surfate forty-five, teeth one hundred and twenty-eight, for a total of six hundred and two. From September twelfth to the nineteenth, fever three hundred and nine, spotted fever one hundred and one, surfate forty-nine, teeth one hundred and twenty-one, for a total of five hundred and eighty. From September nineteenth to the twenty-sixth, fever two hundred and sixty-eight, spotted fever sixty-five, surfate thirty-six, teeth one hundred and twelve, total four hundred and eighty-one. There were several other articles which bore a proportion to these and which it is easy to perceive were increased on the same account as aged, consumptions, vomitines, in postumes, grips and the like, many of which were not doubted to be infected people. But as it was of the utmost consequence to families not to be known to be infected, if it was possible to avoid it, so they took all the measures they could to have it not believed, and if any died in their houses, to get them returned to the examiners and by the searchers as having died of other distempers. This I say will account for the long interval which, as I have said, was between the dying of the first persons that were returned in the bill to be dead of the plague and the time when the distemper spread openly and could not be concealed. Besides, the weekly bills themselves at that time evidently discovered the truth, for while there was no mention of the plague and no increase after it had been mentioned, yet it was apparent that there was an increase of those distempers which bordered nearest upon it. For example, there were eight, twelve, seventeen of the spotted fever in a week when there were none or but very few of the plague, whereas before one, three, or four were the ordinary weekly numbers of that distemper. Likewise as I observed before, the burials increased weekly in that particular parish and the parish is adjacent more than in any other parish, although there were none set down of the plague, all which tells us that the infection was handed on and the succession of the distemper really preserved, though it seemed to us at that time to be ceased and to come again in a manner surprising. It might be also that the infection might remain in other parts of the same parcel of goods which at first it came in and which might not be perhaps opened, or at least not fully, or in the clothes of the first infected person, for I cannot think that anybody could be seized with the contagion in a fatal and mortal degree for nine weeks together and support his state of health so well as even not to discover it to themselves. Yet if it were so, the argument is the stronger in favor of what I am saying, namely that the infection is retained in bodies apparently well and conveyed from them to those they converse with, while it is known to neither the one nor the other. The confusions at that time were upon this very account, and when people began to be convinced that the infection was received in this surprising manner from persons apparently well, they began to be exceeding, shy, and jealous of every one that came near them. Once on a public day, whether a Sabbath day or not, I do not remember, in Aldgate Church, in a pew full of people, on a sudden one fancied she smelt an ill smell. Immediately she fancied the plague was in the pew, whispers her notion or suspicion to the next, then rises and goes out of the pew. It immediately took with the next, and so to them all, and every one of them, and of the two or three adjoining pews, got up and went out of the church, nobody knowing what it was offended them, or from whom. This immediately filled everybody's mouths with one preparation or other, such as the old woman directed, and some perhaps as physicians directed, in order to prevent infection by the breath of others, in so much that, if we came to go into a church, when it was anything full of people, there would be such a mixture of smells at the entrance, that it was much more strong, though perhaps not so wholesome, than if you were going into an apothecaries or dragests shop. In a word, the whole church was like a smelling-bottle. In one corner it was all perfumes, in another aromatics, balsamics, and variety of drugs and herbs, in another salts and spirits, as every one was furnished for their own preservation. Yet I observed that after people were possessed, as I have said, with the belief or rather assurance of the infection being thus carried on by persons apparently in health, the churches and meeting-houses were much thinner of people than at other times before that they used to be. For this is to be said of the people of London, that during the whole time of the pestilence, the churches or meetings were never wholly shut up, nor did the people decline coming out to the public worship of God, except only in some parishes when the violence of the distemper was more particularly in that parish at that time, and even then no longer than it continued to be so. Indeed, nothing was more strange than to see with what courage the people went to the public service of God, even at that time when they were afraid to stir out of their very own houses upon any other occasion, this, I mean, before the time of desperation, which I have mentioned already. This was a proof of the exceeding populistness of the city at the time of the infection, notwithstanding the great numbers that were gone into the country at the first alarm, and that fled out into the forests and woods when they were further terrified with the extraordinary increase of it. For when we came to see the crowds and throngs of people, which appeared on the Sabbath days at the churches, and especially in those parts of the town where the plague was abated, or where it was not yet come to its height, it was amazing. But of this I shall speak again presently. I return, in the meantime, to the article of infecting one another at first, before people came to right notions of the infection and of infecting one another. People were only shy of those that were really sick, a man with a cap on his head, or with clothes round his neck, which was the case of those that had swellings there. Such was indeed frightful. But when we saw a gentleman dressed, with his band on, and his gloves in his hand, his hat upon his head, and his hair combed, of such we had not the least apprehensions, and people conversed a great while freely, especially with their neighbours, and such as they knew. But when the physicians assured us that the danger was as well from the sound that is the seemingly sound as the sick, and that those people who thought themselves entirely free were often times the most fatal, and that it came to be generally understood that people were sensible of it, and of the reason of it, then I say they began to be jealous of everybody, and the vast number of people locked themselves up, so as not to come abroad into any company at all, nor suffer any that had been abroad in promiscuous company to come into their houses, or near them, at least not so near them as to be within the reach of their breath, or of any smell from them. And when they were obliged to converse at a distance with strangers, they would always have preservatives in their mouths, and about their clothes, to repel and keep off the infection. It must be acknowledged that when people began to use these cautions, they were less exposed to danger, and the infection did not break into such houses so furiously as it did into others before, and thousands of families were preserved, speaking with due reserve to the direction of divine providence, by that means. But it was impossible to beat anything into the heads of the poor. They went on with the usual impetuosity of their tempers, full of outcries and lamentations when taken, but madly careless of themselves, foolhardy and obstinate, while they were well. Where they could get employment, they pushed into any kind of business, the most dangerous and most liable to infection, and if they were spoken to, their answer would be, I must trust to God for that. If I am taken, then I am provided for, and there is an end of me, and the like. Or thus, why, what must I do, I can't starve, I had as good have the plague as perish for that, I have no work, what could I do, I must do this or beg. Suppose it was burying the dead, or attending the sick, or watching infected houses, which were all terrible hazards, but their tale was generally the same. It is true, necessity was a very justifiable, warrantable plea, and nothing could be better, but their way of talk was much the same, where the necessities were not the same. This adventurous conduct of the poor was that which brought the plague among them in a most furious manner, and this, joined to the distress of their circumstances when taken, was the reason why they died so by heaps. For I cannot say I could observe one jot of better husbandry among them, I mean the poor laboring poor, while they were all well and getting money, than there was before, but as lavish, as extravagant, and as thoughtless for tomorrow as ever, so that when they came to be taken sick, they were immediately in the utmost distress, as well for want, as for sickness, as well for lack of food, as lack of health. This misery of the poor I had many occasions to be an eyewitness of, and sometimes also, of the charitable assistance that some pious people daily gave to such, sending them relief and supplies both of food, physics, and other help as they found they wanted, and indeed it is a debt of justice due to the temper of the people of that day to take notice here, that not only great sums, very great sums of money were charitably sent to the Lord Mayor and Alderman for the assistance and support of the poor, distempered people, but abundance of private people daily distributed large sums of money for their relief, and sent people all about to inquire into the condition of particular distressed and visited families, and relieved them, nay, some pious ladies were so transported with zeal and so good a work, and so confident in the protection of Providence in discharge of the great duty of charity, that they went about in person distributing alms to the poor, and even visiting poor families, those sick and infected in their very houses, appointing nurses to attend those that wanted attending, and ordering apothecaries and surgeons, the first to supply them with drugs or plasters, and such things as they wanted, and the last to lance and dress the swellings and tumors, where such were wanting, giving their blessing to the poor in substantial relief to them, as well as hearty prayers for them. I will not undertake to say, as some do, that none of those charitable people were suffered to fall under the calamity itself, but this I may say, that I never knew any one of them that miscarried, which I mention for the encouragement of others in case of the like distress, and doubtless if they that give to the poor lend to the Lord, and He will repay them, those that hazard their lives to give to the poor, and to comfort and assist the poor in such a misery as this, may hope to be protected in the work. Nor was this charity so extraordinary, imminent, only in a few, but for I cannot likely quit this point, the charity of the rich, as well in the city and suburbs, as from the country, was so great that, in a word, a prodigious number of people who must otherwise inevitably have perished for want, as well as sickness, were supported and subsisted by it. And though I could never, nor I believe anyone else, come to a full knowledge of what was so contributed, yet I do believe that, as I heard one say, that was a critical observer of that part, there was not only many thousand pounds contributed, but many hundred thousand pounds to the relief of the poor of this distressed, afflicted city. Nay, one man affirmed to me that he could reckon up above one hundred thousand pounds a week, which was distributed by the church wardens at the several parish festries by the Lord Mayor and Alderman in the several wards and precincts, and by the particular direction of the court and of the justices, respectively in the parts where they resided, over and above the private charity distributed by pious bands in the manner I speak of. And this continued for many weeks together. I confess this is a very great sum, but if it be true that there was distributed in the parish of Cripplegate only seventeen thousand eight hundred pounds in one week to the relief of the poor, as I heard reported, and which I really believe was true, the other may not be improbable. It was doubtless to be reckoned among the many signal good providences which attended this great city, and of which there were many other worth recording. I say this was a very remarkable one, that it pleased God thus to move the hearts of the people in all parts of the kingdom so cheerfully to contribute to the relief and support of the poor at London, the good consequences of which were felt many ways, and particularly in preserving the lives and recovering the health of so many thousands, and keeping so many thousands of families from perishing and starving. And now I am talking of the merciful disposition of Providence in this time of calamity. I cannot but mention again, though I have spoken several times of it already on other accounts, I mean that of the progression of the distemper how it began at one end of the town and proceeded gradually and slowly from one part to another, and like a dark cloud that passes over our heads which, as it thickens and overcasts the air at one end, clears up at the other end. So, while the plague went on raging from west to east, as it went forwards east, it abated in the west, by which means those parts of the town which were not seized or who were left, and where it had spent its fury were, as it were, spared to help and assist the other, whereas had the distemper spread itself over the whole city and suburbs at once, raging in all places alike, as it has done since in some places abroad, the whole body of the people must have been overwhelmed, and there would have died twenty thousand a day, as they say there did at Naples, nor would the people have been able to have helped or assisted one another. For it must be observed that where the plague was in its full force, there indeed the people were very miserable, and the consternation was inexpressible, but a little before it reached even to that place, or presently after it was gone, they were quite another sort of people, and I cannot but acknowledge that there was too much of that common temper of mankind to be found among us all at that time, namely, to forget the deliverance when the danger is passed. But I shall come to speak of that part again. This LibriVox recording is in the Public Domain, read by Dennis Sayers. It must not be forgot to take some notice of the state of the trade during the time of this common calamity, and this with respect to the foreign trade, as also to our home trade. As to the foreign trade, there are needs little to be said. The trading nations of Europe were all afraid of us, no port of France, or Holland, or Spain, or Italy, would admit our ships or correspond with us. Indeed, we stood on ill terms with the Dutch, and were in a furious war with them, but though in a bad condition to fight abroad, who had such dreadful enemies to struggle with at home. Our merchants were, accordingly, at a full stop. Their ships could go nowhere, that is to say, to no place abroad. Their manufacturers and merchandise, that is to say, of our growth, would not be touched abroad. They were as much afraid of our goods as they were of our people, and indeed they had reason. For our woolen manufacturers are as retentive of infection as human bodies, and if packed up by persons infected, would receive the infection and be as dangerous to touch as a man would be that was infected. And therefore, when any English vessel arrived in foreign countries, if they did take the goods on shore, they always caused the bales to be opened and aired in places appointed for that purpose. But from London, they would not suffer them to come into port, much less to unlaid their goods, upon any terms whatever, and this strictness was especially used with them in Spain and Italy. In Turkey and the islands of the arches, indeed, as they are called, as well those belonging to the Turks as to the Venetians, they were not so very rigid. In the first there was no obstruction at all, and four ships, which were then in the river loading for Italy, that is for leghorn and naples, being denied product, as they call it, went on to Turkey and were freely admitted to unlaid their cargo without any difficulty, only that when they arrived there some of their cargo was not fit for sale in that country. And other parts of it being consigned to merchants at leghorn, the captains of the ships had no right nor any orders to dispose of the goods, so that great inconveniences followed to the merchants. But this was nothing but what the necessity of affairs required, and the merchants at leghorn and naples, having noticed given them, sent again from Vence to take care of the effects which were particularly consigned to those ports, and to bring back in other ships, such as were improper for the markets at Smyrna and Skanderun. The inconveniences in Spain and Portugal were still greater, for they would by no means suffer our ships, especially those from London, to come into any of their ports, much less to unlaid. There was a report that one of our ships, having by stealth delivered her cargo, among which was some bails of English cloth, cotton, curses, and such like goods. The Spaniards caused all the goods to be burned, and punished the men with death who were concerned in carrying them on shore. This, I believe, was in part true, though I do not affirm it. But it is not at all unlikely, seeing the danger was really very great, the infection being so violent in London. I heard likewise that the plague was carried into those countries by some of our ships, and particularly to the port of Faro in the kingdom of Algarve, belonging to the king of Portugal, and that several persons died of it there. But it was not confirmed. On the other hand, though the Spaniards and Portuguese were so shy of us, it is most certain that the plague, as has been said, keeping at first much at that end of the town next to Westminster, the merchandising part of the town, such as the city and the waterside, was perfectly sound till at least the beginning of July, and the ships in the river till the beginning of August. For to the first of July there had died but seven within the whole city, and but sixty within the Liberties, but one in all the parishes of Stepney, Aldgate, and Whitechapel, and but two in the eight parishes of Southwick. But it was the same thing abroad, for the bad news was gone over to the whole world that the city of London was infected with the plague, and there was no enquiring there how the infection proceeded, or at which part of the town it was begun, or was reached to. Besides, after it began to spread and increased so fast, and the bills grew so high, all on a sudden, that it was to no purpose to lessen the report of it, or endeavour to make the people abroad think it better than it was, the account which the weekly bills gave in was sufficient, and that there died two thousand, two three, or four thousand a week was sufficient to alarm the whole trading part of the world, and, the following time, being so dreadful also in the very city itself, put the whole world, I say, upon their guard against it. You may be sure, also, that the report of these things lost nothing in the carriage. The plague was itself very terrible, and the stress of the people very great, as you may observe of what I have said, but the rumor was infinitely greater, and it must not be wondered that our friends abroad, as my brother's correspondents in particular were told there, namely in Portugal and Italy, where he chiefly traded, said that in London there died twenty thousand in a week, that the dead bodies lay unburied by heaps, that the living were not sufficient to bury the dead, or the sound to look after the sick, that all the kingdom was infected likewise, so that it was an universal malady, such as was never heard of in those parts of the world, and they could hardly believe us when we gave them an account of how things really were, and how there was not above one tenth part of the people dead, that there was five hundred thousand left that lived all the time in the town, that now the people began to walk the streets again, and those who were fled to return, there was no miss of the usual throng of people in the streets, except as every family might miss their relations and neighbors and the like. I say they could not believe these things, and if inquiry were now to be made in Naples, or in other cities on the coast of Italy, they would tell you that there was a dreadful infection in London so many years ago, in which, as above, there died twenty thousand in a week, etc. Just as we have had it reported in London, that there was a plague in the city of Naples in the year sixteen fifty-six, in which there died twenty thousand people in a day, of which I have had very good satisfaction, that it was utterly false. But these extravagant reports were very prejudicial to our trade, as well as unjust and injurious in themselves, for it was a long time after the plague was quite over, before our trade could recover itself in those parts of the world, and the Flemings and Dutch, but especially the last, made very great advantages of it, having all the market to themselves, and even buying our manufactures in several parts of England where the plague was not, and carrying them to Holland and Flanders, and from thence transporting them to Spain and to Italy, as if they had been of their own making. But they were detected sometimes, and punished, that is to say, their goods confiscated, and ships also, for if it was true that our manufactures as well as our people were infected, and that it was dangerous to touch, or to open, and receive the smell of them, then those people ran the hazard by that clandestine trade, not only of carrying the contagion into their own country, but also of infecting the nations to whom they traded with those goods, which, considering how many lives might be lost in consequence of such an action, must be a trade that no men of conscience could suffer themselves to be concerned in. I do not take upon me to say that any harm was done, I mean, of that kind by those people, but I doubt I need not make any such proviso in the case of our own country, for either by our people in London, or by the commerce which made their conversing with all sorts of people in every country, and of every considerable town necessary, I say, by this means the plague was first or last spread all over the kingdom, as well as in London, as in all the cities and great towns, especially in the trading, manufacturing towns and seaports, so that first or last all the considerable places in England were visited more or less, and the kingdom of Ireland in some places, but not so universally. How it fared with the people in Scotland, I had no opportunity to inquire. It is to be observed that while the plague continued so violent in London, the outports, as they are called, enjoyed a very great trade, especially to the adjacent countries and to our own plantations. For example, the towns of Colchester, Yarmouth, and Hun, on that side of England, exported to Holland and Hamburg the manufacturers of the adjacent countries for several months after the trade with London was, as it were, entirely shut up. Likewise, the cities of Bristol and Exeter, with the port of Plymouth, had the like advantage to Spain, to the Canaries, to Guinea, and to the West Indies, and particularly to Ireland, but as the plague spread itself every way after it had been in London to such a degree as it was in August and September, so all or most of these cities and towns were infected first or last, and then trade was, as it were, under a general embargo, or at a full stop, as I shall observe further when I speak of our home trade. One thing, however, must be observed, that as to ships coming in from abroad, as many, you may be sure, did, some who were out in all parts of the world a considerable while before, and some who, when they went out, knew nothing of an infection, were at least of one so terrible, these came up the river boldly, and delivered their cargoes as they were obliged to do, except just in the two months of August and September, when the weight of the infection lying, as I may say, all below bridge. Nobody durst appear in business for a while. But as this continued, but for a few weeks, the homeward bound ships, especially such whose cargoes were not liable to spoil, came to an anchor for a time short of the pool. Footnote. That part of the river where the ships lie up when they come home is called the pool, and takes in all the river on both sides of the water, from the tower to Cuckold's Point and Limehouse. End of footnote. Or fresh water part of the river, even as low as the river Medway, where several of them ran in, and others lay at the nor and in the hope below Gravesend. So that, by the latter end of October, there was a very great fleet of homeward bound ships to come up, such as the like had not been known for many years. Two particular trades were carried on by water carriage all the while of the infection, and that with little or no interruption very much to the advantage and comfort of the poor distressed people of the city. And those were the coasting trade for corn, and the Newcastle trade for coals. The first of these was particularly carried on by small vessels from the port of Hull, and other places on the Humber, by which great quantities of corn were brought in from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. The other part of this corn trade was from Linn, in Norfolk, and Wells, and Burnham, and from Yarmouth, all in the same county, and the third branch was from the river Medway, and from Milton, Feversham, Margate, and Sandwich, and all the other little places and ports round the coast of Kent, in Essex. There was also a very good trade from the coast of Suffolk with corn, butter, and cheese. These vessels kept a constant course of trade, and without interruption came up to that market known still by the name of Bear Key, where they supplied the city plentifully with corn when land carriage began to fail, and when the people began to be sick of coming from many places in the country. This is also much of it owing to the prudence and conduct of the Lord Mayor, who took such care to keep the masters and seamen from danger when they came up, causing their corn to be bought off at any time they wanted at market, which, however, was very seldom, and causing the corn factors immediately to unlaid and deliver the vessels laden with corn, that they had very little occasion to come out of their ships or vessels, the money being always carried on board to them and put into a pail of vinegar before it was carried. The second trade was that of coals from Newcastle upon time, without which the city would have been greatly distressed. For not in the streets only, but in private houses and families, great quantities of coals were then burnt, even all the summer long, and when the weather was hottest, which was done by the advice of the physicians. Some, indeed, opposed it, and insisted that to keep the houses and rooms hot was a means to propagate the temper, which was a fermentation and heat already in the blood, that it was known to spread an increase in hot weather and abate in cold, and therefore they alleged that all contagious distempers are the worse for heat, because the contagion was nourished and gained strength in hot weather, and was, as it were, propagated in heat. Others said they granted that heat in the climate might propagate infection, as sultry hot weather fills the air with vermin and nourishes innumerable numbers and kinds of venomous creatures which breed in our food, in the plants, and even in our bodies, by the very stench of which infection may be propagated. Also, that heat in the air, or heat of weather, as we ordinarily call it, makes bodies relax and faint, exhausts the spirits, opens the pores, and makes us more apt to receive infection, or any evil influence, be it from noxious pestilential vapors or any other things in the air, but that the heat of fire, and especially of coal fires kept in our houses or near us, had a quite different operation, the heat being not of the same kind, but quick and fierce, tending not to nourish, but to consume and dissipate all those noxious fumes which the other kind of heat, rather, exhaled and stagnated then separated and burnt up. Besides, it was alleged, that the sulfurous and nitrous particles that are often found to be in the coal, with that bituminous substance which burns, are all assisting to clear and purge the air, and render it wholesome and safe to breathe in after the noxious particles, as above, are dispersed and burnt up. The latter opinion prevailed at that time, and as I must confess, I think with good reason, and the experience of the citizens confirmed it, many houses which had constant fires kept in the rooms having never been infected at all, and I must join my experience to it, for I found the keeping good fires kept our rooms sweet and wholesome, and I do verily believe, made our whole family so more than would otherwise have been. But I returned to the coals as a trade. It was with no little difficulty that this trade was kept open, and particularly because, as we were in an open war with the Dutch at that time, the Dutch capers, at first, took a great many of our collier ships, which made the rest cautious, and made them to stay to come in fleets together. But after some time the capers were either afraid to take them, or their masters, the states, were afraid they should, and forbade them, lest the plague should be among them, which made them fairer the better. For the security of those northern traders, the coal ships were ordered by my Lord Mayor not to come up into the pool above a certain number at a time, and ordered lighters and other vessels, such as the woodmongers, that is the wharfkeepers or coal cellars, furnished to go down and take out the coals as low as Deptford and Greenwich, and some farther down others delivered great quantities of coals in particular places where the ships could come to the shore, as at Greenwich, Blackwall, and other places in vast heaps as if to be kept for sale, but were then fetched away after the ships which brought them were gone, so that the seamen had no communication with the rivermen, nor so much as came near one another. Yet all this caution could not, effectually, prevent the distemper getting among the calgery, that is to say among the ships by which a great many seamen died of it, and that which was still worse, was that they carried it down to Ipswich and Yarmouth, to Newcastle upon Tyne, and other places on the coast, where, especially at Newcastle and at Sunderland, it carried off a great number of people. The making of so many fires, as above, did indeed consume an unusual quantity of coals, and that upon one or two stops of the ships coming up, whether by contrary weather or by the interruption of enemies I do not remember, but the price of coals was exceeding dear, even as high as for a childer, but it soon abated when the ships came in, and as afterwards they had a freer passage, the price was very reasonable all the rest of that year. The public fires, which were made on these occasions, as I have calculated it, must necessarily have cost the city about two hundred charters of coal a week, if they had continued, which was indeed a very great quantity, but as it was thought necessary, nothing was spared. However, as some of the physicians cried them down, they were not kept alight above four or five days. The fires ordered were thus, one at the Custom House, one at Billingsgate, one at Queenhuth, and one at the Three Cranes, one in Blackfriars, and one at the Gate of Bridewell, one at the corner of Ledinhall Street and Grace Church, one at the North Gate of the Royal Exchange, one at Guild Hall, and one at Blackwell Hall Gate, one at the Lord Mayor's Door in St. Helens, one at the West entrance into St. Paul's, and one at the entrance into Bow Church. I do not remember whether there was any at the City Gates, but one at the Bridgefoot there was, just by St. Magnus Church. I know some have quarreled, since that, at the experiment, and said that there died the more people because of those fires, but I am persuaded that those that say so offer no evidence to prove it. Neither can I believe it on any account, whatever.