 I am supposing now the plague to be 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 by itself. But as to the affair of health, it is proper to mention it here that, having seen the foolish humor of the people in running after quacks and mont-banks, 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 relief of the poor. I mean the diseased poor, and in particular ordered the College of Physicians 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 physics 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. I shall not be supposed to lessen the authority or capacity of the physicians when I say that the violence of the distemper when it came to its extremity was like the fire the next year. The fire, which consumed what the plague could not touch, defied all the application of remedies. The fire engines were broken, the buckets thrown away, and the power of man was baffled and brought to an end. So the plague defied all medicines, the very physicians were seized with it, with their preservatives in their mouths, and men went about prescribing to others and telling them what to do, till the tokens were upon them, and they dropped down dead, destroyed by that very enemy they directed others to oppose. This was the case of several physicians, even some of them the most imminent, and of several of the most skillful surgeons, abundance of quacks to died, who had the folly to trust to their own medicines, which they must need to be conscious to themselves, were good for nothing, and who rather ought, like other sorts of thieves, to have run away sensible of their guilt from the justice that they could not but expect should punish them as they knew they had deserved. Not that it is any derogation from the labor or application of the physicians to say they fell in the common calamity, nor is it so intended by me. It rather is to their praise that they ventured their lives so far as even to lose them in the service of mankind. They endeavored to do good, and to save the lives of others. But we were not to expect that the physicians could stop God's judgments, or prevent a distemper imminently armed from heaven from executing the errand it was sent about. Doubtless the physicians assisted many by their skill, and by their prudence and applications to the saving of their lives and restoring their health. But it is not lessening their character or their skill to say that they could not cure those that had the tokens upon them, or those who were mortally infected before the physicians were sent for, as was frequently the case. It remains to mention now what public measures were taken by the magistrates for the general safety, and to prevent the spreading of the distemper when it first 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 afterward was. But I am now upon the order and regulations 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 Peace for Middlesex, by direction of the Secretary of State, had begun to shut up houses in the parishes of St. Giles in the Fields, St. Martin, St. Clement Danes, etc. 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 immediately after 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, Shortich, Aldgate, Whitechapel, Stepney, and others. The early care, in that manner, being a great means to the putting a check to it. This shutting up of 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 the 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 infected within the city were but few. The last bill, for the 92 parishes, being but four, and some houses having been shut up in the city and some people being removed to the Pest House beyond Bunhill Fields, in the way to Iceland, I say, by these means when there died near 1,000 a week in the whole, the number in the city was but 28, 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 letter end of June and took place from the 1st of July, and were as follows, viz, orders conceived and published by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London concerning the infection of the plague, 1665. Quote, 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 barriers of 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 other directions, as unto them, for the present necessity, should seem good in their directions. It is now, upon special consideration, thought very expedient for preventing and avoiding of infection of sickness, if it shall so please Almighty God, that these officers, following be appointed, and these orders hereafter duly observed. Examiners to be appointed in 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 and appointed by the Aldermen, his deputy and common counsel of every ward, by the name of examiners, to continue in that office the space of two months at least, and, if any fit person so appointed, shall refuse to undertake the same, the said party 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 persons sick of the infection, to give order to the constable that the house be shut up, and if the constable shall be found remiss or negligent, to give present notice thereof to the Aldermen of the ward. Watchmen. That to every infected house there be appointed to 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 Watchmen be sent upon any business, to lock up the house and take the key away with them, and the Watchmen by day to attend until ten o'clock at night, and the Watchmen 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 they can. And that the physicians who shall be appointed for 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 that they may consider whether they are 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 any shop, or stall, or be employed as a laundress, or in any other common employment whatsoever. Chirurgians. For better assistance of the searchers, for as much as there hath been here to for 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 chirurgians besides those that do already belong to the pest house, amongst whom the city and liberties to be quartered, as the places lie most apt and convenient, and every one of these to have one quarter for his limit. And the said chirurgians 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 chirurgians 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 for as much as the said chirurgians are to be sequestered from all other cures, and kept only to this disease of the infection, it is ordered that every of the said chirurgians shall have twelve pence 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 disease 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 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 anyone in his house complaineth either of blotch or purple, or swelling in any part of his body, or falleth, otherwise dangerously sick, without apparent cause of some other disease, shall give knowledge 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, a virgin or a 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 afterwards die not, the house wherein he sickened, should be shut up for a month, after the use of the due preservatives taken by the rest. Shutting 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 an examiner. Being up of the house. If any person shall have visited any man known to be infected by the plague, or entered willingly into any known infected house being not allowed, the house wherein he inhabiteth shall be shut up for the certain days by the examiner's direction. None to be removed out of infected houses, but, et cetera. 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 pest house, or a tent, or unto some such house, which the owner of the said visited house holdeth in his own hands, and occupieth by his own servants, and so as security be given to the parish, whither such remove is made, that the attendance in 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 not after dither send his sick, nor again unto the sick the sound, and at the same which he sendeth be for one week at the least shut up and secluded from company for fear of some infection at the first not appearing. Burial of the dead. At the burial of the dead by this visitation be at most convenient hours, always either before sun rising or after sun setting, with the privity of the church wardens or constable, and not otherwise, and that no neighbors or 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 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, church yard, or burying place to come near the corpse, coffin or grave, and that all the graves shall be at least six feet deep. And further all public assemblies at other burials are to be foreborn during the continuance of this visitation. No infected stuff to be uttered, 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 pond be utterly prohibited and restrained, and no brokers of bedding or old apparel be permitted to make any outward show or hang forth on their stalls, shopboards 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 due fortune, 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 given thereof, shall at their charge cause the said party so visited and escaped to be carried out 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 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 and minister necessaries unto them at their own charges, if they be able, or at the common charge if they are unable. The shutting up to be for the space of four weeks, after all, be whole. That precise order to be taken, that the searchers, carousans, keepers, and barriers are not to pass the streets, without holding a red rod or wand of three feet in length in their hands, open and evident to be seen, and are not to go into any other house, then into their own, or into that where unto they are directed or sent for. But to forbear and abstain from company, especially when they have been lately used in any such business or attendance. Endmates. 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 health of that parish, or in default thereof, the house, whether he or they so remove, shall be shut up as in the 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 pest house 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, sweet. 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 to be made far off from the city. Let the laystalls be removed as far as may be out of the city in common passages, and that no nightman or other be suffered to empty a vault into any garden near about the city. Care to be taken 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 castes. That no hogs, dogs or cats or tame pigeons or connies 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 beetle or any other officer, and the owner punished according to act of common counsel, and that the dogs be killed by the dog killers appointed for that purpose. Orders concerning loose persons and idle assemblies. Beggars. For as much as nothing is more complained of than the multitude of rogues and wandering beggars that swarm in every place about the city, being a great cause of spreading of the infection, and will not be avoided, notwithstanding any orders that have been given to the contrary. It is therefore now ordered that such constables, and others whom this matter may anyway concern, take special care that no wandering beggars be suffered in the streets of the city, in any fashion or manner whatsoever. Even the penalty provided by the law, to be duly and severely executed upon them, plays, that all plays, bear-baitings, games, singing of ballads, buckler play, or such like causes of assemblies of people, be utterly prohibited, and the party's offending severely punished by every alderman in his ward. Feasting prohibited. That all public feasting, and particularly by the companies of the city, and dinners at taverns, alehouses, and other places of common entertainment, be foreborn 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 upon as the common sin of this 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 o'clock in the evening, according to the ancient law and custom of this city, upon the penalties ordained in that behalf, and for the better execution of these orders in such other rules and directions, as upon further consideration shall be found needful, it is ordered and enjoined that the alderman, 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 duly 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 alderman, and deputies, and common councilmen in their several wards may put in execution any other good orders that by them at their said meetings shall be conceived and devised for preservation of his majesty's subjects from the infection. Signed by Sir John Lawrence, Lord Mayor, Sir George Waterman, Sir Charles Doe, Sheriffs. End of section four, section five, from a journal of the plague year by Daniel Defoe. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by Dennis Sayers. Section five. 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 in 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 these eastern parts of the town at least, nor begin to be very violent till the beginning of August. For example, the whole bill from the eleventh to the eighteenth of July was one thousand seven hundred and sixty-one. Yet there died but seventy-one of the plague in all those parishes we call the tower hamlets, and they were as follows. Aldgate, seventeen. The next week, thirty-four. And to the first of August, sixty-five. Stepney, thirty-three. The next week, fifty-eight. And to the first of August, seventy-six. Whitechapel, twenty-one. The next week, forty-eight. And to August first, seventy-nine. St. Catherine, tower. Two. The next week, four. To the first of August, four. Trinity, Minerals, one. The next week, one. And to the first of August, four. Four. A total of seventy-one. The next week, one hundred and forty-five. And to the first of August, two hundred and twenty-eight. It was indeed coming on, a main, for the burials that same week were in the next adjoining parishes thus. St. Leonard's, shortage. Sixty-four. The next week, prodigiously increased as eighty-four. And to the first of August, a hundred and ten. St. Botos, Bishopsgate, sixty-five. The next week, a hundred and five. The first of August, one hundred and sixteen. St. Giles, Cripplegate, two hundred and thirteen. The next week, four hundred and twenty-one. And to the first of August, five hundred and fifty-four. For a total of three hundred and forty-two. The next week, six hundred and ten. And to the first of August, seven hundred and eighty. This shutting up of houses was at first counted a very cruel and un-Christian 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 contendued, and others again inspection made upon the sick person and the sickness not impairing infectious, or if uncertain, yet on his being content to be carried to the past house were released. It is true that the locking up the doors of people's houses and setting a watchman there night and day to prevent their stirring out, or any coming to them, when perhaps the sound people in the family might have escaped, if they had been removed from the sick, looked very hard and cruel, and many people perished in these miserable confinements, which is reasonable to believe, would not have been distempered if they had had liberty, though the plague was in the house, at which the people were very clamorous and uneasy at first, and several violences were committed and injuries offered to the men who were set to watch the houses so shut up. Also several people broke out by force in many places, as I shall observe by and by, but it was a public good that justified the private mischief, and there was no obtaining the least mitigation by any application to magistrates or government at that time, at least not that I heard of. This put the people upon all manner of stratagem in order, if possible, to get out, and it would fill a little volume to set down the arts used by the people of such houses to shut the eyes of the watchmen who were employed to deceive them and to escape or break out from them, in which frequent scuffles and some mischief happened, of which by itself. As I went along houndstitch one morning about eight o'clock, there was a great noise. It is true indeed, there was not much crowd, because people were not very free to gather together or to stay long together when they were there, nor did I long stay there. But the outcry was loud enough to prompt my curiosity, and I called to one that 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 watchman. Neither had they given him any disturbance, as he said, from the Monday afternoon, when he heard 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 burriers, or bearers, as they were called, put her into the cart, wrapped only in a green rug, and carried her away. The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when he heard that noise, and crying, as above, and nobody answered a great while. But at last one looked out and said, with an angry quick tone, and yet a kind of crying voice, or a voice of one that was crying, what do you want, that you make such a knocking? He answered, I am the watchman, how do you do? What is the matter? The person answered, what is that to you? Stop the dead cart. This, it seems, was about one o'clock. Soon after, as the fellow said, he stopped the dead cart, and then knocked again. But nobody answered. He continued knocking, and the bellman called out several times, bring out your dead. But nobody answered. Till the man that drove the cart, being called to other houses, would stay no longer, and drove away. The watchman knew not what to make of all this, so he let them alone till the morning man, or day watchman, as they called him, came to relieve him. Giving him an account of the particulars, they knocked at the door a great while. But nobody answered, and they observed that the window, or casement at which the person had looked out, who had answered before, continued open, being up two pair of stairs. Upon this, the two men, to satisfy their curiosity, got a long ladder, and one of them went up to the window and looked into the room, where he saw a woman lying dead upon the floor in a dismal manner, having no clothes on her but her shift. But though he called aloud, and putting in his long staff, knocked hard on the floor, yet nobody stirred or answered. Neither could he hear any noise in the house. He came down again upon this, and acquainted his fellow, who went up also, and finding it just so, they resolved to acquaint the Lord Mayor, or some other magistrate, of it, but did not offer to go in at the window. The magistrate, it seems, upon the information of the two men, ordered the house to be broke open, a constable and other persons being appointed to be present, that nothing might be plundered. And accordingly it was so done. When nobody was found in the house but that young woman, who had been infected and passed recovery, the rest had left her to die by herself, and were every one gone, having found some way to delude the watchman, and to get open the door, or get out at some back door, or over the tops of the houses, so that he knew nothing of it. And as to those cries and shrieks which he heard, it was supposed that they were the passionate cries of the family at the bitter parting, which to assure it was to them all this being the sister to the mistress of the family. The man of the house, his wife, several children, and servants being all gone and fled, whether sick or sound, that I could never learn, nor indeed did I make much inquiry after it. Many such escapes were made out of infected houses, as particularly when the watchman was sent of some errand, for it was his business to go of any errand that the family sent him of, that is to say, for necessaries such as food and physics, to fetch physicians if they would come, or surgeons or nurses, or to order the dead cart, and the like. But with this condition too, that when he went he was to lock up the outer door of the house and take the key away with him. To evade this and cheat the watchman, people got two or three keys made to their locks, or they found ways to unscrew the locks such as were screwed on, and so take off the lock being in the inside of the house, and while they sent away the watchman to the market, to the bake house, or for one trifle or another, open the door and go out as often as they pleased. But this being found out, the officers afterwards had orders to padlock up the doors on the outside, and place bolts on them as they thought fit. At another house, as I was informed, in the street next within Aldgate, a whole family was shut up and locked in because the maid-servant was taken sick. The master of the house had been complained by his friends to the next alderman and to the Lord Mayor, and had consented to have the maid carried to the pest-house, but was refused. So the door was marked with a red cross, a padlock on the outside as above, and a watchman set to keep the door according to public order. After the master of the house found there was no remedy, but that he, his wife, and his children were to be locked up with this poor, distempered servant, he called to the watchman and told him he must go then and fetch a nurse for them to attend this poor girl, for that it would be certain death to them all to oblige them to nurse her, and told him plainly that if he would not do this the maid must perish either of the distemper or be starved for want of food, for he was resolved none of his family should go near her, and she lay in the garret four story high where she could not cry out or call to anybody for help. The watchman consented to that and went and fetched a nurse as he was appointed and brought her to them the same evening. During this interval the master of the house took his opportunity to break a large hole through his shop into a bulk or stall where formerly a cobbler had sat before or under his shop window. But the tenant, as may be supposed at such a dismal time as that, was dead or removed, and so he had the key in his own keeping. Having made his way into this stall, which he could not have done if the man had been at the door, the noise he was obliged to make being such as would have alarmed the watchman, I say, having made his way into this stall, he sat still till the watchman returned with the nurse and all the next day also. But the night following, having contrived to send the watchman on another trifling errand, which, as I take it, was to an apothecaries for a plaster for the maid, which he was to stay for the making up, or some other such errand that might secure him staying some time, in that time he conveyed himself and all his family out of the house and left the nurse and the watchman to bury the poor wench, that is, throw her into the cart and take care of the house. I could give a great many such stories as these diverting enough, which in the long course of that dismal year I met with, that is, heard of, and which are very certain to be true or very near the truth, that is to say, true in the general, for no man could at such a time learn all the particulars. There was likewise violence used with the watchman, as was reported in abundance of places. And I believe that from the beginning of the visitation to the end, there was not less than eighteen or twenty of them killed, or so wounded as to be taken up for dead, which was supposed to be done by the people in the infected houses, which were shut up, and where they attempted to come out and were opposed. Nor indeed could less be expected, for here were so many prisons in the town as there were houses shut up, and as the people shut up or imprisoned so were guilty of no crime, only shut up because miserable, it was really the more intolerable to them. It had also this difference that every prison, as we may call it, had but one jailer, and as he had the whole house to guard, and that many houses were so situated as that they had several ways out, some more, some less, and some into several streets. It was impossible for one man so to guard all the passages as to prevent the escape of people made desperate by the fright of their circumstances, by the resentment of their usage, or by the raging of the distemper itself, so that they would talk to the watchmen on one side of the house while the family made their escape at another. For example, in Coleman Street there are abundance of alleys as appears still. A house was shut up in that they call White's alley, and this house had a back window, not a door, into a court which had a passage into Bell alley. A watchman was set by the constable at the door of this house, and there he stood, or his comrade, night and day, while the family went all away in the evening out at that window into the court, and left the poor fellows warding and watching for near a fortnight. Not far from the same place, they blew up a watchman with gunpowder and burned the poor fellow dreadfully, and while he made hideous cries, and nobody would venture to come near to help him, the whole family that were able to stir got out at the windows one story high, two that were left sick calling out for help. Care was taken to give them nurses to look after them, but the persons fled were never found, till after the plague was abated they returned, but as nothing could be proved, so nothing could be done to them. It is to be considered, too, that as these were prisons without bars and bolts, which our common prisons are furnished with, so the people let themselves down out of their windows even in the face of the watchman, bringing swords or pistols in their hands, and threatening the poor wretch to shoot him if he stirred or called for help. In other cases, some had gardens and walls or pales between them and their neighbors, or yards and backhouses, and these by friendship and entreaties would get leave to get over these walls or pales, and so go out at their neighbor's doors, or by giving money to their servants, get them to let them through in the night, so that in short the shutting up of houses was in no wise to be depended upon, neither did it answer the end at all, serving more to make the people desperate, and drive them to such extremities as that they would break out at all adventures. And that which was still worse, those that did thus break out spread the infection farther by their wandering about with the distemper upon them in their desperate circumstances than they would otherwise have done, for whoever considers all the particulars in such cases must acknowledge, and we cannot doubt, but the severity of those confinements made many people desperate, and made them run out of their houses at all hazards, and with the plague visibly upon them not knowing either whither to go, or what to do, or indeed what they did, and many that did so were driven to dreadful exigencies and extremities, and perished in the streets or fields for mere want, or dropped down by the raging violence of the fever upon them. Others wandered into the country, and went forward anyway as their desperation guided them, not knowing whither they went or would go, till faint and tired, and not getting any relief. The houses and villages on the road refusing to admit them to lodge, whether infected or no, they have perished by the roadside, or gotten into barns and died there, none daring to come to them or relieve them, though perhaps not infected, for nobody would believe them. On the other hand, when the plague at first seized a family, that is to say, when any body of the family had gone out and unwearly or otherwise catched the distemper and brought it home, it was certainly known by the family before it was known by the officers, who, as you will see by the order, were appointed to examine into the circumstances of all sick persons when they heard of their being sick. In this interval between their being taken sick and examiners coming, the master of the house had leisure and liberty to remove himself or all his family, if he knew whither to go, and many did so. But the great disaster was that many did thus after they were really infected themselves, and so carried the disease into the houses of those who were so hospitable as to receive them, which, it must be confessed, was very cruel and ungrateful. And this was in part the reason of the general notion, or scandal, rather, which went about of the temper of people infected, namely that they did not take the least care or make any scruple of infecting others, though I cannot say, but there might be some truth in it too, but not so general as was reported. What natural reason could be given for so wicked a thing at a time when they might conclude themselves just going to appear at the bar of divine justice? I know not. I am very well satisfied that it cannot be reconciled to religion and principle any more than it can be to generosity and humanity, but I may speak of that again. I am speaking now of people made desperate by the apprehension of their being shut up, and their breaking out by stratagem or force, either before or after they were shut up, whose misery was not lessened when they were out, but sadly increased. On the other hand, many that thus got away had retreats to go to and other houses where they locked themselves up and kept hid till the plague was over, and many families foreseen the approach of the distemper, laid up stores of provisions sufficient for their whole families, and shut themselves up, and that so entirely that they were neither seen or heard of till the infection was quite ceased, and then came abroad sound and well. I might recollect several such as these, and give you the particulars of their management, for doubtless it was the most effectual, secure step that could be taken for such whose circumstances would not admit them to remove, or who had not retreats abroad proper for the case, for in being thus shut up they were as if they had been a hundred miles off. Nor do I remember that any one of those families miscarried. Among these several Dutch merchants were particularly remarkable, who kept their houses like little garrisons, besieged, suffering none to go in or out, or come near them, particularly one in a court in Throgmorton street whose house looked into Draper's garden. But I come back to the case of families infected and shut up by the magistrates. The misery of those families is not to be expressed, and it was generally in such houses that we heard the most dismal shrieks and outcries of the poor people, terrified and even frightened to death by the sight of the condition of their dearest relations and by the terror of being imprisoned as they were. I remember, and while I am writing this story, I think I hear the very sound of it. A certain lady had an only daughter, a young maiden about nineteen years old, and who was possessed of a very considerable fortune. There were only lodgers in the house where they were. The young woman, her mother, and the maid had been abroad on some occasion, I do not remember what, for the house was not shut up. But about two hours after they came home, the young lady complained she was not well. In a quarter of an hour more she vomited and had a violent pain in her head. Pray God, says her mother in a terrible fright, my child has not the distemper. The pain in her head increasing, her mother ordered the bed to be warmed and resolved to put her to bed and prepared to give her things to sweat, which was the ordinary remedy to be taken when the first apprehensions of the distemper began. While the bed was airing, the mother undressed the young woman, and just as she was laid down in the bed, she, looking upon her body with a candle, immediately discovered the fatal tokens on the inside of her thighs. Her mother, not being able to contain herself, threw down her candle and shrieked out in such a frightful manner that it was enough to place horror upon the stoutest heart in the world, nor was it one scream or one cry. But the fright having seized her spirits, she fainted first, then recovered, then ran all over the house, up the stairs and down the stairs, like one distracted, and indeed really was distracted, and continued screeching and crying out for several hours, void of all sense, or at least government of her senses, and, as I was told, never came thoroughly to her herself again. As to the young maiden, she was a dead corpse from that moment, for the gangrene which occasions the spots had spread over her whole body, and she died in less than two hours. But still the mother continued crying out, not knowing anything more child, several hours after she was dead. It is so long ago that I am not certain, but I think the mother never recovered, but died in two or three weeks after. This was an extraordinary case, and I am therefore the more particular in it, because I came so much to the knowledge of it. But there were innumerable such-like cases, and it was seldom that the weekly bill came in, but there were two or three put in Frighted, that is, that may well be called Frighted to Death. But besides those who were so Frighted as to die upon the spot, there were great numbers Frighted to other extremes, some Frighted out of their senses, some out of their memory, and some out of their understanding. But I returned to the shutting up of houses. As several people I say got out of their houses by stratagem after they were shut up, so others got out by bribing the watchmen, and giving them money to let them go privately out in the night. I must confess I thought it at the time the most innocent corruption or bribery that any man could be guilty of, and therefore could not but pity the poor men, and think it was hard when three of those watchmen were publicly whipped through the streets for suffering people to go out of houses shut up. But notwithstanding that severity, money prevailed with the poor men, and many families found means to make sallies out, and escape that way after they had been shut up. But these were generally such as had some places to retire to, and though there was no easy way passing the roads any wither after the first of August, yet there were many ways of retreat, and particularly, as I hinted, some got tense and set them up in the fields, carrying beds or straw to lie on, and provisions to eat, and so lived in them as hermits in a cell, for nobody would venture to come near them. And several stories were told of such, some comical, some tragical, some who lived like wandering pilgrims in the desert, and escaped by making themselves exiles in such a manner as is scarce to be credited, and who yet enjoyed more liberty than was to be expected in such cases. I have by me a story of two brothers and their kinsmen, who being single men, but that had stayed in the city too long to get away, and indeed not knowing where to go to have any retreat, nor having wherewith to travel far, took a course for their own preservation, which though in itself at first desperate, yet was so natural that it may be wondered that no more did so at that time. They were but of mean condition, and yet not so very poor, as that they could not furnish themselves with some little conveniences such as might serve to keep life and soul together, and finding the distemper increasing in a terrible manner, they resolved to shift as well as they could, and to be gone. One of them had been a soldier in the late wars, and before that in the low countries, and having been bred to no particular employment, but his arms, and besides being wounded and not able to work very hard, had for some time been employed at a baker's of sea-biscuit in Wapping. The brother of this man was a seamen too, but somehow or other had been hurt of one leg that he could not go to sea, but had worked for his living at a sail-maker's in Wapping or thereabouts, and being a good husband had laid up some money, and was the richest of the three. The third man was a joiner or carpenter by trade, a handy fellow, and he had no wealth but his box or basket of tools, with the help of which he could at any time get his living, such a time as this accepted, wherever he went, and he lived near Shadwell. They all lived in Stepney Parish, which, as I have said, being the last that was infected, or at least violently, they stayed there till they evidently saw the plague was abating at the west part of the town and coming towards the east where they lived. The story of those three men, if the reader will be content to have me give it in their own persons, without taking upon me to either vouch the particulars or answer for any mistakes. I shall give as distinctly as I can. Believing the history will be a very good pattern for any poor man to follow, in case the like public desolation should happen here, and if there be no such occasion, which God of his infinite mercy grant us, still the story may have its uses so many ways as that it will. I hope never be said that the relating has been unfavorable. I say all this previous to the history, having yet, for the present, much more to say before I quit my own part. I went all the first part of the time freely about the streets, though not so freely as to run myself into apparent danger, except when they dug the great pit in the churchyard of our parish of Aldgate. A terrible pit it was, and I could not resist my curiosity to go and see it. As near as I may judge it was about forty feet in length, and about fifteen or sixteen feet broad, and at the time I first looked at it about nine feet deep. But it was said they dug it near twenty feet deep afterwards in one part of it, till they could go no deeper for the water. For they had, it seems, dug several large pits before this. For though the plague was long a-coming to our parish, yet when it did come there was no parish in or about London where it raged with such violence as the two parishes of Aldgate and Whitechapel. I say they had dug several pits in another ground when the distemper began to spread in our parish, and especially when the dead carts began to go about, which was not in our parish till the beginning of August. Into these pits they had put perhaps fifty or sixty bodies each. Then they made larger holes wherein they buried all that the cart brought in a week, which by the middle to the end of August came to from two hundred to four hundred a week, and they could not well dig them larger, because of the order of the magistrates confining them to leave no bodies within six feet of the surface, and the water coming on at about seventeen or eighteen feet they could not well. I say put more in one pit, but now at the beginning of September the plague raging in a dreadful manner, and the number of burials in our parish increasing to more than was ever buried in any parish about London of no larger extent. They ordered this dreadful gulf to be dug for such it was rather than a pit. They had supposed this pit would have supplied them for a month or more when they dug it, and some blamed the church wardens for suffering such a frightful thing, telling them they were making preparations to bury the whole parish and the like. But time made it appear the church wardens knew the condition of the parish better than they did. For the pit being finished the fourth of September, I think, they began to bury in it the sixth, and by the twentieth, which was just two weeks, they had thrown into it one thousand one hundred and fourteen bodies when they were obliged to fill it up, the bodies being then come to lie within six feet of the surface. I doubt not, but there may be some ancient persons alive in the parish who can justify the fact of this, and are able to show even in what place of the churchyard the pit lay better than I can. The mark of it also was many years to be seen in the churchyard on the surface, lying in length parallel with the passage which goes by the west wall of the churchyard out of Houndstitch and turns east again into Whitechapel, coming out near the three nuns in. It was about the tenth of September that my curiosity led, or rather drove me to go and see this pit again, when there had been near four hundred people buried in it, and I was not content to see it in the daytime as I had done before. For then there would have been nothing to have been seen but the loose earth, for all the bodies that were thrown in were immediately covered with earth by those they called the barriers, which at other times were called bearers, but I resolved to go in the night and see some of them thrown in. There was a strict order to prevent people coming to those pits, and that was only to prevent infection, but after some time that order was more necessary for people that were infected and near their end and delirious also would run to these pits, wrapped in blankets or rugs, and throw themselves in, and, as they said, bury themselves. I cannot say that the officers suffered any willingly to lie there, but I have heard that in a great pit in Finsbury, in the parish of Cripplegate, it lying open then to the fields, for it was not then walled about. Many came and threw themselves in and expired there, before they threw any earth upon them, and that when they came to bury others and found them there, they were quite dead, though not cold. This may serve a little to describe the dreadful condition of that day, though it is impossible to say anything that is able to give a true idea of it to those who did not see it, other than this, that it was indeed very, very, very dreadful, and such as no tongue can express. I got admittance into the churchyard by being acquainted with the sexton who attended, who, though he did not refuse me at all, yet earnestly persuaded me not to go, telling me very seriously, for he was a good, religious, and sensible man, that it was indeed their business and duty to venture and to run all hazards, and that in it they might hope to be preserved, but that I had no apparent call to it but my own curiosity, which he said he believed I would not pretend was sufficient to justify my running that hazard. I told him I had been pressed in my mind to go, and that perhaps it might be an instructing sight that might not be without its uses. Nay, says the good man, if you will venture upon that score, name of God go in, for depend upon it will be a sermon to you, it may be, the best that ever you have heard in your life, to the speaking sight, says he, and has a voice with it, and a loud one, to call us all to repentance, and with that he opened the door and said, go, if you will. His discourse had shocked my resolution a little, and I stood wavering for a good while, but just at that interval I saw two links come over from the end of the menaries, and heard the bellman, and then appeared a dead cart, as they called it, coming over the streets, so I could no longer resist my desire of seeing it, and went in. There was nobody, as I could perceive at first in the churchyard, or going into it, but the barriers and the fellow that drove the cart, or rather, led the horse and cart. But when they came up to the pit, they saw a man go to, and again, muffled up in a brown cloak, and making motions with his hands under his cloak, as if he was in great agony. And the barriers immediately gathered about him, supposing he was one of those poor delirious or desperate creatures that used to pretend, as I have said, to bury themselves. He said nothing, as he walked about, but two or three times groaned very deeply and loud, and sighed as he would break his heart. When the barriers came up to him, they soon found that he was neither a person infected and desperate, as I have observed above, or a person distempered in mind, but one oppressed with a dreadful weight of grief, indeed, having his wife and several of his children all in the cart, and was just come in with him. And he followed in an agony and excess of sorrow. He mourned heartily, as it was easy to see, but with a kind of masculine grief that could not give itself vent by tears. And calmly, defying the barriers to let him alone, said he would only see the bodies thrown in, and go away. So they left, importuning him. But no sooner was the cart turned around, and the bodies shot into the pit, promiscuously, which was a surprise to him, for he at least expected that they would have been decently laid in, though indeed he was later convinced that was impracticable. I say, no sooner did he see the sight, but he cried out aloud, unable to contain himself. I could not hear what he said, but he went backward two or three steps, and fell down in a swoon. The barriers ran to him, and took him up, and, in a little while, he came to himself, and they led him away to the pie tavern, over against the end of Houndstitch, where it seems the man was known, and where they took care of him. He looked into the pit again, as he went away, but the barriers had covered the bodies so immediately with throwing in and earth, that though there was light enough, for there were lanterns and candles in them, placed all night round the sides of the pit, upon heaps of earth, seven or eight, or perhaps more, yet nothing could be seen. This was a mournful scene indeed, and affected me almost as much as the rest, but the other was awful, and full of terror. The cart had in it sixteen or seventeen bodies, some were wrapped up in linen sheets, some in rags, some little other than naked, or so loose that what covering they had fell from them in the shooting out of the cart, and they fell quite naked among the rest. But the matter was not much to them, or the decency much to anyone else, seeing they were all dead, and were to be huddled together into the common grave of mankind, as we may call it, for here was no difference made, but poor and rich went together. There was no other way of burials, neither was it possible there should, for coffins were not to be had for the prodigious numbers that fell in such a calamity as this. It was reported by way of scandal upon the barriers that if any corpse was delivered to them decently wound up, as we called it then, in a winding sheet tied over the head and feet, which some did, and which was generally of good linen, I say it was reported that the barriers were so wicked as to strip them in the cart and carry them quite naked to the ground. But, as I cannot easily credit anything so vile among Christians, and at a time so filled with terrors as that was, I can only relate it and leave it undetermined. Innumerable stories also went about of the cruel behaviors and practices of nurses who tended the sick, and of their hastening on the fate of those they tended in their sickness. But I shall say more of this in its place. I was indeed shocked with this sight. It almost overwhelmed me. And I went away with my heart most afflicted, and full of the afflicting thoughts, such as I cannot describe just at my going out of the church, and turning up the street towards my own house. I saw another cart with links, and a bellman going before, coming out of Harrow Alley in the butcher-row, and on the other side of the way, and being as I perceived very full of dead bodies, it went directly over the street also toward the church. I stood a while, but I had no stomach to go back again to see the same dismal scene over again. So I went directly home, where I could not but consider with thankfulness the risk I had run, believing I had gotten no injury, as indeed I had not. Here the poor unhappy gentleman's grief came into my head again, and indeed I could not but shed tears in the reflection upon it. Perhaps more than he did himself, but his case lay so heavy upon my mind that I could not prevail with myself, but that I must go out again into the street, and go to the pie-tavern, resolving to inquire what became of him. It was by this time one o'clock in the morning, and yet the poor gentleman was there. The truth was, the people of the house, knowing him, had entertained him, and kept him there all the night, notwithstanding the danger of being infected by him, though it appeared the man was perfectly sound himself. It is with regret that I take notice of this tavern. The people were civil, mannerally, and obliging sort of folks enough, and had till this time kept their house open, and their trade going on, though not so very publicly as formally. But there was a dreadful set of fellows that used their house, and who, in the middle of all this horror, met there every night, behaved with all the reveling and roaring extravagances as is usual for such people to do at other times, and indeed to such an offensive degree that the very master and mistress of the house grew first ashamed, and then terrified at them. They sat generally in a room next the street, and as they always kept late hours, so when the dead cart came across the street end to go into Honstich, which was in view of the tavern windows, they would frequently open the windows as soon as they heard the bell and look out at them, and as they might often hear sad lamentations of people in the streets or at their windows as the carts went by, they would make their impudent mocks and jeers at them, especially if they heard the poor people call upon God to have mercy upon them, as many would do at those times in their ordinary passing along the streets. These gentlemen, being something disturbed with the clutter of bringing the poor gentlemen into the house, as above, were first angry and very high with the master of the house for suffering such a fellow, as they called him, to be brought out the grave into their house. But being answered that the man was a neighbor and that he was sound, but overwhelmed with the calamity of his family and the like, they turned their anger into ridiculing the man, and his sorrow for his wife and children taunted him with want of courage to leap into the great pit and go to heaven, as they jeeringly expressed it, along with them adding some very profane and even blasphemous expressions. They were at this vile work when I came back to the house, and as far as I could see, though the man sat still, mute and disconsolate, and their affronts could not divert his sorrow, yet he was both grieved and offended at their discourse. Upon this I gently reproved them, being well enough acquainted with their characters, and not unknown in person to two of them. They immediately fell upon me with ill language and oaths, and asked me what I did out of my grave at such time when so many honester men were carried into the churchyard, and why I was not at home saying my prayers against the dead cart came for me and the like. I was indeed astounded at the impudence of the men, though not at all discomposed at their treatment of me. However I kept my temper. I told them that though I defied them or any man in the world to tax me with any dishonesty, yet I acknowledged that in this terrible judgment of God many better than I were swept away and carried to their grave. But to answer their question directly the case was that I was mercifully preserved by the great God whose name they had blasphemed and taken in vain by cursing and swearing in a dreadful manner, and that I believed I was preserved in particular, among other ends of His goodness, that I might reprove them for their audacious boldness in behaving in such a manner and in such an awful time as this was, especially for their jeering and mocking at an honest gentleman and a neighbor for some of them knew him, who they saw was overwhelmed with sorrow for the breaches which it had pleased God to make upon His family. I cannot call exactly to mind the hellish abominable rail-ree, which was the return they made to that talk of mine, being provoked, it seems, that I was not at all afraid to be free with them. Nor, if I could remember, would I fill my account with any of the words, the horrid oaths, curses, and vile expressions such as, at that time of the day, even the worst and ordinariest people in the street would not use, for, except such hardened creatures as these, the most wicked wretches that could be found had at that time some terror upon their minds of the hand of that power which could thus in a moment destroy them. But that which was the worst at all their devilish language was that they were not afraid to blaspheme God and talk atheistically, making a jest of my calling the plague the hand of God, mocking and even laughing at the word judgment, as if the Providence of God had no concern in the inflicting such a desolating stroke, and that the people calling him God as they saw the carts tearing away the dead bodies were all enthusiastic, absurd, and impertinent. I made them some reply such as I thought proper, but which I found was so far from putting a check to their horrid way of speaking that it made them rail them more, so that I confess it filled me with horror and a kind of rage, and I came away, as I told them, lest the hand of that judgment which had visited the whole city should glorify his vengeance upon them and all that were near them. They received all reproof with the utmost contempt and made the greatest mockery that was possible for them to do at me, giving me all the approprious, insolent scoffs that they could think of for preaching to them, as they called it, which indeed grieved me rather than angered me, and I went away, blessing God, however, in my mind, that I had not spared them, though they had insulted me so much. They continued this wretched course three or four days after this, continually mocking and jeering at all that showed themselves religious or serious, or that were anyway touched with the sense of the terrible judgment of God upon us, and I was informed they flouted in the same manner at the good people who, notwithstanding the contagion, met at the church, fasted, and prayed to God to remove his hand from them. I say they continued this dreadful course three or four days, I think it was no more, when one of them, particularly he who asked the poor gentleman what he did out of his grave, was struck from heaven with the plague, and died in a most deplorable manner, and in a word they were every one of them carried to the great pit which I have mentioned above, before it was quite filled up, which was not above a fortnight or thereabout. These men were guilty of many extravagances such as one would think human nature should have trembled at the thoughts of, at such a time of general terror as was then upon us, and particularly scoffing and mocking at everything which they happened to see that was religious among the people, especially at their thronging zealously to the place of public worship to implore mercy from heaven in such a time of distress, and this tavern where they held their dub being within view of the church door, they had the more particular occasion for their atheistical profane mirth, but this began to abate a little with them before the accident which I have related happened, for the infection increased so violently at this part of the town now that people began to be afraid to come to the church, at least such numbers did not resort thither as was usual. Many of the clergymen likewise were dead, and others gone into the country, for it really required a steady courage and a strong faith for a man not only to venture being in town at such a time as this, but likewise to venture to come to church and perform the office of a minister to a congregation of whom he had reason to believe many of them were actually infected with the plague, and to do this every day or twice a day as in some places was done. It is true the people showed an extraordinary zeal in these religious exercises, and as the church doors were always open people would go in single at all times, whether the minister was officiating or no, and locking themselves into separate pews would be praying to God with great fervency and devotion. Others assembled at meeting houses, every one as their different opinions in such things guided, but all were promiscuously the subject of these men's drollery, especially at the beginning of the visitation. It seems they had been checked for their open, insulting religion in this manner by several good people of every persuasion, and that, and the violent raging of the infection, I suppose, was the occasion that they had abated much of their rudeness for some time before, and were only roused by the spirit of ribaltry and atheism at the clamour which was made when the gentleman was first brought in there, and perhaps were agitated by the same devil when I took upon me to approve them, though I did it at first with all the calmness, temper, and good manners that I could, which for a while they insulted me the more for thinking it had been in fear of their resentment, though afterwards they found the contrary. I went home indeed grieved and afflicted in my mind at the abominable wickedness of those men, not doubting, however, that they would be made dreadful examples of God's justice, for I looked upon this dismal time to be a particular season of divine vengeance, and that God would, on this occasion, single out the proper objects of his displeasure in a more special and remarkable manner than at another time, and that though I did believe that many good people would and did fall in the common calamity, and that it was no certain rule to judge of the eternal state of anyone by their being distinguished in such a time of general destruction, neither one way or other, yet I say it could not but seem reasonable to believe that God would not think fit to spare by his mercy such open, declared enemies that should insult his name and being, defy his vengeance, and mock at his worship and worshipers at such a time. No, not though his mercy had thought fit to bear with and spare them at other times, that this was a day of visitation, a day of God's anger, and those words came into my thought, Jeremiah verse nine, shall I not visit for these things, said the Lord, and shall not my soul be avenged of such a nation as this. These things, I say, lay upon my mind, and I went home very much grieved and oppressed with the horror of these men's wickedness, and to think that anything could be so vile, so hardened, and notoriously wicked as to insult God and his servants and his worship in such a manner, and at such a time as this was, when he had, as it were, his sword drawn in his hand on purpose to take vengeance, not on them only, but on the whole nation. I had indeed been in some passion at first with them, though it was really raised not by any affront they had offered me personally, but by the horror their blaspheming tongues filled me with. However, I was doubtful in my thoughts whether the resentment I retained was not all upon my own private account, for they had given me a great deal of ill language too, I mean personally. But, after some pause, and having a weight of grief upon my mind, I retired myself as soon as I came home, for I slept not that night, and giving God most humble thanks for my preservation in the imminent danger I had been in, I set my mind seriously and with the utmost earnestness to pray for those desperate wretches that God would pardon them, open their eyes, and effectually humble them. By this I not only did my duty, namely to pray for those who despitefully used me, but I fully tried my own heart to my full satisfaction that it was not filled with any spirit of resentment as they had offended me in particular, and I humbly recommend the method to all those that would know, or be certain, how to distinguish between their zeal for the honor of God and the effects of their private passions and resentment.