 section 11 from a journal of the plague year this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org a journal of the plague year by Daniel Defoe section 11 much about the same time I walked out into the fields towards bow for I had a great mind to see how things were managed in the river and among the ships and as I had some concern in shipping I had a notion that it had been one of the best ways of securing oneself from the infection to have retired into a ship and musing how to satisfy my curiosity in that point I turned away over the fields from bow to Bromley and down to blackwall to the stairs that are there for landing were taking water here I saw a poor man walking on the bank or seawall as they call it by himself I walked a while also about seeing the houses all shut up at last I fell into some talk at a distance with this poor man first I asked how people did their abouts alas sir says he almost desolate all dead or sick here are very few families in this part or in that village pointing at poplar where half of them are not dead already and the rest sick then he pointing to one house there they are all dead said he and the house stands open nobody dares go into it a poor thief says he ventured in to steal something but he paid dear for his theft for he was carried to the churchyard to last night then he pointed to several other houses there says he they are all dead the man and his wife and five children there says he they are shut up you see a watchman at the door and so of other houses why says I what do you do here all alone why says he I am a poor desolate man it hath please God I am not yet visited though my family is and one of my children dead how do you mean then said I that you are not visited why says he that is my house pointing to a very little low-boarded house and there my poor wife and two children live said he if they may be said to live for my wife and one of the children are visited but I do not comment them and with that word I saw the tears run very plentifully down his face and so they did down mine too I assure you but said I why do you not comment them how can you abandon your own flesh and blood oh sir says he the Lord forbid I do not abandon them I work for them as much as I am able and blessed be the Lord I keep them from want and with that I observed he lifted up his eyes to heaven with accountants that presently told me I had happened on a man that was no hypocrite but a serious religious good man and his ejaculation was an expression of thankfulness that in such a condition as he was in he should be able to say his family did not want well says I honest man that is a great mercy as things go now with the poor but how do you live then and how are you kept from the dreadful calamity that is now upon us all why sir says he I am a water man and there is my boat says he and the boat serves me for a house I work in it in the day and I sleep in it in the night and what I get I lay it down upon that stone says he showing me a broad stone on the other side of the street a good way from his house and then says he I hello and call to them till I make them here and they come and fetch it well friend says I but how can you get money as a waterman does anybody go by water these times yes sir says he in the way I'm employed there does do you see there says he five ships lie at anchor pointing down the river of a good way below the town and do you see says he eight or ten ships lie at the chain there and at anchor yonder pointing above the town all those ships have families on board of their merchants and owners and such like who have locked themselves up and live on board close shut in for fear of the infection and I tend on them to fetch things for them carry letters and do what is absolutely necessary that they may not be obliged to come on shore and every night I fasten my boat on board one of the ships boats and there I sleep by myself and blessed be God I am preserved hither to well said I friend but will they let you come on board after you have been on shore here when this is such a terrible place and so infected as it is why as to that said he I very seldom go up the ship side but deliver what I bring to their boat or lie by the side and they hoist it on board if I did I think they are in no danger for me for I never go into any house on shore or touch anybody no not my own family but I fetch provisions for them nay says I but that may be worse for you must have those provisions of somebody or other and since all this part of the town is so infected it is dangerous so much as to speak with anybody for the village that I is as it were the beginning of London though it be at some distance from it that is true added he but you do not understand me right I do not buy provisions for them here I were up to Greenwich and buy fresh meat there and sometimes I wrote down the river to Woolwich and by there then I go to single farmhouses on the Kentish side where I am known and by fouls and eggs and butter and bring to the ships as they direct me sometimes one sometimes the other I seldom come on shore here I came only now to call my wife and here on my little family do and give them a little money which I received last night poor man said I and how much has though gotten for them I have gotten for shilling said he which is a great son as things go now with poor men but they have given me a bag of bread to and a salt fish and some flesh so all helps out well said I and have you given it them yet no said he but I have called and my wife has answered that she cannot come out yet but in half an hour she hopes to come and I am waiting for her poor woman says he she is brought sadly down she has a swelling and it is broke and I hope she will recover but I fear the child will die but it is the Lord here he stopped and wept very much well honest friend said I thou has to sure comforter if thou has brought thyself to be resigned to the will of God he is dealing with us all in judgment oh sir says he it is infinite mercy if any of us are spared and who am I to repine sayest thou so said I and how much less is my faith than thine and here my heart smoked me suggesting how much better this poor man's foundation was on which he stayed in the danger than mine that he had nowhere to fly that he had a family to bind him to attendance which I had not and mine was mere presumption his a true dependence and a courage resting on God and yet that he used all possible caution for his safety I turned a little away from the man while these thoughts engaged me for indeed I could no more refrain from tears than he at length after some further talk the poor woman opened the door and called Robert Robert he answered and bid her stay a few moments and he would come so he ran down the common stairs to his boat and fetched up a sack in which was the provisions he had brought from the ships and when he returned he hallowed again then he went to the great stone which he showed me and emptied the sack and laid all out everything by themselves and then retired and his wife came with a little boy to fetch them away and he called and said such a captain had sent such a thing and such a captain such a thing and at the end adds God has sent it all give thanks to him when the poor woman had taken up all she was so weak she could not carry it at once in though the weight was not much neither so she left the biscuit which was in a little bag and left a little boy to watch it till she came again well but says I to him did you leave her the four shillings to which you said was your weeks pay yes says he you shall hear her own it so he called again Rachel Rachel which it seems was her name did you take up the money yes said she how much was it for shillings and a groat says she well well says he the Lord keep you all and so he turned to go away as I could not refrain from contributing tears to this man's story so neither could I refrain my charity for his assistance so I called him heart the friend said I come hither for I believe thou art in health that I may venture thee so I put out my hand which was in my pocket before here says I go and call thy Rachel once more and give her a little more comfort from me God will never forsake a family that trusts in him as thou dust so I gave him four other shillings and bid him go lay them on the stone and call his wife I have not words to express the poor man's thankfulness neither could he express it himself but by tears running down his face he called his wife and told her God had moved the heart of a stranger upon hearing their condition to give them all that money and a great deal more such as that he said to her the woman to made signs of the like thankfulness as well as to heaven as to me and joyfully picked it up and I parted with no money all that year that I thought better bestowed I then asked the poor man if the distemper had not reached to Greenwich he said it had not till about a fortnight before but that then he feared it had but that it was only at that end of the town which lay south towards depth for bridge that he went only to a butcher shop and a grocers where he generally bought such things as they sent him for but was very careful I asked him then how it came to pass that those people who had so shut themselves up in the ships had not laid in sufficient stores of all things necessary he said some of them had but on the other hand some did not come on board till they were frightened into it until it was too dangerous for them to go to the proper people to lay in quantities of things and that he waited on two ships which he showed me that had laid in little or nothing but biscuit bread and ship beer and that he had bought everything else almost for them I asked him if there were any more ships that had separated themselves as those had done he told me yes all the way up the point right against Greenwich to within the shores of Lime House and Redriff all the ships that could have room rid two and two in the middle of the stream and that some of them had several families on board I asked him if the distemper had not reached them he said he believed it had not except two or three ships whose people had not been so watchful as to keep the seamen from going on shore as others had been and he said it was a very fine site to see how the ships lay up the pool when he said he was going over to Greenwich as soon as the tide began to come in I asked if he would let me go with him and bring me back for that I had a great mind to see how the ships were ranged as he had told me he told me if I would assure him on the word of a Christian and an honest man that I had not the distemper he would I assured him that I had not that it had pleased God to preserve me that I lived in Whitechapel but was too impatient of being so long within doors and that I had ventured out so far for the refreshment of a little air but that none in my house had so much as been touched with it well sir says he as your charity has been moved to pity me and my poor family sure you cannot have so little pity left as to put yourself into my boat if you were not in sound health which would be nothing less than killing me and ruining my whole family the poor man troubled me so much when he spoke of his family with such a sensible concern and in such an affectionate manner that I could not satisfy myself at first to go at all I told him I would lay aside my curiosity rather than make him uneasy though I was sure and very thankful for it that I had no more distemper upon me than the freshest man in the world well he would not have me put it off neither but to let me see how confident he was that I was just to him he now import tuned me to go so when the tide came up to his boat I went in and he carried me to Greenwich while he bought the things which he had in charge to buy I walked up to the top of the hill under which the town stands and on the east side of the town to get a prospect of the river but it was a surprising sight to see the number of ships which lay in rows two and two and in some places two or three such lines in the breadth of the river and this is not only up to the town between the houses which we call Ratcliffe and Redriff which they name the pool but even down the whole river as far as the head of long reach which is as far as the hills give us leave to see it I cannot guess at the number of ships but I think there must have been several hundreds of sail and I could not but applaud the contrivance for ten thousand people and more who attended ship affairs were certainly sheltered here from the violence of the contagion and lived very safe and very easy I returned to my own dwelling very well satisfied with my day's journey and particularly with the poor man also I rejoiced to see that such little sanctuaries were provided for so many families in a time of such desolation I observed also that as the violence of the plague had increased so the ships which had the families on board removed and went farther off till as I was told some went quite away to see and put into such harbors and safe roads on the north coast as they could best come at but it was also true that all the people who thus left the land and lived on board the ships were not entirely safe from the infection for many died and were thrown overboard into the river some in coffins and some as I heard without coffins whose bodies were seen sometimes to drive up and down with the tide in the river but I believe I may venture to say that in those ships which were thus infected it either happened where the people had recourse to them too late and did not fly to the ship till they had stayed too long on shore and had the distemper upon them though perhaps they might not perceive it and so the distemper did not come to them on board the ships but they really carried it with them or it was in the ships where the poor watermen said they had not had time to furnish themselves with provisions but were obliged to send often on shore to buy what they had occasion for or suffered boats to come to them from the shore and so the distemper was brought insensibly among them and here I cannot but take notice that the strange temper of the people of London at that time contributed extremely to their own destruction the plague began as I have observed at the other end of the town namely in Longacre, Drury Lane, etc. and came on towards the city very gradually and slowly it was felt at first in December then again in February then again in April and always but a very little at a time then it stopped till May and even the last week in May there were but seventeen in all that end of the town and all this while even so long as till there died above three thousand a week yet had the people in Redriff and in Wapping and Redcliffe on both sides of the river and almost all southern side a mighty fancy that they should not be visited or at least that it would not be so violent among them some people fancied the smell of the pitch and tar and such other things as oil and rosin and brimstone which is much used by all trades relating to shipping would preserve them others argued it because it was in its extremist violence in Westminster and the parish of St Giles in St Andrews and began to abate again before it came among them which was true indeed in part for example August 8th to August 15th St Giles in the fields 242 Cripplegate 886 Stepney 197 St Margaret Bermancy 24 Rutherhithe 3 for a total this week of 4,030 August 15th to August 22nd St Giles in the fields 175 Cripplegate 847 Stepney 273 St Margaret Bermancy 36 Rutherhithe 2 total this week 5,319 Notabene that it was observed that the numbers mentioned in Stepney Parish at that time were generally all on that side where Stepney Parish joined to Shortage which we now call Spittle Fields where the parish of Stepney comes up to the very wall of Shortage Churchard and the plague at this time was abated at St Giles in the fields enraged most violently in Cripplegate Bishopsgate in Shortage Parishes but there were not 10 people a week that died of it in all that part of Stepney Parish which takes in Limehouse Ratcliffe Highway and which are now the parishes of Shadwell and Wapping even to St Catherine's by the tower till after the whole month of August was expired but they paid for it afterwards as I shall observe by and by this I say made the people of Redriff and Wapping Ratcliffe and Limehouse so secure and flattered themselves so much with the plagues going off without reaching them that they took no care either to fly into the country or shut themselves up nay so far were they from stirring that they rather received their friends and relations from the city into their houses and several from other places really took sanctuary in that part of the town as a place of safety and as a place which they thought God would pass over and not visit as the rest was visited and this was the reason that when it came upon them they were more surprised more unprovided and more at a loss what to do than they were in other places for when it came among them really and with violence as it did indeed in September and October there was then no stirring out into the country nobody would suffer a stranger to come near them no nor near the towns where they dwelt and as I have been told several that wandered into the country on the Surrey side were found starved to death in the woods and commons that country being more open and more woody than any other part so near london especially about norwood and the parishes of camberwell dullidge and loosam where it seems nobody durst relieve the poor distressed people for fear of the infection this notion having as I said prevailed with the people in that part of the town was in part the occasion as I said before that they had recourse to ships for their retreat and where they did this early and with prudence furnishing themselves so with provisions that they had no need to go on shore for supplies or suffer boats to come on board to bring them I say where they did so they had certainly the safest retreat of any people whatsoever but the distress was such that people ran on board in their fright without bread to eat and some into ships that had no men on board to remove them farther off or to take the boat and go down the river to buy provisions where it may be done safely and these often suffered and were infected on board as much as on shore as the richer sort got into ships so the lower rank got into hoys smacks lighters and fishing boats and many especially watermen lay in their boats but those made sad work of it especially the latter for going about for provision and perhaps to get their subsistence the infection got in among them and made a fearful havoc many of the watermen died alone in their wearies as they rid at their roads as well above the bridge as below and were not found sometimes till they were not in condition for anybody to touch or come near them indeed the distress of the people at this seafaring end of the town was very deplorable and deserved the greatest commiseration but alas this was a time when everyone's private safety lay so near them that they had no room to pity the distresses of others for everyone had death as it were at his door and many even in their families and knew not what to do or wither to fly end of section 11 section 12 of a journal of the plague year this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org read by Dennis Sayers a journal of the plague year by Daniel Defoe section 12 this I say took away all compassion self-preservation indeed appear here to be the first law for the children ran away from their parents as they languished in the utmost distress and in some places though not so frequent as the other parents did the like to their children nay some dreadful examples there were and particularly two in one week of distressed mothers raving and distracted killing their own children one where I was not far off from where I dwelt the poor lunatic creature not living herself long enough to be sensible of the sin of what she had done much less to be punished for it it is not indeed to be wondered at for the danger of immediate death to ourselves took away all bowels of love all concern for one another I speak in general for there were many instances of immovable affection pity and duty in many and some that came to my knowledge that is to say by hearsay for I shall not take upon me to vouch the truth of the particulars to introduce one let me first mention that one of the most deplorable cases in all the present calamity was that of women with child who when they came to the hour of their sorrows and their pains come upon them could neither have help of one kind or another neither midwife or neighboring women to come near them most of the midwives were dead especially of such a served the poor and many if not all the midwives of note were fled into the country so that it was next to impossible for a poor woman that could not pay and a moderate price to get any midwife to come to her and if they did those they could get were generally unskillful and ignorant creatures and the consequence of this was that a most unusual and incredible number of women were reduced to the utmost distress some were delivered and spoiled by the rashness and ignorance of those who pretended to lay them children without number were I might say murdered by the same but a more justifiable ignorance pretending they would save the mother whatever became of the child and many times both mother and child were lost in the same manner and especially where the mother had the distemper there nobody would come near them and both sometimes perished sometimes the mother has died of the plague and the infant it may be half-born or born but not parted from the mother some died in the very pains of their travail and not delivered at all and so many were the cases of this kind that it is hard to judge of them something of it will appear in the unusual numbers which are put into the weekly bills though I am far from allowing them to be able to give anything of a full account under the articles of child bed abortive and stillborn Christmas and infants take the weeks in which the plague was most violent and compare them with the weeks before the distemper began even in the same year from January 3rd to January 10th child bed 7 abortive 1 stillborn 13 from January 10th to January 17th child bed 8 abortive 6 stillborn 11 from January 17th to January 24th child bed 9 abortive 5 stillborn 15 from January 24th to January 31st child bed 3 abortive 2 stillborn 9 from January 31st to February 7th child bed 3 abortive 3 stillborn 8 from February 7th to February 14th child bed 6 abortive 2 stillborn 11 from February 14th to February 21st child bed 5 abortive 2 stillborn 13 from February 21st to February 28th child bed 2 abortive 2 stillborn 10 from February 28th to March 7th child bed 5 abortive 1 stillborn 10 for a total in this period of child bed 48 abortive 24 stillborn 100 from August 1st to August 8th child bed 25 abortive 5 stillborn 11 from August 8th to August 15th child bed 23 abortive 6 stillborn 8 from August 15th to August 22nd child bed 28 abortive 4 stillborn 4 from August 22nd through August 29th child bed 40 abortive 6 stillborn 10 from August 29th to September 5th child bed 38 abortive 2 stillborn 11 from September 5th through September 12th child bed 39 abortive 23 stillborn unknown from September 12th to September 19th child bed 42 abortive 5 stillborn 17 from September 19th through September 26th child bed 42 abortive 6 stillborn 10 and from September 26th to October 3rd child bed 14 abortive 4 stillborn 9 for a total in this period of child bed 291 abortive 61 stillborn 80 to the disparity of these numbers it is to be considered and allowed for that according to our usual opinion who were then upon the spot there were not one-third of the people in the town during the months of august and september as were in the months of january and february in a word the usual number that used to die of these three articles and as i hear did die of them the year before was thus 1664 child bed 189 1665 child bed 625 1664 abortive and stillborn 458 1665 abortive and stillborn 617 1664 total 647 1665 total 1242 this inequality i say is exceedingly augmented when the numbers of people are considered i pretend not to make any exact calculation of the numbers of people which were at this time in the city but i shall make a probable conjecture at that part by and by what i have said now is to explain the misery of those poor creatures above so that it might well be said as in the scripture woe be to those who are with child and to those which give suck in that day for indeed it was a woe to them in particular i was not conversant in many particular families where these things happened but the outcries of the miserable were heard afar off as to those who were with child we have seen some calculation made 291 women dead in child bed in nine weeks out of one third part of the number of whom they're usually died in that time but 84 of the same disaster let the reader calculate the proportion there is no room to doubt but the misery of those that gave suck was in proportion as great our bills of mortality could give but little light in this yet some it did there were several more than usual starved at nurse but this was nothing the misery was where they were first starved for want of a nurse the mother dying and all the family and the infants found dead by them merely for want and if i may speak my opinion i do believe that many hundreds of poor helpless infants perished in this manner secondly not starved but poisoned by the nurse nay even where the mother has been the nurse and having received the infection has poisoned that is infected the infant with her milk even before they knew they were infected themselves nay and the infant has died in such a case before the mother i cannot but remember to leave this admonition upon record if ever such another dreadful visitation should happen in this city that all women that are with child or that give suck should be gone if they have any possible means out of the place because their misery if infected will so much exceed all other peoples i could tell your dismal stories of living infants being found sucking the breasts of their mothers or nurses after they have been dead of the plague of a mother in the parish where i lived who having a child that was not well sent for an apothecary to view the child and when he came as the relation goes was giving the child suck at her breast and to all appearance was herself very well but when the apothecary came close to her he saw the tokens upon that breast with which she was suckling the child he was surprised enough to be sure but not willing to fright the poor woman too much he desired she would give the child into his hand so he takes the child and going to a cradle in the room lays it in and opening its cloths found the tokens upon the child too and both died before he could get home to send a preventive medicine to the father of the child to whom he had told their condition whether the child infected the nurse mother or the mother the child was not certain but the last most likely likewise of a child brought home to the parents from a nurse that had died of the plague yet the tender mother would not refuse to take in her child and laid it in her bosom by which she was infected and died with the child in her arms dead also it would make the hardest heart move at the instances that were frequently found of tender mothers tending and watching their dear children and even dying before them and sometimes taking the distemper from them and dying when the child for whom the affectionate heart had been sacrificed has got over it and escaped the like of a tradesman in east smithfield whose wife was big with child of her first child and fell in labor having the plague upon her he could neither get midwife to assist her or nurse to tend her and two servants which he kept fled both from her he ran from house to house like one distracted but could get no help the utmost he could get was that a watchman who attended at an infected house shut up promised to send a nurse in the morning the poor man with his heart broke went back assisted his wife what he could acted the part of the midwife brought the child dead into the world and his wife in about an hour died in his arms where he held her dead body fast till the morning when the watchman came and brought the nurse as he had promised and coming up the stairs for he had left the door open or only latched they found the man sitting with his dead wife in his arms and so overwhelmed with grief that he died in a few hours after without any sign of the infection upon him but merely sunk under the weight of his grief i have heard also of some who on the death of their relations have grown stupid with the insupportable sorrow and of one in particular who was so absolutely overcome with the pressure upon his spirits that by degrees his head sank into his body so between his shoulders that the crown of his head was very little seen above the bone of his shoulders and by degrees losing both voice and sense his face looking forward lay against his collarbone and could not be kept up any otherwise unless held up by the hands of other people and the poor man never came to himself again but languished near a year in that condition and died nor was he ever once seen to lift up his eyes or to look upon any particular object i cannot undertake to give any other than a summary of such passages as these because it was not possible to come at the particulars where sometimes the whole families where such things happened were carried off by the distemper but there were innumerable cases of this kind which presented to the eye and ear even in the passing along the streets as i have hinted above nor is it easy to give any story of this or that family which there was not diverse parallel stories to be met with of the same kind but as i am now talking of the time when the plague raged at the easternmost part of the town how for a long time the people of those parts had flattered themselves that they should escape and how they were surprised when it came upon them as it did for indeed it came upon them like an armed man when it did come i say this brings me back to the three poor men who wandered from whopping not knowing whether to go or what to do and whom i mentioned before one a biscuit baker one a sailmaker and the other a joiner all of wapping or their abouts the sleepiness and security of that part as i have observed was such that they not only did not shift for themselves as others did but they boasted of being safe and of safety being with them and many people fled out of the city and out of the infected suburbs to whopping Ratcliffe Limehouse Poplar and such places as to places of security and it is not at all unlikely that they're doing this help to bring the plague that way faster than it might otherwise have come for though i am much for people flying away and emptying such a town as this upon the first appearance of a like visitation and that all people who have any possible retreat should make use of it in time and be gone yet i must say when all that will fly are gone those who are left and must stand it should stand stuck still where they are and not shift from one end of the town or one part of the town to the other for that is the bane and mischief of the whole and they carry the plague from house to house in their very clothes where for we were ordered to kill all the dogs and cats but because as they were domestic animals and are apt to run from house to house and from street to street so they are capable of carrying the effluvia or infectious streams of bodies infected even in their furs and hair and therefore it was that in the beginning of the infection an order was published by the lord mayor and by the magistrates according to the advice of the physicians that all the dogs and cats should be immediately killed and an officer was appointed for the execution it is incredible if their account is to be dependent upon what a prodigious number of those creatures were destroyed i think they talked of 40 thousand dogs and five times as many cats few houses being without a cat some having several sometimes five or six in a house all possible endeavors were used also to destroy the mice and rats especially the latter by laying rat spain and other poisons for them and a prodigious multitude of them were also destroyed i often reflected upon the unprovided condition that the whole body of the people were in at the first coming of this calamity upon them and how it was for want of timely entering into measures and managements as well public as private that all the confusions that followed were brought upon us and that such a prodigious number of people sank in that disaster which if proper steps had been taken might providence concurring have been avoided and which if posterity think fit they may take a caution and warning from but i shall come to this part again end of section 12 section 13 from a journal of the plague year this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information visit LibriVox.org read by Dennis Sayers a journal of the plague year by Daniel Defoe section 13 i come back to my three men their story has a moral in every part of it and their whole conduct and that of some whom they joined with is a pattern for all poor men to follow or women either if ever such a time comes again and if there was no other end and recording it i think this a very just one whether my account be exactly according to fact or no two of them are said to be brothers the one an old soldier but now a biscuit maker the other a lame sailor but now a sail maker the third a joiner says john the biscuit maker one day to thomas his brother the sail maker brother tom what will become of us the plague grows hot in the city and increases this way what shall we do truly said thomas i am had a great loss what to do for i find if it comes down into whopping i shall be turned out of my lodging and thus they began to talk of it beforehand john turned out of your lodging tom if you are i don't know who will take you in for people are so afraid of one another now there's no getting a lodging anywhere thomas why the people where i lodge are good civil people and have kindness enough for me too but they say i go abroad every day to do my work and it will be dangerous and they talk of locking themselves up and letting nobody come near them john why they are in the right to be sure if they resolve to venture staying in town thomas nay i might even resolve to stay within doors too for except a suit of sales that my master has in hand in which i am just finishing i am like to get no more work a great while there's no trade stirs now workmen and servants are turned off everywhere so that i might be glad to be locked up too but i do not see they will be willing to consent to that any more than to the other john why what will you do then brother and what shall i do for i am almost as bad as you the people where i lodge are all gone into the country but are made and she is to go next week and to shut the house quite up so that i shall be turned to drift to the wide world before you and i am resolved to go away too if i knew but where to go thomas we were both distracted we did not go away at first then we might have traveled anywhere there's no stirring now we shall be starved if we pretend to go out of town they won't let us have victuals no not for our money nor let us come into the towns much less into their houses john and that which is almost as bad i have but little money to help myself with neither thomas as to that we might make shift i have a little though not much but i tell you there's no stirring on the road i know a couple of poor honest men in our street have attempted to travel and at barnett or whetstone or their bouts the people offered to fire at them if they pretended to go forward oh so they are come back again quite discouraged john i would have ventured their fire if i had been there if i had been denied food for my money they should have seen me take it before their faces and if i had tendered money for it they could not have taken any course with me by law thomas you talk your old soldier's language as if you were in the low countries now but this is a serious thing the people have a good reason to keep anybody off that they are not satisfied our sound at such a time as this and we must not plunder them john no brother you mistake the case and mistake me too i would plunder nobody but for any town upon the road to deny me leave to pass through the town in the open highway and deny me provisions for my money is to say the town has a right to starve me to death which cannot be true thomas but they do not deny you liberty to go back again from whence you came and therefore they do not starve you john but the next town behind me will by the same rule deny me leave to go back and so they do starve me between them besides there is no law to prohibit my traveling wherever i will on the road thomas but there will be so much difficulty in disputing with them at every town on the road that it is not for poor men to do it or undertake it at such a time as this is especially john why brother our condition at this rate is worse than anybody else's for we can neither go away nor stay here i am of the same mind with the lepers of samaria if we stay here we are sure to die i mean especially as you and i are stated without a dwelling house of our own and without lodging in anybody else's there is no lying in the street at such a time as this we had as good go into the dead cart at once therefore i say if we stay here we are sure to die and if we go away we can but die i am resolved to be gone thomas you will go away wither you go and what can you do i would as willingly go away as you if i knew wither but we have no acquaintance no friends here we were born and here we must die john look you tom the whole kingdom is my native country as well as this town you may as well say i must not go out of my house if it is on fire as that i must not go out of the town i was born in when it is infected with the plague i was born in england and have a right to live in it if i can thomas but you know every vagrant person by the laws of england be taken up and passed back to their last legal settlement john but how shall they make me vagrant i desire only to travel on upon my lawful occasions thomas what lawful occasions can we pretend to travel or rather wonder upon they will not be put off with words john is not flying to save our lives a lawful occasion and do they not all know that the fact is true we cannot be said to disemble thomas but suppose they let us pass wither shall we go john anywhere to save our lives it is time enough to consider that when we are got out of this town if i am once out of this dreadful place i care not where i go thomas we shall be driven to great extremities i know not what to think of it john well tom consider of it a little this was about the beginning of july and though the plague was come forward in the west and north parts of the town yet all whopping as i have observed before and reddrift and retcliffe and lime house and poplar in short depthford and greenwich all both sides of the river from the hermitage and from over against it quite down to black wall was entirely free there had not been one person died of the plague and all stepney parish and not one on the south side of white chapel road no not in any parish and yet the weekly bill was that very weak risen up to 1006 it was a fortnight after this before the two brothers met again and then the case was a little altered and the plague was exceedingly advanced and the number greatly increased the bill was up at 2785 and prodigiously increasing though still both sides of the river as below kept pretty well but some began to die in reddrift and about five or six in redcliffe highway when the sailmaker came to his brother john express and in some fright for he was absolutely warned out of his lodging and had only a week to provide himself his brother john was in as bad a case for he was quite out and had only begged leave of his master the biscuit maker to lodge in an outhouse belonging to his workhouse where he only lay upon straw with some biscuit sacks or bread sacks as they called them laid upon it and some of the same sacks to cover him here they resolved seeing all employment being at an end and no work or wages to be had they would make the best of their way to get out of the reach of the dreadful infection and being as good husbands as they could would endeavor to live upon what they had as long as it would last and then work for more if they could get work anywhere of any kind let it be what it would while they were considering to put this resolution and practice in the best manner they could the third man who was acquainted very well with the sail maker came to know of the design and got leave to be one of the number and thus they prepared to set out it happened that they had not an equal share of money but as the sail maker who had the best stock was besides his being lame the most unfit to expect to get anything by working in the country so he was content that what money they had should all go into one public stock on condition that whatever any one of them could gain more than another it should without any grudging be all added to the public stock they resolved to load themselves with as little baggage as possible because they resolved at first to travel on foot and to go a great way that they might if possible be effectually safe and the great many consultations they had with themselves before they could agree about what way they should travel which they were so far from adjusting that even to the morning they set out they were not resolved on it at last the seamen put in a hint that determined it first says he the weather is very hot and therefore i am for traveling north that we may not have the sun upon our faces and beating on our breasts which will heat and suffocate us and i have been told says he that it is not good to overheat our blood at a time when for ought we know the infection may be in the very air in the next place says he i am foregoing the way that may be contrary to the wind as it may blow when we set out that we may not have the wind blow the air of the city on our backs as we go these two cautions were approved of if it could be brought so to hit that the wind might not be in the south when they set out to go north john the baker who had been a soldier then put in his opinion first says he we none of us expect to get any lodging on the road and it will be a little too hard to lie just in the open air though it be warm weather yet it may be wet and damp and we have a double reason to take care of our health at such a time as this and therefore says he you brother tom that are a sailmaker might easily make us a little tent and i will undertake to set it up every night and take it down and a fig for all the ends in england if we have a good tent over our heads we shall do well enough the joiner opposed this and told them let them leave that to him he would undertake to build them a house every night with his hatchet and mallet though he had no other tools which should be fully to their satisfaction and as good as a tent the soldier and the joiner disputed that point sometime but at last the soldier carried it for a tent the only objection against it was that it must be carried with them and that would increase their baggage too much the weather being hot but the sailmaker had a piece of good hap fell in which made that easy for his master whom he worked for having a rope walk as well as sailmaking trade had a little poor horse that he made no use of then and being willing to assist the three honest men he gave them the horse for the carrying their baggage also for a small matter of three days work that his man did for him before he went he let him have an old top gallant sail that was worn out but was sufficient and more than enough to make a very good tent the soldier showed how to shape it and they soon by his direction made their tent and fitted it with poles or staves for the purpose and thus they were furnished for their journey viz three men one tent one horse one gun for the soldier would not go without arms for now he said he was no more a biscuit maker but a trooper the joiner had a small bag of tools such as might be useful if he should get any work abroad as well as for their subsistence as his own what money they had they brought all into one public stock and thus they began their journey it seems that in the morning when they set out the wind blew as the sailor said by his pocket compass at northwest by west so they directed or rather resolve to direct their course northwest but then a difficulty came in their way that as they set out from the hither end of whopping near the hermitage and that the plague was now very violent especially on the north side of the city as in shoreditch and cripple gate parish they did not think it's safe for them to go near those parts so they went away east through recliff highway as far as recliff cross and leaving stepney church still on their left hand being afraid to come up from recliff cross to my land because they must come just by the church yard and because the wind that seemed to blow more from the west blew directly from the side of the city where the plague was hottest so i say leaving stepney they fetched a long compass and going to poplar and bromley came into the great road just at bow here the watch placed upon bow bridge would have questioned them but they crossed the road into a narrow way that turns out of the hither end of the town of bow to old ford avoided any inquiry there and traveled to old ford the constables everywhere were upon their guard not so much it seems to stop people passing by as to stop them from taking up their abode in their towns and with all because of a report that was newly raised at the time and that indeed was not very improbable vis that the poor people in london being distressed and starved for want of work and by that means for want of bread were up in arms and had raised a tumult and that they would come out to all the towns round to plunder for bread this i say was only a rumor and it was very well it was no more but it was not so far off from being a reality as it has been thought for in a few weeks more the poor people became so desperate by the calamity they suffered that they were with great difficulty kept from going out into the fields and towns and tearing all in pieces wherever they came and as i have observed before nothing hindered them but that the plague raged so violently and fell in upon them so furiously that they rather went to the grave by thousands then into the fields in mobs by thousands for in the parts about the parishes of saint sepulcher clarkinwell cripplegate bishopsgate and shortage which were the places where the mob began to threaten the distemper came on so furiously that there died in those few parishes even then before the plague was come to its height no less than five thousand three hundred and sixty one people in the first three weeks in august when at the same time the parts about whopping redcliffe and rotherheith were as before described hardly touched or but very lightly so that in a word though as i have said before the good management of the lord mayor and justices did much to prevent the rage and desperation of the people from breaking out in rebels and tumults and in short from the poor plundering the rich i say though they did much the dead carts did more for as i have said that in five parishes only there died above five thousand in twenty days so there might be probably three times that number sick all that time for some recovered and great numbers fell sick every day and died afterwards besides i must still be allowed to say that if the bills of mortality said five thousand i always believed it was near twice as many in reality there being no room to believe that the account they gave was right or that indeed they were among such confusions as i saw them in in any condition to keep an exact account but to return to my travelers here they were only examined and as they seemed rather coming from the country than from the city they found the people the easier with them that they talked to them let them come into a public house where the constable and his warders were and gave them drink and some victuals which greatly refreshed and encouraged them and here it came into their heads to say when they should be inquired of afterwards not that they came from london but that they came out of essics to forward this little fraud they obtained so much favor of the constable at old ford as to give them a certificate of their passing from essics through that village and that they had not been in london which though false in the common acceptance of london in the country yet was literally true wapping or redcliffe being no part either of the city or liberty this certificate directed to the constable that was at homerton one of the hamlets of the parish of hackney was so serviceable to them that it procured them not a free passage there only but a full certificate of health from a justice of the peace who upon the constables application granted it without much difficulty and thus they passed through the long divided town of hackney for it laid then in several separated hamlets and traveled on till they came into the great north road on the top of stanford hill by this time they began to be weary and so in the back road from hackney a little before it opened into the said great road they resolved to set up their tent and in camp for the first night which they did accordingly with this addition that finding a barn or a building like a barn and first searching as well as they could to be sure there was nobody in it they set up their tent with the head of it against the barn this they did also because the wind blew that night very high and they were but young at such a way of lodging as well as the managing their tent here they went to sleep but the joiner a grave and sober man and not pleased with their lying at this loose rate the first night could not sleep and resolved after trying to sleep to no purpose that he would get out and taking the gun in his hand stan sentinel and guard his companions so with the gun in his hand he walked to and again before the barn for that stood in the field near the road but within the hedge he had not been long upon the scout but he heard a noise of people coming on as if it had been a great number and they came on as he thought directly towards the barn he did not presently awake his companions but in a few minutes more their noise growing louder and louder the biscuit baker called to him and asked him what was the matter and quickly started out two the other being the lame sailmaker and most weary lay still in the tent as they expected so the people whom they had heard come on directly to the barn when one of our travelers challenged like soldiers upon the guard with who comes there the people did not answer immediately but one of them speaking to another that was behind him alas alas we are all disappointed says he here are some people before us the barn is taken up they all stopped upon that as under some surprise and it seems that there was about 13 of them in all and some women among them they consulted together what they should do and by their discourse our travelers soon found they were poor distressed people too like themselves seeking shelter and safety and besides our travelers had no need to be afraid of their coming up to disturb them for as soon as they heard the words who comes there these could hear the women say as if frightened do not go near them how do you know but that they may have the plague and when one of the men said let us but speak to them the women said no don't by any means we have escaped thus far by the goodness of god do not let us run into danger now we beseech you our travelers found by this that they were a good sober sort of people and flying for their lives as they were and as they were encouraged by it so john said to the joiner his comrade let us encourage them too as much as we can so he called to them hark ye good people says the joiner we find by your talk that you are flying from the same dreadful enemy as we are do not be afraid of us we are only three poor men of us if you are free from the distemper you shall not be hurt by us we are not in the barn but in a little tent here in the outside and we will remove for you we can set up our tent again immediately anywhere else and upon this a parley began between the joiner whose name was richard and one of their men who said his name was ford ford and do you assure us that you are all sound men richard nay we are concerned to tell you of it that you may not be uneasy or think yourselves in danger but you see we do not desire you should put yourself into any danger and therefore i tell you that we have not made use of the barn so we will remove from it that you may be safe and we also ford that is very kind and charitable but if we have reason to be satisfied that you are sound and free from the visitation why should we make you remove now you are settled in your lodging and it may be are laid down to rest we will go into the barn if you please to rest ourselves a while and we need not disturb you richard well but you are more than we are i hope you will assure us that you are all of you sound too for the danger is as great from you to us as from us to you ford blessed be god that some do escape though it is but few what may be our portion still we know not but hitherto we are preserved richard what part of the town do you come from was the plague come to the places where you lived ford i i in a most frightful and terrible manner or else we had not fled away as we do but we believe there will be very few alive behind us richard what part do you come from ford we are most of us of cripplegate perish only two or three of clarkinwell perish but on the hitherside richard how then was it that you came away no sooner ford we have been away some time and kept together as well as we could at the hither end of islington where we got leave to lie in an old unabandoned house and had some bedding and conveniences of our own that we brought with us but the plague is come up into islington too and a house next door to our poor dwelling was infected and shut up and we are come away in a fright richard and what way are you going ford as our lot shall cast us we know not wither but god will guide those that look up to him they parleyed no further at that time but came all up to the barn and with some difficulty got into it there was nothing but hay in the barn but it was almost full of that and they accommodated themselves as well as they could and went to rest but our travelers observed that before they went to sleep an ancient man who it seems was father of one of the women went to prayer with all the company recommending themselves to the blessing and direction of providence before they went to sleep end of section 13 section 14 of a journal of the plague year this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org read by Dennis Sayers a journal of the plague year by Daniel Defoe section 14 it was soon day at that time of the year and as Richard the joiner had kept guard the first part of the night so John the soldier relieved him and he had the post in the morning and they began to be acquainted with one another it seems when they left Islington they intended to have gone north away to Highgate but were stopped at Holloway and there they would not let them pass so they crossed over the fields and hills to the eastward and came out at the boarded river and so avoiding the towns they left Hornsey on the left and Newington on the right and came into the great road about Stamford Hill on that side as the three travelers had done on the other side and now they had thoughts of going over the river and the marshes and make forwards to Epping Forest where they hoped they should get leave to rest it seems they were not poor at least not so poor as to be in want at least they had enough to subsist them moderately for two or three months when as they said they were in hopes the cold weather would check the infection or at least the violence of it would have spent itself and would abate if it were only for want of people left alive to be infected this was much the fate of our three travelers only that they seem to be the better furnished for traveling and had it in their view to go farther off for as to the first they did not propose to go farther than one day's journey that so they might have intelligence every two or three days how things were at london but here our travelers found themselves under an unexpected inconvenience namely that of their horse for by means of the horse to carry their baggage they were obliged to keep in the road whereas the people of this other band went over the fields or roads path or no path way or no way as they pleased neither had they any occasion to pass through any town or come near any town other than to buy such things as they wanted for their necessary subsistence and in that indeed they were put to much difficulty of which in its place but our three travelers were obliged to keep the road or else they must commit spoil and do the country a great deal of damage in breaking down fences and gates to go over enclosed fields which they were loath to do if they could help it our three travelers however had a great mind to join themselves to this company and take their lot with them and after some discourse they laid aside their first design which looked northward and resolved to follow the other into Essex so in the morning they took up their tent and loaded their horse and away they traveled all together they had some difficulty in passing the ferry at the riverside the ferrymen being afraid of them but after some parlay at a distance the ferryman was content to bring his boat to a place distant from the usual ferry and leave it there for them to take it so putting themselves over he directed them to leave the boat and he having another boat said he would fetch it again which it seems however he did not do for above eight days here giving the ferryman money beforehand they had a supply of victuals and drink which he brought and left in the boat for them but not without as i said having received the money beforehand but now our travelers were at a great loss and difficulty how to get the horse over the boat being small and not fit for it and at last could not do it without unloading the baggage and making him swim over from the river they traveled towards the forest but when they came to walthamstow the people of that town denied to admit them as was the case everywhere the constables and their watchmen kept them off at a distance and parlayed with them they gave the same account of themselves as before but these gave no credit to what they said giving it for a reason that two or three companies had already come that way and made the like pretenses but that they had given several people the distemper in the towns where they had passed and had been afterwards so hardly used by the country though with justice too as they had deserved that about brentwood or that way several of them perished in the fields whether of the plague or of mere want and distress they could not tell this was a good reason indeed why the people of walthamstow should be very cautious and why they should resolve not to entertain anybody that they were not well satisfied of but as richard the joiner and one of the other men who parlayed with them told them it was no reason why they should block up the roads and refuse to let people pass through the town and who asked nothing of them but to go through the street that if their people were afraid of them they might go into their houses and shut their doors they would neither show them civility or in civility but go on about their business the constables and attendants not to be persuaded by reason continued obstinate and would harken to nothing so the two men that talked with them went back to their fellows to consult what was to be done it was very discouraging in the whole and they knew not what to do for a good while but at last john the soldier and biscuit maker considering a while come says he leave the rest of the parlay to me he had not appeared yet so he sets the joiner richard to work to cut some poles out of the trees and shape them as like guns as he could and in a little time he had five or six fair muskets which at a distance would not be known and about the part where the lock of a gun is he caused them to wrap cloth and rags such as they had as soldiers do in wet weather to preserve the locks on their pieces from rust the rest was discolored with clay or mud such as they could get and all this while the rest of them sat under the trees by his direction in two or three bodies where they made fires at a good distance from one another while this was doing he advanced himself and two or three with him and set up their tent and the lane within sight of the barrier which the townsmen had made and set a sentinel just by it with the real gun the only one they had and who walked to and fro with the gun on his shoulder so that the people of the town might see him also he tied the horse to a gate in the hedge just by and got some dry sticks together and kindled a fire on the other side of the tent so that the people of the town could see the fire and the smoke but could not see what they were doing at it after the country people had looked upon them very earnestly a great while and by all that they could see could not but suppose that they were a great many in company yeah they began to be uneasy not for their going away but for staying where they were and above all perceiving they had horses and arms for they had seen one horse and one gun at the tent they had seen others of them walk about the field on the inside of the hedge by the side of the lane with their muskets as they took them to be shouldered I say upon such a sight as this you may be assured they were alarmed and terribly frightened and it seems they went to a justice of the peace to know what they should do what the justice advised them to I know not but towards the evening they called from the barrier as above to the sentinel at the tent what do you want says john note it seems john was in the tent but hearing them call he steps out and taking the gun upon his shoulder talk to them as if he had been the sentinel placed there upon the guard by some officer that was his superior footnote in the original why what do you intend to do says the constable to do says john what would you have us to do constable why don't you be gone what do you stand there for john why do you stop us in the king's highway and pretend to refuse us leave to go on our way constable we are not bound to tell you our reason though we did let you know it was because of the plague john we told you we were all sound and free from the plague which we were not bound to have satisfied you of and yet you pretend to stop us on the highway constable we have a right to stop it up and our own safety obliges us to it besides this is not the king's highway tis away upon sufferance you see here is a gate and if we do let people pass here we make them pay toll john we have a right to seek our own safety as well as you and you may see we are flying for our lives and tis very un christian and unjust to stop us constable you may go back from once you came we do not hinder you from that john no it is a stronger enemy than you that keeps us from doing that or else we should not have come hither constable well you may go any other way then john no no i suppose you see we are able to send you going and all the people of your parish and come through your town when we will but since you have stopped us here we are content you see we have encamped here and here we will live we hope you will furnish us with victuals constable we furnish you what mean you by that john why you would not have a starve would you if you stop us here you must keep us you will be ill kept at our maintenance john if you stent us we shall make ourselves the better allowance constable why you will not pretend to quarter upon us by force will you john we have offered no violence to you yet why do you seem to oblige us to it i am an old soldier and cannot starve and if you think that we shall be obliged to go back for want of provisions you are mistaken constable since you threaten us we shall take care to be strong enough for you i have orders to raise the county upon you john it is you that threaten not we and since you are for mischief you cannot blame us if we do not give you time for it we shall begin our march in a few minutes constable what is it you demand of us john at first we desired nothing of you but leave to go through the town we should have offered no injury to any of you neither would you have had any injury or loss by us we are not thieves but poor people in distress and flying from the dreadful plague in london which devours thousands every week we wonder how you could be so unmerciful constable self-preservation obliges us john what to shut up your compassion in a case of such distress as this constable well if you will pass over the fields on your left hand and behind that part of the town i will endeavor to have gates opened for you john our horsemen cannot pass with our baggage that way note they had but one horse among them footnotes in the original the way does not lead into the road that we want to go and why should you force us out of the road besides you have kept us here all day without any provisions but such as we brought with us i think you ought to send us some provisions for our relief constable if you will go another way we will send you some provisions john that is the way to have all the towns in the county stop up the ways against us constable if they all furnish you with food what will you be the worse i see you have tents you want no lodging john well what quantity of provisions will you send us constable how many are you john nay we do not ask enough for all our company we are in three companies if you will send us bread for twenty men and about six or seven women for three days and show us the way over the field you speak of we desire not to put your people into any fear for us we will go out of our way to oblige you though we are as free from infection as you are note here he called to one of his men and bade him order captain richard and his people to march the lower way on the side of the marches and meet them in the forest which was all a sham for they had no captain richard or any such company footnote in the original constable and will you assure us that your other people shall offer us no new disturbance john no no you may depend on it constable you must oblige yourself too that none of your people shall come a step nearer than where the provisions we send you shall be set down john i answer for it we will not accordingly they sent to the place twenty loaves of bread and three or four large pieces of good beef and opened some gates through which they passed but none of them had courage so much as to look out to see them go and as it was evening if they had looked they could not have seen them as to know how few they were this was john the soldier's management but this gave such an alarm to the county that had they really been two or three hundred the whole county would have been raised upon them and they would have been sent to prison or perhaps not on the head they were soon made sensible of this for two days afterwards they found several parties of horsemen and footmen also about in pursuit of three companies of men armed as they said with muskets who were broke out from london and had the plague upon them and that were not only spreading the distemper among the people but plundering the country as they saw now the consequence of their case they soon saw the danger they were in so they resolved by the advice also of the old soldier to divide themselves again john and his two comrades with the horse went away as if towards waltham the other in two companies but all a little asunder went towards epping the first night they encamped all in the forest and not far off of one another but not setting up the tent lest that should discover them on the other hand richard went to work with his axe and his hatchet and cutting down branches of trees he built three tents or hovels in which they all encamped with as much convenience as they could expect the provisions they had at waltham style served them very plentifully this night and as for the next they left it to providence they had fared so well with the old soldier's conduct that they now willingly made him their leader and the first of his conduct appeared to be very good he told them that they were now at a proper distance enough from london that as they need not be immediately beholden to the country for relief so they ought to be as careful the country did not infect them as that they did not infect the country that what little money they had they must be as frugal of as they could that as he would not have them think of offering the country any violence so they must endeavor to make the sense of their condition go as far with the country as it could they all referred themselves to his direction so they left their three houses standing and the next day went away towards epping the captain also for now they so called him and his two fellow travelers laid aside their design of going to waltham and all went together when they came near epping they halted choosing out a proper place in the open forest not very near the highway but not far out of it on the north side under a little cluster of low powdered trees here they pitched their little camp which consisted of three large tents or huts made of poles which their carpenter and such as were his assistants cut down and fixed in the ground in a circle binding all the small ends together at the top and thickening the sides with boughs of trees and bushes so that they were completely close and warm they had besides this a little tent where the women lay by themselves and a hut to put the horse in it happened that the next day or next but one was market day at epping when captain john and one of the other men went to market and bought some provisions that is to say bread and some mutton and beef and two other women went separately as if they had not belonged to the rest and bought more john took the horse to bring it home and the sack which the carpenter carried his tools in to put it in the carpenter went to work and made them benches and stools to sit on such as the wood he could get would afford and a kind of table to dine on they were taken no notice of for two or three days but after that abundance of people ran out of the town to look at them and all the country was alarmed about them the people at first seemed afraid to come near them and on the other hand they desired the people to keep off for there was a rumor that the plague was at waltham and that it had been in epping two or three days so john called out to them not to come to them for says he we are all whole and sound people here and we would not have you bring the plague among us nor pretend we brought it among you after this the parish officers came up to them and par laid with them at a distance and desired to know who they were and by what authority they pretended to fix their stand at that place john answered very frankly they were poor distressed people from london who foreseen the misery they should be reduced to if plague spread into the city had fled out in time for their lives and having no acquaintance or relations to fly to had first taken up at islington but the plague being come into that town were fled farther and as they supposed that the people of epping might have refused them coming into their town they had pitched their tents thus in the open field and in the forest being willing to bear all the hardships of such a disconsolate lodging rather than have anyone think or be afraid that they should receive injury by them at first the epping people talked roughly to them and told them they must remove that this was no place for them and that they pretended to be sound and well but that they might be infected with the plague for ought they knew and might infect the whole country and they could not suffer them here john argued very calmly with them a great while and told them that london was the place by which they that is the townsmen of epping and all the country round them subsisted to whom they sold the produce of their lands and out of whom they made their rent of their farms and to be so cruel to the inhabitants of london or to any of those by whom they gained so much was very hard and they would be loath to have it remembered hereafter and have it told how barbarous how inhospitable and how unkind they were to the people of london when they fled from the face of the most horrible enemy in the world that it would be enough to make the name of an epping man hateful through all the city and to have the rabble stone them in the very streets whenever they came so much as to market that they were not yet secure from being visited themselves and that as he heard waltham was already that they would think it very hard that when any of them fled for fear before they were touched they should be denied the liberty of lying so much as in the open fields the epping men told them again that they indeed said they were sound and free from the infection but that they saw no assurance of it and that it was reported that there had been a great rabble of people at walthamstow who made such pretenses of being sound as they did but that they threatened to plunder the town and force their way whether the parish officers would or know that there were near 200 of them and had arms and tents like low country soldiers that they extorted provisions from the town by threatening them with living upon them at free quarter showing their arms and talking in the language of soldiers and that several of them had gone away toward rumford and brintwood the country had been infected by them and the plague spread into both those large towns so that the people durst not go to market there as usual that it was very likely that they were some of that party and if so they deserved to be sent to the county jail and be secured till they had made satisfaction for the damage they had done and for the terror and the fright they had put the country into john answered that what other people had done was nothing to them that they assured them they were all of one company that they had never been more in number than they saw them at that time which by the way was very true that they came out in two separate companies but joined by the way their cases being the same that they were ready to give what account of themselves anybody would desire of them and to give in their names and places of abode that so they might be called to an account for any disorder that they might be guilty of that the townsmen might see they were content to live hardly and only desired a little room to breathe in on the forest where it was wholesome for where it was not they could not stay and would decant if they found it otherwise there but said the townsmen we have a great charge of poor upon our hands already and we must take care not to increase it we suppose you can give us no security against your being chargeable to our parish and to the inhabitants any more than you can of being dangerous to us as to the infection why look you says john as to being chargeable to you we hope we shall not if you will relieve us with provisions for our present necessity we will be very thankful as we all lived without charity when we were at home so we will oblige ourselves fully to repay you if god pleases to bring us back to our own families and houses in safety and to restore health to the people of london as to our dying here we assure you if any of us die we that survive will bury them and put you to no expense except it should be that we should all die and then indeed the last man not being able to bury himself would put you to that single expense which i am persuaded says john he would leave enough behind him to pay you for the expense of on the other hand says john if you shut up all bowels of compassion and not relieve us at all we shall not extort anything by violence or steal from anyone but when what little we have is spent if we perish for want gods will be done john wrought so upon the townsmen by talking thus rationally and smoothly to them that they went away and though they did not give any consent to their stain there yet they did not molest them and the poor people continued their three or four days longer without any disturbance in this time they had got some remote acquaintance with a victual in house at the outskirts of the town to whom they called at a distance to bring some little things that they wanted and which they caused to be set down at a distance and always paid for very honestly end of section 14