 Section 1 of Journal of the Plague Gear. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Dennis Sayers. Journal of the Plague Gear. By Daniel Defoe. Recording observations or memorials of the most remarkable occurrences, as well public as private, which happened in London during the last great visitation in 1665. Written by a citizen who continued all the while in London, never made public before. Section 1. It was about the beginning of September 1664 that I, among the rest of my neighbors, heard in ordinary discourse that the plague was returned again in Holland, for it had been very violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the year 1663. Wither, they say, it was brought, some said, from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their turkey fleet, others said it was brought from Kandia, others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came, but all agreed it was coming to Holland again. We had no such things as printed newspapers in those days to spread rumors and reports of things, and to improve them by the invention of men, as I have lived to see practiced since. But such things as these were gathered from the letters of merchants and others who corresponded abroad, and from them was handed about by word of mouth only, so that things did not spread instantly over the whole nation as they do now. But it seems that the government had a true account of it, and several councils were held about ways to prevent its coming over, but all was kept very private. Hence it was that this rumor died off again, and people began to forget it as a thing we were very little concerned in, and that we hoped was not true, till the latter end of November, or the beginning of December 1664, when two men, said to be Frenchmen, died of the plague in Longacre, or rather at the upper end of Drury Lane. The family they were in endeavored to conceal it as much as possible, but as it had gotten some vent in the discourse of the neighborhood, the secretaries of state got knowledge of it, and concerning themselves to inquire about it in order to be certain of the truth, two physicians and a surgeon were ordered to go to the house and make inspection. This they did. And finding evident tokens of the sickness upon both the bodies that were dead, they gave their opinions publicly that they died of the plague, whereupon it was given in to the parish clerk, and he also returned them to the hall, and it was printed in the weekly bill of mortality in the usual manner, thus, plague two, parishes infected one. The people showed a great concern at this, and began to be alarmed all over the town, and the more because in the last week in December 1664 another man died in the same house and of the same distemper, and then we were easy again for about six weeks. When none having died without any marks of infection, it was said that the distemper was gone, but after that, I think it was about the 12th of February, another died in another house, but in the same parish and in the same manner. This turned the people's eyes pretty much towards that end of the town, and the weekly bills showing an increase of burials in St. Giles Parish, more than usual, it began to be suspected that the plague was among the people at that end of the town, and that many had died of it, though they had taken care to keep it as much from the knowledge of the public as possible. This possessed the heads of the people very much, and few cared to go through Drury Lane, or the other streets suspected, unless they had extraordinary business that obliged them to it. This increase in the bills stood thus. The usual number of burials in a week in the parishes of St. Giles in the fields and St. Andrews, Holborn, were from 12 to 17 or 19 each, few more or less. But from the time that the plague first began in St. Giles Parish, it was observed that the ordinary burials increased in number considerably. For example, from December 27th to January 3rd, St. Giles 16, St. Andrews 17. From January 3rd to January 10th, St. Giles 12, St. Andrews 25. From January 10th through January 17th, St. Giles 18, St. Andrews 18. From January 17th through January 24th, St. Giles 23, St. Andrews 16. From January 24th through January 31st, St. Giles 24, St. Andrews 15. From January 30th through February 7th, St. Giles 21, St. Andrews 23. From February 7th through February 14th, St. Giles 24. The like increase of the bills was observed in the parishes of St. Bride, adjoining on one side of Holborn Parish and in the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell, adjoining on the other side of Holborn, in both which parishes the usual numbers that died weekly were from 4 to 6 or 8, whereas at that time they were increased as follows. From December 20th to December 27th, St. Brides 0, St. James 8. From December 27th to January 3rd, St. Brides 6, St. James 9. From January 3rd through January 10th, St. Brides 11, St. James 7. From January 10th through January 17th, St. Brides 12, St. James 9. From January 17th to January 24th, St. Brides 9, St. James 15. From January 24th through January 31st, St. Brides 8, St. James 12. From January 31st through February 7th, St. Brides 13, St. James 5. From February 7th through February 14th, St. Brides 12, St. James 6. Besides this, it was observed with great uneasiness by the people that the weekly bills in general increased very much during these weeks, although it was at a time of the year when usually the bills are very moderate. The usual number of burials within the bills of mortality for a week was from about 240 or thereabouts to 300. The last was esteemed a pretty high bill. But after this we found the bills successively increasing as follows. December the 20th to the 27th, Burial 291. From December 27th to January 3rd, 349 buried, increased 58. From January the 3rd through January the 10th, 394 buried, 45 increased. From January the 10th through January 17th, 415 buried, increased 21. From January the 17th through January the 24th, 474 buried, 59 increased. The last bill was really frightful, being a higher number than had been known to have been buried in one week since the preceding visitation of 1656. However, all this went off again, and the weather proving cold, and the frost, which began in December, still continuing very severe, even till near the end of February, attended with sharp though moderate winds, the bills decreased again, and the city grew healthy, and everybody began to look upon the danger as good as over, only that still the burials in St. Giles continued high. From the beginning of April, especially, they stood at 25 each week, till the week from the 18th to the 25th, when they were buried in St. Giles Parish 30, whereof two of the plague and eight of the spotted fever, which was looked upon as the same thing. Likewise the number that died of the spotted fever on the whole increased, being eight the week before, and twelve the week above named. This alarmed us all again, and terrible apprehensions were among the people, especially the weather being now changed and growing warm, and the summer being at hand. However, the next week there seemed to be some hopes again, the bills were low, the number of the dead in all was but 388, there was none of the plague, and but four of the spotted fever. But the following week it returned again, and the distemper was spread into two or three other parishes, that is St. Andrew's, Holburn, St. Clement Danes, and to the great affliction of the city, one died within the wall of St. Mary Woolchurch, that is to say in Bearbinder Lane near Stocks Market. In all there were nine of the plague and six of the spotted fever. It was however upon inquiry found that this Frenchman who died in Bearbinder Lane was one who, having lived in Longacre near the infected houses, had removed for fear of the distemper, not knowing that he was already infected. This was the beginning of May, yet the weather was temperate, variable, and cool enough, and people had still some hopes. That which encouraged them was that the city was healthy. The whole 97 parishes buried but 54, and we began to hope that, as it was chiefly among the people at that end of the town, it might go no farther, and the rather, because the next week, which was from the 9th of May to the 16th, there died but three, of which not one within the whole city, or liberties, and St. Andrew's buried but 15, which was very low. It is true that St. Giles buried two and thirty, but still, as there was but one of the plague, people began to be easy. The whole bill also was very low. For the week before, the bill was but 347, and the week above mentioned, but 343. We continued in these hopes for a few days, but it was but a few. For the people were no more to be deceived, thus. They searched the houses, and found that the plague was really spread every way, and that many died of it every day, so that now all our extenuations abated, and it was no more to be concealed. Nay, it quickly appeared that the infection had spread itself beyond all hopes of abatement. That in the parish of St. Giles, it was gotten into several streets, and several families lay all sick together. And accordingly, in the weekly bill for the next week, the thing began to show itself. There was indeed but fourteen set down to the plague, but this was all navery and collusion. For in St. Giles' parish, they buried forty in all, whereof it was certain most of them died of the plague, though they were set down of other distempers. And though the number of all the burials were not increased above thirty-two, and the whole bill being but three hundred and eighty-five, yet there was fourteen of the spotted fever as well as fourteen of the plague. And we took it all for granted, upon the whole, that there were fifty died that week of the plague. The next bill was from the twenty-third of May to the thirtieth, when the number of the plague was seventeen. But the burials in St. Giles were fifty-three, a frightful number, of whom they set down but nine of the plague. But on an examination more strictly by the Justices of Peace, and at the Lord Mayor's request, it was found that there were twenty more who were really dead of the plague in that parish, but had been set down of the spotted fever or other distempers, besides others concealed. But these were trifling things to what followed immediately after. For now the weather set in hot, and from the first week in June the infection spread in a dreadful manner, and the bills rose high. The articles of the fever, spotted fever, and teeth began to swell, for all that could conceal their distempers did it, to prevent their neighbors shunning and refusing to converse with them, and also to prevent authority from shutting up their houses, which, though it was not yet practiced, yet was threatened, and people were extremely terrified at the thought of it. The second week of June, the parish of St. Giles, where still the weight of the infection lay, buried one hundred and twenty, whereof, though the bills said but sixty-eight of the plague, everybody said there had been one hundred, at least, calculating it from the usual number of funerals in that parish, as above. Till this week the city continued free, there having never any died, except that one Frenchman, whom I mentioned before, within the whole ninety-seven parishes. Now there died four within the city. One in Wood Street, one in Fenn Church Street, and two in Crooked Lane. South work was entirely free, having not one yet died on that side of the water. I lived without Aldgate, about midway between Aldgate Church and White Chapel Bars, on the left hand or north side of the street, and as the distemper had not yet reached to that side of the city, our neighborhood continued very easy, but at the other end of the town, their consternation was very great, and the richer sort of people, especially the nobility and gentry from the west part of the city, thronged out of the town with their families and servants in an unusual manner, and this was more particularly seen in White Chapel, that is to say the broad street where I lived. Only nothing was to be seen but wagons and carts, with goods, women, servants, children, etc. Coaches filled with people of the better sort, and horsemen attending them, and all hurrying away. Then empty wagons and carts appeared, and spare horses with servants, who, it was apparent, were returning or sent from the country to fetch more people. There were numerous numbers of men on horseback, some alone, others with servants, and generally speaking, all loaded with luggage and fitted out for traveling, as anyone might perceive by their appearance. This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to see, and as it was a sight which I could not but look on from morning to night, for indeed there was nothing else of moment to be seen, it filled me with very serious thoughts of the misery that was coming upon the city, and the unhappy condition of those that would be left in it. This hurry of the people was such, for some weeks, that there was no getting at the Lord Mayor's door without exceeding difficulty. There were such pressing and crowding there to get passes and certificates of health for such as travel to broad, for without these there was no being admitted to pass through the towns upon the road or to lodge in any end. Now, as there had none died in the city for all this time, my Lord Mayor gave certificates of health without any difficulty to all those who lived in the ninety-seven parishes, and to those within the liberties too for a while. This hurry, I say, continued some weeks, that is to say, all the months of May and June, and the more because it was rumored that an order of the government was to be issued out to place turnpikes and barriers on the road to prevent people traveling, and that the towns on the road would not suffer people from London to pass, for fear of bringing the affection along with them, though neither of these rumors had any foundation but in the imagination, especially at first. I now began to seriously consider with myself concerning my own case and how I should dispose of myself, that is to say, whether I should resolve to stay in London or shut up my house and flee as many of my neighbors did. I have set this particular down so fully because I know not but it may be of moment to those who come after me if they come to be brought to the same distress and to the same manner of making their choice, and therefore I desire this account may pass with them rather for a direction to themselves to act by than a history of my actings, seeing it may not be of one farthing value to them to note what became of me. I had two important things before me. The one was the carrying on of my business and shop, which was considerable, and in which was embarked all my effects in the world, and the other was the preservation of my life in so dismal a calamity as I saw apparently was coming upon the whole city, and which, however great it was, my fears perhaps as well as other peoples represented to be much greater than it could be. The first consideration was a great moment to me. My trade was a saddler, and as my dealings were chiefly not by a shop or a chance trade, but among the merchants trading to the English colonies in America, so my effects lay very much in the hands of such. I was a single man, tis true, but I had a family of servants whom I kept at my business, had a house, shop, and warehouses filled with goods, and, in short, to leave them all, as things in such a case must be left, that is to say, without any overseer or person fit to be trusted with them, had been to hazard the loss not only of my trade but of my goods, and indeed of all I had in the world. I had an elder brother at the same time in London, and not many years before come over from Portugal, and advising with him his answer was in three words, the same that was given in another case quite difference, that is master, save, thyself. In a word he was for my retiring into the country, as he resolved to do himself with his family, telling me what he said, it seems, heard abroad, that the best preparation for the plague was to run away from it. As to my argument of losing my trade, my goods, or debts, he quite confuted me. He told me the same thing which I argued for my staying, that is, that I would trust God with my safety and health was the strongest repulse to the pretensions of losing my trade and my goods. For, says he, is it not as reasonable that you should trust God with the chance or risk of losing your trade as that you should stay in so imminent a point of danger and trust him with your life? I could not argue with him that I was in any straight as to a place where to go, having several friends and relations in Northamptonshire, whence our family first came from, and particularly I had an only sister in Lincolnshire, very willing to receive and entertain me. My brother who had already sent his wife and two children into Bedfordshire and resolved to follow them, pressed my going very earnestly, and I had once resolved to comply with his desires, but at that time could get no horse. For though it is true all the people did not go out of the City of London, yet I may venture to say that in a manner all the horses did, for there was hardly a horse to be bought or hired in the whole city for some weeks. Once I resolved to travel on foot with one servant, and as many did lie at no in but carry a soldier's tent with us, and so lie in the fields, the weather being very warm and no danger from taking cold. I say, as many did, because several did so at last, especially those who had been in the armies in the war, which had not been many years past, and I must need say that speaking of second causes, had most of the people that traveled done so, the plague had not been carried into so many country towns and houses as it was, to the great damage, and indeed to the ruin of abundance of people. But then my servant, whom I had intended to take down with me, deceived me, and being frided at the increase of the distemper, and not knowing when I should go, he took other measures and left me. So I was put off for that time. And one way or other, I always found that to a point to go away was always crossed by some accident or other, so as to disappoint and put it off again. And this brings in a story which might otherwise be thought a needless digression, that is, about these disappointments being from heaven. I mentioned this story also as the best method I can advise any person to take in such a case, especially if he be one that makes conscience of his duty and would be directed what to do in it, namely, that he should keep his eye upon the particular providences which occur at that time, and look upon them complexly as they regard one another, and as altogether regard the question before him. And then I think he may safely take them for intimations from heaven of what is his unquestioned duty to do in such a case. I mean as to going away from or staying in the place where he dwell when visited with an infectious distemper. It came very warmly into my mind one morning, as I was musing on this particular thing, that as nothing attended us without the direction or permission of divine power, so these disappointments must have something in them extraordinary, and I ought to consider whether it did not evidently point out, or intimate to me, that it was the will of heaven I should not go. It immediately followed in my thoughts that if it really was from God that I should stay, he was able to effectually preserve me in the midst of all the death and danger that would surround me, and that if I attempted to secure myself by fleeing from my habitation, and acted contrary to these intimations, which I believe to be divine, it was a kind of flying from God, and that he could cause his justice to overtake me when and where he thought fit. These thoughts quite turned my resolutions again, and when I came to discourse with my brother again, I told him that I inclined to stay and take my lot in that station in which God had placed me, and that it seemed to be made more especially my duty on the account of what I have said. My brother, though a very religious man himself, laughed at all I had suggested about its being an intimation from heaven, and told me several stories of such foolhardy people, as he called them, as I was, that I ought indeed to submit to it as a work of heaven if I had been any way disabled by distempers or diseases, and that then not being able to go, I ought to acquiesce in the direction of him who, having been my maker, had an undisputed right of sovereignty in disposing of me, and that then there had been no difficulty to determine which was the call of his provenance and which was not, but that I should take it as an intimation from heaven, that I should not go out of the town only because I could not hire a horse to go, or my fellow was run away, that was to attend me, was ridiculous, since at the time I had my health and limbs and other servants, and might, with ease, travel a day or two on foot, and having a good certificate of being in perfect health, might either hire a horse or take post on the road, as I thought fit. Then he proceeded to tell me of the mischievous consequences which attended the presumption of the Turks and the Mahometans in Asia and in other places where he had been, for my brother, being a merchant was a few years before, as I have already observed, returned from abroad, coming last from Lisbon, and how, presuming upon their professed predestinating notions, and of every man's end being predetermined and unalterably beforehand decreed, they would go unconcerned into infected places and converse with infected persons, by which means they died at the rate of 10 or 15,000 a week, whereas the Europeans, or Christian merchants, who kept themselves retired and reserved, generally escaped the contagion. Upon these arguments, my brother changed my resolutions again, and I began to resolve to go, and accordingly made all things ready, for, in short, the infection increased around me, and the bills were risen to again almost 700 a week, and my brother told me he would venture to stay no longer. I desired him to let me consider of it, but till the next day, and I would resolve, and as I had already prepared everything, as well as I could, as to my business, and whom to entrust my affairs with, I had little to do, but to resolve. I went home that evening greatly oppressed in my mind, irresolute, and not knowing what to do. I had set the evening wholly apart to consider seriously about it, and was all alone, for already people had, as it were, by a general consent, taken up the custom of not going out of doors after sunset, the reason I shall have occasion to say more of, by and by. In the retirement of this evening, I endeavored to resolve, first, what was my duty to do, and I stated the arguments with which my brother had pressed me to go into the country, and I said against them the strong impressions which I had on my mind for staying, the visible call I seemed to have from the particular circumstance of my calling, and the care due from me for the preservation of my effects, which were, as I might say, my estate. Also, the intimations which I thought I had from heaven, that to me signified a kind of direction to venture, and it occurred to me that if I had what I might call a direction to stay, I ought to suppose it contained a promise of being preserved, if I obeyed. This lay close to me, and my mind seemed more and more encouraged to stay than ever, and supported with the secret satisfaction that I should be kept. Add to this that turning over the Bible, which lay before me, and while my thoughts were more than ordinarily serious upon the question, I cried out, well, I know not what to do, Lord, direct me, and the like. And at that juncture, I happened to stop turning over the book at the 91st Psalm. I, on the second verse, I read on to the seventh verse exclusive, and after that included the tenth, as follows. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress. My God, in him will I trust. Surely, he shall deliver thee from the snare of the foller, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust. His trust shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flyeth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteeth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shall thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most high thy habitation. There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling, etc. I scarce need tell the reader that from that moment I resolved that I would stay in the town, and casting myself entirely upon the goodness and protection of the Almighty, would not seek any other shelter, whatever, and that as my times were in his hands, he was as able to keep me in a time of the infection as in a time of health. And if he did not think fit to deliver me, still I was in his hands, and it was meat he should do with me, as should seem good to him. With this resolution I went to bed, and I was further confirmed in it the next morning by the woman being taken ill, with whom I had intended to entrust my house and all my affairs. But I had a further obligation laid on me from the same side. For the next day I myself very much out of order also, so that if I would have gone away I could not. And I continued ill three or four days, and this entirely determined my stay. So I took my leave of my brother, who went to Dorkin and Surrey, and afterwards fetched around farther into Buckinghamshire, or Bedfordshire, to a retreat he had found out there for his family. It was a very ill time to be sickened, for if anyone complained it was immediately said he had the plague. And though I had indeed no symptoms of that distemper, yet being very ill, both in my head and in my stomach, I was not without apprehension that I really was infected. But in about three days I grew better. The third night I rested well, sweated a little, and was much refreshed. The apprehensions of its being the infection went also quite away with my illness, and I went about my business as usual. These things however put off all thoughts of going into the country, and my brother also being gone I had no more debate, either with him or with myself on the subject. It was now mid-July, and the plague, which had chiefly raged at the other end of the town, and, as I said before, in the parishes of St Giles, St Andrews, Colburn, and towards Westminster, began to now come eastward towards the part where I lived. It was to be observed indeed that it did not come straight on towards us, for the city, that is to say within the walls, was indifferently healthy still, nor was it got then very much over the water into Southwark. For though there died that week one thousand two hundred and sixty-eight of all distempers, whereof it might be supposed above six hundred died of the plague, yet there was but twenty-eight in the whole city within the walls, and but nineteen in Southwark, Lambeth Parish included, whereas in the parishes of St Giles and St Martin's in the fields, alone there died four hundred and twenty-one. But we perceived the infection kept chiefly in the out parishes, which, being very populous and fuller also of poor, the distemper found more to prey upon than in the city, as I shall observe afterwards. We perceived, I say, the distemper to draw our way, that is, by the parishes of Clarkinwell, Cripplegate, Shortitch, and Bishopsgate, which last two parishes, joining to Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Stepney, the infection came at length to spread its utmost rage and violence in those parts, even when it abated at the western parishes where it began. It was very strange to observe that in this particular week, from the fourth to the eleventh of July, when, as I have observed, there died near four hundred of the plague in the two parishes of St Martin and St Giles in the fields only. There died in the parish of Aldgate, but four, in the parish of Whitechapel, three, and in the parish of Stepney but one. Likewise, in the next week, from the eleventh of July to the eighteenth, when the week's bill was one thousand seven hundred and sixty one, yet there died no more of the plague on the whole southwork side of the water than sixteen. But this face of things soon changed, and it began to thicken in Cripplegate Parish, especially, and in Clarkinwell, so that by the second week in August, Cripplegate Parish alone buried eight hundred and eighty-six, and Clarkinwell a hundred and fifty-five. Of the first, eight hundred and fifty might well be reckoned to die of the plague, and of the last the bill itself said one hundred and forty-five were of the plague. During the month of July, and while, as I have observed, our part of the town seemed to be spared in comparison of the west part, I went ordinarily about the streets, as my business required, and particularly went generally once in a day, or in two days, into the city, to my brother's house, which he had given me charge of, and to see if it was safe. And having the key in my pocket, I used to go into the house, and over most of the rooms, to see that all was well. For though it be something wonderful to tell, that any should have hearts so hardened in the midst of such a calamity as to rob and steal, yet certain it is that all sorts of villainies and even levities and debaucheries were then practiced in the town as openly as ever. I will not say quite as frequently, because the numbers of people were many ways lessened. But the city itself began now to be visited to, I mean, within the walls. But the number of people there were indeed extremely lessened by so great a multitude having been gone into the country. And even all this month of July, they continued to flee, though not in such multitudes as formerly. In August indeed, they fled in such a manner that I began to think that there would be really none but magistrates and servants left in the city. As they fled now out of the city, so I should observe that the court removed early, that is, in the month of June, and went to Oxford, where it pleased God to preserve them. And the distemper did not, as I heard of, so much as touched them, for which I cannot say that I saw they showed any great tokens of thankfulness and hardly anything of reformation. Though they did not want, being told, that their crying vices might, without breach of charity, be said to have gone far in bringing that terrible judgment upon the whole nation. The face of London was, now indeed, strangely altered. I mean, the whole mass of buildings, city, liberties, suburbs, Westminster, Southwark, and all together. For as to the particular part called the city, or as well as to everybody else, it was a most surprising thing to see those streets, which were usually so thronged, now grown desolate, and so few people to be seen in them, that, if I had been a stranger, and at a loss for my way, I might sometimes have gone the length of a whole street, I mean of the by-streets, and seen nobody to direct me, except watchmen set at the doors of such houses, as were shut up, of which I shall speak presently. One day, being at that part of the town on some special business, curiosity led me to observe things more than usually, and, indeed, I walked a great way where I had no business. I went up, hull-born, and there the street was full of people. But they walked in the middle of the great street, neither on one side or the other, because, as I suppose, they would not mingle with anybody that came out of houses, or meet with smells and scent from houses that might be infected. The ins of court were all shut up. I do not mean shut up by the magistrates, but that great numbers of persons followed the court, by the necessity of their employments, and other dependencies, and, as others retired, really frighted with the distemper. It was a mere desolating of some of the streets. But the fright was not yet near so great in the city, abstractly so-called, and particularly because, though they were at first in a most inexpressible consternation, yet, as I have observed that the distemper intermitted often at first, so they were, as it were, alarmed and unalarmed again, and this several times, till it became to be familiar to them, and that even when it appeared violent. Yet, seeing it did not presently spread into the city, or the east and south parts, the people began to take courage, and to be, as I may say, a little hardened. It is true a vast many people fled, as I have observed, yet they were chiefly from the west end of the town, and from that we call the heart of the city, that is to say, among the wealthiest of the people, and such people as were unencumbered with trades and business. But, of the rest, the generality stayed, and seemed to abide the worst, so that, in the place we call the liberties, and in the suburbs, in Southark and in the east part, such as Wapping, Radcliffe, Stepney, Rutherhithe, and the like, the people generally stayed, except here and there, a few wealthy families who, as above, did not depend upon their business. It must not be forgot here that the city and suburbs were prodigiously full of people at the time of this visitation, I mean, at the time that it began. For, though I have lived to see a further increase, and many throngs of people settling in London more than ever, yet we had always a notion that the numbers of people which, the wars being over, the armies disbanded, and the royal family and the monarchy being restored, had flocked to London to settle in business, or to depend upon and attend the court for rewards of services, preferments, and the like, was such that the town was computed to have in it above a hundred thousand people more than ever it held before. Nay, some took upon them to say it had twice as many, because all the ruined families of the royal party flocked hither. All the old soldiers set up trades here, and abundance of families settled here. Again, the court brought with them a great influx of pride and new fashions. All people were grown gay and luxurious, and the joy of the restoration had brought a vast many families here to London. I often thought that, as Jerusalem was besieged by the Romans when the Jews were assembled together to celebrate the Passover, by which means an incredible number of people were surprised there, who would otherwise have been in other countries. So the plague entered London when an incredible increase of people had happened occasionally, by the particular circumstances above named. As this conflicts of the people to a youthful and gay court made a great trade in the city, especially in everything that belonged to fashion and finery, so it drew by consequences a great number of workmen, manufacturers, and the like, being mostly poor people who depended upon their labor. And I remember in particular that in a representation to my Lord Mayor of the condition of the poor, it was estimated that there were no less than a hundred thousand riband weavers in and around the city, the chiefest number of whom lived then in the parishes of shortage, Stepney, Whitechapel, and Bishop's Gate, that namely about Spittlefields, or that is to say, as Spittlefields was then, for it was not so large as now by one fifth part. By this, however, the number of people in the whole may be judged of, and indeed, I often wondered that after the prodigious numbers of people that went away at first, there was yet so great a multitude left as it appeared there was. But I must go back again to the beginning of this surprising time. While the fears of the people were young, they were increased strangely by several odd accidents which put together, it was really a wonder the whole body of the people did not rise as one man and abandoned their dwellings, leaving the place as a space of ground designed by heaven for an achaldama, doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth, and that all that would be found in it would perish with it. I shall name but a few of these things, but sure there were so many and so many wizards and cunning people propagating them that I have often wondered there was any women especially left behind. In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for several months before the plague, as there did the year after another, a little before the fire. The old women and the phlegmatic hypochondriac part of the other sex, which I could almost call old women too, remarked, especially afterward, though not till both those judgments were over, that those two comets passed directly over the city, and that so near the houses that it was plain, they imported something peculiar to this city alone, that the comet before the pestilence was of a faint dull, languid color, and its motion very heavy, solemn and slow, but that the comet before the fire was bright and sparkling, or, as others said, flaming, and its motion swift and furious, and that accordingly one foretold a heavy judgment, slow but severe, terrible and frightful as was the plague. But the other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery as the conflagration. Nay, so particular some people were, that as they looked upon that comet preceding the fire, they fancied that they not only saw it pass swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the motion with their eye, but even they heard it, that it made a rushing, mighty noise, fierce and terrible, though at a distance, and but just perceivable. I saw both of these stars, and, I must confess, had so much of the common notion of such things in my head that I was apt to look upon them as the forerunners and warnings of God's judgments. And especially when, after the plague had followed the first, I yet saw another of the like-kind, I could not but say God had not yet sufficiently scourged the city. But I could not at the same time carry these things to the height that others did, knowing, too, that natural causes are assigned by the astronomers for such things, and that their motions, even their revolutions, are calculated, or pretended to be calculated, so that they cannot be so perfectly called the forerunners, or foretellers, much less the procurers of such events as pestilence, war, fire, and the like. But let my thoughts and the thoughts of the philosophers be, or have been, what they will. These things had a more than ordinary influence upon the minds of the common people, and they had almost universal melancholy apprehensions of some dreadful calamity and judgment coming upon the city, and this principally from the sight of this comet, and the little alarm that was given in December by two people dying at St. Giles as above. The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely increased by the error of the times, in which I think the people from which principle I cannot imagine were more addicted to prophecies and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales than ever they were before or a sense. Whether this unhappy distemper was originally raised by follies of some people who got money by it, that is to say, by printing predictions and prognostications, I know not. But, certain it is, books frighted them terribly, such as Lily's almanac, Gadbury's astrological predictions, poor Robin's almanac, and the like. Also, several pretended religious books, one titled, Come out of here, my people, lest you be partaker of her plagues. Another called, Fair Warning. And another, Britain's Remembrancer, and many such, all or most part of which foretold directly or covertly the ruin of the city. Nay, some were so enthusiastically bold as to run about the streets with their oral predictions pretending they were sent to preach to the city. And one in particular, who like Jonah to Nineveh, cried in the streets, Yet forty days and London shall be destroyed. I will not be positive whether he said it was forty days or yet a few days. Another ran about naked, except a pair of drawers about his waist, crying day and night, like a man that Josephus mentions, who cried, Woe to Jerusalem, a little before the destruction of that city. So, this poor naked creature cried, Oh, the great and the dreadful God, and said no more, but repeated those words continually, with a voice and countenance full of horror, a swift pace, and nobody could ever find him to stop, or rest, or take any sustenance, at least that ever I could hear of. I met this poor creature several times in the streets, and would have spoken to him, but he would not enter into speech with me or anyone else, but held on his dismal cries continually. These things terrified the people to the last degree, and especially when two or three times, as I have mentioned already, they found one or two of the bills dead of the plague at St. Giles. Next to these public things were the dreams of old women, or I should say, the interpretation of old women upon other people's dreams, and these put abundance of people even out of their wits. Some heard voices warning them to be gone, for that there would be such a plague in London so that the living would not be able to bury the dead. Others saw apparitions in the air, and I must be allowed to say, of both, I hope without breach of charity, that they heard voices that never spake, and saw sights that never appeared, but the imagination of the people was already turned wayward and possessed, and no wonder, if they who were pouring continually at the clouds saw shapes and figures representations and appearances which had nothing in them but air and vapor. Here they told us they saw a flaming sword, held in a hand coming out of a cloud, with a point hanging directly over the city. There they saw herces and coffins in the air, carrying to be buried. And there again heaps of dead bodies, lying unburied and the like, just as the imaginations of the poor terrified people furnished them with matter to work upon. So hypochondriac fancies represent ships, armies, battles in the firmament, till steady eyes the exolation salve and all to its first manner cloud resolve. I could fill this account with the strange relations such people gave every day of what they had seen, and every one was so positive of their having seen what they pretended to see, that there was no contradicting them without breach of friendship, or being accounted rude and unmanorly on the one hand, and profane and impenetrable on the other. One time before the plague was begun, otherwise than as I have said in St. Giles, I think it was in March. Seeing a crowd of people in the street, I joined with them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all staring up into the air to see what a woman told them appeared plain to her, which was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in his hand, waving it or brandishing it over his head. She described every part of the figure to the life, showed them the motion and the form, and the poor people came into it so eagerly, and with so much readiness. Yes, I see it all plainly, says one. There's the sword as plain as can be. Another saw the angel. One saw his very face, and cried out what a glorious creature he was. One saw one thing, and one another. I looked as earnestly as the rest, but perhaps not with so much willingness to be imposed upon. And I said, indeed, that I could see nothing but a white cloud, bright on one side by the shining of the sun, upon the other part. The woman endeavored to show it me, but could not make me confess that I saw it, which indeed, if I had, I must have lied. But the woman, turning upon me, looked in my face, and fancied, I laughed, in which her imagination deceived her too, for I really did not laugh, but was very seriously reflecting how the poor people were terrified by the force of their own imagination. However, she turned from me, called me profane fellow, and a scoffer, told me that it was a time of God's anger, and dreadful judgments were approaching, and that despisers such as I should wander and perish. The people about her seemed disgusted as well as she, and I found there was no persuading them that I did not laugh at them, and that I should be rather mobbed by them than be able to un-deceive them. So I left them, and this appearance passed for as real as the blazing star itself. Another encounter I had in the open day also, and this was in going through a narrow passage from Petty France into Bishop's Gate Churchyard by a row of Alms houses. There are two churchyards to Bishopgate Church or Parish. One we go over to pass from the place called Petty France into Bishopgate Street, coming out just by the church door. The other is on the side of the narrow passage where the Alms houses are on the left, and a dwarf wall with a palisado on it on the right, and the city wall on the other side more to the right. In this narrow passage stands a man looking through between the palisados into the burying place, and as many people as the narrowness of the passage would admit to stop, without hindering the passage of others, and he was talking mightily, eagerly to them, and pointing now to one place then to another, and affirming that he saw a ghost walking upon such a gravestone there. He described the shape, the posture, and the movement of it so exactly that it was the greatest matter of amazement to him in the world that everybody did not see it as well as he. On a sudden he would cry, there it is, now it comes this way, then tis turned back. Till at length he persuaded the people into such a firm belief of it that one fancied he saw it, and another fancied he saw it, and thus he came every day making a strange hubbub considering it was in so narrow a passage, till Bishopsgate clock struck eleven, and then the ghost would seem to start, and as if he were called away, disappeared on a sudden. I looked earnestly every way, and at the very moment that this man directed, but could not see the least appearance of anything, but so positive was this poor man that he gave the people the vapors in abundance, and sent them away trembling and frightened, till at length few people that knew of it cared to go through that passage, and hardly anybody by night on any account whatever. This ghost, as the poor man affirmed, made signs to the houses, and to the ground, and to the people, plainly intimating, or else they so understanding it, that abundance of the people should come to be buried in that churchyard, as indeed happened, but that he saw such aspects I must acknowledge I never believed, nor could I see anything of it myself, though I looked most earnestly to see it, if possible. These things served to show how far the people were really overcome with delusions, and as they had a notion of the approach of a visitation, all their predictions ran upon a most dreadful plague, which should lay the whole city, and even the kingdom waste, and should destroy almost all the nation, both man and beast. To this, as I said before, the astrologers added stories of the conjunctions of planets in a malignant manner, and with a mischievous influence, one of which conjunctions was to happen, and did happen, in October, and the other in November, and they filled the people's heads with predictions on these signs of the heavens, intimating that those conjunctions foretold drought, famine, and pestilence. In the two first of them, however, they were entirely mistaken, for we had no droughty season, but in the beginning of the year, a hard frost, which lasted from December almost to March, and after that moderate weather, rather warm than hot, with refreshing winds, and in short, very seasonable weather, and also several very great rains. Some endeavors were used to suppress the printing of such books as terrified the people, and to frighten the dispersers of them, some of whom were taken up, but nothing was done in it, as I am informed, the government being unwilling to exasperate the people, who were, as I may say, all out of their wits already. Neither can I acquit those ministers that, in their sermons, rather, sank than lifted up the hearts of their hearers. Many of them, no doubt, did it for the strengthening, the resolution of the people, and especially for quickening them to repentance, but it certainly answered not their end, at least not in proportion to the injury it did another way. And indeed, as God himself, through the whole scriptures, rather draws to him by invitations and calls to turn to him and live, then drives us by terror and amazement. So, I must confess, I thought the ministers should have done also, imitating our blessed Lord and Master in this, that his whole gospel is full of declarations from heaven of God's mercy, and his readiness to receive penitence, and forgive them, complaining, Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life, and that therefore his gospel is called the gospel of peace and the gospel of grace. But we had some good men, and that of all persuasions and opinions, whose discourses were full of terror, who spoke nothing but dismal things, and as they brought the people together with a kind of horror, sent them away in tears, prophesying nothing but evil tidings, terrifying the people with the apprehensions of being utterly destroyed, not guiding them, at least not enough, to cry to heaven for mercy. End of Section 2. Section 3 from a Journal of the Plague here by Daniel Defoe. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Denny Sayers. Section 3 It was, indeed, a time of very unhappy breaches among us in matters of religion, and innumerable sects and divisions and separate opinions prevailed among the people. The Church of England was restored, indeed, with the restoration of the monarchy about four years before, but the ministers and preachers of the Presbyterians and independents, and of all the other sorts of professions, had begun to gather separate societies and erect altar against altar, and all those had their meetings for worship apart, as they have now, but not so many then, the dissenters being not thoroughly formed into a body as they are since, and those congregations which were thus gathered together were yet but few, and even those that were, the government did not allow, but endeavored to suppress them, and shut up their meetings. But the visitation reconciled them again, at least for a time, and many of the best and most valuable ministers and preachers of the dissenters were suffered to go into the churches where the incumbents were fled away, as many were, not being able to stand it, and the people flocked without distinction to hear them preach, not much inquiring who or what opinion they were of. But, after the sickness was over, that spirit of charity abated, and every church being again supplied with their own ministers, or others presented where their minister was dead, things returned to their old channel again. One mischief always introduces another. These terrors and apprehensions of the people led them into a thousand weak, foolish, and wicked things which they wanted not a sort of people really wicked to encourage them to, and this was running about to fortune tellers, cunning men and astrologers to know their fortune, or as it is vulgarly expressed, to have their fortunes told them, their nativities calculated and the like, and this folly presently made the town swarm with a wicked generation of pretenders to magic, to the black art as they called it, and I know not what. Nay, to a thousand worse dealings with the devil than they were really guilty of, and this trade grew so open and so generally practiced that it became common to have signs and inscriptions set up at doors. Here lives a fortune teller, here lives an astrologer, here you may have your nativity calculated and the like, and Friar Bacon's brazen head, which was the usual sign of these people's dwellings, was to be seen almost in every street, or else the sign of Mother Shipton, or of Merlin's head and the like, with what blind, absurd, and ridiculous stuff these oracles of the devil pleased and satisfied the people I really know not, but certain it is that innumerable attendants crowded about their doors every day, and if but a grave fellow in a velvet jacket, a band and a black coat, which was the habit those quack conjurers generally went in, was but seen in the streets, the people would follow them in crowds and asked them questions as they went along. I need not mention what a horrid delusion this was, or what it tended to, but there was no remedy for it till the plague itself put an end to it all, and I suppose cleared the town of most of those calculators themselves. One mischief was that if the poor people asked these mock astrologers whether there would be a plague or no, they all agreed in general to answer yes for that kept up their trade, and had the people not been kept in a fright about that, the wizards would presently have been rendered useless, and their craft had been at an end. But they always talked to them of such and such influences of the stars, of the conjunctions of such and such planets, which must necessarily bring sickness and distempers, and consequently the plague. And some had the assurance to tell them the plague was begun already, which was too true, though they that said so knew nothing of the matter. The ministers to do them justice and preachers of most sorts that were serious and understanding persons, thundered against these and other wicked practices, and exposed the folly as well as the wickedness of them together, and the most sober and judicious people despised and abhorred them. But it was impossible to make any impression upon the middling people and the working laboring poor. Their fears were predominant over all their passions, and they threw away their money in a most distracted manner upon those whimsy's. Maid servants, especially, and men servants, were the chief of their customers, and their question generally was, after the first demand of, will there be a plague, I say, the next question was, Oh, sir, I, for the Lord's sake, what will become of me? Will my mistress keep me, or will she turn me off? Will she stay here, or will she go into the country, and if she goes into the country, will she take me with her, or leave me here to be starved and undone, and the like of men servants? The truth is, the case of poor servants was very dismal, as I shall have occasioned to mention again by and by, for it was apparent a prodigious number of them would be turned away, and it was so. And of them abundance perished, and particularly of those that these false prophets had flattered with hopes that they should be continued in their services, and carried with their masters and mistresses into the country, and had not public charity provided for these poor creatures, whose number was exceeding great, and in all cases of this nature must be so, they would have been in the worst condition of any people in the city. These things agitated the minds of the common people for many months, while the first apprehensions were upon them, and while the plague was not, as I may say, yet broken out. But I must also not forget that the more serious part of the inhabitants behaved after another manner. The government encouraged their devotion and appointed public prayers and days of fasting and humiliation to make public confession of sin, and implore the mercy of God to avert the dreadful judgment which hung over their heads. And it is not to be expressed with what alacrity the people of all persuasions embraced the occasion, how they flocked to the churches and meetings, and they were all so thronged that there was often no coming near. No, not to the very doors of the largest churches. Also there were daily prayers appointed morning and evening at several churches, and days of private praying at other places, at all which the people attended, I say, with an uncommon devotion. Several private families also, as well of one opinion as of another, kept family fasts, to which they admitted their near relations only, so that, in a word, those people who were really serious and religious applied themselves in a truly Christian manner to the proper work of repentance and humiliation, as a Christian people ought to do. Again the public showed that they would bear their share in these things. The very court, which was then gay and luxurious, put on a face of just concern for the public danger. All the plays and interludes which, after the manner of the French court had been set up, and began to increase among us, were forbid to act. The gaming tables, public dancing rooms, and music houses, which multiplied and began to debauch the manners of the people, were shut up and suppressed. And the jack-puttings, merry Andrews, puppet shows, rope dancers, and such like-doings, which had bewitched the poor common people, shut up their shops, finding, indeed, no trade. For the minds of the people were agitated with other things, and a kind of sadness and horror at these things sat upon the countenances even of the common people. Death was before their eyes, and everybody began to think of their graves, not of mirth and diversions. But even those wholesome reflections, which rightly managed, would have most happily led the people to fall upon their knees, make confession of their sins, and look up to their merciful savior for pardon, imploring his compassion on them in such a time of their distress, by which we might have been, as a second Nineveh, had a quite contrary extreme in the common people, who, ignorant and stupid in their reflections, as they were brutishly wicked and thoughtless before, were now led by their fright to extremes of folly, and, as I have said before, that they ran to conjurers and witches and all sorts of deceivers, to know what should become of them, who fed their fears and kept them always alarmed, and awake on purpose, to delude them and pick their pockets. So they were as mad upon their running after quacks and mantabanks, and every practicing old woman for medicines and remedies, storing themselves with such multitudes of pills, potions, and preservatives, as they were called, that they not only spent their money, but even poisoned themselves beforehand, for fear of the poison of the infection, and prepared their bodies for the plague, instead of preserving them against it. On the other hand, it is incredible and scarce to be imagined how the posts of houses and corners of streets were plastered over with doctors, bills, and papers of ignorant fellows, quacking and tampering in physics, and inviting the people to come to them for remedies, which was generally set off with such flourishes as these, these infallible preventive pills against the plague, never failing preservatives against the infection, sovereign cordials against the corruption of the air, exact regulations for the conduct of the body in case of an infection, anti-pestilential pills, incomparable drink against the plague never found out before, and universal remedy for the plague, the only true plague water, the royal antidote against all kinds of infection, and such a number more that I cannot reckon up, and if I could would fill a book of themselves to set them down. Others set up bills to summon people to their lodgings for directions and advice in the case of infection. These had specious titles also such as these. An imminent high Dutch physician newly come over from Holland, where he resided during all the time of the great plague last year in Amsterdam, and cured multitudes of people that actually had the plague upon them. An Italian gentlewoman just arrived from Naples, having a choice secret to prevent infection, which she found out by her great experience, and did wonderful cures with it in the late plague there, wherein there died twenty thousand in one day. An ancient gentlewoman having practiced with great success in the late plague in this city, Anno 1636, gives her advice only to the female sex, to be spoken with, etc. An experienced physician who has long studied the doctrine of antidotes against all sorts of poisoned and infection has, after forty years' practice, arrived to such a skill as may, with God's blessing, direct persons how to prevent their being touched by any contagious distemper whatsoever. He directs the poor gratis. I take notice of these by way of specimen. I could give you two or three dozen of the like, and yet have abundance left behind. Tis efficient from these to apprise any one of the humor of those times, and how a set of thieves and pickpockets not only robbed and cheated the poor people of their money, but poisoned their bodies with odious and fatal preparations, some with mercury and some with other things as bad, perfectly remote from the thing pretended to, and rather hurtful than serviceable to the body in case an infection followed. I cannot omit a subtlety of one of those quack operators, with which he gulled the poor people to crowd about him, but did nothing for them without money. He had, it seems, added to his bills, which he gave about the streets, this advertisement in capital letters, vis, he gives advice to the poor for nothing. Abundance of poor people came to him accordingly, to whom he made a great many fine speeches, examined them of the state of their health and of the constitution of their bodies, and told them many good things for them to do, which were of no great moment. But the issue and conclusion of all was that he had a preparation, which if they took such a quantity of every morning, he would pawn his life. They should never have the plague. No, though they lived in the house with people that were infected. This made the people all resolved to have it. But then the price of that was so much, I think, to us half a crown. But, sir, says one poor woman, I am a poor almswoman, and kept by the parish, and your bills say you give the poor your help for nothing. I, good woman, says the doctor, so I do, as I published there. I give my advice to the poor for nothing, but not my physic. Alas, sir, says she, that is a snare laid for the poor then, for you give them advice for nothing. That is to say, you advise them gratis, to buy your physic for their money. So does every shopkeeper with his wares. Here the woman began to give him ill words, and stood at his door all that day, telling her tale to all the people that came, till the doctor, finding she turned away his customers, was obliged to call her upstairs again, and give her his box of physic for nothing, which perhaps, too, was good for nothing when she had it. But to return to the people, whose confusions fitted them to be imposed upon by all sorts of pretenders, and by every montabanc. There is no doubt, but these quacking sort of fellows raised great gains out of the miserable people, for we daily found the crowds that ran after them were infinitely greater, and their doors were more thronged than those of Dr. Brooks, Dr. Upton, Dr. Hodges, Dr. Berwick, or any, though the most famous men of the time. I was told that some of them got five pounds a day by their physic. But there was still another madness beyond all this, which may serve to give an idea of the distracted humor of the poor people at that time, and this was their following a worse sort of deceivers than any of these, for these petty thieves only diluted them to pick their pockets and get their money, in which their wickedness, whatever it was, laid chiefly on the side of the deceivers, not upon the deceived. But in this part, I'm going to mention, it laid chiefly in the people deceived, or equally in both. And this was in wearing charms, filtres, exorcisms, amulets, and I know not what preparations to fortify the body with them against the plague, as if the plague was not the hand of God, but a kind of possession of an evil spirit, and that it was to be kept off with crossings, signs of the zodiac, papers tied up with so many knots, and certain words or figures written on them, as particularly the word abracadabra, formed in triangle or pyramid, thus. abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadab, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra, abracadabra things, in a time of such danger, in a matter of such consequences as this, of a national infection. But my memorandums of these things relate, rather, to take notice only of the fact, and mention only that it was so, how the poor people found the insufficiency of those things, and how many of them were afterwards carried away in the dead carts and thrown into the common graves of every parish, with these hellish charms and trumpery hanging about their necks, remains to be spoken of as we go along. All this was the effect of their hurry the people were in, after the first notion of the plague being at hand was among them, and which may be said to be from about Mikkelmas 1664, but more particularly after the two men died in St. Giles in the beginning of December, and again after another alarm in February. For when the plague evidently spread itself, they soon began to see the folly of trusting to those unperforming creatures who had gulped them of their money, and then their fears worked another way, namely to amazement and stupidity, not knowing what course to take, or what to do either to help or relieve themselves. But they ran about from one neighbor's house to another, and even in the streets from one door to another, with repeated cries of, Lord, have mercy upon us, what shall we do? Indeed, the poor people were to be pitied in one particular thing in which they had little or no relief, and which I desire to mention with a serious awe and reflection, which perhaps everyone that reads this may not relish, namely that whereas death now began not, as we may say, to hover over everyone's head only, but to look into their houses and chambers and stare in their faces, though there might be some stupidity and dullness of the mind, and there was so a great deal, yet there was a great deal of just alarm sounded into the very inmost soul, if I may so say, of others. Many consciences were awakened. Many hard hearts melted into tears. Many a penitent confession was made of crimes long concealed. It would wound the soul of any Christian to have heard the dying groans of many a despairing creature, and none durced come near to comfort them. Many a robbery, many a murder, was then confessed aloud, and nobody surviving to record the accounts of it. People might be heard, even into the streets as we passed along, calling upon God for mercy through Jesus Christ, and saying, I have been a thief. I have been an adulterer. I have been a murderer, and the like, and none durced stop to make the least inquiry into such things, or to administer comfort to the poor creatures that, in the anguish both of soul and body, thus cried out. Some of the ministers did visit the sick at first, and for a little while, but it was not to be done. It would have been present death to have gone into some houses. The very barriers of the dead, who were the hardest creatures in town, were sometimes beaten back, and so terrified that they durced not go into houses where the whole families were swept away together, and where the circumstances were more particularly horrible as some were. But this was indeed at the first heat of the distemper. Time enured them to it all, and they ventured everywhere afterwards without hesitation, as I shall have occasion to mention at large hereafter.