History of the Plague in London

number ofall the burials were[16] not increased above thirty-two, and the wholebill being but three hundred and eighty-five, yet there was[17] fourteenof the spotted fever, as well as fourteen of the plague; and we took itfor granted, upon the whole, that there were fifty died that week of theplague.

  The next bill was from the 23d of May to the 30th, when the number ofthe plague was seventeen; but the burials in St. Giles's werefifty-three, a frightful number, of whom they set down but nine of theplague. But on an examination more strictly by the justices of thepeace, and at the lord mayor's[18] request, it was found there weretwenty more who were really dead of the plague in that parish, but hadbeen set down of the spotted fever, or other distempers, besides othersconcealed.

  But those were trifling things to what followed immediately after. Fornow the weather set in hot; and from the first week in June, theinfection spread in a dreadful manner, and the bills rise[19] high; thearticles of the fever, spotted fever, and teeth, began to swell: for allthat could conceal their distempers did it to prevent their neighborsshunning and refusing to converse with them, and also to preventauthority shutting up their houses, which, though it was not yetpracticed, yet was threatened; and people were extremely terrified atthe thoughts of it.

  The second week in June, the parish of St. Giles's, where still theweight of the infection lay, buried one hundred and twenty, whereof,though the bills said but sixty-eight of the plague, everybody saidthere had been a hundred at least, calculating it from the usual numberof funerals in that parish as above.

  Till this week the city continued free, there having never any diedexcept that one Frenchman, who[20] I mentioned before, within the wholeninety-seven parishes. Now, there died four within the city,--one inWood Street, one in Fenchurch Street, and two in Crooked Lane. Southwarkwas entirely free, having not one yet died on that side of the water.

  I lived without Aldgate, about midway between Aldgate Church andWhitechapel Bars, on the left hand, or north side, of the street; and asthe distemper had not reached to that side of the city, our neighborhoodcontinued very easy. But at the other end of the town theirconsternation was very great; and the richer sort of people, especiallythe nobility and gentry from the west part of the city, thronged out oftown, with their families and servants, in an unusual manner. And thiswas more particularly seen in Whitechapel; that is to say, the BroadStreet where I lived. Indeed, nothing was to be seen but wagons andcarts, with goods, women, servants, children, etc.; coaches filled withpeople of the better sort, and horsemen attending them, and all hurryingaway; then empty wagons and carts appeared, and spare horses withservants, who it was apparent were returning, or sent from the countryto fetch more people; besides innumerable numbers of men on horseback,some alone, others with servants, and, generally speaking, all loadedwith baggage, and fitted out for traveling, as any one might perceive bytheir appearance.

  This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to see, and as it was asight which I could not but look on from morning to night (for indeedthere was nothing else of moment to be seen), it filled me with veryserious thoughts of the misery that was coming upon the city, and theunhappy condition of those that would be left in it.

  This hurry of the people was such for some weeks, that there was nogetting at the lord mayor's door without exceeding difficulty; there wassuch pressing and crowding there to get passes and certificates ofhealth for such as traveled abroad; for, without these, there was nobeing admitted to pass through the towns upon the road, or to lodge inany inn. Now, as there had none died in the city for all this time, mylord mayor gave certificates of health without any difficulty to allthose who lived in the ninety-seven parishes, and to those within theliberties too, for a while.

  This hurry, I say, continued some weeks, that is to say, all the monthsof May and June; and the more because it was rumored that an order ofthe government was to be issued out, to place turnpikes[21] and barrierson the road to prevent people's traveling; and that the towns on theroad would not suffer people from London to pass, for fear of bringingthe infection along with them, though neither of these rumors had anyfoundation but in the imagination, especially at first.

  I now began to consider seriously with myself concerning my own case,and how I should dispose of myself; that is to say, whether I shouldresolve to stay in London, or shut up my house and flee, as many of myneighbors did. I have set this particular down so fully, because I knownot but it may be of moment to those who come after me, if they come tobe brought to the same distress and to the same manner of making theirchoice; and therefore I desire this account may pass with them ratherfor 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 becameof me.

  I had two important things before me: the one was the carrying on mybusiness and shop, which was considerable, and in which was embarked allmy effects in the world; and the other was the preservation of my lifein so dismal a calamity as I saw apparently was coming upon the wholecity, and which, however great it was, my fears perhaps, as well asother people's, represented to be much greater than it could be.

  The first consideration was of great moment to me. My trade was asaddler, and as my dealings were chiefly not by a shop or chance trade,but among the merchants trading to the English colonies in America, somy effects lay very much in the hands of such. I was a single man, it istrue; but I had a family of servants, who[22] I kept at my business; hada house, shop, and warehouses filled with goods; and in short to leavethem all as things in such a case must be left, that is to say, withoutany overseer or person fit to be trusted with them, had been to hazardthe loss, not only of my trade, but of my goods, and indeed of all I hadin the world.

  I had an elder brother at the same time in London, and not many yearsbefore come over from Portugal; and, advising with him, his answer wasin the three words, the same that was given in another case[23] quitedifferent, viz., "Master, save thyself." In a word, he was for myretiring into the country, as he resolved to do himself, with hisfamily; telling me, what he had, it seems, heard abroad, that the bestpreparation for the plague was to run away from it. As to my argument oflosing my trade, my goods, or debts, he quite confuted me: he told methe same thing which I argued for my staying, viz., that I would trustGod with my safety and health was the strongest repulse[24] to mypretensions of losing my trade and my goods. "For," says he, "is it notas reasonable that you should trust God with the chance or risk oflosing your trade, as that you should stay in so eminent a point ofdanger, and trust him with your life?"

  I could not argue that I was in any strait as to a place where to go,having several friends and relations in Northamptonshire, whence ourfamily first came from; and particularly, I had an only sister inLincolnshire, very willing to receive and entertain me.

  My brother, who had already sent his wife and two children intoBedfordshire, and resolved to follow them, pressed my going veryearnestly; and I had once resolved to comply with his desires, but atthat time could get no horse: for though it is true all the people didnot go out of the city of London, yet I may venture to say, that in amanner all the horses did; for there was hardly a horse to be bought orhired in the whole city for some weeks. Once I resolved to travel onfoot with one servant, and, as many did, lie at no inn, but carry asoldier's tent with us, and so lie in the fields, the weather being verywarm, and no danger from taking cold. I say, as many did, becauseseveral did so at last, especially those who had been in the armies, inthe war[25] which had not been many years past: and I must needs say,that, speaking of second causes, had most of the people that traveleddone so, the plague had not been carried into so many country towns andhouses as it was, to the great damage, and indeed to the ruin, ofabundance of people.

  But then my servant who[26] I had intended to take down with me,deceived me, and being frighted at the increase of the distemper, andnot knowing when I should go, he took other measures, and left me: so Iwas put off for that time. And, one way or other, I always found that toappoint
to go away was always crossed by some accident or other, so asto disappoint and put it off again. And this brings in a story whichotherwise might be thought a needless digression, viz., about thesedisappointments being from Heaven.

  It came very warmly into my mind one morning, as I was musing on thisparticular thing, that as nothing attended us without the direction orpermission of Divine Power, so these disappointments must have somethingin them extraordinary, and I ought to consider whether it did notevidently point out, or intimate to me, that it was the will of Heaven Ishould not go. It immediately followed in my thoughts, that, if itreally was from God that I should stay, he was able effectually topreserve me in the midst of all the death and danger that would surroundme; and that if I attempted to secure myself by fleeing from myhabitation, and acted contrary to these intimations, which I believed tobe divine, it was a kind of flying from God, and that he could cause hisjustice to overtake