day and night. As a man that Josephus mentions, who cried, "Woe to Jerusalem!” a little before the destruction of that city; so this poor naked creature cried, “O the great and the dreadful God!" and said no more, but repeated these 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 conversation with me, or any one 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 in the bills dead of the plague at St. Giles's.

*

*

The justices of peace for Middlesex, by direction of the secretary of state, had begun to shut up houses in the parishes of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, St. Martin's, St. Clement Danes, &c., and it was with good success; for in several streets where the plague broke out, after strictly guarding the houses that were infected, and taking care to bury those that died immediately after they were known to be dead, the plague ceased in those streets. It was also observed that the plague decreased sooner in those parishes, after they had been visited in detail, than it did in the parishes of Bishopsgate, Shoreditch, Aldgate, Whitechapel, Stepney, and others; the early care taken in that manner being a great check to it.

This shutting up of houses was a method first taken, as I understand, in the plague which happened in 1603, on the accession of king James the first to the crown, and the power of shutting people up in their own houses was granted by act of parliament, entitled "an act for the charitable relief and ordering of persons infected with the plague." On which act of parliament, the lord mayor and aldermen of the city of London founded the order they made at this time, viz., June 1665, when the numbers infected within the city were but few, the last bill for the ninetytwo parishes being but four. By these means, when there died about one thousand a week in the whole, the number in the city was but twenty-eight; and the city was more healthy in proportion than any other place all the time of the infection.

These orders of my lord mayor were published, as I have said, towards the end of June. They came into operation from July 1, and were as follows, viz. : Orders conceived and published by the lord mayor and aldermen of the city of London, concerning the infection of the plague, 1665.

"Whereas, in the reign of our late sovereign, king James, of happy memory, an act was made for the charitable relief and ordering of persons infected with the plague; whereby authority was given to justices of the peace, mayors, bailiffs, and other head officers, to appoint within their several limits, examiners, searchers, watchmen, surgeons, and nurse-keepers, and buriers, for the persons and places infected, and to minister unto them oaths for the performance of their offices. And the same statute did also authorize the giving of other directions, as unto them for the present necessity should seem good in their discretions. It is now upon special consideration thought very expedient for preventing and avoiding of infection of sickness (if it shall so please Almighty God) that these officers be appointed, and these orders hereafter duly observed."

Then follow the orders, giving these officers instructions in detail, and prescribing the extent and limits of their several duties. Next: Orders concerning infected houses and persms sick of the plague. These had reference to the "notice to be given of the sickness," "sequestration of the sick," "airing the stuff," "shutting up of the house," "burial of the dead," "forbidding infected stuff to be sold, and of persons

leaving infected houses," "marking of infected houses," and "regulating hackneycoaches that have been used to convey infected persons."

66

Lastly there followed, Orders for cleansing and keeping the streets and houses sweet; and orders concerning loose persons and idle assemblies, such as beggars," "plays," "feasts," and "tippling-houses."

I need not say that these orders extended only to such places as were within the lord mayor's jurisdiction; so it is requisite to observe, that the justices of the peace, within those parishes, and those places called the hamlets and out-parts, took the same method: as I remember, the orders for shutting up of houses did not take place so soon on our side, because, as I said before, the plague did not reach the eastern parts of the town, at least, not begin to be very violent, till the beginning of August.

Now, indeed, it was coming on amain; for the burials that same week were in the next adjoining parishes thus:

The shutting up of houses was at first considered a very cruel and unchristian thing, and the poor people, so confined, made bitter lamentations: complaints were also daily brought to my lord mayor, of houses causelessly (and some maliciously) shut up. I cannot say, but, upon enquiry, many that complained so loudly were found in a condition to be continued; and others again, inspection being made upon the sick person, on his being content to be carried to the pest-house, were released.

Indeed, many people perished in these miserable confinements, which it is reasonable to believe would not have been distempered if they had had liberty, though the plague was in the house; at which the people were at first very clamorous and uneasy, and several acts of violence were committed on the men who were set to watch the houses so shut up; also several people broke out by force, in many places, as I shall observe by and by; still it was a public good that justified the private mischief; and there was no obtaining the least mitigation, by any application to magistrates. This put the people upon all manner of stratagems, in order, if possible, to get out; and it would fill a little volume to set down the arts used by the people of such houses to shut the eyes of the watchmen who were employed, to deceive them, and to escape or break out from them. A few incidents on this head may prove not uninteresting.

As I went along Houndsditch one morning, about eight o'clock, there was a great noise; it is true, indeed, there was not much crowd, because people were not very free to gather, or to stay long together; but the outcry was loud enough to prompt my curiosity, and I called to one that looked out of a window, and asked what was the matter.

A watchman, it seems, had been employed to keep his post at the door of a house which was infected, or said to be infected, and was shut up; he had been there all night for two nights together, as he told his story, and the day-watchman had been there one day, and had now come to relieve him; all this while no noise had been

heard in the house, no light had been seen; they called for nothing, sent him no errands, which was the chief business of the watchman; neither had they given him any disturbance, as he said, from the Monday afternoon, when he heard great crying and screaming in the house, which, as he supposed, was occasioned by some of the family dying just at that time. It seems the night before, the dead cart, as it was called, had been stopped there, and a servant-maid had been brought down to the door dead, and the buriers or bearers, as they were called, put her into the cart, wrapped only in a green rug, and carried her away.

The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when he heard that noise and crying, as above, and nobody answered a great while; but at last one looked out, and said, with an angry quick tone, "What do ye want, that ye make such a knocking " he answered, "I am the watchman! how do you do? what is the matter?" The person answered, "What is that to you? Stop the dead cart." This, it seems, was about one o'clock; soon after, as the fellow said, he stopped the dead cart, and then knocked again, but nobody answered; he continued knocking, and the bellman called out several times-"Bring out your dead!" but nobody answered, till the man that drove the cart, being called to other houses, would stay no longer, and drove away.

The watchman knew not what to make of all this, so he let them alone till the day-watchman came to relieve him, giving him an account of the particulars. They knocked at the door a great while, but nobody answered; and they observed, that the window or casement, at which the person had looked out, continued open, being up two pair of stairs.

Upon this the two men, to satisfy their curiosity, got a long ladder, and one of them went up to the window, and looked into the room, where he saw a woman lying dead upon the floor in a dismal manner, having no clothes on her but her shift. Although he called aloud, and knocked hard on the floor with his long staff, yet nobody stirred or answered; neither could he hear any noise in the house.

Upon this, he came down again, and acquainted his fellow, who went up also, and finding the case as above, they resolved either to acquaint the lord mayor or some other magistrate with it. The magistrate, it seems, upon the information of the two men, ordered the house to be broken open, a constable and other persons being appointed to be present, that nothing might be plundered; and accordingly it was so done, when nobody was found in the house but that young woman, who, having been infected, and past recovery, the rest had left her to die by herself. Every one was gone, having found some way to delude the watchman, and to get open the door, or get out at some back-door, or over the tops of the houses, so that he knew nothing of it; and as to those cries and shrieks which the watchman had heard, it was supposed they were the passionate cries of the family at the bitter parting, which, to be sure, it was to them all, this being the sister to the mistress of the house.

Many such escapes were made out of infected houses, as particularly when the watchman was sent some errand, that is to say, for necessaries, such as food and physic, to fetch physicians, if they would come, or surgeons, or nurses, or to order the dead cart, and the like. Now, when he went it was his duty to lock up the outer door of the house, and take the key away with him; but to evade this, and cheat the watchman, people got two or three keys made to their locks, or they found ways to unscrew the locks, open the door, and go out as they pleased. This way of escape being found out, the officers afterwards had orders to padlock up the doors on the outside, and place bolts on them as they thought fit.

At another house, as I was informed, in the street near Aldgate, a whole family was shut up and locked in because the maid-servant was ill: the master of the

house had complained by his friends to the next alderman, and to the lord mayor, and had consented to have the maid carried to the pest-house, but was refused, so the door was marked with a red cross, a padlock on the outside, as above, and a watchman set to keep the door according to public order.

After the master of the house found there was no remedy, but that he, his wife, and his children, were to be locked up with this poor distempered servant, he called to the watchman, and told him he must go then and fetch a nurse for them, to attend this poor girl, for that it would be certain death to them all to oblige them to nurse her; and that if he would not do this the maid must perish, either of the distemper, or be starved for want of food, for he was resolved none of his family should go near her, and she lay in the garret, four story high, where she could not cry out or call to anybody for help.

The watchman went and fetched a nurse as he was appointed, and brought her to them the same evening; during this interval, the master of the house took the opportunity of breaking a large hole through his shop into a stall, where formerly a cobbler had sat, before or under his shop window, but the tenant, as may be supposed, at such a dismal time as that, was dead or removed, and so he had the key in his own keeping. Having made his way into this stall, which he could not have done if the man had been at the door (the noise he was obliged to make being such as would have alarmed the watchman); I say, having made his way into this stall, he sat still till the watchman returned with the nurse, and all the next day also. But the night following, having contrived to send the watchman another trifling errand, he conveyed himself and all his family out of the house, and left the nurse and the watchman to bury the poor woman, that is, throw her into the cart, and take care of the house.

I could give a great many such stories as these, which in the long course of that dismal year I met with, that is, heard of, and which are very certain to be true, or very near the truth: that is to say, true in general, for no man could at such a time learn all the particulars. There was, likewise, violence used with the watchmen, as was reported, in abundance of places; and, I believe, that from the beginning of the visitation to the end, not less than eighteen or twenty of them were killed, or so severely wounded as to be taken up for dead; which was supposed to have been done by the people in the infected houses which were shut up, and where they attempted to come out and were opposed.

For example, not far from Coleman-street they blowed up a watchman with gunpowder, and burnt the poor fellow dreadfully, and while he made hideous cries, and nobody would venture to come near to help him, the whole family that were able to stir, got out at the windows one story high, two that were left sick calling out for help. Care was taken to give the latter nurses to look after them, but the fugitives were not found till after the plague abated, when they returned, but as nothing could be proved, so nothing could be done to them.

It is to be considered too, that as these were prisons without bars or bolts, which our common prisons are furnished with, so the people let themselves down out of their windows, even in the face of the watchman, bringing swords or pistols in their hands, and threatening to shoot the poor wretch, if he stirred or called for help.

In other cases some had gardens, and walls or palings, between them and their neighbours; or yards and back-houses; and these, by friendship and entreaties, would get leave to get over those walls or palings, and so go out at their neighbours' doors; or by giving money to their servants, get them to let them through in the night; so that, in short, the shutting up of houses was in nowise to be depended upon. Neither did it answer the end at all; serving more to make the people desperate, and drive them to violent extremities, in their attempts to break out.

**

Q

But what was still worse, those that did thus break out, spread the infection by wandering about with the distemper upon them; and many that did so were driven to dreadful exigencies and extremities, and perished in the streets or fields, or dropped down with the raging violence of the fever upon them. Others wandered into the country, and went forward any way as their desperation guided them, not knowing whither they went or would go, till faint and tired (the houses and villages on the road refusing to admit them to lodge, whether infected or no), they perished by the road side.

On the other hand, when the plague at first seized a family, that is to say, when any one of the family had gone out, and unwarily or otherwise caught the distemper, and brought it home, it was certainly known by the family before it was known to the officers, who were appointed to examine into the circumstances of all sick persons, when they heard of their being sick.

I remember and while I am writing this story I think I hear the very shrieks -a certain lady had an only daughter, a young maiden about nineteen years old, and who was possessed of a very considerable fortune. The young woman, her mother, and the maid, had been out for some purpose, for the house was not shut up; but about two hours after they came home, the young lady complained she was not well; in a quarter of an hour more she vomited, and had a violent pain in her head. "Pray God," says her mother, in a terrible fright, "my child has not the distemper!" The pain in her head increasing, her mother ordered the bed to be warmed, and resolved to put her to bed, and prepared to give her things to sweat, which was the ordinary remedy to be taken when the first apprehensions of the distemper began.

While the bed was being aired, the mother undressed the young woman, and on looking over her body with a candle, immediately discovered the fatal tokens. Her mother, not being able to contain herself, threw down her candle, and screeched out in such a frightful manner that it was enough to bring horror upon the stoutest heart in the world; overcome by fright, she first fainted, then recovered, then ran all over the house, up the stairs, and down the stairs, like one distracted. Thus she continued screeching and crying out for several hours, void of all sense, or at least government of her senses, and, as I was told, never came thoroughly to herself again. As to the young maiden, she was dead from that moment; for the gangrene which occasions the spots had spread over her whole body, and she died in less than two hours but still the mother continued crying out, not knowing anything more of her child, several hours after she was dead.

PART II.

I went all the first part of the time freely about the streets, though not so freely as to run myself into apparent danger, except when they dug the great pit in the churchyard of our parish of Aldgate. A terrible pit it was, and I could not resist the curiosity to go and see it. So far as I could judge, it was about forty feet in length, and about fifteen or sixteen feet broad; and at the time I first looked at it, about nine feet deep; but it was said they dug it nearly twenty feet deep afterwards, when they could go no deeper for the water.

They had dug several pits in another ground, when the distemper began to spread in our parish, and especially when the dead-carts began to go about, which in our parish was not till the beginning of August. Into these pits they had put perhaps fifty or sixty bodies each; then they made larger holes, wherein they buried all that the cart brought in a week, which, by the middle to the end of August, came to from 200 to 400 a week. They could not dig them larger, because of the order of