I know a Couple of poor honest Men in our Street have attempted to travel, and at Barnet, or Whetston, or there about, the People offered to fire at them if they pretended to go forward; so they are come back again quite discourag’d.

John, I would have ventured their Fire, if I had been there; If I had been denied Food for my Money they should ha’ seen me take it before their Faces; and if I had tendred Money for it, they could not have taken any Course with me by Law.

Tho. You talk your old Soldier’s Language, as if you were in the Low-Countries now, but this is a serious thing. The People have good Reason to keep any Body off, that they are not satisfied are sound, at such a Time as this; and we must not plunder them.

John, No Brother, you mistake the Case, and mistake me too, I would plunder no Body; but for any Town upon the Road to deny me Leave to pass thro’ the Town in the open High-Way, and deny me Provisions for my Money, is to say the Town has a Right to starve me to Death, which cannot be true.

Tho. But they do not deny you Liberty to go back again from whence you came, and therefore they do not starve you.

John, But the next Town behind me will by the same Rule deny me leave to go back, and so they do starve me between them; besides there is no Law to prohibit my travelling wherever I will on the Road.

Tho. But there will be so much Difficulty in disputing with them at every Town on the Road, that it is not for poor Men to do it, or to undertake it at such a Time as this is especially.

John, Why Brother? Our Condition at this Rate is worse than any Bodies else; for we can neither go away nor stay here; I am of the same Mind with the Lepers of Samaria,* If we stay here we are sure to die; I mean especially, as you and I are stated, without a Dwelling-House of our own, and without Lodging in any Bodies else; there is no lying in the Street at such a Time as this; we had as good go into the Dead Cart at once: Therefore I say, if we stay here we are sure to die, and if we go away we can but die: I am resolved to be gone.

Tho. You will go away: Whither will you go? and what can you do? I would as willingly go away as you, if I knew whither: But we have no Acquaintance, no Friends. Here we were born, and here we must die.

John, Look you Tom, the whole Kingdom is my Native Country as well as this Town. You may as well say, I must not go out of my House if it is on Fire, as that I must not go out of the Town I was born in, when it is infected with the Plague. I was born in England, and have a Right to live in it if I can.

Tho. But you know every vagrant Person may by the Laws of England, be taken up, and passed back to their last legal Settlement.*

John, But how shall they make me vagrant; I desire only to travel on, upon my lawful Occasions.

Tho. What lawful Occasions can we pretend to travel, or rather wander upon, they will not be put off with Words.

John, Is not flying to save our Lives, a Lawful Occasion! and do they not all know that the Fact is true: We cannot be said to dissemble.

Tho, But suppose they let us pass, Whither shall we go?

John, Any where to save our Lives: It is Time enough to consider that when we are got out of this Town. If I am once out of this dreadful Place I care not where I go.

Tho. We shall be driven to great Extremities. I know not what to think of it.

John, Well Tom, consider of it a little.

This was about the Beginning of July,* and tho’ the Plague was come forward in the West and North Parts of the Town, yet all Wapping, as I have observed before, and Redriff, and Ratcliff, and Lime-House, and Poplar, in short, Deptford and Greenwich, all both Sides of the River from the Hermitage, and from over against it, quite down to Blackwall, was intirely free, there had not one Person died of the Plague in all Stepney Parish, and not one on the South Side of White-Chappel Road, no, not in any Parish; and yet the Weekly Bill was that very Week risen up to 1006.

It was a Fortnight after this, before the two Brothers met again, and then the Case was a little altered, and the Plague was exceedingly advanced, and the Number greatly encreased, the Bill was up at 2785, and prodigiously encreasing, tho’ still both Sides of the River, as below, kept pretty well: But some began to die in Redriff, and about five or six in Ratclif-High-Way, when the Sail Maker came to his Brother John, express, and in some Fright, for he was absolutely warn’d out of his Lodging, and had only a Week to provide himself. His Brother John was in as bad a Case, for he was quite out, and had only beg’d Leave of his Master the Biscuit Baker to lodge in an Out-House belonging to his Work-house, where he only lay upon Straw, with some Biscuit Sacks, or Bread Sacks, as they call’d them, laid upon it, and some of the same Sacks to cover him.

Here they resolved, seeing all Employment being at an End, and no Work, or Wages to be had, they would make the best of their Way to get out of the Reach of the dreadful Infection; and being as good Husbands as they could, would endeavour to live upon what they had as long as it would last, and then work for more, if they could get Work any where, of any Kind, let it be what it would.

While they were considering to put this Resolution in Practice, in the best Manner they could, the third Man, who was acquainted very well with the Sail Maker, came to know of the Design, and got Leave to be one of the Number, and thus they prepared to set out.

It happened that they had not an equal share of Money, but as the Sail-maker, who had the best Stock, was besides his being Lame, the most unfit to expect to get any thing by Working in the Country, so he was content that what Money they had should all go into one publick Stock, on Condition, that whatever any one of them could gain more than another, it should, without any grudging, be all added to the same publick Stock.

They resolv’d to load themselves with as little Baggage as possible, because they resolv’d at first to travel on Foot; and to go a great way, that they might, if possible, be effectually Safe; and a great many Consultations they had with themselves, before they could agree about what Way they should travel, which they were so far from adjusting, that even to the Morning they set out, they were not resolv’d on it.

At last the Seaman put in a Hint that determin’d it; First, says he, the Weather is very hot, and therefore I am for travelling North, that we may not have the Sun upon our Faces and beating on our Breasts, which will heat and suffocate us; and I have been told, says he, that it is not good to overheat our Blood at a Time when, for ought we know, the Infection may be in the very Air. In the next Place, says he, I am for going the Way that may be contrary to the Wind as it may blow when we set out, that we may not have the Wind blow the Air of the City on our Backs as we go. These two Cautions were approv’d of; if it could be brought so to hit, that the Wind might not be in the South when they set out to go North.

John the Baker, who had been a Soldier, then put in his Opinion; First, says he, we none of us expect to get any Lodging on the Road, and it will be a little too hard to lie just in the open Air; tho’ it be warm Weather, yet it may be wet, and damp, and we have a double Reason to take care of our Healths at such a time as this; and therefore, says he, you, Brother Tom, that are a Sail-maker, might easily make us a little Tent, and I will undertake to set it up every Night, and take it down, and a Fig for all the Inns in England; if we have a good Tent over our Heads, we shall do well enough.

The Joyner oppos’d this, and told them, let them leave that to him, he would undertake to build them a House every Night with his Hatchet and Mallet, tho’ he had no other Tools, which should be fully to their satisfaction, and as good as a Tent.

The Soldier and the Joyner disputed that Point some time, but at last the Soldier carry’d it for a Tent; the only Objection against it was, that it must be carry’d with them, and that would encrease their Baggage too much, the Weather being hot; but the Sail-maker had a piece of good Hap [befall him] which made that easie, for, his Master who he work’d for having a Rope-Walk as well as his Sail-making Trade, had a little poor Horse that he made no use of then, and being willing to assist the three honest Men, he gave them the Horse for the carrying their Baggage; also for a small Matter of three Days Work that his Man did for him before he went, he let him have an old Topgallant Sail that was worn out, but was sufficient and more than enough to make a very good Tent: The Soldier shew’d how to shape it, and they soon by his Direction made their Tent, and fitted it with Poles or Staves for the purpose, and thus they were furnish’d for their Journey; viz. three Men, one Tent, one Horse, one Gun, for the Soldier would not go without Arms, for now he said he was no more a Biscuit-Baker, but a Trooper.

The Joyner had a small Bag of Tools, such as might be useful if he should get any Work abroad, as well for their Subsistence as his own: What Money they had, they brought all into one publick Stock, and thus they began their Journey. It seems that in the Morning when they set out, the Wind blew as the Saylor said by his Pocket Compass, at N. W. by W. So they directed, or rather resolv’d to direct their Course N. W.

But then a Difficulty came in their Way, that as they set out from the hither end of Wapping near the Hermitage, and that the Plague was now very Violent, especially on the North side of the City, as in Shoreditch and Cripplegate Parish, they did not think it safe for them to go near those Parts; so they went away East through Radcliff Highway, as far as Radcliff-Cross, and leaving Stepney Church still on their Left-hand, being afraid to come up from Radcliff-Cross to Mile-end, because they must come just by the Church-yard, and because the Wind that seemed to blow more from the West, blow’d directly from the side of the City where the Plague was hottest. So I say, leaving Stepney, they fetched a long Compass, and going to Poplar and Bromley, came into the great Road just at Bow.

Here the Watch plac’d upon Bow Bridge would have question’d them; but they crossing the Road into a narrow Way that turns out at the hither End of the Town of Bow to Old-Ford, avoided any Enquiry there, and travelled to Old-Ford. The Constables every where were upon their Guard, not so much it seems to stop People passing by, as to stop them from taking up their Abode in their Towns, and withal because of a Report that was newly rais’d at that time, and that indeed was not very improbable, viz. That the poor People in London being distress’d and starv’d for want of Work, and by that means for want of Bread, were up in Arms, and had raised a Tumult, and that they would come out to all the Towns round to plunder for Bread. This, I say, was only a Rumour, and it was very well it was no more; but it was not so far off from being a Reality, as it had been thought, for in a few Weeks more the poor People became so Desperate by the Calamity they suffer’d, that they were with great difficulty kept from running out into the Fields and Towns, and tearing all in pieces where-ever they came; and, as I have observed before, nothing hinder’d them but that the Plague rag’d so violently, and fell in upon them so furiously, that they rather went to the Grave by Thousands than into the Fields in Mobs by Thousands: For in the Parts about the Parishes of St. Sepulchres, Clerkenwell, Cripplegate, Bishopsgate and Shoreditch, which were the Places where the Mob began to threaten, the Distemper came on so furiously, that there died in those few Parishes, even then, before the Plague was come to its height, no less than 5361 People* in the first three Weeks in August, when at the same time, the Parts about Wapping, Radcliffe, and Rotherhith, were, as before describ’d, hardly touch’d, or but very lightly; so that in a Word, tho’, as I said before, the good Management of the Lord Mayor and Justices did much to prevent the Rage and Desperation of the People from breaking out in Rabbles and Tumults, and in short, from the Poor plundering the Rich; I say, tho’ they did much, the Dead Carts did more, for as I have said, that in five Parishes only there died above 5000 in 20 Days, so there might be probably three times that Number Sick all that time; for some recovered, and great Numbers fell sick every Day and died afterwards. Besides, I must still be allowed to say, that if the Bills of Mortality said five Thousand, I always believ’d it was near twice as many in reality; there being no room to believe that the Account they gave was right, or that indeed, they were, among such Confusions as I saw them in, in any Condition to keep an exact Account.

But to return to my Travellers; Here they were only examined, and as they seemed rather coming from the Country than from the City, they found the People the easier with them; that they talk’d to them, let them come into a publick House where the Constable and his Warders were, and gave them Drink and some Victuals, which greatly refreshed and encourag’d them; and here it came into their Heads to say, when they should be enquir’d of afterwards, not that they came from London, but that they came out of Essex.

To forward this little Fraud, they obtain’d so much Favour of the Constable at Old-Ford, as to give them a Certificate of their passing from Essex thro’ that Village, and that they had not been at London; which tho’ false in the common acceptation of London in the County, yet was literally true; Wapping or Radcliff being no part either of the City or Liberty.

This Certificate directed to the next Constable that was at Hummerton, one of the Hamlets of the Parish of Hackney, was so serviceable to them, that it procured them not a free Passage there only, but a full Certificate of Health from a Justice of the Peace; who, upon the Constable’s Application, granted it without much Difficulty; and thus they pass’d through the long divided Town of Hackney, (for it lay then in several separated Hamlets) and travelled on till they came into the great North Road on the top of Stamford-Hill.

By this time they began to be weary, and so in the back Road from Hackney a little before it opened into the said great Road, they resolv’d to set up their Tent and encamp for the first Night; which they did accordingly, with this addition, that finding a Barn, or a Building like a Barn, and first searching as well as they could to be sure there was no Body in it, they set up their Tent, with the Head of it against the Barn; this they did also because the Wind blew that Night very high, and they were but young at such a way of Lodging, as well as the managing their Tent.

Here they went to Sleep, but the Joyner, a grave and sober Man, and not pleased with their lying at this loose rate the first Night, could not sleep, and resolv’d, after trying to Sleep to no purpose, that he would get out, and taking the Gun in his Hand stand Centinel and Guard his Companions: So with the Gun in his Hand he walk’d to and again before the Barn, for that stood in the Field near the Road, but within the Hedge. He had not been long upon the Scout, but he heard a Noise of People coming on as if it had been a great Number, and they came on, as he thought, directly towards the Barn.