A Journal of the Plague Year Read Online

held Councils every Day more or less, for making such Dispositions as they found needful for preserving the Civil Peace; and tho’ they used the People with all possible Gentleness and Clemency, yet all manner of presumptuous Rogues, such as Thieves, House-breakers, Plunderers of the Dead, or of the Sick, were duly punish’d, and several Declarations were continually publish’d by the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen against such.

Also all Constables and Church-wardens were enjoin’d to stay in the City upon severe Penalties, or to depute such able and sufficient House-keepers, as the Deputy Aldermen, or Common Council-men of the Precinct should approve, and for whom they should give Security; and also Security in case of Mortality, that they would forthwith constitute other Constables in their stead.

These things re-establish’d the Minds of the People very much, especially in the first of their Fright, when they talk’d of making so universal a Flight, that the City would have been in Danger of being entirely deserted of its Inhabitants, except the Poor; and the Country of being plunder’d and laid waste by the Multitude. Nor were the Magistrates deficient in performing their Part as boldly as they promised it; for my Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs were continually in the Streets, and at places of the greatest Danger; and tho’ they did not care for having too great a Resort of People crouding about them, yet, in emergent Cases, they never denyed the People Access to them, and heard with Patience all their Grievances and Complaints; my Lord Mayor had a low Gallery built on purpose in his Hall, where he stood a little remov’d from the Croud when any Complaint came to be heard, that he might appear with as much Safety as possible.

Likewise the proper Officers, call’d my Lord Mayor’s Officers, constantly attended in their Turns, as they were in waiting; and if any of them were sick or infected, as some of them were, others were instantly employed to fill up and officiate in their Places, till it was known whether the other should live or die.

In like manner the Sheriffs and Aldermen did in their several Stations and Wards, where they were placed by Office; and the Sheriff’s Officers or Sergeants were appointed to receive Orders from the respective Aldermen in their Turn; so that Justice was executed in all Cases without Interruption. In the next Place, it was one of their particular Cares, to see the Orders for the Freedom of the Markets observ’d; and in this part either the Lord Mayor, or one or both of the Sheriffs, were every Market-day on Horseback to see their Orders executed, and to see that the Country People had all possible Encouragement and Freedom in their coming to the Markets, and going back again; and that no Nusances or frightful Objects should be seen in the Streets to terrify them, or make them unwilling to come. Also the Bakers were taken under particular Order, and the Master of the Bakers Company* was, with his Court of Assistance, directed to see the Order of my Lord Mayor for their Regulation put in Execution, and the due Assize of Bread, which was weekly appointed by my Lord Mayor, observ’d, and all the Bakers were oblig’d to keep their Ovens going constantly, on pain of losing the Privileges of a Freeman of the City of London.

By this means, Bread was always to be had in Plenty, and as cheap as usual, as I said above; and Provisions were never wanting in the Markets, even to such a Degree, that I often wonder’d at it, and reproach’d my self with being so timorous and cautious in stirring abroad, when the Country People came freely and boldly to Market, as if there had been no manner of Infection in the City, or Danger of catching it.

It was indeed one admirable piece of Conduct in the said Magistrates, that the Streets were kept constantly clear, and free from all manner of frightful Objects, dead Bodies, or any such things as were indecent or unpleasant, unless where any Body fell down suddenly or died in the Streets, as I have said above, and these were generally covered with some Cloth or Blanket, or remov’d into the next Church-yard, till Night: All the needful Works, that carried Terror with them, that were both dismal and dangerous, were done in the Night; if any diseas’d Bodies were remov’d, or dead Bodies buried, or infected Cloths burnt, it was done in the Night; and all the Bodies, which were thrown into the great Pits in the several Church-yards, or burying Grounds, as has been observ’d, were so remov’d in the Night; and every thing was covered and closed before Day: So that in the Day-time there was not the least Signal of the Calamity to be seen or heard of, except what was to be observ’d from the Emptiness of the Streets, and sometimes from the passionate Outcries and Lamentations of the People, out at their Windows, and from the Numbers of Houses and Shops shut up.

Nor was the Silence and Emptiness of the Streets so much in the City as in the Out-parts, except just at one particular time, when, as I have mention’d, the Plague came East, and spread over all the City: It was indeed a merciful Disposition of God, that as the Plague began at one End of the Town first, as has been observ’d at large, so it proceeded progressively to other Parts, and did not come on this way or Eastward, till it had spent its Fury in the West part of the Town; and so as it came on one way, it abated another. For Example.

It began at St. Giles’s and the Westminster End of the Town, and it was in its Height in all that part by about the Middle of July, viz. in St. Giles in the Fields, St. Andrew’s Holborn, St. Clement-Danes, St. Martins in the Fields, and in Westminster: The latter End of July it decreased in those Parishes, and coming East, it encreased prodigiously in Cripplegate, St. Sepulchers, St. Ja. Clarkenwell, and St. Brides, and Aldersgate; while it was in all these Parishes, the City and all the Parishes of the Southwark Side of the Water, and all Stepney, White-Chapel, Aldgate, Wapping, and Ratcliff were very little touch’d; so that People went about their Business unconcern’d, carryed on their Trades, kept open their Shops, and conversed freely with one another in all the City, the East and North-East Suburbs, and in Southwark, almost as if the Plague had not been among us.

Even when the North and North-west Suburbs were fully infected, viz. Cripplegate, Clarkenwell, Bishopsgate, and Shoreditch, yet still all the rest were tolerably well. For Example,

So that in short there died more that Week in the two Parishes of Cripplegate and St. Sepulchers by 48 than in all the City, and all the East Suburbs, and all the Southwark Parishes put together: This caused the Reputation of the City’s Health to continue all over England, and especially in the Counties and Markets adjacent, from whence our Supply of Provisions chiefly came, even much longer than that Health it self continued; for when the People came into the Streets from the Country, by Shoreditch and Bishopsgate, or by Old-street and Smithfield, they would see the out Streets empty, and the Houses and Shops shut, and the few People that were stirring there walk in the Middle of the Streets; but when they came within the City, there things look’d better, and the Markets and Shops were open, and the People walking about the Streets as usual, tho’ not quite so many; and this continued till the latter End of August, and the Beginning of September.

But then the Case alter’d quite, the Distemper abated in the West and North-West Parishes, and the Weight of the Infection lay on the City and the Eastern Suburbs and the Southwark Side, and this in a frightful manner.

Then indeed the City began to look dismal, Shops to be shut, and the Streets desolate; in the High-Street indeed Necessity made People stir abroad on many Occasions; and there would be in the middle of the Day a pretty many People, but in the Mornings and Evenings scarce any to be seen, even there, no not in Cornhill and Cheapside.

These Observations of mine were abundantly confirm’d by the Weekly Bills of Mortality for those Weeks, an Abstract of which, as they respect the Parishes which I have mention’d, and as they make the Calculations I speak of very evident, take as follows.

The Weekly Bill, which makes out this Decrease of the Burials in the West and North side of the City, stand thus.

Here is a strange change of Things indeed, and a sad Change it was, and had it held for two Months more than it did, very few People would have been left alive: But then such, I say, was the merciful Disposition of God, that when it was thus the West and North part which had been so dreadfully visited at first, grew as you see, much better; and as the People disappear’d here, they began to look abroad again there; and the next Week or two altered it still more, that is, more to the Encouragement of the other Part of the Town. For Example:

And now the Misery of the City, and of the said East and South Parts was complete indeed; for as you see the Weight of the Distemper lay upon those Parts, that is to say, the City, the eight Parishes over the River, with the Parishes of Aldgate, White Chapel, and Stepney, and this was the Time that the Bills came up to such a monstrous Height, as that I mention’d before; and that Eight or Nine, and, as I believe, Ten or Twelve Thousand a Week died; for ’tis my settled Opinion, that they never could come at any just Account of the Numbers, for the Reasons which I have given already.

Nay one of the most eminent Physicians, who has since publish’d in Latin* an Account of those Times, and of his Observations, says, that in one Week there died twelve Thousand People, and that particularly there died four Thousand in one Night;* tho’ I do not remember that there ever was any such particular Night, so remarkably fatal, as that such a Number died in it: However all this confirms what I have said above of the Uncertainty of the Bills of Mortality, &c., of which I shall say more hereafter.

And here let me take leave to enter again, tho’ it may seem a Repetition of Circumstances, into a Description of the miserable Condition of the City it self, and of those Parts where I liv’d at this particular Time: The City, and those other Parts, not withstanding the great Numbers of People that were gone into the Country, was vastly full of People, and perhaps the fuller, because People had for a long time a strong Belief, that the Plague would not come into the City, nor into Southwark, no nor into Wapping, or Ratcliff at all; nay such was the Assurance of the People on that Head, that many remov’d from the Suburbs on the West and North Sides, into those Eastern and South Sides as for Safety, and as I verily believe, carry’d, the Plague amongst them there, perhaps sooner than they would otherwise have had it.

Here also I ought to leave a farther Remark for the use of Posterity, concerning the Manner of Peoples infecting one another; namely, that it was not the sick People only, from whom the Plague was immediately receiv’d by others that were sound, but THE WELL. To explain my self; by the sick People I mean those who were known to be sick, had taken their Beds, had been under Cure, or had Swellings and Tumours upon them, and the like; these every Body could beware of, they were either in their Beds, or in such Condition as cou’d not be conceal’d.

By the Well, I mean such as had received the Contagion, and had it really upon them, and in their Blood, yet did not shew the Consequences of it in their Countenances, nay even were not sensible of it themselves, as many were not for several Days: These breathed Death in every Place, and upon every Body who came near them; nay their very Cloaths retained the Infection, their Hands would infect the Things they touch’d, especially if they were warm and sweaty, and they were generally apt to sweat too.

Now it was impossible to know these People, nor did they sometimes, as I have said, know themselves to be infected: These were the People that so often dropt down and fainted in the Streets; for oftentimes they would go about the Streets to the last, till on a sudden they would sweat, grow faint, sit down at a Door and die: It is true, finding themselves thus, they would struggle hard to get Home to their own Doors, or at other Times would be just able to go in to their Houses and die instantly; other Times they would go about till they had the very Tokens come out upon them, and yet not know it, and would die in an Hour or two after they came Home, but be well as long as they were Abroad: These were the dangerous People, these were the People of whom the well People ought to have been afraid; but then on the other side it was impossible to know them.

And this is the Reason why it is impossible in a Visitation to prevent the spreading of the Plague by the utmost human Vigilance, (viz.) that it is impossible to know the infected People from the sound; or that the infected People should perfectly know themselves: I knew a Man who conversed freely in London all the Season of the Plague in 1665, and kept about him an Antidote or Cordial, on purpose to take when he thought himself in any Danger, and he had such a Rule to know, or have warning of the Danger by, as indeed I never met with before or since, how far it may be depended on I know not: He had a Wound in his Leg, and whenever he came among any People that were not sound, and the Infection began to affect him, he said he could know it by that Signal, (viz.) That his Wound in his Leg would smart, and look pale and white; so as soon as ever he felt it smart, it was time for him to withdraw, or to take care of himself, taking his Drink, which he always carried about him for that Purpose. Now it seems he found his Wound would smart many Times when he was in Company with such, who thought themselves to be sound, and who appear’d so to one another; but he would presently rise up, and say publickly, Friends, here is some Body in the Room that has the Plague, and so would immediately break up the Company. This was indeed a faithful Monitor to all People, that the Plague is not to be avoided by those that converse promiscuously in a Town infected, and People have it when they know it not, and that they likewise give it to others when they know not that they have it themselves; and in this Case, shutting up the WELL or removing the SICK will not do it, unless they can go back and shut up all those that the Sick had Convers’d with, even before they knew themselves to be sick, and none knows how far to carry that back, or where to stop; for none knows when, or where, or how they may have received the Infection, or from whom.

This I take to be the Reason, which makes so many People talk of the Air being corrupted and infected,* and that they need not be cautious of whom they converse with, for that the Contagion was in the Air. I have seen them in strange Agitations and Surprises on this Account, I have never come near any infected Body! says the disturbed Person, I have Convers’d with none, but sound healthy People, and yet I have gotten the Distemper! I am sure I am struck from Heaven, says another, and he falls to the serious Part; again the first goes on exclaiming, I have come near no Infection, or any infected Person, I am sure it is in the Air; We draw in Death when we breath[e], and therefore ’tis the Hand of God, there is no withstanding it; and this at last made many People, being hardened to the Danger, grow less concern’d at it, and less cautious towards the latter End of the Time, and when it was come to its height, than they were at first; then with a kind of a Turkish Predestinarianism,* they would say, if it pleas’d God to strike them, it was all one whether they went Abroad or staid at Home, they cou’d not escape it, and therefore they went boldly about even into infected Houses, and infected Company; visited sick People, and in short, lay in the Beds with their Wives or Relations when they were infected; and what was the Consequence? But the same that is the Consequence in Turkey, and in those Countries where they do those Things; namely, that they were infected too, and died by Hundreds and Thousands.

I would be far from lessening the Awe of the Judgments of God, and the Reverence to his Providence, which ought always to be on our Minds on such Occasions as these; doubtless the Visitation it self is a Stroke from Heaven upon a City, or Country, or Nation where it falls; a Messenger of his Vengeance, and a loud Call to that Nation, or Country, or City, to Humiliation and Repentance, according to that of the Prophet Jeremiah xviii. 7, 8. At what instant I shall speak concerning a Nation, and concerning a Kingdom to pluck up, and to pull down, and destroy it: If that Nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. Now to prompt due Impressions of the Awe of God on the Minds of Men on such Occasions, and not to lessen them it is that I have left those Minutes upon Record.

I say, therefore I reflect upon no Man for putting the Reason of those Things upon the immediate Hand of God, and the Appointment and Direction of his Providence; nay, on the contrary, there were many wonderful Deliverances of Persons from Infection, and Deliverances of Persons when Infected, which intimate singular and remarkable Providence, in the particular Instances to which they refer, and I esteem my own Deliverance to be one next to miraculous, and do record it with Thankfulness.

But when I am speaking of the Plague, as a Distemper arising from natural Causes,* we must consider it as it was really propagated by natural Means, nor is it at all the less a Judgment for its being under the Conduct of human Causes and Effects; for as the divine Power has form’d the whole Scheme of Nature, and maintains Nature in its Course; so the same Power thinks fit to let his own Actings with Men, whether of Mercy or Judgment, go on in the ordinary Course of natural Causes, and he is pleased to act by those natural Causes as the ordinary Means; excepting and reserving to himself nevertheless a Power to act in a supernatural Way when he sees occasion: Now ’tis evident, that in the Case of an Infection, there is no apparent extraordinary occasion for supernatural Operation, but the ordinary Course of Things appears sufficiently arm’d, and made capable of all the Effects that Heaven usually directs by a Contagion. Among these Causes and Effects this of the secret Conveyance of Infection imperceptible, and unavoidable, is more than sufficient to execute the Fierceness of divine Vengeance, without putting it upon Supernaturals and Miracle.

The acute penetrating Nature of the Disease it self was such, and the Infection was receiv’d so imperceptibly, that the most exact Caution could not secure us while in the Place: But I must be allowed to believe, and I have so many Examples fresh in my Memory, to convince me of it, that I think none can resist their Evidence; I say, I must be allowed to believe, that no one in this whole Nation ever receiv’d the Sickness or Infection, but who receiv’d it in the ordinary Way of Infection from some Body, or the Cloaths, or touch, or stench of some Body that was infected before.

The Manner of its coming first to London, proves this also, (viz.) by Goods brought over from Holland, and brought thither from the Levant; the first breaking of it out in a House in Long-Acre, where those Goods were carried, and first opened; its spreading from that House to other Houses, by the visible unwary conversing with those who were sick, and the infecting the Parish Officers who were employed about the Persons dead, and the like; these are known Authorities for this great Foundation Point, that it went on, and proceeded from Person to Person, and from House to House, and no otherwise: In the first House that was infected there died four Persons, a Neighbour hearing the Mistress of the first House was sick, went to visit her, and went Home and gave the Distemper to her Family, and died, and all her Houshold. A Minister call’d to pray with the first sick Person in the second House, was said to sicken immediately, and die with several more in his House: Then the Physicians began to consider, for they did not at first dream of a general Contagion. But the Physicians being sent to inspect the Bodies, they assur’d the People that it was neither more or less than the Plague with all its terrifying Particulars, and that it threatned an universal Infection, so many People having already convers’d with the Sick or Distemper’d, and having, as might be suppos’d, received Infection from them, that it would be impossible to put a stop to it.

Here the Opinion of the Physicians agreed with my Observation afterwards, namely, that the Danger was spreading insensibly; for the Sick cou’d infect none but those that came within reach of the sick Person; but that one Man, who may have really receiv’d the Infection, and knows it not, but goes Abroad, and about as a sound Person, may give the Plague to a thousand People, and they to greater Numbers in Proportion, and neither the Person giving the Infection, or the Persons receiving it, know any thing of it, and perhaps not feel the Effects of it for several Days after.

For Example, Many Persons in the Time of this Visitation never perceiv’d that they were infected, till they found to their unspeakable Surprize, the Tokens come out upon them, after which they seldom liv’d six Hours; for those Spots they call’d the Tokens were really gangreen Spots, or mortified Flesh in small Knobs as broad as a little silver Peny, and hard as a piece of Callous or Horn; so that when the Disease was come up to that length, there was nothing could follow but certain Death, and yet as I said they knew nothing of their being Infected, nor found themselves so much as out of Order, till those mortal Marks were upon them: But every Body must allow, that they were infected in a high Degree before, and must have been so some time; and consequently their Breath, their Sweat, their very Cloaths were contagious for many Days before.

This occasion’d a vast Variety of Cases, which Physicians would have much more opportunity to remember than I; but some came within the Compass of my Observation, or hearing, of which I shall name a few.

A certain Citizen who had liv’d safe, and untouch’d, till the Month of September, when the Weight of the Distemper lay more in the City than it had done before, was mighty chearful, and something too bold, as I think it was, in his Talk of how secure he was, how cautious he had been, and how he had never come near any sick Body: Says another Citizen, a Neighbour of his to him, one Day, Do not be too confident Mr. —— it is hard to say who is sick and who is well; for we see Men alive, and well to outward Appearance one Hour, and dead the next.