ue s -RCJIR mti)e(£ttpof3lftagork Cottege of S^f)p^icim& anb burgeons! Hibrarp \^ViV. \' JOURNAL THE PLAGUE YEAR, ito, Digitized by the Internet Arciiive in 2010 with funding from Open Knowledge Commons http://www.archive.org/details/journalofplaguey1881defo A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR OR ' Memorials of the Great Pestilence in London, in 1665 By DANIEL DE FOE REVISED EDITION WITH HISTORICAL NOTES By E. W. BRAYLEY, F.S.A., M.R.S.L., &c. ALSO, SOME ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT FIRE IN LONDON IN 1666 By GIDEON HARVEY, M.D. Physician to the Tower of London With an Appendix containing the Earl of Clarendon's Account of the Fire With Illustrations on Steel by George Gruil- >"iaHTS' ESTERTAiyMEyTS. THE ADVEXrrRE.S OF D0>- guiXOTE. THE ADVE^TrEES OF GIL BLAS. POPES H03IEK.S ILIAD XSTi ODYSSEY . LOXGFELLOWS COMPLETE POETICAL '^OEKS. CKrDEXS CO>"CORDAXCE. SYD>'EY SMITHS ESSAYS. ^ A JOUENAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR: BEINa OBSEEVATIONS OR MEMORIALS OF THE MOST REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, AOWELL PUBLIC AS PRIVATE, WmOH HArPENED IN L N D JSI DUKING'THE LAST GEEAT VISITATION IN 1665. WRITTEN BY A CITIZEN WHO CONTINUED AiL THE WHILE IN LONDON. NEVER BIADB PUBLICK BEFORE. LONDON: FEINTED rOR E. NUTT, AT THE KOYAL EXCHANGE; 3. EGBERTS, IN ■WARWICK LANE ; A. DODD, WITHOUT TEMPLE BAE ; AND J. GRAVES, IN ST. JAMES'S STREET, 1722. LIST OF PLATES. PAGE "THE DEAD CART," TO FACE THE TITLE. " THE GREAT PIT IN ALDGATB " , . , '. , , 85 " SOLOMON EAGLE " ,.(".-,. 136 " THE waterman's WIFE ",»»,,,. 142 INTRODUCTOEY OBSEEVATIONS. London, in former ages, has frequently sufPered from the ravages of Pestilence, and thousands and tens of thou- sands of the inhabitants have been swept by its virulence into one common grave. But at no period of our annals ■was the mortality so devastating as in the year 1665. It was then, indeed, that man " withered like the grass " and that his brief earthly existence became a "fleeting shadow." Contagion was rife in all our streets, and so baleful were its effects, that the church-yards were not sufficiently capacious to receive the dead. It seemed for a while as though the brand of the avenging angel had been unloosed in judgment, and that the infected city was doomed to become' another Golgotha ! The " Journal of the Plague Year," attributed to De Foe, was originally published in the year 1772 ; and the question as to its genuineness and accuracy, as an account of that calamity, has given rise to much discussion. Like most of De Foe's works, it appeared without an author's name, but no one who is at all acquaiiited with the gene- ral characteristics of his writings, " can, for a moment hesitate to agree with the voice of common fame, which assigns it to him." But the question then arises, as to what degree of credit is due to the " Journal " or to the circumstances Avhich it records ; since De Foe was scarcely two years of age, when the Great Pestilence occurred which it affects so minutely to describe. His narrative, X INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. by one writer, has been styled " a pure fiction ; " by another, it is described as being " as much a work of imagination as his Robinson Crusoe ; " a third (the author of his " Memoirs ") says, it would baffle the ingenuity of any one but De Foe to frame a history with so many attributes of truth upon the lasis of fiction ;" and a fourth, with a somewhat reprehensible ignorance, has included the *•' Journal of the Plague Year" in a collection of Novels. Now De Foe's work is not a fiction, nor is it based upon fiction ; and great injustice is done to his memory so to represent it. Most of the circumstances which it records, can be traced to diiferent publications to which the writer had access, and which are still accessible ; and it is extremely probable that a part of his information was actually derived from some diary, or manuscript observations, communicated to him by an individual of his own family, — and to whom he probably refers by the initials H. F., which are attached to the end of his "Journal."* It may be assumed also, in accounting for the individuality and minuteness of some of his details, that other manuscripts were in existence at the time when De Foe wrote, from which he derived information ; for unquestionably, among those who resided in London during the dreadful Visitation of 1665, there must have been some who drew up memoirs, more or less extensive, relating to those extraordinary and appalling scenes and occurrences which distinguished the period in question.f * It must be recollected, that the proper surname of this celebrated writer was Foe, and not De Foe, the prefix being an assumption of his own when advanced to manhood. f An instance of this will be found in the '■'■ Loimographia'" of Bop-hurst, whose manuscript is now, preserved in the British Museum, and copious extracts from which are given in the Appendix, No. I., attached to this volume; and it is very probable that Boghurst's narrative had been perused by De Foe. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. XI From, considering the circumstances of the times when De Foe's work first appeared, which was in the year 1722, we may fairly conchide that the occasion of his compiling it, — for he was then reduced to mere authorship for his means of daily support, — was to take advantage of the strong excitement which the Plague at Marseilles had raised in the public mind, and which was mingled Avitb fearful apprehensions lest the infection should again be introduced into this country. During the two preceding years, Marseilles had been ravaged by Pestilence in the most direful manner ; and scarcely all the sufferings that had ever previously afflicted our own nation, could be compared with the heart-rending scenes which took place in that devoted city within that brief period. The chief printed sources of De Foe's " Memoirs of the Plague Years," which is the secondary or running title at the head of the pages of his work, was the " Collection " of all the Bills of Mortality for 1665, published under the title of ^^ London's Dreadful Visitation;" the Loimologia " of Dr. Hodges ; and " God's Terrible Voice in the City" by the Rev. Thomas Vincent, which appeared in 1667. The original edition of '"'■ Loimologia" which is in Latin, was published in 1672, in octavo; and again, enlarged and in quarto, in 1775 : it was translated into English by Dr. Quincey, and republished in octavo in 1720. No person who peruses De Foe's work, can avoid see- ing how greatly he has been indebted to the WeeUy Bills for the minute and comparative details which he con- tinually introduces in respect to the numbers and localities of the deceased. Here, everything is in accordance with the strict facts : there is no display of imagination, and when the writer occasionally departs from the anthorities XU INTRODUCTOnr OBSERVATIONS. before him, it is under circumstances whicli are strongly m favour of the correctness of his own observations. With regard to the other works mentioned above, the following extracts will probably convince every reader of De Foe's "Journal," that he drew largely from those sources for the more ample account of the ravages of the Plague, which he himself composed ; — and first from Dr. Hodges's " Loimologia." " In the months of August and September, the contagion changed its former slow and languid pace, and having, as it were, got master of all, made a most terrible slaughter, so that three, four, or five thousand died in a week, and once eight thousand. Who can express the calamities of such times? The whole British nation wept for the miseries of her metropolis. In some houses carcases lay v>'aitiug for burial, and in others, persons in their last ac-onies ; in one room might be heard dying groans, in another the ravings of a delirium, and not far off, relations and friends bewailing both their loss, and the dismal prospect of their own sudden departure ; death was the sure midwife to all children, and infants passed immedi- ately from the womb to the grave. Who would not burst with grief to see the stock for a future generation hang upon the breasts of a dead mother ? Or the marriage bed changed the first night into a sepulchre, and the unhappy pair meet with death in their first embraces ? Some of the infected run about staggering like drunken men, and fall and expire in the streets ; Avhile others lie half dead and comatose, but never to be waked but by the last trumpet ; some lie vomiting as if they had drunk poison ; and others fall dead in the market, while they are buying necessaries for the support of life." " I was called to a girl the first day of her seizure, who INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. XUl breathed without any difficulty, her w.armth was moderate and natural, her inwards free from glowing and pain, her pulse not unequal or irregular ; but on the contrary, all things genuine and well, as if she had ailed nothing ; and indeed, I was rather inclined to think she counterfeited being sick, than really to be out of order, until examining her breast, I found the certain characters of death im- printed in many places ; and in that following night she died, before she herself or any person about her could discern her otherwise out of order. " Other passages, in immediate accordance with De Foe's narration, might easily be selected from the same work ; — but the subjoined extracts from Mr. Vincent's tract will be seen to be still more decidedly analogous to the general tone and manner of our author. " It was in the year of our Lord 1665, that the Plague began in our city of London ; after we were warned by the Great Plague in Holland in the year 1664, and the beginning of it in some remote parts of our land in the same year ; not to speak anything whether there was any signification and influence in the Blazing-star not long before, that appeared in the view of London, and struck some amazement upon the spirits of many. It was in the month of May that the Plague was first taken notice of : our bill of mortality did let us know but of three, which died of the disease in the whole year before; but in the beginning of May the Bill tells us of nine which fell by the Plague ; one in the heart of the city, the other eight in the suburbs. This was the first arrow of warning that was shot from Heaven amongst us, and fear quickly begins to creep upon people's hearts; great thoughts and dis*- course there is in the town about the Plague, and they cast in their minds whither they should go if the Plague S^IV INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. sliould increase. Yet when the next week's bill signifieth to them the decrease, from nine to three, their minds are something appeased ; discourse of that subject cools ; fears are hushed, and hopes take place, that the black cloud did but threaten, and give a few drops ; but the wind would drive it away. But when in the next bill the number of the dead by the Plague is mounted from three to fourteen, and in the next to seventeen, and in the next to forty-three, and the disease begins so much to increase and disperse, sinners begin to be startled." The Plague " is so deadly, it kills where it comes without mercy ; it kills, I had almost said certainly : very few do escape especially upon its first entrance, and before its malignity be spent. Few are touched by. it, but they are killed by it ; and it kills suddenly. As it gives no warning before it comes, suddenly the arrow is shot which woundeth unto the heart ; so it gives little time for pre- paration before it brings to the grave. Under other diseases, men may linger out many weeks and months ; under some, divers years : but the Plague usually killeth within a few dales ; sometimes, within a few hours after its first approach, though the body were never so strong and free from disease before." Speaking of the month of June, he says, — " Now the citizens of London are put to a stop in the career of their trade; they begin to fear whom they converse withall, and deal withall, lest they should have come out of infected places : now roses and other sweet flowers wither in the gardens, are disregarded in the markets, and people dare not offer them to their noses, lest with their sweet savour, that which is infectious should be attracted. Rue and wormwood are taken into the hand; myrrh and zedoary into the mouth, and without some antidote few INTRODUCTORT OBSERVATIONS. XV stir abroad in the morning. Now many houses are shut up where the Plague comes, and the inhabitants shut in, lest coming abroad they should spread the infection. It was very dismal to behold the red crosses, and read in great letters, Lord have mercy wpon us, on the doors, and watchmen standing before them with halberts ; and such a solitude about those places, and people passing by them so gingerly, and with such fearful looks, as if they had been lined with enemies in ambush, that waited to destroy them." In July the Plague increaseth, and prevaileth exceed- ingly ; the number of 470, which died in one week by the disease, ariseth to 725 the next week, to 1089 the next, to 1843 the next, and to 2010 the next. ^Now the Plague compasseth the walls of the city like a flood, and poureth in upon it. Now most parishes are infected, both without and within [the waUs] ; yea there are not so many houses shut up by the Plague as by the owners foi'sakiag them for fear of it, and though the inhabitants be so exceed- ingly decreased by the departure of so many thousands, yet the number of dying persons doth increase fearfully. Now the countries keep guards, lest infectious persons should from the city bring the disease unto them. Most of the rich are now gone, and the middle sort will not stay behind ; but the poor are forced through poverty to stay and abide the storm. The very sinking fears they have had of the Plague hath brought the Plague and death upon many. Some, by the sight of a coffin in the streets, have fallen into a shivering, and immediately the disease has assaulted them ; and Sergeant Death hath arrested them, and clapt to the doors of their houses upon them, from whence they have come forth no more, till they have been brought to their graves." XVl INTRODUGTORT OBSERVATIONS. " It would be endless to speak of what we have seen and heard of some in their frensie rising out of their beds, and leaping about their rooms ; others crying and roaring at their windows ; some coming forth almost naked, and running into the streets. Strange things have others spoken and done when the disease was upon them ; but it was very sad to hear of one, who, being sick and alone, and, it is like frantic, burnt himself in his bed." Many other citations might be made from the same writers to show how considerably De Foe was indebted to them for the general facts recorded in his " Journal." But in almost every instance v/here he has thus acquired information, he has given additional interest to the subject by entering into a detail of cii'cumstances which, if not to the letter true, still arrests belief from its strict accordance with what we feel conscious must have taken place in a season of such grievous suffering as he describes. " As De Foe" (says his more recent biographer Wilson) " was a mere child when the calamity happened, he could have no personal knowledge of the matters he has recorded. But the feelings arising from so awful a visitation would not subside suddenly. It would continue to be the talk of those who witnessed it for years afterwards, so that he must have been familiarised with the subject from his childhood ; and as curiosity is most alive and the impres- sions strongest at that period, there can be no doubt that he treasured up many things in his memory, from the report of his parents and others, which he converted into useful materials as they passed through the operation of his own lively fancy. It was De Foe's peculiar talent to seize upon any popu- lar subject, and convert it by his inimitable genius into a fruitful source of amusement and instruction. From his INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. XVU history of the Plague we may derive more information than from all the other publications upon the subject put together. He has collected all the facts attending the rise, progress, and terminatiouof the malady, an acciu-ate report of the number of deaths as published by authority, a faithful account of the regulations adopted to arrest and mitigate its fury, and numerous cases of infection, Avhether real or imaginary. But that which imparts life to the whole, and forms its distinguishing feature, is its descrip- tive imagery. The author's object is not so much to detail the deadly consequences of the disorder, as to delineate its effects upon the frighted minds of the inhabi- tants. These are depicted with all the genuine pathos of nature, without any aim at effect, but with the ease and simplicity of real life. The numerous incidents that follow in rapid succession, fraught as they are with human misery, present, at the same time, an accurate picture of life and manners in the metropolis, at the period referred to. The style and dress, the language and ideas, are exactly those of a citizen of London at the latter end of the 17th century."* When the notes and other papers attached to this edition are considered with reference to the circumstances stated by De Foe, there can be no hesitation in subscrib- ing to the general authenticity of his production • although, perhaps, in a few instances, as in that of the interview with the waterman at Blackwall, in the ^tory of the joiner and his companions, and in the account of the awfully -wicked conduct of the frequenters of the Pye tavern, he has apparently given a more heightened effect to the occurrences related, than the strict truth can war- * Vide " Memoirs of the Life and Times of De Foe," &c., by Walter WilsoB, Esq., Yol. iii. pp. 614 — 516. XVUl INTRODUCTOny OBSERVATIONS. rant. In his cliaracter of a journalist and tradesman, whatever may have been the real sources of his informa- tion, he has composed a far superior History of the Plague Year than any other writer whatever; and it is a re- markable fact, that many of the events which he records, derive a collateral support from the respective diaries of Pepys, Evelyn, and Lord Clarendon, — works which were not published until long, very long after his decease, and the manuscripts of which he could never have perused. His narration, indeed, has such a decided au* of verisimili- tude, that Mr, Wilson has remarked, — " No one can take up the book without believing that it is the saddler of '^Vhitechapel who is telling his own story ; thai he was an eye-witness to all that he relates ; that he actually saw the blazing stars which portended the calamity; that he witnessed the gi-ass growing in the streets, read the inscriptions upon the doors of the infected houses ; heard the bell-man crying, ' Bring out your dead!'' saw the dead-carts conveying the people to their graves; and was present at the digging of the pits in which they were deposited. In this indeed consists the charm of the narrative. It is not merely a record of the transactions that happened during the calamity, nor even of private circumstances that would escape the public eye: it is rather the familiar recital of a man's own observations upon all that passed before him, possessing aU the minuteness of a log-book without its dulness." That an event of such fearful interest as the Plague of 1665, should have been dismissed from the pages of the historians Eapin and Hume in little more than a single sentence is highly extraordinary, bnt such is the case. It is not less remarkable, that Dr. Lingard (who does justice to its importance) has been almost wholly indebted for his INTRODUCTORY OBBERVATIONS. XIX eloquent description of this appalling scourge to De Foe's " Journal." By avoiding the redundancy, and generalis- ing the details of that writer, he has composed such a terrific picture of the ravages of the Pestilence that it can only be paralleled by the celebrated delineation of the Plague of Athens by the classic pencil of Thucydides. It has the same nervous force, and vividness and fidelity of representation ; and we behold in it, as in a mirror, the fell triumph of the grim king of terrors ; — the last thrill of suffering humanity, sinking into the grave in wretched- ness and despair. Except his inimitable " Robinson Crusoe" nooe of the productions of De Foe ever attained such a high decree of popular celebrity as his " Journal of the Plague Year." The subject is one of the most fearful that can be met with in the annals of the human race. It connects itself in a remarkable degree, with the ideas we entertain of an immediate judgment of Heaven ; and it has been so treated by almost every serious writer, from the time of Moses, even to our own age.* That impression seems to have acted strongly up*on the mind of De Foe; and it has im- parted a high moral character to his work, which renders the interest it excites of ten-fold value, because it tends both to improve the heart and to inculcate the great * In almost every age, and among even the most idolatrous nations Pestilence has been reojarded as "an especial instrument of Divine anger ;" and it is probably with reference to the deep interest which this belief excites, in the generality of mankind, that both historians and poets have so often vied with each other in their gloomy details of its ravages. " Neither war with all its pomp, nor the earthquake, nor the tempest in its overwhelming fury, has been more distinctly 'per- sonified _ than the Pestilence that walheth in darkness. — It is with the description of a Plague that Homer begins his sublime poem ; and the noblest of Grecian tragedies [the GEdipiis Tyrannus of Sophocles] is commenced in a similar manner : and in both cases, contao-ion is tlie immediate messenger of Heavenly vsrath.''— See Stebbing's "Introduc- tion " to the " History of the Plague Year," 1832. XX IXTRODUCTOR'T OBSERVATIONS. lessons of humility and pious reverence. " De Foe ia never so much at home as when he is inviting men to rejDentance and reformation ; yet he never goes out of his way for the pui-pose, but seizes upon incidents as they arise, and are calculated by then' nature to give effect to his admonitions." "Were De Foe's " Jouvual " to be critically examined, it would be found that the vivid impression which it makes upon the reader is, in a considerable degree, dependent on the frequent recurrence of the same images. The ease, and almost colloquial familiarity of his language, is another great cause of its success in interesting the feelings. The most appalling events are related with the plainness and simplicity of conversation. There is no straining for effect, nor is the garb of a pompous phraseology ever assumed to disguise the simple matter-of-fact, and shoAV how the writer can shine at the expense of his subject. In concluding these remarks, the Editor will advert to one cu'cumstance of an historical nature, in Avhich De Foe's work has misled many ; and that is, as to the time of the cessation of the Plague in this country. No reader of the " Journal " can rise from perusing it, without being impressed with the idea that the Plague entu-ely ceased with us, early in 1666 ; but such was not the fact. In the course of that year, nearly two thousand persons fell victims to its ravages in London alone ; and it still con- tinued slightly to infect the metropolis luitil 1679, which is the last year that any deaths from Plague were recorded in the bills of mortality. Since its first publica'Lion in 1722, numerous editions of De Foe's Avork huve been issued from the press, but on no one of them was a proper attention to correctness ever bestowed. That fault has been avoided on the present INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. XXl occasion. The work has been reprinted from the original edition, (-which is now extremely scarce,) and its revision has been carefully attended to. Numerous errors, both of grammar and in pointing, have been corrected, and such other amendments madeas came strictly vfithin the compass of editorial duty. In most of the reprints of De Foe's " Journal" of the Plague Year," that title has been changed into the " His- tory of the Great Plague." In the present instance, the Editor has restored both the original title and the half- title as they stand in the edition of 1722. Edwabd Wedlake Bkatley. TABLE OF DEATHS BY PLAGUE, IN THE YEAR 1665—1666, The subjoined Table, which has been drawn up from Original docu- ments in the possession of the Company of Parish Clerks, and is now first printed, will show the weekly returns of Deaths hy Plague, from the 19th of December 1665 to the 18th of December 1666. During the confusion occasioned by the Great Fire in September, 1666, the accounts for thi-ee weeks were merged into one total. Days of the Days of the Weeks. Month. Plague. Weeks. Month. Plague. 1 Dec.19— 26 152 2G June 19 23 2 Jan. 2 70 27 — 26 33 3 — 9 89 28 July 3 35 4 — 16 158 29 — 10 33 5 — 23 79 30 — 17 51 C — - 30 56 31 — 24 48 7 Feb. 6 52 32 — 31 38 8 ■ - 13 59 33 Aug. 7 42 9 — 20 69 34 — 14 48 10 — 27 42 35 — 21 42 11 Mar. 6 28 36 — 28 30 12 — 13 29 37 Sept. 18 104 13 — 20 33 38 — 25 31 14 — 27 17 39 Oct. 2 23 15 Apr. 3 26 40 — 9 15 IG — 10 28 41 — 16 24 17 — 17 40 42 — 23 16 . 18 — 24 24 43 — 30 14 19 May 1 40 44 Nov. 6 10 20 - 8 53 45 — 13 3 21 - 15 58 46 — 20 8 22 — 22 31 47 — 27 7 23 — 29 20 48 Dec. 4 2 24 June 5 27 49 — ■ 11 4 25 — 12 31 50 — 18 3 Total Deaths fc )r 1665—1 mQ . 1998 I MEMOIES or THE PLAGUE. It was about the beginning of September, 1664, tbat T, among the rest of my neighbours, 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, whither 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 Caudia ; others, from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came ; but all agreed it was come into Holland again.* We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those *Iii Pepys's "Diaiy," (vol. ii. pp. 105,111, under the dates of October 19th, and 30th, 1663,) are the following early notices of the approaching Pestilence — " To the Coffee-honse in Cornhill, where much talk about the Turkes proceedings, and that the Plague is got to Amsterdam, brought by a ship from Argier, and it is also earned to Hambrough." — ' The Plague is much in Amsterdam, and we in fear of it here, which God defend." During the following month, the Infection continued to spread in both the above places, and all ships coming thence to England were enjoined by an Order of CouncU to perform a " Quarantine " of thirty days in Hole-haven. On the 16th of June, 1664, Pepys wrote : — " The talk upon the 'Change is, that De Kuyter is dead, with fifty men of his own ship, of the Plague at Gales." This report, as far as regarded De Euyter, was not correct : that intrepid commander survived untU April 1676, when he was mortally wounded by a -canon-shot, in an engagemeiiC a MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. days, to spread rumours and reports of things ; * and to improve them by the invention of men, as I have lived to see practised since. But such things as these were gathered from the letters of merchants and others, who cor- responded abroad, and from them were 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, aud several counciLs were held about ways to prevent its coming over ; but all was kept very private. Hence it was, that this rumour 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 ■with the French fleet, near Messina. Many, however, died of the Plague in De Kuyter's fleet, about the above time. Dr. Hodges (author of " Loimologia," &c., who, after practising wiih great success in London, during the time of the Plague, died poor in Ludgate, about 1684") speaks thus of the origiu of the Infection in his " Letter to a Person of^Quality, on the Else, Progress, Symptoms, and Cure of the Plagiie :" — " After the most strict and serious inquiry, by undoubted testimonies, I find that this Pest was communicated to us from the Netherlands by way of contagion ; and if the most probable relations deceive me not, it came from Smyrna to Holland, in a parcel of infected goods." See " Collection of very scarce and valuable pieces relating to the last Plague in the year 1665," 2nd edit. 1721. 8vo, p. 14. * This is not strictly accurate. Newspapers had been published occasionally in the reign of Queen Elizabeth ; and also, periodically, during the Civil War in Charles the First's time, and during the subsequent Protectorate or Interregnum. The "Intelligencer" was commenced by Sir Eoger L'Estrange, in December, 1664 ; and the "Newes," also by him, on the third day afterwards ; and those papers were continued to be published, in alternate succession, twice a week for some years. The " Gazette," No. I, " Published by authority," at Oxford, where the Court then resided, appeared in November 1665. It has no proper date ; but the first article ia it, dated Oxon. Nov. 7, is the announcement of the election of the Eev. Dr. Walter Blandford, Warden of Wadham Coll., to the Bishopric, vacant by the death of Dr. Paul. At the end of this Gazette, we are told '• The account of the Weekly BiU at London runs thus : — Total 1359. Plague 1050. Decreased 418." The Oxford Gazette, No. 24, was ih.e first " London Gazette," and bears the dates of February 1-5, 1665-6, MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 8 two men, said to be Frenchmen, died of the Plague in Long-acre, or rather at the upper end of Drury-lane. The family they were in endeavoured to conceal it as much as possible ; but as it had gotten some vent in the dis- course of the neighbourhood, 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 BUI of Mortahty in the usual manner, thus : — Plague 2. — Parishes infected, 1.* The people showed a great concern at this, and began * It will be seen from the following dates and numbers taken from the Bills of Mortality, that London had never been free from Infection eince the year 16i7, when 3597 persons died of the Plague: In 1648 there died 611 In 1657 there died 4 1649 67 1658 14 1650 15 1659 36 1651 23 1660 ,) 14 1652 16 1661 ,) 20 1653 6 1662 f} 12 1654 16 1663 9 1655 9 1664 9) 6 1656 6 In the latter year, viz. 1664, there were four parishes infected. One person died ia St. Botolph's, Aldgate ; one ia St. Giles's, Cripplegate , three in St. Mary's, Whitechapel ; and one in St. Giles's-in-the-Fields. The unwonted alarm, therefore, which existed at this time, must have arisen not so much from the knowledge that the Plague was already in London, as from the mortality occasioned by it in Holland ; where at Amsterdam alone, in the above yeai', more than 24,000 persons are said to have fallen victims to its ravages. In fact, there had scarcely been a single twelvemonth from the commencement of the century, during which London had been entirely free from this infection. In 1603, no fewer than 36,269 persons are recorded to have died in the metropolis of the Plague; in 1625, there perished here 35,417,- and in 1636, full 10,400. In many of the intermediate years, the deaths from Pestilence amounted to two, three, and even four thousand and upwards. 4 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. to be alarmed all over the town, and the more, because, m the last week in December 1664, another man died in flie same house, and of the same distemper : and then we were easy again for about six weeks, when, none having died with any marks of infection, it was said the dis- temper 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 in- crease of burials in St. Giles's 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 of the Bills stood thus : — The usual number of burials in a week, in the parishes of St. GUes- in-the-Fields, and St. Andrew, Holborn, were from twelve to seventeen or nineteen each, few more or less ; but from the time that the Plague first began in St. Giles's parish, it was observed, that the ordinary burials increased in number considerably. For example : — From Dec. 27 to Jan. 3— St. Giles's' 16 St. Andre-w's 17" Jan. 3 to Jan. 10— St. Giles's 12 St. Andi-eVs 25 Jan. 10 to Jan. 17— St. Giles's 18 St. Andrew's 18 Jan. 17 to Jan. 24— St. Giles's 23 St. Andrew's 16 Jan. 24 to Jan. 31— St. Giles's 24 St. Andrew's 15 Jan. 31 to Feb. 7— St. Giles's 21 St. Andi-eVs 23 Feb, 7 to Feb. 14^St. Giles's 24 wtereof 1 of the pla^e. MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 5 The like increase of the Bills was observed in the parish of St. Bride, adjoining on one side of Holborn parish, and in the parish of St. James, ClerkemveU, adjoining on the other side of Holborn : in both which parishes, the usual numbers that died weekly, were from four to six or eifht: Avhereas at that time they were increased, as follows : From Dec. 20 to Dec. 27— St. Bride's St. James's 8 Dec. 27 to Jan. 3— St. Bride's 6 St. James's 9 Jan. 3 to Jan. 10— St. Bride's 11 " St. James's 7 Jan. 10 to Jan. 17 — St. Bride's 12 St. James's 9 Jan. 17 to Jan. 24— St. Bride's 9 St. James's 15 Jan. 24 to Jan. 31— St. Bride's 8 St. James's 12 Jan. 31 to Feb. 7— St. Bride's 13 St. James's 5 Feb. 7 to Feb. 14— St. Bride's 12 St. James's 6 Besides this, it was observed with great uneasiness by the people, that the Weekly Bills in general increased veiy 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 Mor- tality 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: — Buried. Increased. From Dec. 20 to Dec. 27 291 — Dec. 27 to Jan. 3 349 ......... 58 Jan. 3 to Jan. 10 394 45 Jan. 10 to Jan. 17 415 21 Jan. 17 to Jan. 24 474 59 This last BDl was really frightful, being a higher b MEMOIRS OF THE PLAQUE. num'ber than had been known to have been burled in one Tveek, since the preceding Visitation of 1636.* 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,f attended with sharp though moderate winds, the Bills decreased again, and the city [town] grew healthy, and every body began to look upon the danger as good as over ; only that still the bui'ials in St. Giles's continued high : from the beginning of April especially, they stood at twenty-five each week, till the week from the 18th to the 2oth, when there was buried in St. Giles's parish thirty, 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 in the whole increased, being eight the week before, and twelve the week above-named. • In March, 1665, the importation of English Manufactures, even to Beer, was prohibited in Holland (on account of the Plague), under a penalty of 1000 guilders, besides confiscation of the property. This, probably, was in retaliation for the Government measure of the pre- ceding year, when the King (Charles II.) excused his prohibition of merchandise from Holland, "on account of the Plague having been introduced into that Country." J In EveljTi's "Diai-y," vol. i. p. 370, is the following entry, under the date December 22 — " It was now exceeding cold, and a hard long frosty season, and the Comet was very visible." Under January 4th, 1665, he says, " excessive sharp frost and snow." Pepys also, on the 6th of February, in the same year, made the following entry in his " Diary :" — " One of the coldest days, all say, they ever felt in England." The comet was also noticed in a letter from Erfurt, beai-ing date December 27th, 1664-5, together with other appearances, which were then regarded as indications of forthcoming calamities : — ""We have had our part here of the Comet, as well as other places, besides which here have been other terrible apparitions and noises in the ayre, as fires and sounds of cannon and musket shot ; and here has likewise appeared several times the resemblance of a Black Man, which has made our Sentinels to quit their posts ; and one of them was lately thrown down by him from the top of the wall." Vide " The iS'ewes," published for the Satisfaction and Information of the People: (with Privilege) Numb. 2. Memoirs of tee plague. / 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 dis- temper was spread into two or three other parishes, viz., St. Andrew's, Holborn ; St. Clement's Danes ; and, to the great affliction of the city, one died within the walls, in the parish of St. Mary "Wool-church, that is to say, in Bear- binder lane, near Stocks market ;* in all there were nine of the Plague, and sis of the spotted fever. It was, however, upon inquiry, found, that this Frenchman, who died in Bearbinder-lane, was one who, having lived in Long-acre, 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 ninety-seven parishes buried but fifty-four,"!" ^"^^ "^^ began to hope, that as it was * Stocks-market was then kept on the ground now occupied by the Mansion-house. Latterly it was most known as a herb and poultry market. f The Parish Registers in England were commenced in 1538, in conse- quence of one of the seventeen injunctions set forth in that year in tho name of the King [Henry VIII.] by the Lord Thomas Cromwell, his vicegerent in ecclesiastical matters, which injunction appointed that the Parson, Vicar, or Curate, of every parish should keep a true and exact Eegister of all "Weddings, Christenings, and Burials ; and the weekly Bills of Mortality, containing an account of Christenings as well as Burials, taken by the Company of Parish Clerks of London, had their rise the 2ist of December, 1592. In 1594, the particular or weekly account of both Christenings and Burials was first made public, as also o MEMOIRS OF TEE PLAGUE. chiefly among tlie people at the other 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 fifteen, which was very low. It is true, St. Giles's buried two-and-thirty ; but still, as there was but one of the Plague, people began to be easy : the whole Bill also was veiy 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 for a few, for the people were no more to be deceived thus : they searched the houses, and found that the Plague was really spread eveiy way, and that many died of it every day ; so that now all our extenuations abated, and it was no more to be con- cealed ; nay, it quickly ajjpeared, 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 of the Plague ; but this was all knavery and collusion, for in St. Giles's parish they buried forty in all, whereof it was tlie general or yearly account, until the 18th of December, 1595, when it was discontinued upon the ceasing of the Plague. It is here to be remarked, that the Bill of Jlortality, now in its in- fancy, consisted of but 109 parishes ; which were then only alphabetically Bet down, without maldng any distinction of the out-parishes from those within the walls ; whereas afterwards, in 1665, Allien Mr. John Bell, clerk of the Company of Parish Clerks, published at London, in 4to, his " London's Remembrancer, or a True Account nf every particular Week's Christenings and Mortality in all the years of Pestilence tvitkin the Bills f^ Mortality," the said Bills comprehended 130 parishes ; and dis- tinguished the parishes by the fovir divisions of the Ninety-seven parishes within the walls, the Sixteen parishes without the walls, the Twelve out-parishes in Middlesex and Surrey, and the Five parishes in the City and Liberties of Westminster. See MSS. in the British Museum, Ayscough's Catalogue, No. 4213, MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 9 • 4030 Cripplegate 886 Eotlierhitlie o) From the 15th to the 22nd of August. T°^^l ^^^^ ^ week. St. Giles's in') ^ y. Stepney 273") tlie Fields j St. Mag. Berniondsey Dfi V 5319 Crippleg-ate 847 Eotherhithe 2J N;B. — That it was observed the numbers mentioned in Stepney parish, at that time, were generally all on that side where Stepney pai'ish joined to Shoreditch, which we now call Spittle-fields, where the parish of Stepney comes up to the very wall of Shoreditch church-yard ; and the Plague at this time was abated at St. Giles's in the Fields, and raged most violently in Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, and Shoreditch parishes, but there were not ten people a week that died of it in all that part of Stepney parish which takes in Limehouse and Eatcliff-highway, and which are now the parishes of Shadwell and Wapping, even to St. Katherine's by the Tower,^ till after the whole month of August was expired ; but they paid for it afterwards, as I shall observe by-and-by. This, I say, made the people of Eedriff and Wapping, Eatcliif and Limehouse, so secure, and flatter themselves so much with the Plague's going ofp without reaching them, that they took no care either to flee into the coun- try, or shut themselves up ; nay, so far were they from stirring, that they rather received their friends and rela- tions from the city into their houses ; and several from 150 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. Other places really took sanctuary in tliat part of the town as a place of safety, and as a place which they thought God would pass over, and not visit as the rest was visited. And this was the reason, that when it came upon them they were more surprised, more unprovided, and more at a loss what to do, than they were in other places, for, when it came among them really, and with violence, as it did in September and October, there was then no stirring out into the country, nobody would suffer a strajQger to come near them, no, nor near the towns where they dwel- led ; and, as I have been told, several that wandered into the country, on Surrey side, were found starved to death in the woods and commons, that countiy being more open and more woody than any other part so near London ; especially about Norwood and the parishes of Camberwell, DuUege [Dulwich], and Lusum [Lewisham], where, it seems, nobody durst relieve the poor distressed people for fear of the infection. This notion having, as I said, prevailed with the people in that part of the town, was in part the occasion, as I said before, that they had i-ccourse to ships for their re- treat ; and where they did this early, and with prudence, furnishing themselves so with provisions, that they had no need to go on shore for supplies, nor suffer boats to come on board to bring them ; I say, where they did so, they had certainly the safest retreat of any people whatsoever. But the distress was such that people ran on board in their fright, without bread to eat ; and some into ships that had no men on board to remove them farther off, or to take the boat and go down the river to buy provisions, where it might be done safely; and these often suffered, and were infected on board as much as on shore. MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 151 As the richer sort got into ships, so the lower rank got into hoys, smacks, lighters and fishing-boats, and many, especially watermen, lay in their boats ; but those made sad work of it, especially the latter, for, going about for provision, and perhaps to get their subsistence, the iofec- tion got in among them, and made a fearful havock. Many of the watermen died alone in - their wherries, as they rid at their roads, as well above bridge as below, and were not found, sometimes, till they were not in condition for anybody to touch or come near them. Indeed the distress of the people at this sea-faring end of the town was very deplorable, and deserved the greatest commiseration. But alas ! this was a time when every one's private safety lay so near them, that they had no room to pity the distresses of others ; for every one had death, as it were, at his door, and many even in their families, and knew not what to do, nor whither to flee. This I say took away all compassion. Self-preservation, indeed, appeared here to be the first law, for the children ran away from their parents, as they languished in the utmost distress ; and in some places, though not so frequent as the other, parents did the like to their children : nay, some dreadful examples there were, and particularly two in one week, of distressed mothers, raving and distracted, killing their own children ; one whereof was not far off from whei'e I dwelt ; the poor lunatic creature not living herself long enough to be sensible of the sin of what she had done, much less to be punished for it. It is not, indeed, to be wondered at ; for the danger of immediate death to ourselves took away all bowels of love, all concern for one another. I speak in general, for there were many instances of immovable affection, pity, and 152 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. duty, in many ; and some that came to my knowledge ; that is to say, by hear-say : for I shall not take upon me to vouch the truth of the particulars. To introduce one, let me first mention, that one of the most deplorable cases in all the present calamity, was that of women with child, who, when they came to the hour of theu" sorrows, and their pains came upon them, could neither have help of one kind nor another ; neither mid- wife or neighbouring Avomen to come near them. Most of the midwives were dead ; especially of such as served the poor ; and many, if not all the midwives of note, were fled into the countiy : so that it was next to impossible for a poor woman that could not pay an immoderate price, to get any midwife to come to her ; and if they did, those they could get were generally unskilful and ignorant creatures ; and the consequence of this was, that a most tinusual and incredible number of women were reduced to the utmost distress. Some were delivered and spoiled by the rashness and ignorance of those wlio pretended to lay them. Children without number were, I might say, murdered by the same, but a more justifiable ignorance, pretending they would save the mother, Avhatever became of the child; and many times, both mother and child were lost in the same manner ; and especially where the mother had the distemper, there nobody would come near them, and both sometimes perished. Sometimes the mother has died of the Plague, and the infant, it may be, half- born or born, but not parted from the mother. Some died in the very pains of their travail, and not delivered at all ; and so many were the cases of this kind that it is hard to judge of them. Something of it will appear in the unusual numbers which are put into the weekly bills (though I am far from MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 153 allowing them to be able to give anything of a full account) under the articles of Child-led. Abortive and Still-horn. Chrisoms and Infants. Take the weeks in which the Plague was most violent, and compare them with the weeks before the distemper began, even in the same year: for example — Child-bed. Abort. Still-born. Jan. 3 to Jan. 10 to 17 to 24 to 31 From-{ Jan, 31 to Feb. 7 to 14 to 21 to 28 Feb. 28 to Mar. 7 From 13 11 15 11 13 10 10 48 24 100 Aug. 1 to Aug. 8 25 5 11 to 15 23 6 8 to 22 28 4 4 to 29 40 6 10 Aug. 29 to Sept. 5 • 38 2 11 to 12 39 23 to 19 42 5 17 to 26 42 6 10 Sep. 26 to Oct. 3 14 4 9 291 61 80 To the disparity of these numbers, it is to be considered and allowed for, that according to our usual opinion, who were then upon the spot, there were not one-third of the people in the town during the months of August and Sep- tember, as were in the months of January and February. In a word, the usual number that used to die of these three articles, and, as I hear, did die of them the year before, was thus : — 154 MEMOIR!^ OF THE PLAGUE. 3 fCMld-bed 189 I g fCliild-bed 625 S \Abort. and StiU-bora 458 | ^ |Abort. and StiU-born 617* 647 1242 This inequality, I say, is exceedingly augmented when the numbers of people are considered. I pretend not to make any exact calculation of the numbers of people which were at this time in the city ; but I shall make a probable conjecture at that part by-and-by. What I have said now is to explain the misery of those poor creatures above, so that it might well be said, as in the Scripture — " Woe he to those loho are with child, and to those icho give such in that day" For, indeed, it was a woe to them in particular. I was not conversant in many particular families where these things happened ; but the outcries of the miserable were heard afar off. As to those who were with child, we have seen some calculation made ; two hundred and ninety-one women dead in child-bed in nine weeks, out of one-third part of the number, of whom there usually died in that time but forty-eight of the same disaster. * The increase of Mortality lender the head " Abortive and Still- fcom " in the year of the Phxgue, was by no means so great, com- paratively, as in that of the deaths Jn " Child-bed,'* as ■will be seen by the follo-\^-ing extracts from the Bills of Mortality, which include the returns for ten years, viz., fi'om 1G61 to 1670. — The niimbei'S given by De Foe, under the year 1664, are not correct. The actual amount exceeded the total which he has given by 106. Abortive RB 1 Still-Bora. Child-bed. 1661 oil 224 1662 523 175 1663 550 206 1664 503 250 1665 617 625 1666 477 253 1667 488 262 1668 751 271 1669 517 277 1670 632 288 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 155 There is no room to doubt but the misery of those that gave suck was in proportion as great. Our bills of mortality could give but little light in this ; yet some it did. There were several more than usual starved at nurse ; but this was nothing. The misery was, where they were, 1st, starved for want of a nurse, the mothers dying and all the family, and the infants found dead by them, merely for want ; and, if I may speak my opinion, I do believe that many hundreds of poor helpless infants perished in this manner; 2ndly, not starved, but poisoned by the nurse. Nay, even where the mother has been nurse, and having received the infection, has poisoned, that is, infected the infant with her milk, even before she knew she Avas infected herself ; nay, and the infant has died in such a case before the mother. I cannot but remember to leave this admonition upon record, if ever such another dreadful visitation should happen in this city ; that all women that are with child, or that give suck, should be gone, if they have any possible means, out of the place ; because their misery, if infected, will so much exceed all other people's.* I could tell here dismal stories of living infants being found sucking the breasts of their mothers, or nurses, after they had been dead of the Plague. Of a mother, in the parish where I lived, who having a child that was not well, sent for an apothecary to view the child ; and when he came, as the relation goes, was giving the child suck at her breast, and to all appearance, was herself very * Not-ndthstanding the great mortality alleged to have taken place among females, it appears from the Bills of Mortality, that the differ- ence between the male and female deaths during the year was only 168, namely : — Deaths /Females 48,737 Deaths ^jj^j^g ^g^'ggg 156 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAQUE. well ; but TNlieii the apothecary came close to her, he saw the tokens upon that breast with which she was suckling the child. He was surprised enough to be sure ; but not willing to fright the poor woman too much, he desired she would give the child into his hand ; so he takes the child, and going to a cradle in the room, lays it in, and opening its clothes, found the tokens upon the child too, and both died before he could get home to send a preventive medi- cine to the father of the child, to whom he told their condition : whether the child infected the nurse-mother, or the mother the child, was not certain, but the last most likely. Likewise of a child brought home to the parents from a nurse that had died of the Plague; yet the tender mother would not refuse to take in her child, and laid it in her bosom, by which she was infected, and died, with the child in her arms dead also. It would make the hardest heart move at the instances that were frequently found of tender mothers tending and watching with their dear children, and even dying before -them, and sometmies taking the distemper from them, and dying, when the child, for whom the affectionate heart had been sacrificed, has got over it and escaped. The like of a tradesman in East Smithfield, whose wife was big with child of her first child, and fell in labour having the Plague upon her. He could neither get midwife to assist her, nor nurse to tend her ; and two servants which he kept fled both from her. He ran from house to house like one distracted, but could get no help ; the utmost he could get was, that a watchman, who at- tended at an infected house shut up, promised to send a nurse in the morning, The poor man, with his heart broken, went back ; assisted his wife what he could, acted MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE 157 the part of the midwife, and brought the child dead into the world : his wife, in about an hour, died in his arms, where he held her dead body fast till the morning, when the watchman came, and brought the nurse, as he had promised ; and coming up the stairs, for he had left the door open, or only latched, they found the man sitting with his dead wife in his arms, and so overwhelmed .with grief that he died in a few hours after, without any sign of the infection upon him, but merely sunk under the weight of his grief. I have heard also of some who, on the death of their relations, have grown stupid with the insupportable sorrow; and of one in particular, who was so absolutely overcome with the pressure upon his spirits, that by degrees his head sunk into his body, so between his shoulders, that the crown of his head was very little seen above the bones of his shoulders ; and by degrees, losing both voice and sense, his face looking forward, lay against his collar-bone, and could not be kept up any otherwise, unless held up by the hands of other people ; and the poor man never came to himself again, but languished near a year in that con- dition, and died. Nor was he • ever once seen to lift up his eyes, or to look upon any particular object.* I cannot undertake to give any other than a summary of such passages as these, because it was not possible to come at the particulars, where sometimes the whole families where such things happened, were carried off by the distemper ; but there were innumerable cases of this kind, presented to the eye, and the ear, even in pass- ing along the streets, as I have hinted above : — nor is it * It is hardly necessary to observe that this story of the man whose head sunk between his shoulders, is utterly incredible ; and if it be not a fabrication of the author, the circumstances must be strangely and ridiculously exaggerated. 158 MEMOIRS OT TEE PLAGUE. easy to give any story of this or that family, to ■which there were not divers parallel stories to be met with of the same kind. But as I am now talking of the time when the Plague raged at the easternmost part of the town ; how for a long time the people of those parts had flattered themselves that they should escape ; and how they were surprised when it came upon them as it did ; for indeed, it came upon them like an armed man when it did come : I say, this brings me back to the three poor men, who wandered from Wapping, not knowing whither to go, or what to do, and whom I mentioned before ; one a biscuit-baker, one a sail-maker, and the other a joiner; all of Wapping, or thereabouts. The sleepiness and security of that part, as I have observed, was such, that they not only did not shift for themselves, as others did, but they boasted of being safe, and of safety being with them ; and many people fled out of the city, and out of the infected suburbs, to Wapping, Eatcliff, Limehouse, Poplar, and such places, as to places of security ; and it is not at all uuhkely, that their doing this, helped to bring the- Plague that way faster than it might otherwise have come. For, though I am much for people's fleeing away, and emptying such a town as this, upon the first appearance of a like visitation, and that all people, who have any possible retreat, should make use of it in time, and be gone ; yet I must say, when all that will flee are gone, those that are left and must stand it, should stand stock still where they are, and not shift from one end of the town, or one part of the town, to the other, for that is the bane and mischief of the whole, and they cany the Plague from house to house in their very clothes. Wherefore were we ordered to kill all the doo;s and MEMOIRS OF THE FLAG UE. 159 cats ? but because, as they were domestic animals, and are apt to run from house to house, a,nd from street to street, so they are capable of carrying the effluvia, or in- fectious steams, of bodies infected, even in theii' furs and hair : and therefore it was, that in the beginning of the infection, an order was published by the Lord Mayor, and by the Magistrates, according to the advice of the physicians, that all the dogs and cats should be immedi- ately kiUed, and an officer was appointed for the execution. It is incredible, if their account is to be depended upon, what a prodigious number of those creatures were de- stroyed : I think they talked of forty thousand dogs, and five times as many cats ! few houses being without a cat, some having several, sometimes five or six in a house. All possible endeavours were used also to destroy the mice and rats, especially the latter, by laying rats- bane, and other poisons for them, and a prodigious multi- tude of them was also destroyed. I often reflected upon the unprovided condition that the whole body of the people were in, at the first coming of this calamity upon them, and how it was for want of timely entering into measures and managements, as weU public as private, that aU the confusions that followed were brought upon us, and that such a prodigious number of people sunk in that disaster, which, if proper steps had been taken, might. Providence concurring, have been avoided ; and which, if posterity think fit, they may take a caution and warning from : — but I shall come to this part again. I come back again to my three men. Their story has a moral in every part of it, and their whole conduct, and that of some whom they joined with, is a pattern for all poor men to follow, or women either, if ever such a time 160 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. comes again ; and if there was no other end in recording it, I think this a very just one, whether my account be exactly according to fact or no. Two of them are said to be brothers, the one an old eoldier, but now a biscuit-baker ; the other a lame sailor, out now a sail-maker; the third, a joiner. Says John., the biscuit-baker, one day, to Thomas., his brother, the Bail-maker, — " Brother Tom., Avhat will become of us ? The Plague grows hot in the city, and increases this way : what shall we do ?" " Truly," says Thomas., " I am at a great loss what U do ; for I find, if it comes down into Wapping, I shall bf turned out of my lodging." — And thus they began to talk of it beforehand : — John. — " Turned out of your lodging, Tom ! if you are, I don't know who will take you in ; for people are so afraid of one another now, there's no getting a lodging anywhere." Thomas. — " Why, the people where I lodge ai-e good civil people, and have kindness enough for me too ; but they say I go abroad every day to my work, and it will be dangerous ; and they talk of locking themselves up, and letting nobody come near them." John. — " Why, they are in the right, to be sure, if they resolve to venture staying in town." Thomas. — " Nay, I might e'en resolve to stay within doors too ; for, except a suit of sails that my master has in hand, and which I am just finishing, I am like to get no more work a great while : there's no trade stirs now : workmen and servants are turned off everywhere, so that I might be glad to be locked up too ; but I do not see they will be willing to consent to that any more than to the other." MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE 161 John. — "Why, what will you do then, brother? and what shall I do ? for I am almost as bad as you. The people where I lodge are all gone into the country, but a maid, and she is to go next week, and to shut the house quite up ; so that I shall be turned adrift to the wide world before you are, and I am resolved to go away too, if I knew but where to go." Thomas. — "We were both distracted we did not go away at first, then we might have travelled anywhere : there's no stirring now ; we shall be starved if we pretend to go out of town : they won't let us have victuals, no, not for our money, nor let us come into the towns, much less into their houses." John. — " And that which is almost as bad, I have but little money to help myself with neither." Thomas. — " As to that we might make shift. I have a little, though not much ; but I tell you, there's no stirring on the road. I know a couple of poor honest men in our street have attempted to travel ; and at Barnet or Whet- stone, or thereabout, the people offered to fire at them, if they pretended to go forward ; so they are come back again quite discouraged." John. — " I would have ventured their fire if I had been there : if I had been denied food for my money, they should have seen me take it before theii' faces ; and if I had tendered money for it, they could not have taken any course with me by law." Thomas. — " 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 anybody 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 mis- 1G2 MEMOIRS OF TEE PLAGUE. take me too — I would plunder nobody ; but, for any town upon the road to deny me leave to pass through the town in the open highway, and deny me provisions for my money, is to say the town has a right to starve me to death, which cannot be true." Thomas. — " 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 wiU on the road." Thomas. — " But there will be so much difficulty in dis- puting 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 anybody's 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 situated, without a dwelling- house of our own, and without lodging in anybody's 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." Thomas. — " 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 ac- quaintance, 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 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 163 say, I must not go out of my house if it be 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." Thomas. — " 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." Thomas. — " "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 occa- sion? and do they not all know that the fact is true? We cannot be said to dissemble." Thomas. — " But suppose they let us pass, whither shall we go?" John. — " Anywhere 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." Thomas. — " We shall be driven to great extremities. I know not what to think of it." John — " Well, Tom, consider of it a little." This wag about the beginning of July ; and though 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 Limehouse, 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 entirely free, there had not one person died of the Plague in all Stepney parish, and not one on the south side of Whitechapel-road, no, not in any parish ; 164 MEMOIRS OF TEE PLAGUE. and yet the "weekly bill was that veiy 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 increased ; the Bill was up at 2785, and prodigiously increasing, though stiU both sides of the river, as before, kept pretty well. But some began to die in Redriff, and about jfive or six in Ratcliff -high way, when the. sail-maker came to his brother John express, and in some fright, for he was absolutely warned 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 begged leave of his master, the biscuit-baker, to lodge in an out- house belonging to his Avork-house, where he lay upon straw only, with some biscuit sacks, or bread sacks as they called them, laid upon it, and some of the same sacks to cover him. Here they resolved, seeing all employment was at an 'end, and no work or wages to be had, they would make the best of theu* way. to get out of the reach of the dread- ful 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 anywhere, 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. * The weekly bill of tlie 4tli of July, wliicli records tlie above num- ber of deaths, states also that two persons had died of the Plague in Stepaey parish ; and six others in St. Mai-y's, Whitechapel. MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 165 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 anything by working in the country, so he was content that what money they had should all go into one public 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 public stock. "They resolved to load themselves with as little baggage as possible, because they resolved 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 resolved on it. At last, the seaman put in a hint that determined it. — " First," says he, " the weather is very hot, and therefore I am for travelling north, that we may not have the sun ujDon om' 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 oui' blood at a time when, for aught 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 Avind 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 approved 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 lodgiug on the road, and it will be a little too 1 6 G MEMOIRS OF THE PL A G UE. hard to lie just in the open air : though 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 joiner opposed this, and told them, let them leave that to him, he would undertake to build them a house eveiy night with his hatchet and mallet, though he had no other tools, which should be fully to theii- satisfaction, and as good as a tent. The soldier and the joiner disputed that point some time, but at last the soldier carried it for a tent ; the only objection against it was, that it must be carried with them, and that would increase their baggage too much, the weather being hot ; but the sail-maker had a piece of good hap fell in, which made that easy, for his master whom he worked 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 wilUng to assist the thi-ee honest men, he gave them the horse for the carrying their bag- gage ; also, for a small matter of three days' work that his man did for him before he went, he let him have aa old top-gallant sail that was worn out, but was sufficient and more than enough to make a very good tent ; the soldier showed 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 fm'nished 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. MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 167 The joiner 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 public stock, and thus they began their journey. It seems, that in the morning when they set out, the wind blew, as the sailor said, by his pocket- compass, at N.W. by W. ; so they directed, or rather resolved to du'ect, 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 Hermit- age, 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 Eadcliff -highway, as far as Eadcliff-cross, and leaviuf 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, blew 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 placed upon Bow-bridge would have questioned them ; but they, crossing the road into a narrow way that turns out of the higher end of the town of Bow to Old-Ford, avoided any inquiry there, and travelled to Old-Ford. The constables everywhere 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, but withal, because of a report that was newly raised at that time, and that indeed was not very improbable, viz., " that the poor peojple in London being 168 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE distressed and starved for want of work and by that means for want of bread, were up in arms, and bad 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 has been thought, for in a few weeks more the poor people became so desperate by the calamity they suffered, that they were with great difficulty kept from running out into the fields and towns, and tearing all in pieces wherever they came ; and, as I have observed before, nothing hindered them but that the Plague raged 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 above the parishes of St. Sepulchre, 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, Eadchff, and Eotherhithe, were, as before described, hardly touched, or but very lightly ; so that, in a word, though, 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, the poor from plundermg the rich; I say, though they did much, the dead-cart did more : for, as I have said, that in five parishes only, there died above 5,000 in twenty days, so there might be probably three times that number sick all that time ; for some recovered, and great numbers fell sick evei-y day, and died afterwards. Besides, I must MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE, 169 still be allowed to say, that if the bills of mortality said five thousand, I always believed it was near twice asi 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 condi- tion 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 talked to them, let them come into a public-house where the constable and his warders were, and gave them drink and some victuals, which greatly refreshed and encouraged them ; and here it came into their heads to say, when they should be inquired of afterwards, not that they came from London, but that they came out of Essex. To forward this little fraud, they obtained so much favour of the constable at Old-Ford, as to give them a certificate of their passing from Essex through that village, and that they had not been at London, which, though false in the common acceptation of London in that county, yet was literally true ; Wapping or Radcliff being no part either of the city or liberties. This certificate, directed to the next constable, that was at Hummerton, [Homerton,] 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 difliculty ; and thus they passed 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, 170 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 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 resolved to set up their tent, and encamp for the first night ; which they did accordinglyo with the addition, that, finding a barn, or a building like a barn, and first searching as well as they could, to be sure there was nobody 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 at the managing their tent. Here they went to sleep, but the joiner, a grave and sober man, and not pleased with their lying at this loose rate, the first night could not sleep, and resolved, after tiying to sleep to no purpose, that he would get out, and taking the gun in his hand, stand sentinel, and guard his companions : so, with the gun in his hand, he Avalked 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 toAvards the barn. He did not presently awake his companions, but in a few minutes more their noise growing louder and louder, the biscuit-baker called to him and asked him what was the matter, and quickly started out to : the other being the lame sail-maker, and most weaiy, lay still in the tent. As they expected, so the people whom they had heard came on directly to the barn, when one of our travellers challenged, like soldiers upon the guard, with — " Who comes there ? " The people did not answer immediately,, but one of them speaking to another that was behind hira, — " Alas ! alas ! we are all disappointed," says MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 171 he, " here are some people before us, the barn is taken up." They all stopped upon that as under some surprise and it seems there were about thirteen of them in all and some women among them. They consulted together what they should do, and by their discourse our travellers soon found they Avere poor distressed people too, like them- selves, seeking shelter and safety ; and besides, our tra- vellers had no need to be afraid of their coming up to disturb them ; for as soon as they heard the words " Wlio comes there?" these could hear the women say, as if frighted, — " Do not go near them : how do you know but they may have the Plague?" And when one of the men said, — "Let us but speak to them;" the woman said, — " No, don't, by any means, we have escaped thus far by the goodness of God, do not let us run into danger now, we beseech you." Our travellers found by this that they were a good sober sort of people, and fleeing for their lives, as they were ; and as they were encouraged by it, so John said to the joiner, his comrade, " Let us encourage them, too, as much as we can : " so he called to them : " Hark ye, good people, says the joiner, " we find by our talk, that you are fleeing from the same dreadful enemy as we are ; do not be afraid of us, we are only three poor men of us ; if you are free from the distemper you shall not be hurt by us : we are not in the barn, but in a little tent here on the outside, and we will remove for you, we can set up our tent again immediately any where else;" and upon this a parley began between the joiner, whose name was Richard, and one of their men, who said his name was Ford. 172 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE FoKD. — " And do you assure us that you are all souad men?" Richard. — " Nay, we are all concerned to tell you of it, that you may not be uneasy or think yourselves in danger; but you see we do not desire you should put yourselves into any danger ; and therefore I tell you, that we have not made use of the barn, so we will remove from it that you may be safe and we also." Ford. — " That is very kind and charitable ; but if we have reason to be satisfied that you are sound and free from the visitation, why should we make you remove now you are settled in your lodging, and it may be, are laid down to rest ? "We will go into the barn, if you please, to rest ourselves a while, and we need not disturb you." Richard. — "Well, but you are more than we are: I hope you will assure us that you are all of you sound too, for the danger is as great from you to us, as fi'om us to you." Ford. — " Blessed be God that some do escape, though it is but few ; what may be our portion still we know not, but hitherto we are preserved." Richard. — " What part of the town do you come from? Was the Plague come to the places where you Hved?" FoRD.^ — "Ay, ay, in a most frightful and terrible manner, or else we had not fled away as we do ; but we believe there wUl be very few left alive behind us." Richard. — -"What part do you come from?" Ford. — "We are most of us of Cripplegate parish, only two or three of Clerkeuwell parish, but on the hither side." Richard. — " How then was it that you came away no sooner? " MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 173 Ford. — "We have been away some time, and kept together as well as we could at the hither end of Islington, where we got leave to lie in an old uninhabited house, and had some bedding and conveniences of our own that we brought with us, but the Plague is come up into Islington too, and a house next door to our poor dwelling was infected and shut up, and we are come away in a fright." * Richard. — " And what way are you going? " Ford. — "As our lot shall cast us. — We know not whither, — but God wiU guide those that look up to him." They parleyed no farther at that time, but came all up to the barn, and with some difficulty got into it : there was nothing but hay in the barn, but it was almost full of that, and they accommodated themselves as well as they could, and went to rest; but our travellers observed, that before they went to sleep, an ancient man, who it seems was father of one of the women, went to prayer with all the company, recommending themselves to the blessing and direction of Providence, before they went to sleep. It was soon day at that time of the year; and as Richard the joiner had kept guard the first part of the night, so John the soldier relieved him, and he had the post in the morning, and they began to be acquainted with one another. It seems when they left Islington, they in- tended to have gone north, away to Highgate, but were stopped at HoUoway, and there they would not let them pass ; so they crossed over the fields and hiUs to the east- * In Islington, according to the bills, about 700 persons died of the tlague in the course of the year. The first death occurred in the weekly bill from the loth to the 20th of June, from which time the in- fection gradually increased until September, when it was at its height in every part of the metropolis. 1 74 MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. ward, and came out at the Boarded-river,* and so, avoid- ing the town, they left Hornsey on the left hand, and Newington on the right hand, and came into the great road about Stamford-hill on that side, as the three travellers had done on the other side ; and now they had thoughts of going over the river [the Lea] in the marshes, and make forwards to Epping Forest, where they hoped they should get leave to rest. It seems they were not poor, at least not so poor as to he in want; they had enough to subsist them moderately for two or three months, when, as they said, they were in hopes the cold weather would check the infection, or at least the violence of it would have spent itself, and would abate, if it were only for want of people left alive to be infected. This was much the fate of our three travellers, only that they seemed to be the better furnished for travelling, and had it in then' view to go farther off ; for, as to the first, they did not propose to go farther than one day's journey, so that they might have intelligence every two or three days how things were at London. But here om* travellers found themselves under an un- expected inconvenience, namely, that of their horse, for by means of the horse to carry their baggage they were obliged to keep in the road ; whereas, the people of this other band went over the fields or roads, path or no path, way or no way, as they pleased ; neither had they any occasion to pass through any town, or come near any town, other than to buy such things as they wanted for their necessary subsistence, and in that, indeed, they were put to much difficulty ; — of which in its place. * The Boarded-rirer was a part of the Neir Eiver so called, neaf Hornsey--wood House ; where, formerly, the water was conveyed over a low valley in a sort of trough. MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 175 But 'our three travellers Avere obliged to keep the road or else they must commit spoil, and do the country a great deal of damage in breaking down fences and gates to go over enclosed fields, which they were loath to do if they could help it. Our three travellers, however, had a great mind to join themselves to this company, and take their lot with them ; and after some discourse, they laid aside their first design which looked northward, and resolved to follow the other into Essex ; so in the morning they took up their tent, and loaded their horse, and away they travelled altogether. They had some difficulty in passing the ferry at the river side, the ferry-man being afraid of them ; but after some parley at a distance, the ferry-man was content to bring his boat to a place distant from the usual ferry, and leave it there for them to take it ; so putting themselves over, he dii-ected them to leave the boat, and he having another boat, said he would fetch it again, which it seems° however, he did not do for above eight days. Here, giving the ferry-man money before-hand, they had a supply of victuals and drink, which he brought and left in the boat for them, but not without, as I said, having received the money before-hand. But now our traveUers were at a great loss and difficulty how to get the horse over, the boat being smaU, and not fit for it ; and at last could not do it without unloading the bao-- to have it done as that they would give notice duly and faithfully to the magistrates of their being infected as soon as it was known by themselves ; but as that cannot be expected from them, and as the examiners cannot be sup- posed, as above, to go into their houses to visit and search, aU the good of shutting up houses will be defeated, and few houses wiU be shut up in time, except those of the poor who cannot conceal it, and of some people who will be discovered by the teiTor and consternation which the thing puts them into. I got myseK discharged of the dangerous office I was in as soon as I could get another admitted, whom I had obtained for a little money to accept of it ; and so, instead of serving the two months, which was directed, I was not above three weeks in it, and a great while too, consider- ing it was in the month of August, at which time the distemper began to rage with great violence at our end of the town. In the execution of this office I could not refrain speak- ing my opinion among my neighbours as to this shutting up the people in their houses ; in which we saw most evidently the severities that were used, though grievous in themselves, had also this particular objection against them, namely, that they did not answer the end, as I have said, but that the distempered people went, day by day, about the streets ; and it was our united opinion, that a method to have removed the sound from the sick, in case of a particidar house being visited, would have been much more reasonable, on many accounts, leaving nobody with the sick persons but such as should, on such occasion, request to stay and declare themselves content to be shut up. with them. 220 MEMOIRS OF TUB PLAGUE. Our sell erne for removing those that were sound from those that were sick, was only in such houses as were infected, and confining the sick was no confinement ; those that could not stir would not complain while they were in their senses, and while they had the power of judging : indeed, when they came to he delirious and light-headed, then they would cry out of the cruelty of being confined ; — hut for the removal of those that were Avell, we thought it highly reasonable and just, for their own sakes, they should be removed from the sick; and that, for other people's safety, they should keep retired for a while, to see that they were sound, and might not infect others ; and we thought twenty or thirty days enough for this. Now, certainly, if houses had been provided on pui-post for those that were sound to perform this demi-quarautim in, they would have much less I'cason to think themselves injured in such a restraint than in being confined with infected people in the houses where they lived. It is here, however, to be observed, that after the funerals became so many tliat people could not toll the bell, mourn, or weep, or wear black for one another, as they did before ; no, nor so much as make coffins for those that died ; so after a while the fury of the infection appeared to be so increased, that in short, they sliiit up no houses at all.* It seemed enough that all the remedies of that kind had been used tUl they were found fruitless, and that tlic plague spread itself with an irre- * This is corroborated by an entry in Pepys' " Diaiy," under tlie date of September the 14 Ih. After statiDjT that he went npon 'Chan^hom, when they came back, many were in then- graves ; yet they had room to be thankful that they themselves were carried out of the reach of it, though so much against their wills. "We indeed had a hot war with the Dutch that year, and one very great engagement at sea, in which the Dutch were worsted ; but we lost a great many men and some ships. But, as I observed, the Plague was not in the Fleet, and when they came to lay up the ships in the river, the violent part of it began to abate. I would be glad if I could close the account of this melancholy year with some particvdar examples histori- cally ; I mean of the thankfulness to God our Preserver, for our being delivered from this dreadful calamity. Cer- tainly, the circumstances of the deliverance, as well as the terrible enemy we were delivered from, called upon the whole nation for it : the circumstances of the dehverance were indeed very remai-kable, as I have in part mentioned already, and particulaiiy the dreadful condition which we were all ia when we were, to the surprise of the whole town, made joyful with the hope of a stop of the infection. Nothing but the immediate finger of God, nothing but MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGVE. 323 Omnipotent Power, could have done it ! The contagion despised all medicine, Death raged in every corner ; and had it gone on as it did then, a few weeks more would have cleared the town of all, and every thing that had a soul. Men eveiywhere began to despaii* ; every heart fail- ed them for fear ; people were made desperate through the anguish of their souls ; and the terrors of Death sat in the very faces and countenances of the people. In that veiy moment, when we might very Avell say — " Vain was the help of man .'" — I say, in that very moment, it pleased God, with a most agreeable surprise, to cause the fury of it to abate, even of itself, and- the malignity declining, as I have said, though infinite numbers were sick, yet fewer died; and the very first week's bill decreased one thousand eight hundred and forty-three — a vast number indeed ! It is impossible to express the change that appeared in the very countenances of the people that Thui-sday morn- ing, when the weekly bill came out : it might have been perceived in their countenances that a secret surprise and smile of joy sat on everybody's face ; they shook one another by the hands in the streets, who would hardly go on the same side of the way with one another before ! "Where the sti'eets were not too broad, they would open their windows and call from one house -to anothei-, and ask " how they did," and if they " had heard the good news that the plague was abated." Some would return, when they said, "good news," and ask, " What good news 1 " — and when they answered that the plague was abated, and the bills decreased almost -2000, they would cry out, " God be Praised ! " and would weep aloud for joy, telling them they had heard nothing of it. And such was the joy of the people, that it was, as it were, S2-i iIEiI01R3 OF THE PL AG VS. life to tliem from the grave. I could almost set down ag many extravagant things done in the excess of their joy, as of their grief ; but that would be to lessen the value of it. I must confess myself to have been very much dejected just before this happened ; for the prodigious number that was taken sick the week or two before, besides those that died, was such, and the lamentations were so great everywhere, that a man must have seemed to have acted even against his reason, if he had so much as expected to escape : and as there was hardly a house but mine in all my neighbourhood but what was infected ; so, had it gone on, it would not have been long that there would have been any more neighbours to be infected. Indeed, it is hardly credible what dreadful havoc the last three weeks had made ; for, if I might believe the person whose cal- culations I always found very well grounded, there were not less than 30,000 people dead, and near 100,000 fallen sick in the three weeks I speak of ; for the number that sickened Avas surprising : — indeed it was astonishing, and those whose courage upheld them aU the time before, eunk under it now. In the middle of their distress, when the condition of the city of London was so truly calamitous, just then it pleased God, as* it were by his immediate hand, to disai'm this enemy ; the poison was taken out of the sting : it was wonderful! Even the physicians themselves were surprised at it : wherever they visited, they found their patients better, either they had sweated kindly, or the tumours were broke, or the carbuncles went down, and the inflammations round them changed colour, or the fever Avas gone, or the violent headache was assuaged, or some good symptom was in the case ; so that in a few days MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. 325 everybody was recovering: whole families that were infected and down, that had ministers praying with them, and expected death every hour, were revived and healed, and none died at all out of them. Nor was this by any new medicine found out, or new method of cure discovered, or by any experience in the operation, which the physicians or surgeons attained to ; but it was evidently from the secret invisible hand of Hni that had at first sent this disease as a judgment upon us : and let the atheistic part of mankind call my saying what they please, it is no enthusiasm. It was acknowledged at that time by all mankind. The disease was enervated, and its malignity spent, and let it proceed from whence- soever it will, let the philosophers search for reasons in nature to account for it by, and labour as much as they will to lessen the debt they owe to their Maker ; those physicians who had the least share of religion in them, were obliged to acknowledge that it was all supernatural, that it was extraordinary, and that no account could be given of it ! If I should say, that this is a visible summons to us all to thankfulness, especially we that were under the terror of its increase, perhaps it may be thought by some, after the sense of the thing was over, an officious canting of religious things, preaching a sermon instead of writing a - histoiy ; making myself a teacher instead of giving my observations of things : and this restrains me very much from going on here, as I might otherwise do ; — but if ten lepers were healed, and but one returned to give thanks, I desire to be as that one, and to be thankful for myself.* * This allusion refers to St. Luke's Gospel, chap. xvii. verses 12—10. " And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned bade, and with a loud voice glorified God ! — And Jesus said, ' Were there not ten cleansed? but where we the nine? '" 326 MEJioin.s OF the plague. Nor will I deny but there were abundance of people, wbo, to all appearance, were very thankful at that time ; for their mouths were stopped, even the mouths of those whose hearts were not extraordinary long affected with it. But the impression was so strong at that time, that it could not be resisted, — no, not by the worst of the people. It was a common thing to meet people in the street that were strangers, and that we knew nothing at all of, expressing their surprise. Going one day through Aldgate, and a pretty many people being passing and repassing, there comes a man out of the end of the Minories, and looking a little up the street and down, he tluows his hands abroad, — " Lord, what an alteration is here ! Why, last week I came along here, and hardly anybody was to be seen : " another man, I heard him, adds to his words, " 'Tis all wonderful, 'tis all a dream." — " Blessed be God," says a third man, " and let us give thanks to Him, for 'tis all His own doing. Human help and human skill was at an end." These were all strangers to one another : but such salutations as these were frequent in the street every day ; and in spite of a loose behaviour, the very common people went along the streets, giving God thanks for their deliverance. It was now, as I said before, the people had cast oS all apprehensions, and that too fast ; indeed we were no more afraid now to pass by a man with a white cap upon his head, or with a cloth wrapped round his neck, or with his leg limping, occasioned by the sores in his groin, all which were frightful to the last degree, but the week before ; but now the street was full of them, and these poor recovering creatures, give them their due, appeared very sensible of their unexpected deliverance j and I MEMOJRS OF THE PLAGUE. 327 sliould wrong them very much, if I shoiikl not acknow- ledge, that I believe many of them were really thankful ; but I must OAvn, that for the generality of the people it might too justly be said of them, as was said of the chil- dren of Israel, after their being delivered from the host of Pharaoh, when they passed the Ked Sea, and looked back, and saw the Egyptians overwhelmed in the water, viz., that " They sang his praise, lut they soon forgot his worJcs." I can go no further here : — I should be counted censo- rious, and perhaps unjust, if I should enter into the unpleasing work of reflecting, whatever cause there was for it, upon the unthankfulucss and return of all manner of wickedness among us, which I was so much an eye- witness of myself. — I shall conclude the account of this calamitous year, therefore, with a coarse but sincere stanza of my own, which I placed at the end of my ordinary memorandums, the same year they were written : — ■ A dreadful Plague in London was In tlie year sixty-five, Wliich swept an hundred thousand souls Awny — yet I alive. H. W. APPENDIX. ACCOUNT OF THE GEE AT PLAGUE OF 1665, FROM A MANUSCRIPT WRITTEN BY MR. WILLIAM BOGHURST. No. 1. Among the Manuscripts formerly in the collection of Sir Hans Sloane, but now preserved in the British Museum, is a Treatise on the Plague, as it appeared in London in 1665. It was drawn up by Mr. William Boghurst, a medical prac- titioner, who resided in the metropolis during the whole period of the prevalence of the disease, and contains the result of his personal observations, for making which he ap- pears to have had abundant opportunities. That he was a man of some learning and ability may be concluded from his work, which is a thin quarto (containing 170 pages, and divided into chapters), fairly written as if prepared for the press ; although no part of it has hitherto been published, except a few extracts in a monthly journal in 1831. The greater portion of the work, relating to the medical treat- ment of the disease, is now become obsolete, and no longer interesting even to professional readers; but the facts and remarks which it contains are still deserving of notice ; — and the more so, perhaps, on account of their immediate connexion with the events recorded in the preceding "Journal of the Plagu6 Year." These are chiefly, if not entirely, com- prised in the ensuing passages ; the arrangement of which has been somewhat altered from the order in which they appear in the manuscript, for the purpose of better connect- ing the subjects. The work is thus intituled :— 330 APPhSblX. ^' A(it,uoypaip!a: ov an Experimental Eelation of the Plague, of what hath happened Eemarqueable in the last Plague in the City of London : demonstrating its Generation, Progresse, fore-running and subsequent Diseases and Accidents, Com- mon Signes, good and evill, Meanes of Preservation, Method of Cure, generall and particular, with a Collection of choice and tried Medicines for Preservation and Cure, by the prac- tical! Experience and Observation of William Boghurst, Apothecary in St. Giles's in the Fields. London, 1666." In an address To the Reader. Mr. Boghurst says the Plague continued " eighteen months, viz. ffrom the ijd of November, 1664, to the latter end of this May last past, 1666 : " and he remarks, that he was the only person who had then written on the late Plague, from experience and observation. Among the " Signes fore-shewing a Plague coming," he enumerates that of "Birds, wild-fowl, and wild beasts, leaving their accustomed places : few swallowes were scene in the yeares 1664 and 65." " In the summer before the Plague, (in 1664,) there was such a multitude of flies that they lined the insides of houses : and if any threads or strings did hang down in any place, they were presently thick set with flies like ropes of onions ; and swarms of ants covered the highwaj'^s, that you might have taken up a handful at a time, both winged and creeping ants; and such a multitude of croaking frogs in ditches, that you might have heard them before you saw them. — Also, the same summer, the small-pox was so rife in our parish, that betwixt the Church and the Pound in St. Giles's, which is not above six score paces, about forty families had the small-pox." " The Plague hath put itselfe forth in St. Gyles, St. Cle- ments, St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and St. Martin's, this 3 or 4 years, as I have been certainly informed by the people themselves that had it in their houses in these Parishes." Speaking of the " Evil Signs or Presages of the Plague," the writer notices the general symptoms of the disease at APPENDIX. 331 some length : — " Among these were spots of different colours, hiccough, vomiting, carbuncles or buboes, shortness of breath, and stoppage of urine, drowsiness and thirstiness, contraction of the jaws, and large and extended tumours.'' "This Plague was ushered in with seven months dry weather and westerly winds. It fell first upon the hio-hest grounds; for our parish (viz. St. Giles's) is the highest ground about London, and the best air, yet was first infected. Highgate, Hampstead, and Acton, also, all shared in it." " The wind blowing westward so long together, (from before Christmas until July,) was the cause the Plague be"-an first at the west end of the City, as at St. Giles's, and St. Martin's, Westminster. Afterwards, it gradually insinu- ated and crept down Holborn and the Strand, and then into the City, and at last to the east end of the suburbs : so that it was half a year at the west end of the City before the east end and Stepney were infected, which was about the middle of July. Southwark, being the south suburb, was infected almost as soon as the west end." " The disease spread not altogether by contagion at first, nor began only at dne place, and spread farther and farther, as an eating and spreading sore doth all over the body ; but fell upon several places of the City and suburbs like rain, even at the first,— as St. Giles's, St. Martin's, Chancery Lane, Southwark, Houndsditch, and some places within the City, as at Proctors' Houses." " Almost all that caught the disease with fear, died with tokens in two or three days. About the beginning, most men got the disease with fuddling, surfeiting, over-heating themselves, and by disorderly living." " The Plague is a most acute disease, for though some dyed 8, 10, 12, or 20 dayes after they had been sicke, yet the greatest part dyed before 5 or 6 dayes, and in the sum- mer about half that were sicke dyed, but towards winter, 3 parts in 4 lived ; but none dyed suddenly, as tho' stricken with lightning, or an apoplexy, as authors write in several 332 APPENDIX. countries, and Diemerbroek seemes to believe; but 1 saw none dye under 20 or 24 hours." " Tokens appeared not much till about the middle of June, and carbuncles, not till the latter end of July, but were very rife in the fall, about September and October, and seized most on old people, adust, choleric, and melancholy people, and generally on dry and lean bodies ; children had none. If very hot weather followed a shower of rain, the disease increased." " Many people, after a violent sweat, or taking a strong cordial, presently had the tokens come out, so that every nurse could say ' cochineal was a fine thing to bring out the tokens.' " " Authors speak of several kinds of Plagues, which took only children, others maids, others young people under thirty ; but this of ours took all sorts : yet it fell not very thick upon old people till about the middle or slack of the disease, and most in the decrease and declining of the disease. — Old people that had the disease, many of them were not sick at all ; but they that were sick almost all died. I had one patient four-score and six years old." " Though all sorts of people dyed very thicke, both young and old, rich and poore, healthy and unhealthy, strong and weake, men and women, of all constitutions, of all tempers and complexions, of all professions and places, of all reli- gions, of all conditions, good and bad : yet as far as I could discerne the difference of the two, more of the good dyed than of the bad, more men than women, and more of dull complexions than the faire." " Strength of constitution of body was no protection against the disease nor death, for it made the hottest assault upon strong bodies, and determined soonest, for they dyed sooner than people 6f weaker constitutions, and men dyed sooner than Avomen. All that I saw that were let blood in the disease, if they had been sick two, three, four, five days, or more, died the same day. APPENDIX. 333 " Those that married in the heat of this disease (if they had not had it before), almost all fell into it in a week or a fortnight after, both in city and country, of which most died especially the men. " Teeming women fared miserably in the disease ; not that they were more subject to catch the disease than others, but when they had it, scarce one in forty lived. Many women giving suck freed themselves of the Plague by their children sucking it from them ; but some continued well for some days, sometimes weeks, and then fell into the disease after their children were dead." "Black men of thin and lean constitutions were heavy laden with- this disease and died, all that I saw, in two or three days; and most of them thick with black tokens. People of the best complexions and merry dispositions had least of the disease ; and if they had it fared the best un derit." " One friend growing melancholy for another was one main cause of its going through a family, especially when they were shut up, which bred a sad apprehension and conster- nation on their spirits ; especially being shut up in darh cellars^ — " As soon as any house is infected, all the sound people should be had out of it, and not shut up therein to be mur- dered!" " Of all the common hackney prostitutes of Lutener's Lane Dog Yard, Cross Lane, Baldwin's Gardens, Hatton Garden, and other places, the common criers of oranges, oysters, fruit, &c. ; all the impudent, drunken, drabbing bayles and fellows, and many others of the Eouge Eoute, there are but few missing." " Those that dye of the Plague, dye a very easy death generally: first, because it was speedy; secondly, because they died without convulsions. They did but of a sudden fetch their breath a little thick and short, and were presently gone, — just as you squeeze wind out of a bladder. So that I have heard some say, * How much am I bound to God, who 334 APPENDIX. takes me away by such an easy death ! ' And commonly they say they are not sicke Avhen death is just at hand, and talke familiarly with you when they are ready to dye, and expect no other themselves." " This year in which the Plague hath raged so much, no alteration nor change appeared in any element, vegetable, or animal, besides the body of man, except only the season of the year and the winds ; the Spring being continual dry for six or seven months together, there being no rain at all but a little sprinkling shoAver or two about the latter end ot April, which caused such a pitiful crop of hay in the Spring : in the Autumn there was a pretty good crop ; but all other things kept their common integrity, and all sorts of frait, as apples, pears, cherries, plums, grapes, melons, cucumbers, pumpions, cabbage, mulberries, raspberries, strawberries : all roots, as parsneps, carrots, turnips ; all flowers, all medicinal simples, &c., were as plentiful, large, fair, and wholesome, and all grain- as plentiful and good as ever. AJl kine, cattle, horses, sheep, swine, dogs, wild beasts and tame, as health- ful, strong to labour, and wholesome to eat, as ever they were in any year; though many peddling writers have under- taken to find fault with all these things." — " Cats, dogs, oxen, horses, sheep, hogs, conies, all wild beasts ; hens, geese, pigeons, turkeys, &c., and all wild fowl, were free from in- fection." " Though at fu'st I was much baffled in giving judgment, vet afterwards by use and long observation of the parti- culars I arrived at a greater skill; for I rendered myself familiar with the disease, knowing that the means to do any good must be not to be fearful : wherefore, I commonly dress- ed forty sores in a day, held the pulse of patients sweating in their beds half a quarter of an hour together, let blood, administered clysters to the sick, held them up in their beds to keep them from strangling and choaking, half an hour together commonly, and suffered their breathing in my face Bsveral times when they were dying; eat and drank v^-ith APPBiXDI^r. 335 them, especially those that had sores ; sat down by their bed- sides and uiDon their beds, discoursing with them an hour together. If I had time I stayed by them to see them die, and see the manner of their death, and closed up their mouth and eyes, ; for they died with their mouth and eyes very much open and staring. Then if people had nobody to help them (for help was scarce at such a time and place), I helped to lay them forth out of the bed, and afterwards into the coffin ; and last of all, accompanied them to the ground." Speaking of the symptoms of the Plague, Mr. .Boghurst notices a great thirst, with a sense of suffocation, and weight on the chest—" almost like those who are troubled Avith the night mare. I remember," he says, " but one patient that lived under any degree of it, and she lived indeed beyond expectation, for she stammered so that you could not under- stand what she said, with a very great stoppage and oppres- sion at the breast, and other evill signes. I caused her to try a conclusion which came into my head, viz., I made her lay a great mastive puppy dogge upon her breast two or three hours together, and made her drink Dill, PennjToyal, and Anniseed, boyld in posset-drink, and sometimes Anniseed- water, for she was a fat woman and would bear it ; and by degrees all her stopping and lisping left her, and she crept up again, and is very well at this day." In the chapter on " Prophylactics, or preservative means," lir. Boghurst, in reference to precautions used with regard to letters, says — " Some would sift them in a sieve, some wash them first in water, and then dry them at the fire; some air them at the top of a house, a hedge, or a pole, two or three days before they opened them ; some would lay them between two cold stones two or three days ; some set them before the fire like a toast. Some would not receive them but on a long pole : a countryman delivered one thus to mv wife, at the shop door, because he would not venture near . her." 336 APPENDIX. " People in the country were so apprehensive of danger from every thing coming from London, that they kept watch and ward as if they Avonld have kept the wind out of towns ; forcing some to lie and die in ditches and under hedges and trees, and to lie unburied for a prey to dogs and fowls of the air. At Gloucester, the Mayor of the city, being an apothe- cary, would not suffer pipes of wine to be brought into the city that came from London ; but being brought in, would have had them drawn through the river to wash off the in- fection ; but at last it was agreed they should be excused by pouring water on them : so the vintner's man took a dish of Avater and poured on them, and sprinkled each vessel a little, and so made them wholesome, notwithstanding they had come a hundred miles in the air, and it had rained on them much by the way." "Great doubting and disputing tliere is in the world, whether the Plague be infectious or catching or not ; because some think if it were infectious it would infect all, as the fire heats, and heats all it comes near ; but the Plague leaves as many as it takes : thus they are gravelled at such arguments, and cannot solve their doubts ; and Van Helmont thinks all people catch by fear; and generally every one is apt to judge by his own experience, for if they have been in never so little danger and yet have escaped without catching it, they presently think the disease not infectious. And if any one may draw his conclusion from this, I have as much reason almost as any to think it is not infectious, having passed through a multitude of continual dangers, cum summo vitce periculo, being employed every day till ten o'clock at night, out of one house into another, dressing sores, and being always in the breath and sweat of patients, without catching the disease of any, through God's protection ; and so did many nurses that were in the like danger. Yet I count it to be the most subtle, infectious disease of any, and that al] tatch it not by fear neither (though this doth much, as Helmont thinks), for then children and confident people APPENDIX. 337 would not have the disease ; but we see many of them also have it, and children especially most of any." * " The summer following the Plague, very few flies, froge and such like, appeared. " The Plague generally begins at the west and the south- west parts of towns and cities, commencing in little, low, poor houses." Independently of the above treatise, Mr. Boghurst was the author of an English poem entitled " Londiwologia, sive Londini Encomium: The Antiquities and Excellencyes of London," — which is preserved in MS. in the British Museum. See Ayscough's Cat. of MSS. No. 908, fol. 72—84. From a notice appended to those verses, it appears that Mr. Boghurst was a native of Ditton, in Kent, and tfiat he died September 2nd, 1685, aged 54: and was conveyed from London, and buried in the churchyard at Ditton, in accordance with his own directions. * The account which Mr. Boghurst gives of the extent of his practice in the Plague is somewhat corroborated by the following advertise- ment, which has been copied from the "Intelligencer'' newspaper (No 69), for the 31st of July, 16G5, "Whereas, Wm. Boghurst, Apothecary, at the Wliite IlaH in St. Giles's in the Fields, hath administered a long time to such as have been infected with the Plague, to the number of 40, 50, or 60 patients a day, with wonderful success, by God's blessing upon certain excellent medicines which he hath, as a Water, a Lozenge, &c. Also an Elec- tuary Antidote, of but Sd. the oz. price. This is to notify that the said Boghurst is willing to attend any person infected and desiring his attendance, either in City, Suburbs, or Country, upon reasonable terms, and that the remedies above mentioned are to be had at his house, or shop, at the White Hart aforesaid. 833 APPENDIX No. IT. A TABLE OP THE CHEISTENINGS AND MOETALITI For the Tear 1665.* Days of the Christen- Parishes "Weeks. Month. ings. Burials. Plague. Infected. 1 Dec.20— 27 229 291 1 1 2 Jan. 3 239 349 3 — 10 235 394 4 — 17 223 415 5 — 24 237 474 6 31 216 409 7 Feb. 7 221 393 8 — 14 224 462 1 1 9 — 21 232 393 10 — 28 233 396 11 Mar. 7 236 441 12 — 14 236 433 13 — 21 221 363 14 — 28 238 353 15 Apr. 4 242 344 16 — 11 245 382 17 — 18 237 344 18 — 25 229 398 2 1 19 May 2 237 388 20 — 9 211 347 9 4 21 — 16 227 353 3 2 22 — 23 231 385 14 3 23 — 30 229 400 17 5 24 June 6 234 405 43 7 25 — 13 206 658 112 12 26 — 20 204 615 168 19 27 — 27 199 684 267 20 28 July 4 207 1006 470 33 29 — 11 197 1268 725 40 80 — 18 194 1761 1089 54 31 — 25 193 2785 1843 68 * It must be observed, that the yearly bill for 1665 commences on the 20tli of December, 1664, and ends on the 19th of December, 1665, APPENDIX. 339 Days of the Christen- Parishes Weeks. Month. ings. Eurials. Plague. Infected. 32 Aug. 1 215 3014 2010 73 33 — 8 178 4030 2817 86 34 — 15 16G 5319 3880 96 35 — 22 171 5568 4237 103 36 29 169 7496 6102 113 37 Sept. 5 167 8252 6988 118 38 — 12 168 7690 6544 119 39 — 19 176 8297 7165 126 40 — 26 146 6460 5533 123 41 Oct. 3 142 6720 4929 124 42 — 10 141 5068 4327 126 43 — 17 147 3219 2665 114 44 — 24 104 1806 1421 104 45 — 31 104 1388 1031 97 46 Nov. 7 95 1787 1414 110 47 — 14 113 1359 1050 99 48 — 21 108 905 652 84 49 — 28 112 544 333 60 50 Dec. 6 123 428 210 48 51 — 12 133 442 243 57 52 — 19 147 525 281 68 f Christened .... 9,967 TotaW Buried .... 97,306 (Whereof of the Plague 68,596 340 Al'PENDlX. No. m. THE RETUENS.OF TJIE NUIvIBEES THAT FELL BY THE PLAGUE, AS GIVEN IN THE BILLS OF MORTALITY, Fkoji the Year 1603 to 1G7D. Died of the | Died of the Years. Plague. Years. Pla-ue. 1603 . 30,561 1G33 1604 896 1634 1 1605 , 444 1635 1606 • 2124 1636 . 10,400 1607 ,, 2352 1637 . 3082 1608 2262 1638 863 1609 , 4240 1639 . . 314 1610 1803 1640 1450 1611 , 627 1641 . 3067 1612 64 1642 1824 1613 . 16 1643 . . 996 1614 22 1644 1492 1615 37 1645 , 1871 16i6 9 1646 2436 1617 . 6 1647 . . . 3597 1618 18 1648 611 1619 9 1649 67 1620 2 1650 . . 15 1621 11 1651 23 1622 16 1652 16 1623 17 1653 6 1624 1654 ... 16 1625 . 35,417 1655 9 1626 134 1656 ■. . . 6 1627 4 1657 4 1628 3 1658 14 1629 1659 36 1630 1317 1660 14 1631 = 274 1661 20 1632 8 1662 12 APPENDIX. 341 Died of tlie Died of the reara. Plague. Years. Plague. 1G63 . . , 9 1672 5 1664: 6 1673- 5 1665 . 68,596 1674 3 1666 1998 1675 1 1667 , 35 1676 2 1668 14 1677 2 1669 3 1678 5 1670 1679*- 2 1671 6 * This is tlie last year in wliich any deaths by the plague are recorded to have occurred in the bills of mortality ; and after the year 1704 all mention of that disease was omitted from the bills. No. IV. THE LORD MAYOR'S PROCLAMATION. London, Sept. 2 [1GG5]. BY THE MAYOE. WherkAS it hath pleased God to visit us with a sad and sore Judgment, which yet remaineth increasing and heavy upon us ; and it being well pleasing to Almighty God, that all lawful means be used for preventing the spreading thereof, his extraordinary Blessing oftentimes attending thereupon ; amongst those outward means that may be used, that of Fire having been found very successful, as by the experience of former ages, and of later days in other countries, as also being generally approved of by all judicious persons, to be a potent and effectual means of correcting and purifying the air : It is therefore agreed iipon by and with the advice of his Grace the Duke of Albemarle, and the Aldermen, my Brethren, That all persons whatsoever, inhabiting the City of London and Liberties thereof, be required, as they tender their own welfares, effectually to put in execution such B42 APPENDIX. directions as hereafter are expressed. Wherefore all persons, inhabiting as aforesaid are hereby in his Majesty's name, straightly charged and commanded to furnish themselves with sufficient quantities of firing, to wit, of Sea-coal, or any other combustible matter, to maintain and continue Fire burning constantly for three whole Days, and three whole Nights : and in the mean time all extraordinary concourse of People, and employment of Carrs, and whatever else may be troublesome in the Streets, is to be forborne. And fer- vent prayers to be offered up to the Throne of Grace, for a Blessing upon the means. Every six houses on each side the way, which will be twelve houses, are to joyn together to provide firing for three whole Nights and three whole Days, to be made in one great Fire before the door of the middlemost Inhabitant; and one or more persons to be appointed to keep the Fire constantly burning, without suffering the same to be extinguished or go out all the time aforesaid; and this to be observed in all Streets, Courts, Lanes, and Alleys ; and great care to be taken where the Streets, Courts, Lanes, and Alleys are narrow, that the Fires may be made of proportionable bigness, that so no damage may ensue to the Houses. It is supposed that one Load of Sea-coal will maintain a fire for three days and three nights, by first kindling two Bushels, and afterwards a Bushel at a time laid on to continue the fire, whereby six bushels will maintain fire for twenty-four hours, and consequently eighteen Bushels (which is a Load) will be sufficient for three Days and three Nights, which will not amount to above eighteen- pence or two shillings for each House, the three whole Days and Nights ; toward which charge all the Inhabitants that pay two-pence a week to the Poor, and upwards, are to be charged with a certain Tax, if they will not furnish the money voluntarily. And that none may avoid their share of this so necessary a charge, by their absence out of town, the Deputies, Common Councilmen, and Church-wardens of each Parish are required to disburse the money; and the APPENDIX. 343 Justices will take care that a certain Rate be imposed upon such as are absent, or shall refuse to do it voluntarily, for the repayment of those that shall disburse any money. The Ministers of every Parish are desired to exhort the people to be forward in so hopeful a means, if God shall please to grant his Blessing thereupon. And that notice be given, that upon Tuesday the fifth of September, at eight of the clock at night, the Fires are to be kindled in all Streets, Courts, Lanes, and Alleys, of the City and Suburbs thereof; and all officers whatsoever of the several Wards and Parishes, as also the several Inhabitants, are to take special care for the punctual performance hereof, as they will answer their neglect at their utmost peril. Sir John Lawrence was Lord Mayor at the time of issuing the above Proclamation ; and he was succeeded in the Mayoralty, on the 30th of September, by Sir Thomas Blud- WORTH ; the memorable personage to whose incapacity and want of moral courage at the commencement of the Great Fire of 1666, the writers of the time have attributed the extensive spreading of that conflagration. No. V. OPINION OF DR. HODGES ON THE VIETUES OF SACK. De Foe, in the latter part of his "Memoirs," (vide p. 314, of this edition,) has noticed the case of a physician whose constant use of remedial cordials occasioned him to become a confirmed sot. Most probably the person meant was Dr. Hodges, the author of " Loimologia," from whose work De Foe derived so much of. his information, and who, from pecuniary embarassments, became a prisoner in Ludgate, and died in confinement. Like Sir John Falstaff, the doctor found great virtue in sack ; and lie has thus stated his high 344 AT'PEXLIX. opinion of its excellence in the accouut of his motliod of practice during the contagion. " But before I proceed further, gratitude obliges me to do justice to the virtues of saclc, as it deservedly is ranked amongst the principal antidotes, whether it be drunk by itself or impregnated with wormwood, angelica, &c., for I have never yet met -svith anything so agreeable to the nei-vea and spirits in all my experience. That which is best is middle-aged, neat, fine, bright, racy, and of a walnut fla^-our ; and it is certainly true that during the late fatal times both the infected and the well found vast benefit from it, unless they who used it too intemperatively : many indeed medi- cated it Tidth various alexipharmic simples." Again, in noticing tobacco as a prophylactic, Dr. Hodges gays, — " I must confess at uncertainties about it; though as to myself, I am its professed enemy, and was accustomed to supply its place as an antidote with sack." He next men- tions amulets as Avorn against infection ; and, after charac- terising them as baubles, proceeds to give directions " more conformable to reason and the rules of medicine," concluding his discourse with the subjoined account of his own practice. " 1 think it not amiss to recite the means wliich I used to preserve myself from the infection, during the continual course of my business among the sick. " As soon as I rose in the morning early, 1 took the quan- tity of a nutmeg of the anti-pestilential electuary ; then after the despatch of private concerns in my familj-, I ventm-ed into a large room where crowds of citizens used to be wait- ing for me ; and there I commonly spent two or three hours, as in an hospital, examining the several conditions and cir- cumstances of all who came thither; some of which had nlcers yet uncured, and others came to be advised under the first symptoms of seizure ; all which I endeavoured, to des- patch with all possible care to their various exigencies. "As soon as this crowd could be discharged, I judged it not proper to go abroad fasting, and therefore got my APPENDIX. 345 breakfast. After wKicli, till dinner-time, T visited the sick at their houses, where, upon entering their houses, I imme- diately had burnt some -proper thing upon coals, and also kept in my mouth some lozenges all the while I was exam- ining them. But they are in a mistake who report tliat physicians used on such occasions very hot things ; as myrrh, zedoary, angelica, ginger, &c., for many, deceived thereby, raised inflammation upon their tonsils, and greatly endan- gered their lungs. "I further took care not to go into the rooms of the sick when I sweated, or were short-breathed with walking ; and kept my mind as composed as possible, being sufQciently warned by such, who had grievously suffered by uneasiness in that respect. After some hours' visiting in this manner I returned home, " Before dinner I always drank a glass of sack to warm the stomach, refresh the spirits, and dissipate any beginning- lodgment of the infection. I chose meats for my table that yielded an easy and generous nourishment, roasted before boiled, and pickles not only suitable to the meats, but to the nature cff the distemper ; and indeed in this melancholy time, the city greatly abounded with variety of all good things of that nature. I seldom likewise rose from dinner without drinking more wine. After this I had always many persons come for advice ; and as soon as I could despatcli them, I again visited till eight or nine at night, and then concluded the evening at home, by drinking to cheerfulness of my old favourite liquor, which encouraged sleep and an easy breath- ing through the pores all night. But if, in the day time, I found the least {pproaches of the infection upon me, as by giddiness, loathing at stomach, and faintness, I immediatejy had recourse to a glass of this wine, which easily drove these beginning disorders away by transpiration. In the whole course of the infection I found myself ill but twice ; but was soon again cleared of its approaches by these means, and by the help of such antidotes as I kept always by me." ' — See " Loimologia," Dr. Quincey's translation, pp. 217—226. 346 APPENDIX. Ko. VI. THE BAG-PIPEE IX TOTTEKHAM-COUET EOAD. The following traditionary anecdote, wliich has an imme- diate reference to De Foe's story of the blind piper, is derived from the London Magazine for April, 1820 : it was addressed to the editor by a correspondent ; but the original source of the information has not been ascertained. "I forward you a rather remarkable anecdote relative to a statue, the original work of the famous Caius Gabriel Gibber, which has, for many years, occupied a site in a garden on the terrace in Tottenham-Court Eoad. " The statue in question is executed in a fine free-stone, representing a bag-piper in a sitting posture, with his dog and keg of liquor by his side ; the latter of which stands upon a neat stone pedestal. — The following singular history is attached to its original execution : — "During the Great Plague of London, carts were sent round the city each night, the drivers of which rung a bell, as intimation for every house to bring out its dead. The bodies were then thrown promiscuously into the cart, and conveyed to a little distance in the environs, where deep ditches were dug, into which they were deposited. " The piper (as represented in the statue) had his constant stand at the bottom of Holborn, near St. Andrew's church. He became well known about the neighbourhood, and picked up a living from the passengers going that way, who gene- rally threw him a few pence as the reward of his musical talent. A certain gentleman, who never failed in his gene- rosity to the piper, was surprised, on passing one day as usual, to miss him from his accustomed place : on inquiry, he found that the poor man had been taken HI, in consequence of a very singular accident. — On the joyful occasion of the arrival of one of his countrymen from the Highlands, the piper had made too free with the contents of his keg : these so over- APPENDIX. 347 powered lals faculties that he stretched himself out upon the steps of the church, and fell fast asleep. Those were not times to sleep on church steps with impunity. He was found in that situation when the dead-cart went its round; and the carter, supposing of course, as the most likely thing in every way, that the man was dead, made no scruple to put his fork under the piper's belt, and, with some assistance, hoisted him into his vehicle, Avhich was nearly full, with the charitable intention that our Scotch musician should share the usual brief ceremonies of interment. The piper's faithful dog protested against this seizure of his master, and at- tempted to prevent the unceremonious removal; but failing of success, he fairly jumped into the cart after him, to the no small annoyance of the men, whom he would not suffer to come near the body : he further took upon himself the office of chief mourner, by setting up the most lamentable howling as they passed along. " The streets and roads by which they had to go being very rough, the jolting of the cart, added to the howling of the dog, had soon the effect of awakening our drunken musician from his trance. It was dark, and the piper, when he first recovered himself, could form no idea either of his numerous companions or of his conductors. Instinctively, however, he felt about for his pipes, and playing up a merry Scotch tune, terrified, in no small measure, the carters, who fancied they had got a legion of ghosts in their conveyance. A little time, however, put all to rights ; — lights were got ; and it turned out that the noisy corpse was the well-known living piper, who was joyfully released from his awful and perilous situation. The poor man fell bodily ill after this unpleasant excursion ; and was relieved, during his malady, by his former benefactor, who, to perpetuate the remem- brance of so wonderful an escape, resolved, as soon as his patient had recovered, to employ a sculptor to execute him in stone, — not omitting his faithful dog, keg- of liquor, and other appurtenances. o4b APPENDIX. "The famous Caius Gabriel Gibber (fatlier to Colley Cibberi the comedian) was then in high repute, from the circum- stance of his haying executed the beautiful figures which originally were placed over the entrance gate of Old Bethlem Hospital ; and the statue in question of the Highland Bag- piper remains an additional specimen of the merits of this great artist. " It was long after purchased by John the great Duke of Argyle, and came from his collection, at his demise, into the possession of the present proprietor." The little garden mentioned in the preceding extract was nearly opposite to Howland-street ; but some years ago a small sbop, afterwards occupied as a toy-shop, was built upon it, in front of the bouse distinguished as No. 178, Tottenham-Court Koad, Tlio statue waa removed and sold. SOME ACCOUNT OP THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE FIRE OF LONDON, IN 1666, COMPILED PKOM VALUABLE DOCUMENTS PUBLISHED AT THE TIMS, SOME ACCOUNT FIKE OF LONDON No sooner was the plague so abated iu London, that the inhabitants began to return to their habitations, than a most dreadful fire broke out in the city, and raged as if it had commission to devour every thing that was in its way. On the second of September, 1666, this dismal fire broke out at a baker's shop iu Pudding-lane by Fish- street, in the lower part of the city, near Thames-street, (among decayed wooden houses ready to take fire, and full of combustible goods,) in Billiugsgate-ward ; which ward in a few hours was laid in ashes. It began in the dead of the night, and the darkness very much increased the confusion and horror of the surprising calamity : when it had made havoc of some houses, it rushed down the hill toward the bridge; crossed Thames-street, invaded St. Magnus' church at the bridge foot, and though that church was so great, yet it was not a sufficient barricade against this merciless conqueror ; but having scaled and taken this fort, it shot flames with so much the greater advantage into all places round about, and a great build- ing of houses upon the bridge was quickly thrown down to the ground ; there, being stayed in its course at the bridge, the fire marched back through the city again, and with great noise and violence, ran along through Thames- street westward, where having such combustible matter 852 {:oiiE ACCOUNT of the fire of lojsdom. to feed on, and such a fierce wiud upon its back, it pre- vailed with little resistance, to the astonishment of the beholders. The fire was soon taken notice of, though in the midst of the night: Fire! fire! fire! resounded through the streets ; many started out of their sleep, looked out of their windows ; some dressed themselves, and ran to the place. The citizens, affi-ighted and amazed, delayed the use of timely remedies ; and what added to the misfortune, was, the people neglecting their houses, and being so fatally set on the hasty removing of their goods, which were, notwithstanding, devom'ed by the nimble increase of the flames. A raging east- wind fomented it to an incredible degree, and in a moment raised the fire from the bottoms to the tops of the houses, and scattered prodigious flakes in all places, which mounted high in the air, as if heaven and earth were threatened with the same conflagration. The fury soon became insuperable against the arts of men and the power of engines ; and beside the dismal scenes of flames, ruin, and desolation, there appeared the most killing sight in the distracted loois of the citizens, the wailiogs of miserable women, the cries of poor children, and decrepid and old people ; with all the marks of confusion and despau*. No man that had the sense of human miseries could unconcernedly behold the dismal ravage and de- struction made in one of the noblest cities of the world. The lord mayor of the city came with his cfficers ; what a confusion there was ! — counsel was takcL away ; and London, so famous for Avisdom and dexterity, could now find neither brains nor hands to prevent its ruin : the decree was gone forth, London must fall : and who could prevent it? No wonder, when so many pillars were removed, the building tumbled, The fire got the SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 853 mastery, and burnt dreadfully by the force of the wind ; it spread quickly, and went on with such force and rage, overturning all so furiously, that the whole city was brought into jeopardy and desolation. ■ Fire commission'd by tlie winds, Begins on sheds, but rolling in a round, On palaces returns. Drtden. That night most of the Londoners had taken their last sleep in their houses ; they little thought it would be so when they went into their beds : they did not in the least expect to hear of such an enemy invading the city, or that they should see him with such fury enter the doors of their houses, break into every room, and look out at their windows with such a threatening countenance. That which made the ruin more dismal was, that it began on the Lord's day morning ; never was there the like Sabbath in London ; some churches were in flames that day ; God seemed to come down and preach himself in them, as he did in Sinai when the mount burned with fire ; such warm preaching those churches never had : in other churches ministers Avere preaching then- farewell sermons ; and people were hearing with quaking and astonishmeiit : instead of a holy rest which Christians had usually taken that day, there was a tumultuous hurrying about the streets toward the places that burned, and more tumultuous hurrying upon the spirits of those that sat still, and had only the notice of the ear, of the strange and quick spreading of the fire. The trained bands were up in arms, watching at every quarter for outlandish men, because of the general fears and rumours that fire-balls were thrown into houses by several of them, to help on and provoke the too furious 2 A 354 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LOf^DOS. flames. Now goods were moTed hastily from the lower parts of the city, and the body of the people began to retii'e and draw upward. Yet some hopes were retained on the Sunday that the fire would be extinguished, especially by those who lived in remote parts ; they could scarce imagine that the fire a mile distant could reach their houses. All means to stop it proved ineffectual; the wind was so high that flakes of fire and burning matter were carried across several streets, and spread the conflagi'ation everywhere. But the evening di'ew on, and now the fire was more visible and dreadful: instead of the black curtains of the night which used to spread over the city, now the ciirtains were yellow ; the smoke that arose from the burning part seemed like so much flame in the night, which being blown upon the other parts by the wind, the whole city at some distance seemed to be on fire. Now hope began to sink, and a general consternation seized upon the spirits of the people ; little sleep was taken in London during that night ; some were at work to quench the fire, others endeavoured to stop its course by pulling down houses, but all to no pui-pose; if it were a little allayed or put to a stand in some places, it quickly re- cruited and recovered its force : it leaped, and mounted, and made the more furious onset, drove back aU opposers, snatched the weapons out of their hands, seized upon the water -houses and engines, and made them unfit for service. Some were on their knees in the night, pouring out tears before the Lord, interceding for poor London in the day of its calamity; yet none could j^revail to reverse that loom which had gone forth against the city, the fire had received its commission, and all attempts to hinder it were in vain. SOME ACCOUNT OP THE FIRE OF LONDON. 355 Sunday night the fire had got as far as Garlick-hithe in Thames-street, and had crept up into Cannon-street, and levelled it with the ground, and still was making for- ward by the water side, and upward to the brow of the hiU on which the city vv^as built. On the Monday, Gracechurch-street was all in flames, with Lombard-street on the left, and part of Fenchurch- street on the right, the fire working (though not so fast) against the wind that way : before it were pleasant and stately houses, behind it ruinous and desolate heaps. The burning then was in the fashion of a bow ; a dreadful bow it was, such as few eyes had ever seen before ! Then the flames broke in upon Cornhill, that large and spacious street, and quickly crossed the way by the train of wood that lay in the streets untaken away, which had been pulled down from houses to prevent its spreading, and so they licked the whole streets as they went ; they mounted to the tops of the highest houses, they de- scended to the bottom of the lowest cellars ; they marched along both sides of the way, with such a roaring noise as never was heard in the city of London ; no stately buildings so great as to resist their fury: the Eoyal Exchange itself, the glory of the merchants, was invaded, and when once the fire was entered, how quickly did it run through the galleries, filling them with flames ; then descending the stairs, it compassed the walks, giving forth flaming volleys, and filling the court with fire : by and by down fell all the kings upon their faces, and the greatest part of the building upon them, (the founder's statue only remaining,) with such a noise as was dreadful and aston- ishing. September the third thg Exchange was bm'nt, and in three days almost all the city within the walls : the people S56 80 MS ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. having none to conduct them right, could do nothing to resist it, but stood and saw their houses burn without remedy ; the engines being soon out of order and usfeless ! Then! then! the city did shake indeed! and the inhabitants did tremble ! they flew away in great amaze- ment from their houses, lest the flames should devour them. Eattle ! rattle ! rattle ! was the noise which the fire struck upon the ear round about, as if there had been a thousand iron chariots beating i;pon the stones ; and if you turned your eyes to the opening of the streets where the fire was come, you might see in some places whole streets at once in flames, that issued forth as if they had been so many forges from the opposite windows, and which folding together, united into one great volume throughout the whole street ; and then you might see the houses tumble, tumble, tumble, from one end of the street to another, with a great crash ! leaving the foundations open to the view of the heavens. Fearfulness and terror now surprised all the citizens of London ; men were in a miserable hurry, full of distrac- tion and confusion ; they had not the command of their own thoughts, to reflect and inquu'e what was fit and proper to be done. It would have grieved the heart of an unconcerned person, to have seen the rueful looks, the pale cheeks, the tears trickHng down from the eyes (where the gi-eatness of sorrow and amazement could give leave for such a vent), the smiting of the breast, the wringing of the hands ; to hear the sighs and groans, the doleful and weeping speeches of the distressed citizens, when they were bringing forth their wives (some from their child bed) and their little ones (some from their sick beds) out of their houses, and sending them into the fields with their goods. The hope of London seemed gone ; their &OME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 357 heart had sunk : there was a general remove in the city, and that in a greater hurrj than before the plague ; their goods being in greater danger by the fire than their per- sons were by the pestilence. Scarcely were some returned but they must remove again ; and not as before, but now without hopes of ever returning and living in those houses any more. The streets were crowded with people and carts, to carry what goods they could get out ; they who were most active and had most money to pay carriage at exorbitant prices, saved much, the rest lost almost all. Carts, drays, coaches, and horses, as many as could have entrance into the city, were laden, and any money was given for help ; five, ten, twenty, thirty pounds for a cart, to bear forth to the fields some choice things which were ready to be consumed ; and some of the countrymen had the conscience to accept the prices which the citizens offered in their extremity ! Casks of wine and oil, and other commodities were tumbled along, and the owners shoved as much as they could toward the gates : every one became a porter to himself ; and scai'cely a back, either of man or woman, but had a burden on it in the streets. It was ve:y melancholy to see such throngs of poor citizens coming in and going forth from the uuburut parts, heavily laden with portions of their goods, but more heavy with grief and sorrow of heart '. so that it is won- derful they did not quite sink down under their burdens. Monday night was a dreadful night ! When the wings of the night had shadowed the light of the heavenly bodies, there was no darkness of night in London, for the fire shone about -with a fearful blaze, which yielded such light in the streets as it had been the sun at noonday. The fire having wrought backward strangely against the wind to Billingsgate, &c., along Thames-street eastward, 358 ,S0.1/^ ACCOUNT OP THE FIRE OF LONDON. ran up the hill to Tower-street ; and having marched on from Gracechurch-street, made farther progress in Fen- church-street ; and having spread its rage beyond Queeu- hithe in Thames-street, westward, mounted up from the water-side through Dowgate and Old-fish-street into Watling-street ; but the great fmy was in the broader streets ; in the midst of the night it came into Cornhill, and laid it in the dust, and running along by the Stocks, there met with another fire which came down Thread- needle-street, a little farther with another which came up Walbrook ; a little further with another which came up Bucklersbury ; and all these four meeting together, broke into one of the corners of Cheapside, with a dazzling glare, burning heat, and roaring noise, by the falling of so many houses together, that was very amazing ! and though it w^as somewhat stopped in its swift course at Mercer's chapel, yet with great force in a while it burnt through it, and then with great rage proceeded forward in Cheapside. On Tuesday was the fire burning up the very bowels of London ; Cheapside was all in a light fire in a few hours' time ; many fires meeting there as in the centre ; from Soper-lane, Bow-lane, Bread-street, Friday-street, and Old-change, the fire came up almost together, and broke furiously into the broad street, and most of that side the way was together in flames : a dreadful spectacle ! and then, partly by the fire which came down from Mer- cer's chapel, partly by the fall of the houses across the way, the other side was quickly kindled, and did not stand long after it. Then the fire got into Blackfriars, and so continued its coui'se by the water, and made up toward St. Paul's church on that side, and Cheapside fire beset the great SOiJE AC C OUST OF THE FIRE OF LONDOK 359 building on this side ; and tlio cliurch, tliougli all of stone outward, though naked of houses about it, and though so high above all buildiugs in the city, yet within a while it yielded to the violent assaults of the all-conquerino- flames, and straugely took fire at the top : the lead melted and ran down as if it had been snow before the sun ; and the great beams and massive stones, with a hideous noise, fell on the pavement, and broke through into Faith- church underneath ; and great flakes of stone scaled and peeled off strangely from the sides of the walls : the con- queror having got this high fort, darted its flames round about ; Paternoster-row, Newgate-street, the Old Bailey, and Ludgate-hill, then submitted themselves to the devour- ing fire, which, with wonderful speed rushed down the hill into Fleet-street. Cheapside fire marched along Ironmonger-lane, Old-juiy, Laurence-lane, Milk-street, Wood-street, Grutter-lane, and Foster-lane ; it came along Lothbury, Cateaton-street, &c. From Newgate-street it assaulted Christ-church, conquered that great building, and burned through St. Martins-le-grand toward Alders- gate ; and all so furiously as if it would not leave a house standing. Terrible flakes of fire mounted up to the sky, and the yellow smoke of Loudon ascended up toward heaven like the smoke of a great furnace ; a smoke so great as to darken the sim at noon-day; if at any time the sun peeped forth it looked red like blood : the cloud of smoke Avas so great, that travellers rode at noon-day some miles together in the shadow thereof, though there was no other cloud beside to be seen in the sky. If Monday night was dreadful, Tuesday night was much more so, when far the greatest part of the city was consumed : many thousands who on Saturday had houses 360 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. convenient in the citj, both, for tliemselves and to enter- tain others, had not where to lay their heads ; and the fields were the only receptacles they could find for them- selves and their few remaining goods : most of the late inhabitants lay all night in the open air, with no other canopy over them but that of the heavens. The fire was still making toward them, and threatening the suburbs. It was amazing to see how it spread itself several miles in compass : among other things that night, the sight of Guildhall was a fearful spectacle, which stood, the whole body of it together in view, for several hours after the fire had taken it, without flames (possibly because the timber was such solid oak) in a bright shining coal, as if it had been a palace of gold, or a great building of burnished brass. On "Wednesday morning, when people expected the suburbs would be burnt as well as the city, and with speed were preparing their flight, as well as they could with their luggage, into the country and the neiglibourijig vih lages ; then the Lord had pity upon poor London : the wind was hushed ; the commission of the fire was with- drawing, and it burned so gently, even when it met with no opposition, that it Avas not hard to be quenched, in many places, with a few hands. The citizens began to gather a httle heart and encouragement in then* endeavours to quench the fire. A check it had at Leadenhall by that great building ; it had a stop in Bishopsgate-street, Fen- church-street, Lime-street, Mark-lane, and toward the Tower : one means (under God) was the blowing up houses with gunpowder. It was stayed in Lothbury, Broad-street, and Coleman-street ; toward the gates it burnt, but not with any great violence ; at the Temple also it stayed, and in Holborn, where it had got no great SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. S61 footing ; and Avlien once tlie fire was got under, it was kept under : and on Thursday the flames were extinguished. Few could take much sleep for divers nights together, when the fire was raging in the streets, and burning down the houses, lest their pei-sons should have been consumed with their substance and habitations. But on Wednesday night, when the people late of London, now of the fields, hoped to get a little rest on the ground where they had spread their beds, a more dreadful fear fell upon them than they had before, through a rumour that the French were coming armed to cut their throats, and spoil them of what they had saved out of the fire : they were now naked, weak, and in ill condition to defend themselves; and the hearts, especially of the females, began to quake and tremble, and were ready to die within them ; yet many citizens having lost their houses, and almost all they had, were fired with rage and fury ; and they began to stir up themselves like lions, or bears bereaved of their whelps : Now, arm ! arm ! arm ! resounded through the fields and suburbs with a great noise. AVe may guess the distress and perplexity of the people this night ; but it was some- what alleviated when the falseness of the alarm was discovered. Never was England in greater danger of being made a prey to a foreign poAver, than after the firing and fall of the city, which had the strength and treasure of the nation in it. While the terrors occasioned by the conflagration remained in the minds of men, many eminent, learned, pious divines of the Church of England were more than ordinarily diligent in the discharge of their holy function in this calamitous time ; and many ministers who had not conformed, preached in the midst of the burning ruins, 362 SO:iIE ACCOUNT of the fire of LONDON. to a willing and attentive people ; conventicles abounded in every part ; it was thought hard to hinder men from worshipping God in any way they could, when there Avere no chm-ches, nor ministers to look after them. Tabernacles, with all possible expedition, were every where raised for public worship till churches could be built. Among the established clergy were Drs. Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Whitcot, Horton, Patrick, Outram, 'Mr. White, Mr. Giffard, Mr. Nest, Mr. Meriton, and many others : divines of equal mei-it and moderation, ornaments of their sacred professions and the established church. Amnn"- the Presbyterians were Drs. Manton. Jacomb, Owen, Goodwin, Mr, Thomas Vincent, Mr. Wadsworth, Mr. Janeway, IVIr. Thomas Doohttle, Mr. Annesley, Mr. Chester, Mr. Franklin, Mr. Grimes, IMr. Watson, Mr. Nathanael Vincent, Mr. Turner, Mr. Gi'iffiths, Mr. Brooks, Mr. Nye, Mr. Caryl, Mr. Barker. The loss in goods and houses is scarcely to be valued, or even conceived. The loss of books was an exceeding great detriment, not to the owners only, but to learning in general. The library at Sion College, and most pi'ivate libraries in London, were burnt. The fire of London damaged most of all the company of printers and stationers, most of whose habitation, storehouses, shops, stocks, and books, were not only con- sumed, but their ashes and scorched leaves conveyed aloft, and dispersed by the winds to places above sixteen miles distant, to the great admiration of beholders ! Notwithstanding the great losses by the fire, the devour- ing pestilence in the city the year preceding, and the chargeable war with the Dutch at that time depending; yet by the king's grace, the wisdom of the parhament then sitting at Westminster, the diligence and activity of SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 3G3 tlie lord mayor, aldermen, and commoners of the city (who were likewise themselves the most considerable losers by the fatal accident) it was in the space of four or five years well-nigh rebuilt. Divers churches, the stately Guildhall, many halls of companies, and other public edifices; all infinitely more uniform, more solid and more magnificent than before; so that no city in Europe (scarcely in the universe) can stand in competition with it in many particulars. The fire of Loudon ending at the east end of Tower- street, the extent of Avhich came just to the dock on the west side of the Tower, there was nothing between the Tower Avails and it but the breadth of the dock, and a great many old timber houses which were built upon the banks of the dock, and in the outward bulwark of the Tower and Tower-ditch (which was then very foul) to the very waU of the Tower itself. Which old houses if the fire had taken hold of, the ToAver itself, and all the build- ings Avithin it, had in all probability been destroyed. But such Avas the lieutenant's care of the great charge com- mitted to him, that to prevent future damage, a fcAV Aveeks after he caused all these old houses which stood between the Tower dock and the ToAver Avail to be pulled down ; and not only them, but all those Avhich were built upon or near the ToAver ditch, from the bulwark gate along both the toAver-hills, and so to the iron-gate ; and caused strong rails of oak to be set up upon the wharf Avhere those houses stood, Avhich were about four hundred : so that by these means, not only the White-tower but the Avhole outward Tower wall and the ditch round about the same, Avere all visible to passengers, and afforded a very fine prospect. During the whole continuance of this unparalleled 364 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. calamity, the king himself, roused from his pleasures, coromiserated the case of the distressed, and acted like the true father of his people. In a manuscript from the secretary's office we find these words, " All own the immediate hand of God, and bless the goodness and ten- der care of the king, who made the round of the fire usually twice every day, and for many hours together, on horseback and on foot; gave orders for pursuing the work, by commands, threatenings, desires, example, and good store of money, which he himself distributed to the workers out of a bag which he carried with him for that purpose." At the same time his royal highness the Duke of York also, and many of the nobility, were as diligent as possible ; they commended and encom'aged the forward, assisted the miserable sufferers, and gave a most generous example to all, by the vigorous opposition they made against the devouring flames. The king and the duke, with the guards, were almost all the day on horseback, seeing to all that could be done, either for quenching the fire or for caiTying off persons or goods to the fields. The king was never observed to be so much affected with any thing in his whole hfe. In the dreadful fire of London, the king and the duke did their utmost in person to extinguish it ; and after it had been once mastered and broke out again in the Tem- ple, the duke watching there all night, put an effectual stop to it by blowing up houses. AfteiTvard, when the multitudes of poor people were forced to lodge in the fields, or crowd themselves into poor huts and booths built with deal boards, his majesty was frequent in consulting all ways to relieve these wretches, as well by proclamations as by his orders to the justices of peace, to send provisions into Mooi-fields and SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 365 Other places ; aud moreover, he seut them out of the Tower the warhke provisions which were there deposited for the seamen and sokliers, to keep them from starviuo- in this extremity. At the same time he proclaimed a fast throughout England and Wales ; and ordered that the distressed condition of the sufferers should be recom- mended to the charity of all well-disposed persoES upon that day, to be afterwards distributed by the hands of the lord mayor of London. Lastly, to show his special care for the city's restoration in council, wherein he first pro- hibited the hasty building any houses till care should be taken for its re-edification, so as might best secure it from the like fatal accident ; for the encouragement of others, he promised to rebuild his custom-house, aud to enlarge it, for the benefit of the merchants and trade ; which he performed at his own particular charge, and at the ex- pense of ten thousand pounds. At the news of the fire of London all the good subjects of Ireland were seized with the utmost consternation upon that deplorable accident. In compassion to the sufferers the lord lieutenant (the duke of Ormond) set on foot a subscription for their relief, which rose to a higher value than could be expected in so distressed a country, where there was not money to circulate for the common neces- sities of the people, or to pay the public taxes : therefore the subscription was made in beeves, thirty thousand of which were sent to Loudon, 366 SOMS ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. Extract from the speech of Sm Edward Turner, SPEAKER OF THE HONOURABLE HOUSE OF COMMONS, AT THE PROROGATION OF THE PARLIAMENT, FeBRUAUT 8, 1667. " Wg mixst for ever with, humility acknowledge the justice of God in punishing the whole nation in the late conflagration in London : we know they were not the greatest sinners on whom the tower of Siloam fell ; and doubtless all our sins did contribute to the filling up that measure, which being full, drew down the wrath of God upon that city : but it very much reviveth us to behold the miraculous blessing of God upon your majesty's endeavours for the preservation of that part of the city which is left. We hope God will direct your royal heart and this fortunate island in a few days to lay a founda- tion stone in the re-building of that royal city ; the beauty and praise whereof shall fiU the whole earth. For the encouragement of this noble work we have prepared several bills ; one for the establishing a judicatory for the speedy determining all actions and causes of action that may arise between landlords and tenants upon this sad accident. Though I persuade myself no Englishman would be exempted from making some offering to carry on the pious undertaking, yet the exemplary charity of your majesty's twelve reverend judges is fit with honour to be mentioned before your majesty : they are willing to spend all their sand that doth not run out in your majesty's immediate service, in dispensing justice in theu-^ several courts to your people, in hearing and determining the controversies that may arise upon old agreements, and SOME ACCOUNT OF TEE FIRE OF LONDON. 367 making new rules between owners and tenants, for their mutual agreement in this glorious action. We have like- wise prepared a bill for the regularity of the new build- ings, that they may be raised with more conveniency, beauty, and security, than they had before : some streets we have ordered to be opened and enlarged, and many obstructions to be removed ; but all with your ii^ajesty's approbation. This, we conceive, cannot be done with justice, unless a compensation be given to those that shall be losers ; we have therefore laid an imposition of twelve pence upon every chaldron and every ton of coals that shall be brought into the port of London for ten years, the better to enable the lord mayor and aldermen to recompense those persons whose ground shall be taken from them. " Rome was not built in a day : nor can we in the close of this session finish the rules for the dividing the parishes, rebuilding of the churches, and the ornamental parts of the city, that we intended; these things must rest till another session ; but we know your majesty in the mean- time will take them into your princely consideration, and make it your care that the houses of God, and your royal chamber, be decently and conveniently restored." The fire of London had exercised the wits and inventions of many heads, and especially put several ingenious per- sons on contriving and setting up offices for insuring of houses from fire ; since which many of those offices are framed. All persons were indefatigably industrious in tlie great work of rebuilding ; and when all provisions were made for the city's resurrection, the famous Sir Jonas Moore first of all produced the beautiful Fleet-street, according 368 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. to the appointed model ; and from that beginning the city grew so hastily toward a general perfection, that within the compass of a few years it far transcended its former splendour. In the meantime Gresham college was converted into an exchange ; and in the apartments the public business of the city was transacted instead of Guildhall. To the same place alderman Backwell, a noted banker, removed from Lombard-street, alderman Meynell, and divers other bankers of Lombard-street, were preserved in their estates, and settled in and about Broad-street. The royal society being driven out from Gresham college, Henry Howard, brother to the duke of Norfolk, late earl marshal of England, invited that noble body to hold their meetings at Arundel-house, where he assigned them veiy convenient I'ooms ; and on new-year's day, being himself a member of that society, he very, generously presented them and their successors with a fair library of books, being the whole ]N"orfolkian library, with permission of changing such books as were not proper for their collection. Sir Robert Viner, a very gi'eat banker, providentially removed all his concerns twenty-four hours before the furious fire entered Lombard-street, and settled in the African house, which was then kept near the middle of Broad-street, till such time as he built that noble struc- ture in Lombard-street now used for the general post- office, which was purchased by King Charles H. for that purpose. The neatly wrought conduit in the Stocks market-place at the west end of Lombard-street (the spot on which the Lord Mayor's mansion-house is since erect- ed), whereon was placed a large statue of King Charles n. on horseback, trampling upon an enemy, was set up ^Oilli: ACCOUNl OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 369 at the sole cost and charges of that worthy citizea and alderman, Sir Robei't Viuer, knight and baronet.* The excise-office was kept in Southampton-fields, near Southampton (now Bedford) house. The general post-office was moved to the two Black Pillars in Bridges-street, Covent-garden. The affairs of the custom-house were traasacted in Mark -lane, at a house called Lord Bayning's, till the custom-house was rebuilt in a much more magnificent, uniform, and commodious manner, by King Charles II., which cost him ten thousand pounds. The office for hearth-money was kept near BilUter- lane in Leadenhall-street. The king's great wardrobe, together with the fair dwelling-houses of the master and officers, near Puddle- wharf, being consumed, that office was kept in York- house-buildiugs. The buildings of Doctors-Commons in the parish of St. Beunet Paul's wharf, near St. Paul's, being entirely con- sumed by the dreadful fire, their offices wei*e held at Exeter-house in the Strand until the year 1672, when they returned to their former place, rebuilt in a very * Of this clumsy piece of sculptui-e we have the foUoAving account from Maitland's Survey, p. 1049: — "It is impossible to quit this place ■without taking notice of the equesti'ian statue raised here in honour of Charles II., a thing in itself so exceedingly ridiculous and absurd, that it is in no one's power to look upon it without reflecting on the taste of those who set it up. But when we inquire into the history of it, the farce improves iipon our hands, and what was before contempt- ible, grows entertaining. This statue was originally made for John Sobieski, king of Poland, but by some accident was left upon the work- man's hands. About the same time the city was loyal enough to pay their devoirs to king Charles immediately upon his restoration ; and finding this statue ready made to their hands, resolved to do it in the cheapest way, and convert the Polander into a Briton, and the Turk underneath, into OUver Cromwell, to make their compliment complete ; and the turban upon the last-mentioned figure, is an undeniable proof of the truth of the story." 2 B 370 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. splendid and convenient manner, at the proper cost and charges of the said doctors. The college of physicians had purchased a house and ground at the end of Amen-street, whereon the famous Dr. Harvey, at his proper charge, did erect a magnificent structure, both for a library and a public hall : this goodly edifice could not escape the fury of the dreadful fire ; and the ground being but a leasehold, the Fellows purchased a fair piece of ground in Warwick-lane, whereon they have erected a veiy magnifice&t edifice, with a noble apartment for the containing an excellent library, given them partly by the Marquis of Dorchester, but chiefly by that eminent professor Sir Theodore Mayerne, knight. The former bourse (or Royal Exchange) began to be erected in the year 1566, just one hundred years before it was burnt, at the cost and charge of that noble merchant Sir Thomas Gresham : it was built of brick, and yet was the most splendid bourse then in Europe. It is now rebuilt within and without of excellent stone, with such curious and admirable architecture, especially for a front, a high turret or steeple, wherein are an har- monious chime of twelve bells, and for arch-work, that it surpasses all other boiu-ses. It is built quadrangular, with a large court wherein the merchants may assemble, and the greatest part, in case of rain or hot sunshine, may be sheltered in side galleries or porticoes. The whole fabric cost fifty thousand pounds, whereof one half was disburs- ed by the chamber of London, or corporation of the city, and the other half by the company of mercers. Before the dreadful fire, there were all around the quadrangle of this Eoyal Exchange the statues of the sovereign princes since what was called the Norman Con- quest, and by the care and cost of the city companies SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 371 most of those niches were again filled with the like curi- ous statues, in marble or alabaster. St. Paul's cathedral was a new building at the time of the fire, the stone-work almost finished ; but it is now re- built with greater solidity, magnificence, and splendour, by the most renowned architect Sir Christopher Wren. Not far from the college of Doctors-Commons stood the college of Heralds, in an ancient house called Derby- house, being built by Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby, who married Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother of King Henry VII., where their records were preserved. This college was burnt down, but the books and records (vere preserved, and placed by the king's appointment at the lower end of the Court of Requests. Since the late dreadful fire this college has been hand- somely rebuilt upon St. Bennet's hill, near Doctors-Com- mons,* where their library is now kept. The house of St. BartholomeAv's hospital escaped the fury of the great fire, but most of the estates belonging to it were consimied. The companies' halls were rebuilt, all at the charges of each fraternity, with great magnificence ; being so many noble structures or palaces, with gallant frontispieces, stately courts, spacious I'ooms ; the halls especially, from which the whole are named, are not only ample enough to feast all the livery in each company, some to the num- ber of three or four hundred ; but many of them are fit to receive a crowned head with all its nobles, those of each of the twelve companies especially. The company of mercers, beside their hall, have a sumptuous and spacious chapel for divine service. Those city gates which were burnt down, as Ludgate * Taken down in 1869 when Queen Victoria Street was made. 372 SOME ACCOUST OF TEE FIRE OF LOXDOHT. and Newgate, were rebuilt with great solidity and magni- ficence. The attempt to make Fleet-brook or ditch navigable to Holborn-bridge, was a mighty chargeable and beautiful work : and though it did not fully answer the designed purpose, it was remarkable for the curious stone bridges over it, and the many huge vaults on each side thereof, to treasure up Newcastle coals for the use of the poor. The whole damage sustained by the fire was almost inconceivable and incredible ; but the following method of computation hath been taken to form some sort of gross estimate ; and at the time was accounted very moderate : — Thirteen thousand two hundred houses one"i with another, at twenty-five pounds rent,>- 3,960,000 at the low rate of twelve years' purchase ) * Eighty-seven parish churches, at eight thou- } ^^.^ ^^^ poiiuds each - - - - j ' Six consecrated chapels, at two thousand | ^ ^ „ „ „ pounds each - - - - - J . ' The Eoyal Exchange ----- 50,000 The Custom-house . - . . . 10,000 Fifty-two halls of companies, most of which"^ were magnificent structui'es and palaces, at)- 78,000 fifteen hundi^ed pounds each - - ) Three city gates, at three thousand pounds > „ ,_^ each -._--- j ' Gaol of Newgate --.--- 15,000 Four stone bridges - » _ _ - 6,000 Sessions-house ------ 7,000 Guildhall, with the courts and ofiices belong- ") ,^ „ „ „ iug to it- - - -- -j" ' • The certificate says, eigMy-nine parisli churclies: but see tlie act of parliament and inscription on tlie monument SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 373 Blackwell-hall - - - _ _ 30OO ^^i^e^ell 5J0OO Poultry Compter - - - _ _ 5 qqq Wood-street Compter - - - _ _ 3 qqq Toward rebuilding St. Paul's church, which) at that time was new building, the stone-^C 2,000 000 work being almost finished - _ I ' ' "Wares, household-stuff, monies and moveable ) goods lost and spoiled - - . 1 2,000,000 Hire of porters, carts, waggons, barges, boats, ) &c., for removing wares, household-stuff, f &c., during the fire, and some small tune / ^00,000 after ----__ Printed books and paper in shops and | warehouses • ■ - ~ _ r 150,000 Wine, tobacco, sugar, &c., of which the city ) was at that time very full - ., - j ^'^^0,000 Cutting a navigable river to Holborn-bridge - 27 000 The Monument - - - - _ -14500 £10,790,500 Beside meKoration-money paid to several proprietors who had their ground taken away, for the making of wharfs, enlarging the old, or making new streets, market- places, &c. The fire spread itself (beside breadth) from near Tower-hill to St. Dunstan's church, in Fleet-street. After it had burnt almost three days and three nights, some seamen taught the people to blow up some of the next houses with gunpoAvder ; which stopped the fire : so that (contrary to the inscription on the Monument) there were human counsels in the stopping of the fire. It stopped at Holborn-bridge ; at St. Sepulchre's church, when the church was- burnt ; in Aldgate, and Cripijlegatej 374 SOME ACCOUNT OF TEE FIRE OF LCNDOit. and other places on the wall ; in Austin friars, the Dutch church stopped it, and escaped. It stopped in Bishopsgate- street, in Leadenhall-street, in the midst of Fenchui'ch- street, and near the Tower. Alderman Jefferies lost tobacco to the value of twenty thousand pounds. EXTRACT FROM THE CERTIFICATE OF THE SURVEYORS APPOINTED TO SURVEY THE RUINS. The fire began September the second, 1G66, at Mr. Farryner's, a baker, in Puddiag-lane, between one and two in the morning, and continued burning till the sixth ; did over-run three hundred seventy-three acres within the walls : eighty-nine parish churches, beside chapels, burnt : eleven parishes within the walls standing. Houses bui-nt, thirteen thousand and two hundred. Jonas Moore, ) r. ■ Ralph GATRii, | S^^^^^Jors. The superstition and zeal of those times made canon- ization much cheaper in a Protestant than a Popish church : a vehement preacher was a chief saint among the godly, and a few warm expressions were esteemed little less than prophecies. In the dedication to the Rev. Mr. Reeves' sermon, preached 1655, are the following queries : — " Can sin and the city's safety, can impenitency and impunity stand long together % Fear you not some plague ? Some coal blown with the breath of the Almighty that may sparkle, and kindle, and burn you to such cinders that not a wall or pillar may be left to testify the remem- brance of a city ? " The same gentleman said — " Your looking-glasses will SOME ACCOUNT OF TEE FIRE OF LONDON. 375 be snatched away, your mirrors cracked, your diamonds shivered in pieces ; this goodly city all in shreds ; ye may seek for a pillar or threshold of your ancient dwellino-s but not find one ; all your spacious mansions and sump- tuous monuments are then gone ; not a porch, pavement ceiling, stau'case, turret, lantern, bench, screen, pane of a window, post, nail, stone, or dust of your former houses to be seeu. No ! with wringing hands you may ask where are those sweet places where we traded, feasted slept ? where we lived like masters, and shone like morn- ing-stars ? No ! the houses are fallen, and the house- holders dropped with them : Ave have nothing but naked streets, naked fields for shelter ; not so much as a chamber to couch down our children, or repose our own members when we are spent, or afflicted with sickness. "Woe unto us ! our sins have pulled down our houses, shaken down our city ; we are the most harbourless people in the world ; like foreigners rather than natives ; yea, rather like beasts than men: foxes have holes and fowls have nests, but we have neither holes nor nests ; our sins have deprived us of couch and covert : we should be glad if an hospital would receive us, dens or caves shelter us : the bleak air and cold ground are our only shades and refuges. But, alas ! this is but the miseiy of the stone-work, of arches roofs, &c." The following paragraph is taken from JVIr. Eosewell's " Causes and Cures of the Pestilence," pp. 27, 28, printed at London in the year of the Great Plague, 1665, a year before the fire of London : — " Is it not of the Lord that the people shall labour in the very fire ! and weary themselves for vanity ! It is of the Lord, surely ! It comes to pass by the secret coimsel of God, that these houses and cities which they build, 376 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. shall either come to be consumed by fire ; or else, tho people shall weary themselves in vain ; for vanity ; to no purpose ; seeing it comes so soon to be destroyed and ruin- ated, what they build." Account of the Fiee of London, published by AUTHORITY, FROM THE Loncloii Gazette. Sept. 2. About two o'clock this morning a sudden and lamentable fire broke out in this city, beginning not far from Thames-street, near London-bridge; which continues stUl with great violence, and hath already burnt down to the ground many houses thereabouts ; which said accident affected his majesty with that tenderness and compassion that he was pleased to go himself in person, with his royal highness, to give orders that all possible means should be used for quenching the fire, or stopping its further spreading. In which care, the right honourable the earl of Craven was sent by his majesty, to be more particularly assisting to the lord mayoi and magistrates ; and several companies of his guards were sent into the city, to be helpful in what means they could in so great a calamity. Whitehall^ Sept. 8. The ordinary course of this paper being interrupted by a sad and lamentable accident of fire lately happened in the city of London, it hath been thought fit to satisfy the minds of so many of his majesty's good subjects who must needs be concerned for the issue of so great an accident, to give this short but true account of it. On the 2nd instant at one o'clock in the morning there happened to break out a sad and deplorable fire in Pud- ding-lane, near New Fish-streetj which falling out at that SOMV ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 377 hour of the night, and in a quarter of the town so close built with wooden pitched houses, spread itself so far before day, and with such distraction to the inhabitants and neighbours, that care was not taken for the timely preventing the further diffusion of it, by pulling down houses, as ought to have been ; so that the lamentable iire in a short time became too big to be mastered by any engines, or working near it. It fell out most unhappily too, that a violent easterly wind fomented it, and kept it burning all that day, and the night following, spreading itself up to Gracechurch-street, and downward from Cannon-street to the Avater side as far as the Three Cranes in the Vintry. The people in all parts about it were distracted by the vastuess of it, and their particular care was to carry away their goods.: many attempts were made to prevent the spreading of it by pulling down houses, and making great 'intervals, but aU in vam, the fire seizing upon the timber and rubbish, and so continuing itself, even through those places, and raging in a bright flame all Monday and Tuesday, notwithstanding his majesty's own, and his royal highness's indefatigable and personal pains to apply all possible means to prevent it ; calling upon and helping the people with their guards, and a great number of nobility and gentry unweariedly assisting therein, for which they were requited with a thousand blessings from the poor distressed people. By the favour of God the wind slacked a little on Tuesday night, and the flames meeting with brick buildings at the Temple, by little and little it was observed to lose its force on that side, so that on Wednesday morning we began to hope well, and his royal highness never departing nor slackening his personal care, wrought so well that day, assisted in some parts by 378 S.OME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. tlie lords of the council before and behind it, that a stop was put to it at the Temple church ; near Holborn-bridge ; Pye-corner ; Aldersgate ; Cripplegate ; near the lower end of Coleman-street ; at the end of Basinghall-street ; by the Postern at the upper end of Bishopsgate-street ; and Leadenhall-street ; at the standard in Cornhill ; at the church in Fenchurch-street ; near Clothworkers hall in IVIincing-lane ; in the middle of Mark-lane ; and at the Tower-dock. On Thursday, by the blessing of God, it was wholly beat down and extinguished. But that evening it burst out afresh at the Temple, by the falling of some sparks (as is supposed) upon a pile of wooden buildings; but his royal highness, who watched there the whole night in person, by the great labour and diligence used, and especially by applying powder to blow up the houses about it, before day happily mastered it. Divers strangers, Dutch and French, were, during the fire, apprehended upon suspicion that they contributed maliciously to it, who are all imprisoned, and informations prepared to make severe inquisition hereupon by my lord chief -justice Keeling, assisted by some of the lords of the privy council, and some principal members of the city : notwithstanding which suspicions, the manner of the burning all along in a train, and so blown forward in all its ways by strong winds, makes us conclude the whole was an effect of an unhappy chance, or to speak better, the heavy hand of God upon us, for our sins, showing us the teiTor of his judgment, in thus raising the fire, and immediately after his miraculous and never enough to be acknowledged mercy, in putting a stop to it when we were in the last despair, and that aU attempts for the quenching it, however industriously pursued, seemed in- SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 379 sufficient. His majesty then sat hourly in council, and ever since hath continued in making rounds about the city, in all parts of it where the danger and mischief was greatest, till this morning that he hath sent his grace the duke of Albemarle, whom he hath called for to assist him in this great occasion ; to put his happy and successful hand to the finishing this memorable deHverance. About the Tower, the seasonable orders given for pulling down houses to secure the magazines of powder, was most especially successful, that part being up the wind, notwithstanding which, it came almost to the very gates of it, so as by the early provision, the several stores of war lodged in the Tower were entirely saved ; and we have hitherto this infinite cause particularly to give God thanks, that the fire did not happen in any of those places where his majesty's naval stores are kept ; so as though it hath pleased God to visit us with his own hand, he hath not, by disfurnishing us with the means of carrying on the war, subjected us to our enemies. It must be observed, that this fire happened at a part of the town where, though the commodities were not very rich, yet they were so bulky that they could not be removed, so that the inhabitants of that part where it first began have sustained very great loss ; but by the best inquuy we can make, the other parts of the town, where the commodities were of greater value, took the alarm so early that they saved most of their goods of value, which possibly may have diminished the loss ; though some think, that if the whole industry of the in- habitants had been applied to the stopping of the fire, and not to the saving their particular goods, the success might have been much better, not only to the public, but to many of them in their own particulars. 380 SOME ACCOUNT OF TEE FIRE OF LONDON. Through this sad accident it is easy to be imagined how many persons were necessitated to remove themselves and goods into the open fields, where they were forced to continue some time, which could not but work compassion in the beholders ; but his majesty's care was most signal on this occasion, who, besides his personal pains, was frequent in consulting aU ways for relieving those dis- tressed persons, which produced so good effect, as well by his majesty's proclamations, and orders issued to the neighbouring justices of the peace, to encourage the send- ing provisions into the markets, which are publicly knoAvn, as by other directions, that when his majesty, fearing lest other orders might not yet have been sufficient, had com- manded the victualler of his navy to send bread into Moorfields for the relief of the poor, which for the more speedy supply he sent in biscuit out of the sea stores ; it was found that the markets had been already so well supplied, that the people, being unaccustomed to that kind of bread, declined it, and so it was returned in great part to his majesty's stores again, without any use made of it. And we cannot but observe to the confusion of aU his majesty's enemies, who endeavoured to persuade the world abroad of great parties and disaffection at home, ao'ainst his majesty's government ; that a greater instance of the affections of this city could never be given than hath now been given in this sad and most deplorable accident, when, if at any time, disorder might have been expected, from the losses, distractions, and almost despera- tion of some persons in their private fortunes, thousands of people not having habitations to cover them. And yet all this time it hath been so far fi'om any appearance of designs or attempts against his majesty's government, SmiB ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON 381 that his majesty, and his royal brother, out of their care to stop and prevent the fire, exposing frequently their persons, with very small attendants, in all parts of the town, sometimes even to be intermixed with those who laboured in the business ; yet nevertheless, there hath not been observed so much as a murmuring word to fall from any; but, on the contrary, even those persons whose losses render their conditions most desperate, and to be fit objects- of others prayers, beholding those frequent instances of his majesty's care of his people, forgot their own misery, and filled the streets, with their prayers for his majesty, whose trouble they seemed to compassionate before their own. Whitehall, Sept. 12. His majesty in a religious sense of God's heavy hand upon this kingdom, in the late dreadful fire happened in the city of Loudon, hath been pleased to order that the tenth October next be observed as a general and solemn fast throughout England, Wales, &c., and that the distresses of those who have more par- ticularly suffered in that calamity be on that day most effectually recommended to the charity of all well-disposed Christians, in the respective churches and chapels of this kingdom, to be afterward, by the hands of the lord mayor of the city of London, distributed for the relief of such as shall be found most to need it. Whitehall, Sept. 15. His majesty pursuing, with a gracious impatience, his pious care for the speedy restora- tion of his city of London, was pleased to pass the twelfth instant his declaration in council to his city of London upon that subject, full of that princely tenderness and affection which he is pleased on all occasions to express for that his beloved city. In the first place, upon the desii'es of the lord mayor 382 SOME ACCOUNT OF TEE FIRE OP LONDON. and court of aldermen, he is pleased to prohibit the hasty building of any edifice, till such speedy care be taken for the re-edification of the city as may best secure it from the like accidents, and raise it to a greater beauty and comeliness than formerly it had ; the lord mayor and aldermen being required to pull down what shall contrary to this prohibition be erected, and return the names of such refractory persons to his majesty and his council, to be proceeded against according to their deserts. That any considerable number of men addressing them- selves to the court of aldermen, and manifesting in what places their ground lies upon which they intend to build, sliall in short time receive such order and direction that they shall have no cause to complain. That no person erect any house or building but of brick or stone, that they be encouraged to practise the good husbandry of strongly arching then.' cellars, by which divers persons have received notable benefit in the late fire. That Fleet-street, Cheapside, Cornhill, and all other eminent streets, be of a breadth, to prevent the mischief one side may receive from the other by fire ; that no streets, especially near the water, be so narrow as to make the passages uneasy or inconvenient ; nor any alleys or lanes erected but upon necessity, for which there shall be published rules and particular orders. That a fair quay and wharf be left on all the river side, no houses to be erected but at a distance declared by the rules. That none of those houses next the river be inhabited by brewers, dyers, or sugar-bakers, who, by their continual smoke, contribute much to the unhealthi- ness of the adjacent places ; but that such places be allot- ted them by the lord mayor and court of aldermen, as SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 383 may be convenient for them, without prejudice of the neighbourhood. That the lord mayor and court of aldermen cause an exact survey to be made of the ruins, that it may appear to whom the houses and ground did belong, what term the occupiers were possessed of, what rents were paid, and to whom the reversions and inheritances did apper- tain, for the satisfying of all interests, that no man s right be sacrificed to the public convenience. After which a plot and model shall be framed of the whole building, which no doubt may so well please all persons, as to induce them willingly to conform to such rules and orders as shall be agreed to. His majesty likewise recommends the speedy building some of those many churches which have been burnt, to the charity and magnanimity of well-disposed persons, whom he will direct and assist in the model, and by his bounty encourage all other ways that shall be desired. And to encourage the work by his example, his majesty will use all expedition to rebuild the custom-house, and enlarge it for the more convenience of the merchants, in the place where it formerly stood : and upon all his own lands, will part with any thing of his own right and benefit, for the advancement of the public benefit and beauty of the city ; and remit to all 'persons who shall erect any new buildings, according to this his gracious declaration, all duties arising from hearth-money for the space of seven years ; as by the declaration itself more at large appears. Whitehall, Sept. 18. This day was presented to his majesty by his highness the Duke of York, Edmundbury Godfrey, Esq., one of his majesty's justices of the peace for the county of Middlesex, and city and liberty of 384 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDOlf. Westniinster, who, after the public thanks and acknow- ledgment of his eminent service done in helping to suppress the late fire in the city and liberty of London, received the honour of knighthood, Whitehall^ Sept. 29. This day, by warrant from his majesty's principal secretaries of state, the person of Valentine Knight was committed to the custody of one of his majesty's messengers in ordinary, for having pre- sumed to publish in print certain propositions for rebuild- ing the city of London, with considerable advantages to his majesty's revenue by it, as if his majesty would draAV benefit to himself from so public a calamity of his people, of which his majesty is known to have so deep sense, that he is pleased to seek rather by aU means to give them ease under it. Westminster, Sept. 28. This day the house of commons resolved, That the humble thanks of the house should be given his majesty for his great care and endeavour to pre- vent the burning of the city. Leghorn, Oct. 18. The merchants here, in consideration of the losses sustained in London by the late fire, have out of their charity, raised near 300/. towards their relief, which they intend speedily to return, to be distributed as his majesty pleases. London, Oct. 29. This day Sir William Bolton, Lord Mayor for the year ensuiug, went in his coach to West- minster, attended by his brethren the aldermen, the sheriffs, and other eminent citizens in theii* coaches, where he was sworn with the usual ceremonies. Whitehall, Oct. 30. Sir Jonas Moore, with some other proprietors of houses lately demolished by the fire, in Fleet-street, having prayed hberty to rebuild the same. SOME A ceo UXT OF THE FIEE OF LONDON. 385 accordmg to such model, form and scantling as should be set them by the committee appointed bj his mafesty for the advancement of that great work (to which they offered with aU wmingness to submit and conform them selves) ; itwas this day ordered by his majesty in council, that thesaxd proprietors shaH have their liberty to re-edif^ their buildmgs accordin 2:ly. ^ By Stat. 19 and 20 Car;2. Any three or more of the judges were authorized to hear and determine all differ- ences between landlords and tenants, or occupiers of buildings or other things by the tire demolished They were, without the formalities of courts of law or equity upon the inquisition or verdict of Jurors, testimonies of witnesses upon oath, examination of persons interested or otherwise, to determine all differences: they were ' in complaints, to issue out notes of time and place for'the parties_ attendance, and proceed to make orders: thei determinations were final, without appeal, writ of erro ■ or reversal. Their orders were to be obeyed by a 1 persons, and binding to representatives for ever The judgments and determinations were recorded in a book by them signed; which book is placed and intrusted in thi custody of the lord mayor and aldermen for the time being, to remain as a perpetual and lastino- record The judges wei-e not to take any fee or reward, directly or incn-ectly, for any thing t^,,j did by virtue of that act. AU differences not being determined, the act was con tinned m force till Sept. 29, 1672. In o,.atitude to the memory of these judges, the city caused their pictures, in full proportion I tlieir scarlet robes, to be set up in the Guildhall with +i..- underneath, viz. :-! ^^^^^^^^^^J. ^^th their names 386 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FinE OF LONDON. Sir Heneage Finch, Sir John Vaughan, Sir Orlando Bridgmau, Sir John North, Sir Matthew Hale, Sir Thomas Twisdeii, Sir Richard Rainsford, Sir Christopher Turner, Sir Edward Turner, Sir William Wyld, Sir Thomas Tyrril, Sir Hugh Windham, Sir John Archer, Sir William EUys, Sir William Morton, Sir Edward Thurland, Sir Robert Atkins, Sir Timothy Lyttleton, Sir Samuel Brown, Sir John Kelynge, Sir Edward Atkins, Sir William Windham. The city rose out of its ashes after the dreadful fire, as it was first built, not presently, by building continued streets, in any one part, but first here a house and there a house, to which others by degrees were joined; till, at last, single houses were united into whole streets ; whole streets into one beautiful city ; not merely as before, a great and magnificent city, in a short time it not only excelled itself, but any other city in the world, that comes near it, either in largeness or number of inhabitants. The beginning of the year 1670, the city of London was rebuilt, with more space and splendour than had been before seen in England. The act for rebuilding it was drawn by Sir Matthew Hale, with such true judgment and foresight, that the whole city was raised out of its ashes without any suits of law ; which if that bill had not pre- vented them, would have brought a second charge on the city, not much less than the fire itself had been. And upon that, to the amazement of all Europe, London was, in four years time, rebuilt with so much beauty and mag- nificence, that they who saw it in both states, before and after the fire, could not reflect on it without wondering where the wealth could be found to bear so vast a loss as SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 387 was made by the fire, and so prodigious an expense as Avas inciuTcd in the rebuilding. This good and great work was very much forwarded by Su- William Turner, Lord Mayor, 1669. He was so much honoured and beloved, that at the end of the year they chose him ao-ain • but he refused re-appointment, as being an unusual thing. Whatever the unfortunate citizens of London suffered by this dreadful fire, it is manifest, that a greater blessing could not have happened for the good of posterity ; for instead of very narrow, crooked, and incommodious streets, dark, irregular and ill-contrived wooden houses, ■with their several stories jutting out, or hanging over each other, whereby the circulation of the air was obstructed, noisome vapours harboured, and verminous, pestilential atoms nourished, as is manifest, by the city not beino- clear of the plague for twenty-five years before, and only free from contagion three years in above seventy, but by enlarging the streets, and the modern way of building, there is such a free circulation of air, that offensive vapours are expelled, and the city freed from pestilential symptoms; so that it may now justly be averred that there is no place in the kingdom where the inhabitants enjoy a better state of health, or live to a greater age, than do the citizens of London. Several Opinions concerning the Causes of the Great Fire. Whether the fire came casually or on design, remains still a secret ; and though the general opinion might be that it was casual, yet there were presumptions on the other side of a very odd nature. Great calamities naturally produce 388 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. various conjectures ; men seldom considering that the most stupendous effects often proceed from minute causes, or remote accidents. People failed not to give scope to their imaginations, and to form guesses concerning the causes and authors of this afflicting and astonishing mis- fortune. The king in his speech calls it " God's Judgment ; " the pious and religious, and at first all other men, generally and naturally ascribed it to the just vengeance of heaven, on a city where vice and immorality reigned so openly and shamefully, which had not been suffi- ciently humbled by the raging pestilence of the foregoing year. Sir Edward Turner, Speaker of the House of Commons, at presenting bills for the royal assent, says, " We must for ever with humility acknov,dcdge the justice of God in punishing this whole nation by the late dreadful con- flagration of London." The act of common council for rebuilding, says, " The fire was, by all, justly discerned as a most sad and dismal judgment of heaven." But time soon produced abundance of suspicions and variety of opinions concerning the means and instruments made use of. There were some so bold as even to suspect the king. These reports, and Oates and Bedloe's narratives, are suppositions too monstrous, and the evidence too wretch- edly mean to deserve consideration. The citizens were not well satisfied with the duke of York's behaviour ; they thought he was a little too gay and negligent for such an occasion ; that his look and air discovered the pleasure he took in the dreadful spectacle : on which account, a jealousy that he was concerned in it SOME ACCOUNT CF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 380 was spread with great industry, but with very little appearance of truth. Some suspected it was an insidious way of the Dutch and French making war upon the English ; their two fleets being then nearest to a conjunction. "What increased the suspicion was, that some criminals that suffered were said to be under the direction of a committee at London, and received orders from another council in Holland. Not long before the fire the Fi'ench sent the governor of Chousey in a small boat with a letter to major-general Lambert, then prisoner in Guernsey, to offer him terms to contrive the delivery of that island to them. Divers strangers, both French and Dutch, were appre- hended upon suspicion, imprisoned, and strictly examined. It was said, a Dutch boy of ten years old, confessed that his father, his uncle, and himself, had thrown fire-balls into the house where the fire began, through a window which stood open. The English fleet had some time before landed on the Vly, an island near the Texel, and burnt it ; upon Avhicli some came to De Wit, and offered, in revenge, if they were but assisted to set London on fire ; but he rejected the [villanous] proposal, and thought no more on it till he heard the city was burnt. The fire which laid so great a part of London in ashes, gave a fresh occasion to the enemies of the republicans to chai'ge them with being the malicious authors thereof; because the fire happened to break out the third of Sep- tember, a day esteemed fortunate to the republicans, on account of the victories of Dunbar and Worcester, obtained by Oliver Cromwell, when general of the armies of the commonwealth of England. In the April before, some commonwealth men were 390 SOME ACCOUNT OF TEE FIRE OF LONDON. found in a plot, and hanged ; and at their execution con- fessed, that they had been requested to assist in a design of firing London on the second of September. At the trial of the conspu'ators at the Old Bailey, it appeared, a design was laid to surprise the Tower and fire the city ; the third of September was pitched on for the attempt, as being found by Lilly's almanack, and a scheme erected for that purpose, to be a lucky day. The third of September was a day auspicious and full of expectation from one J)arty, but at this time ominous and direful to the nation. The city was burnt at the time projected and prognosticated ; which gave a strong suspicion, though not a proof, of the authors and promoters of it. The Dutch were pressed by the commonwealth men to invade England, and were assured of powerful assistance, and hopes of a general insurrection, but they would not venture in so hazardous a design. Though several persons were imj)risoned, it was not possible to discover, or prove, that the house where this dreadful calamity began, was fired on purpose. "Whether it was wilful or accidental was a long time a party dispute. The great talk at that time was, Who were the burners of the city ? Some said it was contrived and carried on by a conspiracy of the Papists and Jesuits, which was afterward offered to be made appear in the popish plot. And there came in so many testimonies to prove that it was the plotted weapon of the Papists, as caused the parliament to appoint a committee to inquire into it, and receive informations. By the dreadful fire in 1666, multitudes of people lost their estates, goods, and merchandise ; and many f amihes, once in flourishing circumstances, were reduced to beg- SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 391 gary. From the inscription on the plinth of the lower pedestal of the Monument it appears that the Papists were considered to be the authors of this fire; the parliament" being of this persuasion, addressed the king to issue a proclamation, requiiing all popish priests and Jesuits to depart the kingdom within a month; and appointed a committee, who received evidence of some Papists who were seen throwing fire-balls into houses, and of others who had inflammable materials in their pockets. This sad disaster produced some kind of liberty to the non- conformists. A sudden and dreadful massacre of the Protestants was feared ; and the suspicion confirmed by particular kinds of knives found after the fire in bai-rels. Several evidences were given to the committee that men were seen in several parts of the city casting fire-balls into houses; some that were brought to the guard of soldiers, and to the duke of York, but were never heard of afterwards. Some weeks after Sir Robert Brooks, chairman of the committee, went to France, and as he was ferried over a river was drowned, with a kinsman of his, and the business drowned with him. Gates, in his narrative, says, The dreadful fire in 1666 was principally managed by Strange, the provincial of the Jesuits, in which the society employed eighty or eighty-six men, and spent seven hundred fire-balls; and over all their vast espense, they were fourteen thousand pounds gainers by the plunder ; among which was a box of jewels consisting of a thousand carats of diamonds. He farther learned, that the fire in Southwark in 1676 was brought about by the like means j and though in that they were at the expense of a thousand pounds, they made shift to get two thousand clear into their own pockets. S92 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LOXDOy. llr. Echard was told by an eminent prelate, that Dr, Grant, a Papist, was strongly suspected, wlio having a share in the water-works, contrived, as is believed, to «top up the pipes the night before the fire broke out, so that it was many hours before any water could be got after the usual manner. Dr. Lloyd, afterward bishop of "Worcester, told Dr. Burnett, that one Grant, a Papist, had sometime before applied himself to Lloyd, who had great interest with the countess of Clarendon (who had a large estate in the new river, which is brought from Ware to London), and said he could raise that estate considerably if she would make him a trustee for her. His schemes were probable, and he was made one of the board that governed that matter ; and by that he had a right to come as often as he pleased to view their works at Islington. He went thither the Saturday before the fire broke out, and called for the key of the place where the heads of the pipes were, and turned all the cocks, which were then open, and stopped the water, and -n-ent away, and carried the keys with him. When the fire broke out next morning, they opened the pipes in the streets to find water, but there was none. Some hours were lost in sending to Islington, where the doors were to be broke open, and the cocks turned ; and it was long before the water got from Islington. Grant denied that he turned the cocks; but the officer of the works affirmed that he had, according to order, set them all a-running, and that no person had got the keys from him but Grant ; who confessed he had carried away the keys, but did it vnthout design. When we consider, several depositions were made after the fire, of its breaking out in several different places at the same time, and that one man confessed his setting SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON: 893 fire to the houses where it began, when he was executed for It: when we remember bishop Lloyd's testimony concerning Grant ; we cannot easily be convinced that it was entii-ely accidental. Bishop Kennet gives the following account : there was but one man tried at the Old Bailey for being the incendiary, who was convicted by his own confession, and executed for it. His name was Roger * Hubert a French Huguenot f of Rohan in Normaudy. Some people shammed away this confession, and said he was Non comjjos mentis; and had a mind, it seems, to assume the glory of being hanged for the greatest villain. Others say he was sober and penitent; and being, after con- viction, carried through the ruins to show where he put fire, he himself dii-ected them through the ashes and rubbish, and pointed out the spot where the first burning house stood. The fire was generally charged on the Papists; one Hubert, a Frenchman, who was seized in Essex as he was flying to France, confessed he had begun the conflagration. He was blindfolded, and purposely conducted to ivi-ong places, which he told them it was not where he began the flames ; but when he was brought to the right place, he confessed that was Avhere he threw the fire-ball into the baker's house, the place where the fatal fire began, which he persisted in to the last moments of his execution. He was hanged upon no other evidence: though his broken account made some believe him melancholy mad. But Oates several years afterwards informed the world the execrable deed was performed by a knot of eighty Jesuits, friars, and priests, of several nations. * Eobert, Eapin. f Bishop Burnet and some others say he was a Papist. 394 SOME ACCOUNT OF TEE FIBE OF LOXDOif. After all examinations there was but one man tried for beino- the incendiaiy, who confessing tbe fact was exe- cuted for it : this was Eobert Hubert, a French Huguenot of Rohan in Normandy, a person falsely said to be a Papist, but really a sort of lunatic, who by mere accident was brought into England just before the breaking out of the fire, but not landed till two days after, as appeared by tbe evidence of Laurence Peterson, the master of the ship who had him on board. It was soon after complained of, that Hubert was not sufficiently examined as to who set him to Avork, and who joined with him. And ]Mr. Hawles in his remarks upon Fitzharris's trial is bold to say, that the commons resolv- ing to examine Flubert upon that matter next day, Hubert was hanged before the hoiise sat, so could tell no farther tales. Lord Russel and Sir Henry Capel observed to the House of Commons (1G80) that those that were taken in cariyiug on that wicked act, were generally discharged without trial. In 1679 the House of Commons was suddenly alarmed with an information of a fresh design of the Papists to bui'n London a second time. The house of one Bird in Fetter-lane being set on fire, his servant Elizabeth Oxly, was suspected of firing it wilfully, and sent to prison. She confessed the fact, and declared she had been employed to do it by one Stubbs, a Papist, who had promised her five pounds. Stubbs being taken up, confessed he per- suaded her to it, and that father Giffard his confessor put him upon it ; telling him it was no sin to bum all the hoTises of heretics. He added he had frequent conferences on this affair vdth Giffard and two Irishmen. Stubbs and the maid declared, the Papists were to make an insur- SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LOXDOX. 895 rection, and expected an aniiy of sixty thousand men from France. It was generally inferred from this inci- dent, that it was not Giffard's fault [nor that of his party] that the city of London was not burnt as in the year 1666 : and confirmed those in theii' opinion who thought that general conflagration v^-as the contrivance and work of the Papists. The hand of man was made use of in the beginning and carrying on of this fire. The beginning of the fire at such a time, wlien there had been so much hot weather which had dried the houses, and made them the more fit for fuel ; the beginning of it in such a place, v\-here there were so many timber houses, and the shops filled "ndth so much combustible matter ; and the beginning of it just when the wind blew so fiercely upon that corner to- ward the rest of the city, which then was like tinder to the sparks ; this doth smell of a Popish design, hatched in the same nest with the gunpowder plot. The world suificiently knows how correspondent this is to Popish principles and practices ; they might, without any scruple of their kinds of conscience, burn an heretical city, as they count it, into ashes : for beside the dispensations they can have from his Holiness (rather his TTickedness) it is not imlikely but they count such an action as this meritorious. Lord Chancellor (Earl of Nottingham) in his speech in giving judgment against Lord Viscount Stafford, said, " Who can doubt any longer that London was burnt by Papists ? " though there was not one word in the whole trial relating to it. The inscription on the plinth of the lower pedestal of the Monument has given an opportunity to the reverend Mr. Crookshanks to say, it appears that the Papists were B96 sons ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. the authors of the fire; and that the Parliament being of the same persuasion addi'essed the king. The inscription is in English x " This pillar was set up in perpetual remembrance of the most dreadful burning of this Protestant city, begun and carried on by the treachery and malice of the Popish faction, in the beginning of September, in the year of our Lord 1666. In order to the carrying on they: horrid plot for extirpating the Protestant religion and old English liberty, and introducing Popery and slavery." This inscription was erased by king James upon his succession to the crown ; but reinscribed presently after the revolution, in such deep characters as are not easily blotted out. The latter part of the inscription on the north side \Secl furor painsticus^ qui tarn dira patravit, nondum restinguitur,'] containing an offensive truth, was erased at kino" James's accession, and re-inscribed soon after the revolution. ]Mr. Pope differs much in his opinion concei-ning these inscriptions, when he says, "Where London's column, pointing at the sides, Like a tall bully, rears its head, and lies. It seems almost wonderful (says the author of the Craftsman) that the plague was not as peremptorily im puted to the Papists as the fire. There was a general suspicion of incendiaries laying combustible stuff in many places, having observed several houses to be on fire at the same time: but we are told, God with his great bellows did blow upon it, and made it spread quickly, and horrible flakes of fire mounted to the skies. There was a strange concurrence of several natural SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 397 causes wliich occasioned the fire so vigorously to spread and increase. There was a great supineuess and negligence in the people of the house where it began : it began between one or two o'clock after midnight, when all were in a dead sleep : on a Saturday night, when many of the eminent citizens, merchants, and others, were retired into the country, and left servants to look to their city houses : it happened in the long vacation, at a time of year when many wealthy citizens are wont to be in the country at fairs, or getting in debts, and making up accounts with their chapmen. The houses where it began were mostly built of timber, and those very old : the closeness and narrowness of the streets did much facilitate the progress of the fire, and prevented the bringing in engines. The wares and com- modities stowed and vended in those parts wei-e most combustible ; as oil, pitch, tar, cordage, hemp, fiax, rosin, was, butter, cheese, wine, brandy, sugar, and such like. The warmth of the preceding season had so dried the timber that it was never more apt to take fire ; and an easterly wind (which is the driest of all) had blown for several days together before, and at that time very strongly. The unexpected failing of the water from the New Eiver ; the engine at London-bridge called the Thames water-tower being out of order, was in a few hours itself burnt down, so that the pipes which conveyed the water from thence through the streets were soon empty. Besides, there was an unusual negligence at first, and a confidence of easily quenching it, and of its stopping at ieveral places afterward ; which at last turned into con- fusion, consternation, and despair : people choosing rather 898 SOJIS ACCOUNT OF TEE FIRE OF LONDON. by flight to save their goods, than by a vigorous opposition to save their own houses and the whole city. Thus a small spark, from an unknown cause, for want of timely care, increased to such a flame, that nothing could extinguish, which laid waste the greatest part of the city in three days' time. The king in his speech to the parliament says, " God be thanked for our meeting together in this place : little time hath passed since we were almost in despau- of hav- ing this place left to meet in. You see the dismal ruins the fire hath made : and nothing but a miracle of God's mercy could have preserved what is left from the same destruction." "When the presumptions of the city's being burnt by design came to be laid before a committee of the House of Commons, they were found of no weight; and the many stories, published at that time with great assurance, were declared void of credibility. After all, it may perhaps be queried, whether the fore- going rumours and examinations, though incongruous with each other, may not afford some colour to a whisper, that the government itself was not without some ground of suspicion of having been the secret cause of the con- flagration ; to afford an opportunity of restoring the capital of the nation, in a manner more secure from future contagion, more generally wholesome for the in- habitants, more safe fi'om fires, and more beautiful on the whole from the united effect of all these salutary purposes. Such however has been the resiilt of that temporary disaster, whether accidental or not ; and if intended, a more pardonable instance of doing evil that good may come of it, cannot perhaps be produced. some account of the fire of london. 399 Of the Monument. The Act of Parliament 19 and 20, Car. II, enacts, that, The better to preserve the memory of this dreadful visitation, a column or pillar of brass or stone be erected on, or as near unto the place where the fire unhappily began, as conveniently may be ; in perpetual remembrance thereof : with such inscription thereon as the lord mayor and court of aldermen shall direct. In obedience to which act, the fine piece of architecture called The Monument., was erected, at the expense of fourteen thousand five hundred pounds : it is the design of the gi-eat Sir Christopher Wren, and undoubtedly the finest modern column in the world, and in some respects may vie with the most famous of antiquity, being twenty- four feet higher than Trajan's pillar at Rome. It is of the Doric order, fluted; its altitude, two hundred and two feet from the ground ; greatest diameter of the body fifteen feet ; the ground bounded by the plinth or lower part of the pedestal, twenty-eight feet square ; and the pedestal is in altitude forty feet ; all of Portland stone. Within is a large staircase of black marble, containing three hundred forty-five steps, ten inches and a half broad, and six inches risers : a balcony within thirty-tw^o feet from the top, whereon is a spacious and curious gilded flame, very suitable to the intent of the whole column. On the front or west side of the die of the pedestal of this magnificent column is finely carved a curious emblem of this tragical scene, by the masterly hand of Mr. Gabriel Gibber. The eleven principal figures are in alto, the rest in basso relievo. At the north end of the plain the city is represented in flames, and the inhabitants in consternation, their arms 400 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. extended upward, crying for succour. A little nearer tlie horizon, the anns, cap of maintenance, and other ensigns of the city's grandeur, partly buried under the ruins. On the ruins lies the figure of a woman crowned with a castle, her breasts pregnant, and in her hand a sword ; represent- ing the strong, plentiful, and well-governed city of Lon- don in distress. The king is represented on a place ascended to by three steps, providing by his power and prudence for the comfort of his citizens and ornament of his city. On the steps stand three women : 1. Liberty, having in her right hand a hat wherein the word Liberty^ denoting the freedom or liberty given these who engaged three years in the work. 2. Ichnographia, with rule and compasses in one hand, and a scroll in the other; near her the emblem of Industry, a bee-hive. 3. Imagination, holding the emblem of Invention. All which intimate, that the speedy re-erection of the city was principally owing to liberty, imagination, contrivance, art, and industry. There is the figure of Time raising the woman in distress, and Providence with a winged hand containing an eye, promising peace and plenty, by pointing to those two figures in the clouds. Behind the king the work is going forward. Under the king's feet appears Envy enraged at the prospect of success, and blowing flames out of his mouth. The figure of a lion with one fore-foot tied up, and the muzzle of a cannon, denote this deplo- rable misfortune to have happened in time of war : and Mars with a chaplet in his hand is an emblem of approach- ing peace. Round the cornice are noble enrichments of trophy work, the king's arms, sword, cap of maintenance, &c., at the angles, four very large dragons, the supporters of the city arms. On this column of perpetual remembrance the lord S03IE ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE OF LONDON. 401 mayor and court of aldermen have ordered inscriptions to be cut in Latin. ^ That on the north side describes the desohation of the city in ashes ; and is thus translated :— " In the year of Christ 1666, the second day of Sei^tem- ber, eastward from hence, at the distance of two hundred and two feet (the height of this column), about midnight a most terrible fire broke out, which, driven by a hrgh wind, not only wasted the adjacent parts, but also placls very remote, with incredible noise and fury ; it consumed eighty-nine churches, the city gates, Guildhall, many pubhc structures, hospitals, schools, libraries, a vast number of stately edifices, thirteen thousand two hundred dwelling-houses, four hundred streets; of twenty-six wards it entirely consumed fifteen, and left eight others shattered and half burnt ; the mins of the city were four hundred and thii'ty-six acres, from the Tower by the Thames side to the Temple church, and from the north- east gate of the city wall to Holborn bridge; to the estates and fortunes of the citizens it was merciless, but to their Uves very favourable ; * that it might in all things resemble the last conflagration of the world." ^ The destruction was sudden, for in a small space of time, the same city was seen most flourishing, and reduced to nothing. Three days after, when this fatal fire had baffled all human counsels and endeavours, in the opinions of all, as it were by the wiH of Heaven, it stopped, and on every side was extinguished. ^ The south side describes the glorious restoration of the city ; and has been thus translated : — on^l ^iJZ IJV P^^'^^^o^s circumstance, amidst aU tliis desti-uction w-f . % ^""-'Tv' ""? P^'''°'' ^^^ ^^°^° either to be burnt, or trodden to death in the streets. ^ nit, ui 2d 402 SOME ACCOUNT OF TUB FIRE OF LONDON. " diaries the second, son of Charles the martyr, king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, a most gracious prince, commiserating the deplorable state of things, while the ruins were yet smoking, provided for the comfort of his citizens and the ornament of his city ; remitted their taxes, and referred the petitions of the magistrates and inhabitants to the parliament, who imme- diately passed an act, that public buildings should be restored to greater beauty with public money, to be raised by an imposition on coals ; that churches, and the cathe- dral of St. Paul's, should be rebuilt from their foundations with aU magnificence; that bridges, gates, and prisons should be made new ; the sewers cleansed ; the streets made strait and regular ; such as were steep, levelled, and those too narrow, made wider; markets and shambles removed to separate places. They also enacted, that every house should be built with party walls, and all in front raised of equal height, and those walls all of square stone or brick ; and that no man should delay beyond the space of seven years. Moreover, care was taken by lav/ to prevent all suits about their bounds. Also, anniversary pi'ayers were enjoined ;* and to perpetuate the memory hereof to posterity, they caused this column to be erected. The work was carried on with diligence, and London is restored ; but whether with greater speed or beauty may be made a question. Three years' time saw that finished which was supposed to be the business of an age." * By stat. 19 and 20 Car. II. it is enacted, That tlie citizens of Lon- don, and their successors for the time to come, may retain the memory o1 so sad a desolation, and reflect serionsly on the manifold iniquities, which are the unhappy causes of such judgments : Be it therefore enacted, That the second day of September (unless the same happen to be Sunday, and if so, then the next day following) be yearly for ever hereafter observed as a day of fasting and humiliation within the said city and liberties thereof, to implore the mercy of Almighty God upon the said city ; to make devout prayers and sup^olications unto Him, to divert the lil-:e calamity for the time to come. SOME ACCOUNT OF TEE FIEE OF LONDON- Wo The east side over the door, has an inscription thus Englished : — " This pillar was begun, Sir Richard Ford, knight, being lord mayor of London, in the year 1671 : carried on in the mayoralties of Sir George Waterman, knight ; Sir Robert Hanson, knight; Sir William Hooker, knight; Sir Robert Viner, knight ; Sir Joseph Sheldon, knight ; and finished, Sir Thomas Davis, knight, being lord Mayor, ia the year 1677." The inscription on the plinth of the lower pedestal is in page 396. On a stone in the front of the house built on the spot where the fire began, there was (very lately,) the following inscription : — " Here, by the permission of Heaven, hell Tiroke loose on this Protestant city from the malicious hearts of barbarous Papists, by the hand of their agent Hubert, who confessed, and on the i-uins of this place declared this fact, for which he was hanged, viz., That he here began the dreadful fire, which is described and pei-petuated on and by the neigh-° bouring pillar. Erected I68O5 in the mayoralty of Sii Patience Ward, knight." 404 THE EARL OF CLARENDON'S ACCOUNT OF THE GEEAT FIEE. It was upon the first day of that September, in the dismal year of 1666 (in which many prodigies were expected, and so many really fell out), that the memorable and terrible fire brake out in London, which began about midnight, or nearer the morning of Sunday, in a baker's house, at the end of Thames Street, next the Tower, there being many little narrow alleys, and very poor houses about the place where it first appeared ; and then finding such store of combustible materials, as that street is always furnished with in timber houses, the fire prevailed so powerfully, that that whole street and the neighbourhood was in so short a time turned to ashes, that few persons had time to save and preserve any of their goods ; but were a heap of people almost as dead with the sudden distraction, as the ruins were which they sustained. The magistrates of the city assembled quickly together, and with the usual reme- dies of buckets, which they were provided with : but the fii*e was too ravenous to be extinguished with such quan- tities of water as those instruments could apply to it, and fastened still upon new materials before it had destroyed the old. And though it .raged furiously all that day, to that degree tliut all men stood amazed, as spectators only, FIRE OF LONDON. 405 no man knowing what remedy to apply, nor the magis- trates what orders to give : yet it kept within some com- pass, burned what was next, and laid hold only on both sides ; and the greatest apprehension was of the Tower, and all considerations entered upon how to secure that place. But in the night the wind changed, and carried the danger from thence, but with so great and irresistible violence, that it scattered the fire from pursuino- the line it was in with all its force, and spread it over the city ; so that they, who went late to bed at a great distance from any place where the fire prevailed were awakened before morning with their own houses being in a flame; and whilst endeavour was used to quench that, other houses were discovered to be burning, which were near no place from whence they could imagine the fire could come ; all which kindled another fire in the breasts of men, almost as dangerous as that within their houses. Monday morning produced first a jealousy, and then an universal conclusion, that this fire came not by chance nor did they care where it began ; but the breaking out in several places at so great a distance from each other made it evident that it was by conspiracy and combina- tion. And this determination could not hold lono- without the discovery of the wicked authors, who were concluded to be all the Dutch and all the French in the town, thouo-h they had inhabited the same places above twenty years. All of that kind, or, if they were strangers, of what nation soever, were laid hold of ; and after all the ill usage that can consist in words, and some blows and kicks, they were thrown into prison. And shortly after, the same conclusion comprehended all the Eoman Catholics, who were in the same predicament of guilt and danger, and 406 FIRE OF LONDON. quickly fouud that their only safety consisted in keeping v.'ithia doors ; and yet some of them, and of quality, were taken by force out of their houses and carried to prison. When this rage spread as far as the fire, and every hour brought reports of some bloody effects of it, worse than in truth there were, the king distributed many of the Privy Council into several quarters of the city, to prevent, by their authorities, those inhumanities which he heard were committed. In the meantime, even they, or any other person, thought it not safe to declare, " that they believed that the fire came by accident, or that it was not-a plot of the Dutch and the French, and Papists, to burn the city;" Avhich was so generally believed, and in the best company, that he who said the contrary was suspected for a con- spirator, or at best a favourer of them. It could not be conceived how a house that was distant a mile from any part of the fire could suddenly be in a flame without some particular malice ; and this case fell out every hour. When a man at the farthest end of Bread Street had made a shift to get out of his house his best and most portable goods, because the fire had approached near thein, he no sooner had secured them, as he thought, in some friend's house in Holborn, which was believed a safe distance, but he saw that very house, and none else near it, in a sudden flame ; nor did there want, in this woeful distemper, the testimony of witnesses who saw this ^nllany committed, and apprehended men who they were ready to swear threw fire-balls into houses, which were presently burning. The Lord Hollis and Lord Ashley, who had their quarters assig-ned about Newgate Market and the streets adjacent, had many brought to them in custody for crimes of this nature ; and saw, within a very little distance from the place where they were, the people gathered FIRE OF LONDON 407 together in great disorder ; and as they came nearer saw a man in the middle of them without a hat or cloak, pulled and hauled, and very ill used, whom they knew to be a servant to the Portuguese ambassador, who was presently brought to them. And a substantial citizen was ready to take his oath, " that he saw that man put his hand into his pocket, and throw into a shop a fire- ball ;" upon which he saw the house immediately on fire : whereupon, being on the other side of the way, " and seeing this, he cried out to the people to stop that gentle- man, and made all the haste he could himself ;" but the people had first seized upon him, and taken away his sword, which he was ready to draw ; and he not speaking nor understanding English, they had used him in the manner set down before. The Lord Hollis told him what he was accused of, and " that he was seen to have thrown somewhat out of his pocket, which they thought to be a fire-ball, into a house which was now on fire ; and the. people had dihgently searched his pockets to find niore of the same commodity, but found nothing that they meant to accuse him of." The man standing in gTeat amazement to hear he was so charged, the Lord Hollis asked him, " what it was he pulled out of his pocket, and what it was he threw into the house :" to which he answered, " that he did not think that he had put his hand into his pocket ; but he remembered very well, that as he walked in the street he saw a piece of bread upon the ground, which he took up and laid upon a shelf in the next house ; which is a custom or superstition so natural to the Portuguese, that if the king of Portugal were walk- ing, and saw a piece of bread upon the ground, he would take it up with his own hand, and keep it till he saw a fit place to lay it down." 408 FIRE OF LOyDON. The house being in view, the Lords "with many of the people walked to it, and found -the piece of bread just ■within the door upon a board, where he said he laid it ; and the house on fire was two doors beyond it, which the man who was on the other side of the way, and saw this man put his hand into the house without staying, and presently after the fire brake out, concluded to be the same house ; which was very natiu'al in the fright that all men were in : nor did the Lords, though they were satisfied, set the poor man at liberty; but, as if there remained ground enough of suspicion, committed him to the constable, to be kept by him in his own house for some hours, when they pretended they would examine him again. Nor were any persons who were seized upon in the same manner, as multitudes were in all parts of the town, especially if they were strangers or Papists, presently discharged, when there was no reasonable ground to suspect ; but all sent to prison, where they were in much more security than they could have been in full liberty, after they were once known to have been suspected ; and most of them understood their commitment to be upon that ground, and were glad of it. The fire and the wind continued in the same excess all Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, tiU afternoon, and flung and scattered brands burning into all quarters ; the nights more terrible than the days, and the light the same, the Ho-ht of the fire supplying that of the sun. And indeed whoever was an eye-witness of that temble prospect, can never have so lively an image of the last conflagration till he beholds it ; the faces of all people in a wonderful de- jection and discomposure, not knowing where they could repose themselves for one hour's sleep, and no distance thought secure from the fire, which suddenly started up, FIRE OF LONDON. 409 before it was suspected ; so that people left their houses, and carried away their goods from many places which received no hurt, and , whither they afterwards returned again ; all the fields full of women and children, who had made a shift to bring thither some goods and conveniences to i-est upon, as safer than any houses, where yet they felt such intolerable heat and drought, as if they had been in the middle of the fire. The King and the Duke, who rode from one place to another, and put themselves into great dangers amongst the burniug and falling houses, to give advice and direction what was to be done, underwent as much fatigue as the meanest, and had as little sleep or rest; and the faces of all men appeared ghastly, and in the highest confusion. The country sent in carts to help those miserable people who had saved any goods : and by this means, and the help of coaches, all the neighbour villages were filled with more people than they could contain, and more goods than they could find room for ; so that those fields became likewise as full as the other about London and Westminster. It was observed, that where the fire prevailed most, when it met with brick buUdings, if it was not repulsed, it was so well resisted that it made a much slower pro- gress ; and when it had done its worst, that the timber and all the combustible matter fell, it fell down to the bottom within the house, and the walls stood and enclosed the fire, and it was burned out without making a farther progress in many of those places : and then the vacancy so interrupted the fury of it, that many times the two or three next houses stood without much damage. Besides the spreading, insomuch as all London seemed but one fire in the breadth of it. it seemed to continue in its full fury a direct line to the Thames side, all Cheapside from 410 FIRE OF LONDON. beyond the Exchange, through Fleet Street; insomuch as for that breadth, takiug in both sides as far as the Thames, there was scarce a house or chiuxh standing from the bridge to Dorset House, which was burned on Tuesday night after Baynard's Castle. On Wednesday morning, when the King saw that neither the fire decreased nor the wind lessened, he even despaired of preserving Whitehall, but was more afraid of Westminster Abbey. But having observed by his having vLsited all places, that where there was auy vacant place Ijetween the houses, there the progress of the fire was much less, changed its course and went to the water-side, he gave order for pulling down many houses about White- hall, some whereof were newly built and hardly finished, and sent many of his choice goods by water to Hampton Court ; as most of the persons of quality in the Strand, who had the benefit of the rivei-, got barges and other vessels, and sent their furniture for their houses to some houses some miles out of the town. And very many on both sides the Strand, who knew not whither to go, and scarce what they did, fled with their families out of their houses into the streets, that they might not be within when the fire fell upon their houses. But it pleased God, contraiy to all expectation, that on "Wednesday, about four or five of the clock in the after- noon, the wind fell; and as in an instant the fire decreased, having burned all on the Thames side to the new build- ings of the Inner Temple, next to Whitefriars, and having consumed them, was stopped by that vacancy from pro- ceeding farther into that house, but laid hold on some old buildings which joined to Earn Alloy, and swept all those into Fleet Street. And the other side being likewise destroved to Fetter Lane^ itadvaucfccl no farther; but left FIRE OF LONDON. 411 iiG other part of Fleet Street to the Temple Bar, aud all the Strand, unhurt, but what the damage the owners of the houses had done to themselves by endeavouring to remove ; and it ceased in all other parts of the town near the same time. The greatest care then (when the fire had ceased in all parts) was, to keep good guards to watch the fire that was upon the ground, that it might not break out again. And this was the better performed, because they who had yet their .houses standing had not the courage to sleep, but watched with much less distraction ; though the same distemper still remained in the utmost extent, " that all this had fallen out by the conspiracy of the French and Dutch with the Papists ;" and all gaols were filled with those who were every hour apprehended upon that jealousy ; or rather upon some evidence that they were guilty of the crime. And the people were so sottish, that they believed that all the French in the town (which no doubt were a very great number) were drawn into a body, to prosecute those by the sword who were preserved from the fire ; and the inhabitants of a whole street have ran in a great tumult one vv'ay, upon the rumour that the French were marching at the other end of it ; so terrified men were with their own apprehensions. "Wlien the night, though far from being a quiet one, had somewhat lessened the consternation, the first care the King took was, that the country might speedily supply markets in all places, that they who had saved themselves from burning might not be in danger of starving; and if there had not been extraordinary care and diligence used, many would have perished that way. The vast destruction of corn, and all other sorts of provisions, in those parts where the fire had prevailed, had 41 2 FIRE OF LONDON. not only left all that people destitute of all that was to be eat or drank ; but the bakers and brewers who inhabited the other parts which were unhurt, had forsaken their houses, and carried away all that was portable ; insomuch that many days passed before they were enough in their wits and in their houses to fall to their occupations; and those parts of the town which God had spared and pre- served were many hours without anything to eat, as well as they who were in the fields. And yet it can hardly be conceived, how great a supply of all kinds was brought from all places within four-and-twenty hours. And which was more miraculous, in four days, in all the fields about the town, which had seemed covered with those whose habitations were burned, and with the goods which they had saved, there was scarce a man to be seen : all found shelter in so short a time, either in those parts which remained of the city and in the subui'bs, or in the neighbour villages ; all kinds of people expressing a mar- vellous charity towards those who appeared to be undone. And very many, with more expedition than can be con- ceived, set up little sheds of brick and timber upon the ruins of their own houses, where they chose rather to inhabit than in more convenient places, though they knew they could not long reside in those new buildings. The King was not more troubled at any particular than at the imagination which possessed the hearts of so many, that all this mischief had fallen out by a real and formed conspiracy; which, albeit he saw no coloiar to beheve, he found very many intelligent men, and even some of his own council, who did really believe it. ' Whei-eupon he appointed the Privy Council to sit both morning and evening, to examine all evidence of that kind that should be brought before them, and to send for any jiersons who FlRlB OF LONDON. 413 had been committed to prison upon some evidence that made the gTeatest noise; and sent for the Lord Claief Justice, who was in the country, to come to the town for the better examination of all suggestions and allegations of that kind, there having been some malicious report scattered about the town, " that the court had so great a prejudice against any kind of testimony of such a con- spiracy, that they discountenanced all witnesses who came before them to testify what they knew; " which was with- out any colour of truth. Yet many, who were produced as if their testimony would remove all doubts, made such senseless relations of what they had been told, without knowing the condition of the persons who told them, or where to find them, that it was a hai'd matter to forbear smiling at their evidence. Some Frenchmen's houses had been searched, in which had been found many of those shells for squibs and other fireworks, frequently used in nights of joy and triumph; and the men were well known -^ and had lived many years there by that trade, and had no other: and one of these was the King's servant, and em- ployed by the Office of Ordnance for making grenades of all kinds, as well for the hand as for mortar-pieces. Yet these men were looked upon as in the number of the con- spirators, and remained still in prison till their neighbours solicited for their liberty. And it cannot be enough wondered at, that in this general rage of the people no mischief Avas done to the strangers, that no one of them was assassinated outright, though many were sorely beaten and bruised. There was a very odd accident that confirmed many in what they were inclined to believe, and startled others, who thought the conspiracy impossible, since no com- bination not very discernible and discovered could have 414 FIRE OF LOXDOX. effected tliat mischief, in whicli tlie immediate hand of God was so visible. Amongst many Frenchmen Avho had been sent to Newgate, there was one HulDcrt, a young man of five or six and twenty years of age, the son of a famous watchmaker in the city of Eouen; and this fellow had wrought in the same profession with several men in London, and had for many years, both in Eouen and London, been looked upon as distracted. This man con- fessed " that he had set the first house on fire, and that he had been hu-ed in Paris a year before to do it : that there were three more combined with him to do the same thing, and that they came over together into England to put it in execution in the time of the plague ; but when they were in London, he and two of his companions went into Sweden, and returned from thence in the latter end 'of August, and he resolved to undertake it; and that the two others went away into France." The whole examination was so senseless, that the Chief Justice, who was not looked upon as a man who wanted rigour, did not believe any thing he said. He was asked, "who it was in Paris that suborned him to this action?" to which he answered, " that he did not know, having never seen him before; " and in the enlarging upon that point he contradicted himself in many particulars. Being asked " what money he had received to perform a service of so much hazard," he said, "he had received but a pistole, but was promised five pistoles more when he should have done his work ; " and many such unreasonable things, that nobody present ci'edited any thing he said. However, they durst not shght the evidence, but put him to a particular, in which he so f uUy confirmed all that he had said before, that they were surprised with wonder, and knew not afterwards what to say or think. They FIRE OF LONDON. 415 asked him, "if lie knew the place where he first put fire • " be answered " that he knew it very well, and would show It to any body." Upon this the Chief Justice, and many Alaermen who sate with him, sent a guard of substantial citizens with the prisoner, that he might show them the bouse; and they first led him to a place at some distance trom It, and asked him "if that were it;" to which he answered pz^esently, "no, it was lower, nearer to the Thames. The house and all which were near it were so covered and buried in ruins, that the owners themselves without some infallible mark, could very hardly have said where their own houses had stood: but this man led them directly to the place, described how it stood, the shape of the htt e yard, the fashion of the door and windows and where he first put the fire; and all this with such exact- ness, that they who had dwelt long near it could not so perfectly have described all particulars. Thxs sJenced all farther doubts. And though the Chief Justice told the King, '^ that all his discourse was so dis- jointed that he did not believe him guilty ; nor was there one man who prosecuted or accused him: yet upon his own confession, and so sensible a relation of all that had done, accompanied with so many circumstances though without the least show of compunction or sorrow for what he said he had done/nor yet seeming to Justify 0. to take dehght in it ; but being asked whether he w s not sorry .or the wickedness, and whether he intended to do o much, he gave no answer at all, or made reply to what wa. said ; and with the same temper died,) the Jury ound hmi guilty, and he was executed according And hough no man could imagine any reason why a m^n should so desperately throw away his life, which he mio-ht have saved though he had been guilty, since he was only 416 FIRE OF LONDON. accused upon his own confession ; yet neither the JitJgea nor any present at the trial did believe him guilty, but that he was a poor distracted wretch weary of his life, and chose to part with it this way. Certain it is, that upon the strictest examination that could be afterwards made by the King's command, and then by the diligence of the House, that upon the jealousy and rumour made a committee, that was very dihgent and solicitous to make that discovery, there was, never any probable evidence (that poor creature's only excepted) that there was any other cause of that woeful fire, than the displeasure of God Almighty : the first accident of the beginning in a baker's house, where there was so great a stock of faggots, and the neighbourhood of much combustible matter, of pitch and rosin and the like, led it in an instant from house to house through Thames Street, with the agitation of so terrible a wind to scatter and disperse it. Let the cause be what it would, the effect was veiy terrible ; for above two parts of three of that gi'eat city were burned to ashes, and those the most rich and wealthy parts of the city, where the greatest warehouses and best shops stood. The Royal Exchange with all the streets about it, Lombard Street, Cheapside, Paternoster Row, St. Paul's Church, and almost all the other churches in the city, with the Old Bailey, Ludgate, all Paul's Church- yard, even to the Thames, and the greatest part of Fleet Street, all which were places the best inhabited, were all burned without one house remaining. The value or estimate of what that devouring fire con- sumed, over and above the houses, could never be com- puted in any degree : for, besides that the first night (which in a moment swept away the vast wealth of Thames Street) there was not anything that could be preserved in FIRE OF LONDON. 417 respect of the siiiddenness and amazement (all people being in their beds till the fire was in their houses, and so could save nothing but themselves), the next day with the violence of the wind increased their distraction ; nor did many be- lieve that the fire was near them, or that they had reason to remove their goods, till it was upon them, and rendered it impossible. Then it fell out at a season in the year, the beginning of September, Avhen very many of the substantial citizens and other wealthy men were in the country, whereof many had not left a servant in their houses, thinking themselves upon all ordinary accidents more secure in the goodness and kindness of their neigh- bours, than they could be in the fidelity of a servant; and whatsoever Avas in such houses was entirely consumed by the fire, or lost as to the owners. And of this class of absent men, when the fire came where the lawyers had houses, as they had in many places, especially Serjeant's Inn in Fleet Street, with that part of the Inner Temple that was next it and Whitefriars, there was scarce a man to whom those lodgings appertained who was in town : so that whatsoever was there, their money, books, and papers, besides the evidences of many men's estates de- posited in their hands, were all burned or lost, to a very great value. But of particular men's losses could never be made any computation. It was an incredible damage that was and might ra- tionally be computed to be sustained by one small company, the company of Stationers, in books, paper, and the other lesser commodities which are vendible in that corporation, which amounted to no less than two hundred thousand pounds ; in which prodigious loss there was one circumstance very lamentable : all those who dwelt near St. Paul's carried their goods, books, paper, and the like, as others of greater 2e 418 FIRE OF LOyLON. trades did theii- commodities, into the large vaults wliich were under St. Paul's Churcli, before the fire came thither; which vaults, though all the church above the ground was afterwards burned, with all the houses round about, still stood firm and supported the foundation, and preserved all that was within them ; until the impatience of those who had lost their houses, and whatsoever they had else, in the fire, made them very desirous to see what they had saved, upon which all their hopes were founded to repair the rest. It was the fourth day after the fire ceased to flame, though it still bui'ned in the ruius, from whence there was still an intolerable heat, when the booksellers especially, and some other tradesmen, who had deposited all they had preserved in the greatest and most spacious vault, came to behold all their wealth, which to that moment was safe : but the doors were no sooner opened, and the air from without fanned the strong heat within, but first the dryest and most combustible matters broke into a flame, which consumed all, of what kind soever, that till then had been unhurt there. Yet they who had commit- ted their goods to some lesser vaults, at a distance from that gi-eater, had better fortune ; and having learned from the second ruin of their friends to have more patience, attended till the rain fell, and extinguished the fire in all places, and cooled the air ; and then they securely opened the doors, and received all from thence that they had there. If so vast a damage as two hundred thousand pounds befel that little company of Stationers in books and paper and the like, what shall we conceive was lost in cloth (of which the country clothiers lost all that they had brought up to Blackwell Hall against Michaelmas, which was all burned with that fair structure), in silks of all kinds, in linen, and those richer manufactures? Not to speak of FinE OF LOyDOKi 419 money, plate, aiul jewels, whereof some v/ere recovered out of the ruins of those houses which the owners took care to watch, as containing somewhat that was worth the looking for, and in Avhich deluge there were men ready enough to fish. The Lord Mayor (Sir Thomas Bludworth), though a very honest man, was much blamed for want of sagacity in the first night of the fire, before the wind gave it much advancement : for, though he came with great diligence as soon as he had notice of it, and was present with the first, yet having never been used to such spectacles, his consternation was equal to that of other men, nor did he know how to apply his authority to the remedying the present distress ; and when men who were less terrified with the object pressed him very earnestly, "that he would give order for the present pulling down those houses which were nearest, and by which the fire climbed to go farther" (the doing whereof, at that time, might probably have prevented much of the mischief that suc- ceeded), he thought it not safe counsel, and made no other answer, than " that he durst not do it without the consent of the owners." 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