his mind, and he stood still like one astonished. The poor distempered man, all this while, being as well diseased in his brain as in his body, stood like one amazed. At length he turns round: -“Ay," says he, with all the seeming calmness imaginable, "is it so with you all! are you all disturbed at me? Why, then, I'll e'en go home and die there." And so he goes immediately down stairs. The servant that had let him in goes down after him with a candle, but was afraid to go past him and open the door, so he stood on the stairs to see what he would do; the man went and opened the door, and went out and flung the door after him. It was some while before the family recovered the fright, but as no ill consequence attended, they have had occasion since to speak of it (you may be sure) with great satisfaction. Though the man was gone, it was some time, nay, as I heard, some days, before they recovered themselves of the hurry they were in, nor did they go up and down the house with any assurance till they had burnt a great variety of fumes and perfumes in all the rooms, and made a great many smokes of pitch, of gunpowder, and of sulphur; all separately shifted, and washed their clothes, and the like: as to the poor man, whether he lived or died, I do not remember.

It is most certain that, if by the shutting up of houses the sick had not been confined, multitudes, who in the height of their fever were delirious and distracted, would have been continually running up and down the streets, and, even as it was, a very great number did so, and offered all sorts of violence to those they met, even just as a mad dog runs on and bites at every one he meets; nor can I doubt but that, should one of those infected diseased creatures have bitten any man or woman while the frenzy of the distemper was upon them, they (I mean the person so wounded) would as certainly have been incurably infected as one that was sick before and had the tokens upon him.

I heard of one infected creature, who, running out of his bed in his shirt in the anguish and agony of his swellings, of which he had three upon him, got his shoes on, and went to put on his coat, but the nurse resisting and snatching the coat from him, he threw her down, run over her, ran down stairs and into the street directly to the Thames in his shirt, the nurse running after him and calling to the watch to stop him; but the watchman frightened at the man, and afraid to touch him, let him go on; upon which he ran down to the Still-yard stairs, threw

away his shirt, and plunged into the Thames, and, being a good swimmer, swam quite over the river; and the tide being coming in, as they call it, that is, running westward, he reached the land not till he came about the Falcon stairs, where landing, and finding no people there, it being in the night, he ran about the streets there, naked as he was, for a good while, when it being by that time high water, he takes to the river again, and swam back to the Steel-yard, Upper Thames-street, landed, ran up the streets to his own house, knocking at the door, went up the stairs and into his bed again; and that this terrible experiment cured him of the plague, that is to say, that the violent motion of his arms and legs stretched the parts where the swellings he had upon him were, that is to say, under his arms and his groin, and caused them to ripen and break, and that the cold of the water abated the fever in his blood.

I have only to add, that I do not relate this, any more than some of the other, as a fact within my own knowledge, so as that I can vouch the truth of them, and especially that of the man being cured by the extravagant adventure, which I confess I do not think very possible, but it may serve to confirm the many desperate things which the distressed people falling into deliriums, and what we call light-headedness, were frequently run upon at that time, and how infinitely more such there would have been if such people had not been confined by the shutting up of houses; and this I take to be the best, if not the only good thing, which was performed by that severe method.

On the other hand, the complaints and the murmurings were very bitter against the thing itself.

Bitter com

plaints and murmuring

people.

It would pierce the hearts of all that came by to hear the of the piteous cries of those infected people, who, being thus out of their understandings by the violence of their pain, or the heat of their blood, were either shut in, or perhaps tied in their beds and chairs, to prevent their doing themselves hurt, and who would make a dreadful outcry at their being confined, and at their being not permitted to die at large, as they called it, and as they would have done before.

prevent

about the

This running of distempered people about the streets was very Magistrates dismal, and the magistrates did their utmost to prevent it; but, people as it was generally in the night, and always sudden, when such running attempts were made, the officers could not be at hand to prevent it, and even when they got out in the day the officers appointed did not care to meddle with them, because, as they were all grievously infected to be sure when they were come to that

M

city.

height, so they were more than ordinarily infectious, and it was one of the most dangerous things that could be to touch them; on the other hand, they generally ran on, not knowing what they did, till they dropped down stark dead, or till they had exhausted their spirits so as that they would fall, and then die in perhaps half an hour or an hour, and, which was most piteous to hear, they were sure to come to themselves entirely in that half-hour or hour, and then to make most grievous and piercing cries and lamentations in the deep afflicting sense of the condition they were in. There was much of it before the order for shutting up houses was strictly put in execution, for at first the watchmen were not so rigorous and severe as they were afterward in the keeping the people in; that is to say, before they were (I mean some of them) severely punished for their neglect, failing in their duty and letting people who were under their care slip away, or conniving at their going abroad, whether sick or well. But after they saw the officers appointed to examine into their conduct were resolved to have them do their duty, or be punished for the omission, they were more exact, and the people were strictly restrained, which was a thing they took so ill, and bore so impatiently, that their discontents can hardly be described; but there was an absolute necessity for it, that must be confessed, unless some other measures had been timely entered upon, and it was too late for that.

Had not this particular of the sick being restrained, as above, been our case at that time, London would have been the most dreadful place that ever was in the world; there would, for aught I know, have as many people died in the streets as died in their houses; for when the distemper was at its height it generally made them raving and delirious, and when they were so they would never be persuaded to keep in their beds but by force; and many who were not tied threw themselves out of windows when they found they could not get leave to go out of their doors.

It was for want of people conversing one with another in this time of calamity that it was impossible any particular person could come at the knowledge of all the extraordinary cases that occurred in different families; and, particularly, I believe it was never known to this day how many people in their deliriums drowned themselves in the Thames, and in the river which runs from the marshes by Hackney, which we generally called Ware river, or Hackney river. As to those which were set down in the weekly bill, they were indeed few;

nor could it be known of any of those whether they drowned themselves by accident or not. But I believe I might reckon up more who, within the compass of my knowledge or observation, really drowned themselves in that year than are put down in the bill of all put together, for many of the bodies were never found who yet were known to be lost; and the like in other methods of self-destruction. There was also one man in or about Whitecross-street burnt himself to death in his bed. Some said it was done by himself, others that it was by the treachery of the nurse that attended him; but that he had the plague upon him was agreed by all.

disposition

It was a merciful disposition of Providence also, and which I Merciful have many times thought of at that time, that no fires, or no of Provi considerable ones at least, happened in the city during that dence. year, which, if it had been otherwise, would have been very dreadful; and either the people must have let them alone unquenched, or have come together in great crowds and throngs, unconcerned at the danger of the infection, not concerned at the houses they went into, at the goods they handled, or at the persons or the people they came among; but so it was, that, excepting that in Cripplegate parish, and two or three little eruptions of fires, which were presently extinguished, there was no disaster of that kind happened in the whole year. They told us a story of a house in a place called Swan-alley, passing from Goswell-street near the end of Old-street into St. John'sstreet, that a family was infected there in so terrible a manner that every one of the house died; the last person lay dead on the floor, and, as it is supposed, had laid herself all along to die just before the fire; the fire, it seems, had fallen from its place, being of wood, and had taken hold of the boards and the joists they lay on, and burnt as far as just to the body, but had not taken hold of the dead body, though she had little more than her shift on, and had gone out of itself, not hurting the rest of the house, though it was a slight timber house. How true this might be I do not determine, but the city being to suffer severely the next year by fire, this year it felt very little of that calamity.

Indeed, considering the deliriums which the agony threw people into, and how I have mentioned in their madness when they were alone, they did many desperate things, it was very strange there were no more disasters of that kind.

It has been frequently asked me, and I cannot say that I ever

Magistrates power insufficient.

knew how to give a direct answer to it, how it came to pass that so many infected people appeared abroad in the streets, at the same time that the houses which were infected were so vigilantly searched, and all of them shut up and guarded as they

were.

I confess I know not what answer to give to this, unless it be this, that in so great and populous a city as this is, it was impossible to discover every house that was infected as soon as it was so, or to shut up all the houses that were infected; so that people had the liberty of going about the streets, even where they pleased, unless they were known to belong to such and such infected houses.

It is true that, as several physicians told my Lord Mayor, the fury of the contagion was such at some particular times, and people sickened so fast, and died so soon, that it was impossible, and, indeed, to no purpose, to go about to inquire who was sick and who was well, or to shut them up with such exactness as the thing required; almost every house in a whole street being infected, and in many places every person in some of the houses; and that which was still worse, by the time that the houses were known to be infected, most of the persons infected would be stone dead, and the rest run away for fear of being shut up, so that it was to very small purpose to call them infected houses and shut them up; the infection having ravaged, and taken its leave of the house, before it was really known that the family was any way touched.

This might be sufficient to convince any reasonable person that as it was not in the power of the magistrates, or of any human methods or policy, to prevent the spreading the infection, so that this way of shutting up of houses was perfectly insufficient for that end. Indeed it seemed to have no manner of public good in it, equal or proportionable to the grievous burthen that it was to the particular families that were so shut up; and as far as I was employed by the public in directing that severity, I frequently found occasion to see that it was incapable of answering the end. For example, as I was desired, as a visitor or examiner, to inquire into the particulars of several families which were infected, we scarce came to any house where the plague had visibly appeared in the family but that some of the family were fled and gone. The magistrates would resent this, and charge the examiners with being remiss in their examination or inspection; but by that means houses were long infected before it was