the Southwark parishes put together. This caused the reputation of the city's health to continue all over England, and especially in the counties and markets adjacent, from whence our supply of provisions chiefly came, even much longer than that health itself continued; for when the people came into the streets from the country, by Shoreditch and Bishopsgate, or by Old-street and Smithfield, they would see the out-streets empty, and the houses and shops shut, and the few people that were stirring there walk in the middle of the streets; but when they came within the city, there things looked better, and the markets and shops were open, and the people walking about the streets as usual, though not quite so many; and this continued till the latter end of August and the beginning of September.

But then the case altered quite, the distemper abated in the west and north-west parishes, and the weight of the infection lay on the city and the eastern suburbs, and the Southwark side, and this in a frightful manner.*

Then, indeed, the city began to look dismal, shops to be shut, and the streets desolate; in the High-street indeed, necessity made people stir abroad on many occasions; and

* Pepys, under the date of August the 12th, has this entry:-"The people die so, that now it seems they are fain to carry the dead to be buried by day-light, the nights not suffering to do it in. And the Lord Mayor commands people to be within at nine at night; all, as they say, that the sick may have liberty to go abroad for air." A few days after he remarks, that the "streets were empty of people," and that two shops in three, if not more, were shut up.

In the Newes" of August the 29th (No. 71), it is said: "The late increase of the sickness, in and about this town, besides that the judgment is in itself just and dreadful, has been undoubtedly promoted by the incorrigible license of the multitudes that resort to public funerals, contrary both to order and reason; and it is here humbly presented as a suggestion to those that have authority and power to prevent it; to which may be added the shallow burying of the dead in several places, where the bodies are piled even to the level of the ground; and thereby poison the whole neighbourhood."

there would be in the middle of the day a pretty many people, but in the mornings and evenings scarce any to be seen even there, no not in Cornhill and Cheapside.

These observations of mine were abundantly confirmed by the weekly bills of mortality for those weeks, an abstract of which, as they respect the parishes which I have mentioned, and as they make the calculations I speak of very evident, take as follows:

The weekly bill which makes out this decrease of the burials in the west and north side of the city, stands thus:

From the 12th of September to the 19th:

Here is a strange change of things indeed, and a sad change it was, and had it held for two months more than it did, very few people would have been left alive: but then such, I say, was the merciful disposition of God, that when it was thus, the west and north part, which had been so dreadfully visited at first, grew, as you see, much better; and as the people disappeared here, they began to look abroad again there; and the next week or two altered it still more, that is, more to the encouragement of the other part of the town: for example:

From the 26th of September to the 3rd of October:

And now the misery of the city, and of the said east and south parts, was complete indeed; for as you see the weight of the distemper lay upon those parts, that is to say, on the city, the eight parishes over the river, and the parishes of Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Stepney. And this was the time that the bills came up to such a monstrous height, as that I mentioned before; and that eight or nine, and as I believe, ten or twelve thousand a week died; for it is my settled opinion, that they never could come at any just account of the numbers, for the reasons which I have given already.

Nay, one of the most eminent physicians, who has

since published in Latin an account of those times, and of his observations, says, that in one week there died twelve thousand people, and that particularly there died four thousand in one night ;* though I do not remember that there ever was any such particular night, so remarkably fatal, as that such a number died in it. However, all this confirms what I have said above of the uncertainty of the bills of mortality, &c., of which I shall say more hereafter.

And here let me take leave to enter again, though it may seem a repetition of circumstances, into a description of the miserable condition of the city itself, and of those parts where I lived at this particular time. The city and those other parts, notwithstanding the great numbers of people that were gone into the country, were vastly full of people, and perhaps the fuller, because people had for a long time a strong belief, that the Plague would not come into the city, nor into Southwark ;† no, nor into Wapping, nor Ratcliff at all; nay, such was the assurance of the people on that head, that many removed from the suburbs on the west and north sides, into those eastern and south sides, as for safety, and as I verily believe, carried the Plague amongst them there, perhaps sooner than they would otherwise have had it.

Here also I ought to leave a farther remark for the use of posterity, concerning the manner of people's infect

*De Foe is here referring to Dr. Hodges's "Loimologia," although with a little disingenuousness he affects slightly to question his correctThe original passage is a remarkable one, as may be seen in a former note. Vide p. 230.

ness.

In a letter from Mr. Oldenburg to the Honourable Robert Boyle, dated July 4th, 1665, the writer says,-"It is a great mercy that Southwark and Rotherhithe, where seamen are so numerous, and other people that relate to and work in the navy, remain so free yet of the contagion, that there are not above two houses shut up in those quarters."-Boyle's "Works,” vol. vi. p. 187.

ing one another; namely, that it was not the sick people only from whom the Plague was immediately received by others what were sound, but THE WELL. To explain myself:-by the sick people, I mean those who were known to be sick, had taken their beds, had been under cure, or had swellings and tumours upon them, and the like; these every body could beware of, they were either in their beds, or in such condition as could not be concealed.

By the well, I mean such as had received the contagion, and had it really upon them, and in their blood, yet did not show the consequences of it in their countenances, nay, even were not sensible of it themselves, as many were not, for several days. These breathed death in every place and upon every body who came near them; nay, their very clothes retained the infection, their hands would infect the things they touched, especially if they were warm and sweaty, and they were generally apt to sweat too.

Now it was impossible to know these people, nor did they sometimes, as I have said, know themselves to be infected these were the people that so often dropped down and fainted in the streets; for often-times they would go about the streets to the last, till on a sudden they would sweat, grow faint, sit down at a door, and die. It is true, finding themselves thus, they would struggle hard to get home to their own doors, or at other times would be just able to go into their houses, and die instantly; other times they would go about till they had the very tokens come out upon them, and yet not know it, and would die in an hour or two after they came home, but be well as long as they were abroad. These were the dangerous people: these were the people of whom the well people ought to have been afraid; but then, on the other side, it was impossible to know them.