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 not only left all those people destitute of all that was to be eat or drank; but the bakers and brewers which inhabited the other parts which were unhurt, had forsaken their houses, and carried away all that was portable: insomuch as 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 preserved were many hours without any thing 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 suburbs, or in the neighbour villages; all kind of people expressing a marvellous charity towards those who appeared to be undone. And very many, with more expedition than can be conceived, 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 colour to believe, he found very many intelligent men, and even some of his own council, who did really believe it. Whereupon 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 persons who had been committed to prison upon some evidence that made the greatest noise; and sent for the lord chief justice, who was in the country, 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 conspiracy, that they discountenanced all witnesses who came before them to testify what they knew ;' which was without colour of truth. Yet many, any 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 hard 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 fire-works, 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 employed 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 conspirators, 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 was 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 combination not very discernible and discovered could have effected that mischief, in which the immediate hand of God was se visible. Amongst many Frenchmen who had been sent to Newgate, there was one Hubert, a young man of five or six-and-twenty years of age, the son of a famous watchmaker in the city of Roan; and this fellow had wrought in the same profession with several men in London, and had for many years both in Roan and in London been looked upon as distracted. This man confessed, that he had set the first house on fire, and that he had been hired in Paris a year before 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 senselefs, 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, that he knew it very well, Upon this the chief justice, 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 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 credited any thing he said. However, they durst not slight the evidence, but put him to a particular, in which he so fully confirmed all that he had said before, that they were surprized with wonder, and knew not afterwards what to say or think. They asked him, if he knew the place where he first put fire;' he answered, and would shew it to any body.' and many aldermen who sate with him, sent a guard of substantial citizens with the prisoner, that he might shew them the house; and they first led him to a place at some distance from it, and asked him, if that were it;' to which he answered presently, 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 little yard, the fashion of the door and windows, and where he first put the fire; and all this with such exactness, that they who had dwelt long near it could not so perfectly have described all particulars. "This "This silenced all further doubts. And though the chief justice told the king,' that all his discourse was so disjointed 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 he had done, accompanied with so many circumstances (though without the least shew of compunction or sorrow for what he said he had 'done, nor yet seeming to justify or take delight in it; but being asked whether he was not sorry for the wickedness, and whether he intended to do so much, he gave no answer at all, or made reply to what was said; and with the same temper died,) the jury found him guilty, and he was executed accordingly. And though no man could imagine any reason why a man should so desperately throw away his life, which he might have saved, though he had been guilty, since he was only accused upon his own confession; yet neither the judges 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 parliament, that upon the jealousy and rumour made a committee, who were very diligent 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 very terrible; for above two parts of three of that great city were burnt 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, Pater-noster Row, St. Paul's Church, and almost all the other churches in the city, with the the Old Bailey, Ludgate, all Paul's Church Yard, even tó 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 consumed, over and above the houses, could never be computed in any degree: for besides that the first night (which in a moment swept away the vast wealth of Thames Street) there was not any thing that could be preserved in respect of the suddenness 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 the distraction increased; nor did many believe 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, when 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 neighbours, than they could be in the fidelity of a servant; and whatsoever was in such houses was entirely consumed by the fire, or lost as to the owners. And of this classis of absent men, when the fire came where the lawyers had houses, as they had in many places, especially Serjeants Inn, in Fleet Street, with that part of the Inner Temple that was next it and White Friars, 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 mens estates depo sited in their hands, were all burned or lost, to a very great. value. But of particular mens losses could never be made any computation. "It was an incredible damage that was and might rationally 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, VOL. I. No. 10. Gg which |