Defighed. & Engraved for Lambert's Hiftory of London. View of Part of London, as it appeared. 1666. in the Great Fire, 160 From an Original Picture in Painter- Stainers Hall. By the same act all retail dealers in coals were prohibited from meeting the vessels, or by their agents contracting for coals, before the ships were arrived in the port of London; on the penalty of five shillings for every chaldron of coals so forestalled, or bought by pre-contract. The most extensive and dreadful conflagration that ever afflicted the city of London, broke out about about one o'clock in the morning of the 2d of September, 1666, in Pudding-lane; and there not being either a sufficient aid of engines, or of water, the flames, fomented by a violent easterly wind, soon got the better of those weak efforts made use of to put it out, and, in about thirty hours, they spread to Gracechurch-street, towards the north-west, and to the Three Cranes, in the Vintry, towards the southwest, including Cannon-street, and the lanes, alleys, and courts in the way; and, either by communication of the flakes, from such a vast body of fire kindled by old timber houses, or by any of the other means which have been suspected, the flames burst out in divers and distant places; and the conflagration became so general, that there was not a building left standing, from the west end of Tower-wharf, in the east, to the Temple-church, in the west; nor from the north-end of Mincing-lane, in Fenchurchstreet, from the west end of Leadenhall-street, and from the south-west end of Bishopsgate-street, as far as the entrance into Threadneedle-street, to Holborn-bridge, on the west, in a direct line; besides the damage done in Throgmorton-street, Lothbury, Coleman-street, Basinghall-street, Cateaton-street, Aldermanbury, Addle-street, Love-lane, Wood-street, Staining-lane, Noble-street, and Silver-street: at length, it stopped at Pye-corner, near West Smithfield. By this horrid conflagration, many thousand citizens were compelled to retire to the fields, destitute of all necessaries, and exposed to the inclemency of the weather, till a sufficient number of huts could be erected for their relief: his majesty immediately ordered a great quantity of naval bread to be distributed among them, and gave orders for the encouragement of the bringing of all sorts of provisions for their use. This dreadful and destructive fire laid waste and consumed the buildings on four hundred and thirtysix acres of ground, four hundred streets, lanes, &c. thirteen thousand two hundred houses, the cathedral church of St. Paul, eighty-six parish churches, six chapels, the magnificent buildings of Guildhall, the Royal Exchange, Custom-house, and Blackwell-hall, many hospitals and libraries, fifty-two of the companies' halls, and a great number of other stately edifices; together with three of the city gates, four stone bridges, and the prisons of Newgate, the Fleet, the Poultry and Wood-street Compters; the loss of which, by the best calculation, amounted to ten millions seven hundred and thirty thousand and five hundred pounds. And, notwithstanding all this destruction, only six persons lost their lives. The irregularity of the buildings, the dark, illcontrived, wooden houses, and the narrow, crooked, and incommodious streets of the city, had always been a subject of complaint. The extent of the conflagration now put it in the power of authority to rebuild London with greater uniformity and security, and such was the immediate attention of the court on this occasion, that his majesty issued a proclamation, while the ruins were yet smoking, to prohibit the rebuilding of houses, till public care might be taken for its re-edification with greater magnificence and uniformity than before, and with such materials, as might most effectually prevent such another occurrence. The parliament assembled with all speed, and, on the 18th of September, passed an act for erecting a court of judicature, for settling all differences between landlords and tenants, respecting houses burned down and demolished by the late fire; and appointed the justices of the courts of King's-bench and Common-pleas, and the barons of the Exchequer, to be judges judges of the said court; who conducted themselves with such admirable impartiality and strict justice, that they gave universal content; and, in token of the general esteem of the citizens, their portraits were ordered to be hung up in Guildhall. Soon after this, an act of parliament was passed for rebuilding the city, which laid down rules and directions for all the persons concerned therein. In pursuance of the royal proclamation, mentioned above, the common-council, on the 29th of April, 1667, passed an act, by which they declared what streets and passages, within the city and liberties, should be enlarged and widened, and in what proportion; which was so well approved of, that he confirmed and enforced it by an order of council, on the 8th of May. On the 15th of November, the common-council passed another act for preventing and suppressing fires, by which it was ordered, that the city should be divided into four quarters; each to be provided with the number of ladders, buckets, pick-axes, and shovels, directed: each of the city companies was also to provide a prescribed number of the same articles, with other precautionary measures, for the prevention and extinguishing of fires, within their jurisdiction. By an act of parliament, passed in 1670, it was enacted, that, besides the streets already appointed to be widened, those of Paternoster-row, Warwicklane, Watling-street, Candlewick-street, Eastcheap, Swithin's-lane, Little Wood-street, Milk-street, Towerstreet, Water-lane, in Tower-street, Rood-lane, St. Mary-hill, Thames-street, from London-bridge to Puddle-dock, Pye-corner, and Threadneedle-street, should also be enlarged; that the sum of two shil. lings a chaldron be added to the one shilling a chaldron, already granted upon coals, to the lord mayor and |