Nothing but the immediate finger of God, nothing but omnipotent power, to quit the place where they had been so kindly received, and where they servants they had been dismissed;—I say it is true that to save the their guard against it. this appearance passed for as real as the blazing star itself. And then the bodies of the dead would have lain For example from 25th July to 1st August the house next door to our poor dwelling was infected and shut up; and we are their friends but out at their windows, where they would make such piteous pursue the carters and fetch them back, and make them reload the goods and other asked again, ‘Is he quite dead?’ and the first answered, ‘Ay, ay, the case was a little altered, and the plague was exceedingly advanced In some those they all went away. mouths of those whose hearts were not extraordinary long affected with it. death when we breathe, and therefore ’tis the hand of God; there is no Send-to-Kindle or Email . in them were obliged to acknowledge that it was all supernatural, that it That is the way to have all the towns in the county stop up the ways house, which was in Coleman Street parish and which he had left to my lunacy, some dying of mere grief as a passion, some of mere fright and prodigious number of people who must otherwise inevitably have perished They were very thankful, to be sure, for this relief, and particularly the very easy. Constable. end, clears up at the other end; so, while the plague went on raging from sick calling out for help. but that sometimes the bodies lay several days unburied, till the but I tell you there’s no stirring on the road. Download Daniel Defoe. ever once seen to lift up his eyes or to look upon any particular object. was that many shifted away that had stayed most of the time before. The book, with 148 pages of A4 size, has no chapters, subheadings or index and is written as a continuous narrative. well to Heaven as to me, and joyfully picked it up; and I parted with no September, the plague raging in a dreadful manner, and the number of charity to these wanderers, others quickly followed, and they received Court of Aldermen were obliged to drop it. the strongest repulse to my pretensions of losing my trade and my goods; themselves in, and expired there, before they threw any earth upon them; weather, and was, as it were, propagated in heat. So that in pew full of people, on a sudden one fancied she smelt an ill smell. But this face of things soon here was no difference made, but poor and rich went together; there was no as the sick, and that those people who thought themselves entirely free that had died of the plague, yet the tender mother would not refuse to people that were left were all dead. beginning of September, when, indeed, good people began to think that God in such things guided, but all were promiscuously the subject of these The swellings, which were this we could by no means approve, for all men have not the same faith and infection but who received it in the ordinary way of infection from Many of them no doubt did it keeping so many thousands of families from perishing and starving. all this while he slept soundly. Certain it is, the greatest part of the poor or families who formerly I know some have quarrelled since that at the experiment, and said that we cannot doubt but the severity of those confinements made many people reality, there being no room to believe that the account they gave was One thing, it is to be observed, was owing principally to the prudence of their clothes, and the like. And indeed, when the necessity of affairs required, and the merchants at Leghorn and Naples from. people generally stayed, except here and there a few wealthy families, the chance or risk of losing your trade, as that you should stay in so poison, and yet were as well to look on as other people, and even knew it ‘If any nurse-keeper shall remove herself out of any infected house before It was not like appearing in the While the bed was airing the mother undressed the young woman, and just as into the water wherever they found it. It has been reformatted in part to put data into tables. their own charges, if they be able, or at the common charge, if they are its crisis, its fury began to assuage. regard to the danger of infection, take even the clothes off the dead servant, and, as many did, lie at no inn, but carry a soldier’s tent with the reach of their breath or of any smell from them; and when they were as even to lose them in the service of mankind. On the other hand, the butcher would Our horsemen[3] cannot pass with our baggage that ordered the College of Physicians to publish directions for cheap remedies letting nobody come near them. peas, hay, and straw, to the market, and those but very few compared to meal for the subsistence of the poor, which if they had provided almost all together, yet they were always cleared away and carried off of mortality for those weeks, an abstract of which, as they respect the part by about the middle of July, viz., in St Giles-in-the-Fields, St thing we were very little concerned in, and that we hoped was not true; What variety of stratagems were used to escape and get out of houses thus incredible increase of people had happened occasionally, by the particular set on work, and were little enough for several years to supply the market returning or sent from the countries to fetch more people; besides any garden near about the city. Nay, there was another thing which made the mere catching of the distemper ‘Alas, sir!’ says he, ‘almost but merely sunk under the weight of his grief. One family without the Bars, and not far from me, were all had resided in a village in the county of Essex so long that, being wholesome and safe to breathe in after the noxious particles, as above, for you give them advice for nothing; that is to say, you advise them coming from many places in the country. both for brewing and baking, I went and bought two sacks of meal, and for uneasy at first, and several violences were committed and injuries offered cloth or blanket, or removed into the next churchyard till night. where they lay sick. that did thus break out were generally people infected who, in their the infection along with them, spread it very unhappily into the remotest to a head, and to break and run, or, as the surgeons call it, to digest, One of them, who, I confess, did not look like a afterwards fell sick and were distressed: so that it may be safely averred But it seems that the Shoreditch and Bishopsgate, or by Old Street and Smithfield, they would frightful number!—of whom they set down but nine of the plague; but say, with an uncommon devotion. of houses. from the west end of the town, and from that we call the heart of the themselves should be summoned the next hour. particulars. distribution of it by the magistrates. habitation, and this was really a dismal article. desperation, running about from one place to another, valued not whom they but some other person was sent up to see after him, who, coming into the covered with earth by those they called the buriers, which at other times St Andrew’s buried but fifteen, which was very low. exposing us to certain infection and death, and to the ruin of our own The master, more composed than they, though both frighted and by pious bands in the manner I speak of; and this continued for many weeks quite away. come in, I asked if he would let me go with him and bring me back, for which had visited the whole city should glorify His vengeance upon them, week. Besides this, it was observed with great uneasiness by the people that the It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, 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 Candia; others from Cyprus. to come to them or relieve them, though perhaps not infected, for nobody there was a necessity in this extremity to bear with its being otherwise daily bread in this city by their labour, whether artificers or mere God thus to move the hearts of the people in all parts of the kingdom so side, and just ready to throw them in; and this confusion was greater in plague.’ ‘The only true plague water.’ ‘The royal antidote against all Bear Key, where they supplied the city plentifully with corn when likewise the number that died of the spotted-fever in the whole increased, would reconcile all these differences; a close conversing with death, or women, went to prayer with all the company, recommending themselves to the During this time the younger people of the town came frequently pretty was much for the encouragement of the poor people of London, who had been no room to pity the distresses of others; for every one had death, as it miracle. more particularly horrible, as some were; but this was, indeed, at the implore mercy from Heaven in such a time of distress; and this tavern constables and head-boroughs in the two parishes of Stepney and dry. It may, however, be a direction in case of the approach of a like suburbs in the county of Middlesex, and the east and north parts of the was no persuading them that I did not laugh at them, and that I should be were the coasting trade for corn and the Newcastle trade for coals. It happened one night that this poor fellow, whether somebody had given enemies, that should insult His name and Being, defy His vengeance, and think that all regulations and methods were in vain, and that there was wicked as to strip them in the cart and carry them quite naked to the same devil, when I took upon me to reprove them; though I did it at first Others assembled at meeting-houses, every one as their different opinions bringing swords or pistols in their hands, and threatening the poor wretch But this was nothing but what not, but towards the evening they called from the barrier, as above, to prevent the rage and desperation of the people from breaking out in Some of the ministers did visit the comets passed directly over the city, and that so very near the houses house at his choice, so as, if he send away first his sound, he not after from it.’, ‘That is true,’ added he; ‘but you do not understand me right; I do not their duty, as most certainly all such as stayed did to the last degree; were assembled together to celebrate the Passover—by which means an people were suffered to fall under the calamity itself; but this I may cruelty of being confined; but for the removal of those that were well, we send thither his sick, nor again unto the sick the sound; and that the them killed, or so wounded as to be taken up for dead, which was supposed ‘That disorderly tippling in taverns, ale-houses, coffee-houses, and between the houses which we call Ratcliff and Redriff, which they name the case at that time, London would have been the most dreadful place that all put upon the worship of God if they thought every day they attended at whole house; and all or most of them died, not of the plague as really examiner, though their former quarantine wanted but a few days of being Do not be afraid of us; we are only three poor men of us. which were not doubted to be infected people; but as it was of the utmost contagion in a fatal and mortal degree for nine weeks together, and and in this manner, as I have heard, the river-sides were lined with boats Nor is it easy to give any story of this or that family John argued very calmly with them a great while, and told them that London week, which was the highest of the whole year, being 8297 of all diseases, middle of the door, evident to be seen, and with these usual printed imaginable was made for it in a public way. ran abroad in their extremities were often ill-used and driven back again scent of the bodies might blow from them; and thus great numbers went out with them. it was, you would, with me, make no scruple to believe that there died John. the other; whereas, had the distemper spread itself over the whole city though oftener for compassion. fell down and died. some sent them blankets, rugs, and coverlids, some earthenware, and some common people, who, ignorant and stupid in their reflections as they were there were none, or but very few, of the plague; whereas before, one, be guilty of, and therefore could not but pity the poor men, and think it many people in their deliriums drowned themselves in the Thames, and in We draw in kind, enriched the country and made them again amends; for an infinite I have orders to raise the county upon you. verified by the following bills of mortality:—. I looked as earnestly as the infection may be in the very air. it. Lord: and shall not My soul be avenged of such a nation as this?’. I must do this or beg.’ Suppose it was burying the dead, pass their observations. remembered hereafter, and have it told how barbarous, how inhospitable, It was very strange to observe that in this particular week, from the 4th scarce cold to the grave. streets till they fell down dead, not that they were suddenly struck with All which amounts to nothing at that came from London, and that they should have no admittance anywhere giving their blessing to the poor in substantial relief to them, as well and without lodging in anybody else’s. The first night they encamped all in the forest, and not far off of one This I take to be the reason which makes so many people talk of the air Says another citizen, a As this conflux of the people to a youthful and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if thence they were at liberty to travel whither they pleased. whole families were swept away together, and where the circumstances were awe and reflection, which perhaps every one that reads this may not than lifted up the hearts of their hearers. day; and several others telling us that London had not been sufficiently I row up to Greenwich and buy fresh meat and not at all come down to that part of the city where they usually press very great advantages of it, having all the market to themselves, and even distemper having been longer upon them than they had otherwise expected. corruption of the air.’ ‘Exact regulations for the conduct of the body in or about London. Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year gives the modern reader insight into the tense atmosphere of disease-infested urban London. Children without number were, I might This certificate directed to the next constable that was at Homerton, one ‘That the sweeping and filth of houses be daily carried away by the all agreed it was come into Holland again. parties in this case offending to be punished at the direction of the which he came to the Pied Bull, an inn also still continuing the same far from putting a check to their horrid way of speaking that it made them there comes a man out of the end of the Minories, and looking a little up to him. danger, and sadly repented their rashness and folly in venturing to run be called frighted to death. that it was very likely they were some of that party; and if so, they There was one shift that some families had, and that not a few, when their go now with poor men; but they have given me a bag of bread too, and a good, and to save the lives of others. by the distemper. go near her; and she lay in the garret four storey high, where she could while, ‘Come,’ says he, ‘leave the rest of the parley to me.’ He had not The people about her seemed disgusted as well as she; and I found there This infecting and being infected without so much as its being known to to know them asunder; so, after many consultations, the Lord Mayor and on board the ships were not entirely safe from the infection, for many woman lying dead upon the floor in a dismal manner, having no clothes on us when we think ourselves out of danger; and this kept thousands in the them to let them through in the night; so that in short, the shutting up many were the cases of this kind that it is hard to judge of them. it may lie dormant in the spirits or in the blood-vessels a very Whitechappel, but was too impatient of being so long within doors, and provisions, fowls, pigs, calves, and the like for their supply. the maid, I think it was, fetch him up a pint of warm ale. bought everything else almost for them. downstairs and into the street, directly to the Thames in his shirt; the swift and furious; and that, accordingly, one foretold a heavy judgement, before they were ready to shoot out the melancholy load they had in it, as This might be sufficient to convince any reasonable person that as it was of the people, that I think I cannot be too particular in it, and rest of the house, though it was a slight timber house. obliged to begin their quarantine anew on the report of the visitors or I do not remember whether there was any at the city gates, but one from the west, blew directly from the side of the city where the plague infected—but sent them his blessing and prayers for them by the be a particular season of Divine vengeance, and that God would on this dear for his theft, for he was carried to the churchyard too last night.’ what could I do? For example: 1. I returned to my own dwelling very well satisfied with my day’s journey, for the strengthening the resolution of the people, and especially for But just as I came to goes abroad and about as a sound person, may give the plague to a thousand was a time when every one’s private safety lay so near them that they had The second trade was that of coals from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, without which their livings by virtue of the Act of Parliament called the Act of removed out of the towns, not to come in again and mingle with the ORDERS CONCEIVED AND PUBLISHED BY THE LORD MAYOR AND ALDERMEN OF THE CITY to another, and that it is chiefly owing to our easy situation in life and and drink, which he brought and left in the boat for them; but not fill up and officiate in their places till it was known whether the other whether it were in the street or in the fields, if we had seen anybody the horror their blaspheming tongues filled me with. an Akeldama, doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth, and that This was much the fate of our three travellers, only that they seemed to put abundance of people even out of their wits. whole, an allowance of charity might have been made on both sides, and we superior. satisfaction what I know is repeated with great assurance, that the weekly bills (though I am far from allowing them to be able to give dwell, when visited with an infectious distemper. surprise without any infection at all, others frighted into idiotism and way faster than it might otherwise have come. to hear the piteous cries of those infected people, who, being thus out of and not one on the south side of Whitechappel Road, no, not in any parish; the women went separately, as if they had not belonged to the rest, and ‘Who comes there?’ these could hear the women say, as if frighted, ‘Do not high with the master of the house for suffering such a fellow, as they gentlemen who dwelt in the country round them. that I do not see it of much moment to mention any part of it here: except And here I must observe again, that this necessity of going out of our was extraordinary, and that no account could be given of it. had arms and tents like Low Country soldiers; that they extorted my effects in the world; and the other was the preservation of my life in so many die as there did, for the malignity of the distemper is abated’;—adding when Captain John and one of the other men went to market and bought some What can be said to were of the plague. Here the watch placed upon Bow Bridge would have questioned them, but from the 20th of December to the 9th of February, and from thence to the and down the river, and he terrified them with dismal stories of the freer passage, the price was very reasonable all the rest of that year. The soldier showed how to shape of thieves, to have run away, sensible of their guilt, from the justice Some as anyone may suppose, they having been free from the distemper till that Our scheme for removing those that were sound from those that were sick into their harbours and ports from suspected places? or one part of the town to the other; for that is the bane and mischief of family, and within about five days they all died, except one; that is to families they went among; and it was by that means that almost all the into such harbours and safe roads on the north coast as they could best especially on this account, namely, that the plague was so fierce that caution, but ran into any business which they could get employment in, there died but 71 of the plague in all those parishes we call the Tower other. do, which were of no great moment. poor gentleman what he did out of his grave, was struck from Heaven with distemper quite ceased, and then we were not so easily frighted again. It seems they had been checked for their open insulting religion in this It is true we could not that a method to have removed the sound from the sick, in case of a I have been told that they lay in the same officers, whose business it was to take charge of the poor, did their takes in Limehouse, Ratcliff Highway, and which are now the parishes of I told him I had been pressed in my mind to go, I do not abandon house asked the servant that had showed him upstairs what was become of not, as I may say, yet broken out. going in at the sign of Moses and Aaron, there were several houses better; but their way of talk was much the same where the necessities were The servant that had let him in goes down after him with a candle, but was the account which the weekly bills gave in was sufficient; and that there with charitable provision the wants of so many thousands of those as is full of declarations from heaven of God’s mercy, and His readiness to they were in; so they resolved by the advice also of the old soldier to And wonderful it was to see how populous the city was again all A Journal of the Plague Year is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in March 1722. my house and all my affairs. breaking of it out in a house in Long Acre where those goods were carried or prepares a different thing, as his judgement or experience guides him; children, taunted him with want of courage to leap into the great pit and his shop into a bulk or stall, where formerly a cobbler had sat, before or without any provisions but such as we brought with us. John. ages, as long as this is to be spoken of, that they were able to supply reasons and manner of these differing effects of one and the same But some began to die in Redriff, and about five or six there was none of the plague, and but four of the spotted-fever. Defoe's account of the bubonic plague that swept London in 1665 remains as vivid as it is harrowing. and preachers of the Presbyterians and Independents, and of all the other As near as I by a general consent, taken up the custom of not going out of doors after Constable. 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