History of the Plague in London

4,030

  Aug. 15 to Aug. 22, St. Giles-in-the-Fields 175 " " Cripplegate 847 " " Stepney 273 " " St. Mag. Bermondsey 36 " " Rotherhithe 2 Total this week 5,319

  N.B.[179]--That it was observed that the numbers mentioned in StepneyParish at that time were generally all on that side where StepneyParish joined to Shoreditch, which we now call Spittlefields, wherethe parish of Stepney comes up to the very wall of Shoreditchchurchyard. And the plague at this time was abated at St.Giles-in-the-Fields, and raged most violently in Cripplegate,Bishopsgate, and Shoreditch Parishes, but there were not ten people aweek that died of it in all that part of Stepney Parish which takes inLimehouse, Ratcliff Highway, and which are now the parishes ofShadwell and Wapping, even to St. Katherine's-by-the-Tower, till afterthe whole month of August was expired; but they paid for itafterwards, as I shall observe by and by.

  This, I say, made the people of Redriff and Wapping, Ratcliff andLimehouse, so secure, and flatter themselves so much with the plague'sgoing off without reaching them, that they took no care either to flyinto the country or shut themselves up: nay, so far were they fromstirring, that they rather received their friends and relations from thecity into their houses; and several from other places really tooksanctuary in that part of the town as a place of safety, and as a placewhich they thought God would pass over, and not visit as the rest wasvisited.

  And this was the reason, that, when it came upon them, they were moresurprised, more unprovided, and more at a loss what to do, than theywere in other places; for when it came among them really and withviolence, as it did indeed in September and October, there was then nostirring out into the country. Nobody would suffer a stranger to comenear them, no, nor near the towns where they dwelt; and, as I have beentold, several that wandered into the country on the Surrey side werefound starved to death in the woods and commons; that country being moreopen and more woody than any other part so near London, especially aboutNorwood and the parishes of Camberwell, Dulwich,[180] and Lusum, whereit seems nobody durst[181] relieve the poor distressed people for fearof the infection.

  This notion having, as I said, prevailed with the people in that part ofthe town, was in part the occasion, as I said before, that they hadrecourse to ships for their retreat; and where they did this early andwith prudence, furnishing themselves so with provisions so that they hadno need to go on shore for supplies, or suffer boats to come on board tobring them,--I say, where they did so, they had certainly the safestretreat of any people whatsoever. But the distress was such, that peopleran on board in their fright without bread to eat, and some into shipsthat had no men on board to remove them farther off, or to take the boatand go down the river to buy provisions, where it may be done safely;and these often suffered, and were infected on board as much as onshore.

  As the richer sort got into ships, so the lower rank got into hoys,[182]smacks, lighters, and fishing boats; and many, especially watermen, layin their boats: but those made sad work of it, especially the latter;for going about for provision, and perhaps to get their subsistence, theinfection got in among them, and made a fearful havoc. Many of thewatermen died alone in their wherries as they rid at their roads, aswell above bridge[183] as below, and were not found sometimes till theywere not in condition for anybody to touch or come near them.

  Indeed, the distress of the people at this seafaring end of the town wasvery deplorable, and deserved the greatest commiseration. But, alas!this was a time when every one's private safety lay so near them thatthey had no room to pity the distresses of others; for every one haddeath, as it were, at his door, and many even in their families, andknew not what to do, or whither to fly.

  This, I say, took away all compassion. Self-preservation, indeed,appeared here to be the first law: for the children ran away from theirparents as they languished in the utmost distress; and in some places,though not so frequent as the other, parents did the like to theirchildren. Nay, some dreadful examples there were, and particularly twoin one week, of distressed mothers, raving and distracted, killingtheir own children; one whereof was not far off from where I dwelt, thepoor lunatic creature not living herself long enough to be sensible ofthe sin of what she had done, much less to be punished for it.

  It is not, indeed, to be wondered at; for the danger of immediate deathto ourselves took away all bowels of love, all concern for one another.I speak in general: for there were many instances of immovableaffection, pity, and duty in many, and some that came to my knowledge,that is to say, by hearsay; for I shall not take upon me to vouch thetruth of the particulars.

  I could tell here dismal stories of living infants being found suckingthe breasts of their mothers or nurses after they have been dead of theplague; of a mother in the parish where I lived, who, having a childthat was not well, sent for an apothecary to view the child, and when hecame, as the relation goes, was giving the child suck at her breast, andto all appearance was herself very well; but, when the apothecary cameclose to her, he saw the tokens upon that breast with which she wassuckling the child. He was surprised enough, to be sure; but, notwilling to fright the poor woman too much, he desired she would give thechild into his hand: so he takes the child, and, going to a cradle inthe room, lays it in, and, opening its clothes, found the tokens uponthe child too; and both died before he could get home to send apreventive medicine to the father of the child, to whom he had toldtheir condition. Whether the child infected the nurse mother, or themother the child, was not certain, but the last most likely.

  Likewise of a child brought home to the parents from a nurse that haddied of the plague; yet the tender mother would not refuse to take inher child, and laid it in her bosom, by which she was infected and died,with the child in her arms dead also.

  It would make the hardest heart move at the instances that werefrequently found of tender mothers tending and watching with their dearchildren, and even dying before them, and sometimes taking the distemperfrom them, and dying, when the child for whom the affectionate hearthad been sacrificed has got over it and escaped.

  I have heard also of some who, on the death of their relations, havegrown stupid with the insupportable sorrow; and of one in particular,who was so absolutely overcome with the pressure upon his spirits, thatby degrees his head sunk into his body so between his shoulders, thatthe crown of his head was very little seen above the bone of hisshoulders; and by degrees, losing both voice and sense, his face,looking forward, lay against his collar bone, and could not be kept upany otherwise, unless held up by the hands of other people. And the poorman never came to himself again, but languished near a year in thatcondition, and died. Nor was he ever once seen to lift up his eyes, orto look upon any particular object.[184]

  I cannot undertake to give any other than a summary of such passages asthese, because it was not possible to come at the particulars wheresometimes the whole families where such things happened were carried offby the distemper; but there were innumerable cases of this kind whichpresented[185] to the eye and the ear, even in passing along thestreets, as I have hinted above. Nor is it easy to give any story ofthis or that family, which there was not divers parallel stories to bemet with of the same kind.

  But as I am now talking of the time when the plague raged at theeasternmost parts of the town; how for a long time the people of thoseparts had flattered themselves that they should escape, and how theywere surprised when it came upon them as it did (for indeed it came uponthem like an armed man when it did come),--I say this brings me back tothe three poor men who wandered from Wapping, not knowing whither to goor what to do, and whom I mentioned before,--one a biscuit baker, one asailmaker, and the other a joiner, all of Wapping or thereabouts.

  The sleepiness and security of that part, as I have observed, was such,that they not only did not shift for themselves as others did, but theyboasted of being safe,
and of safety being with them. And many peoplefled out of the city, and out of the infected suburbs, to Wapping,Ratcliff, Limehouse, Poplar, and such places, as to places of security.And it is not at all unlikely that their doing this helped to bring theplague that way faster than it might otherwise have come: for though Iam much for people's flying away, and emptying such a town as this uponthe first appearance of a like visitation, and that all people who haveany possible retreat should make use of it in time, and begone, yet Imust say, when all that will fly are gone, those that are left, and muststand it, should stand stock-still where they are, and not shift fromone end of the town or one part of the town to the other; for that isthe bane and mischief of the whole, and they carry the plague from houseto house in their very clothes.

  Wherefore were we ordered to kill all the dogs and cats, but because, asthey were domestic animals, and are apt to run from house to house andfrom street to street, so they