History of the Plague in London. Daniel Defoe
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to almost seven hundred a week, and my brother told me he would venture to stay no longer. I desired him to let me consider of it but till the next day, and I would resolve; and as I had already prepared everything as well as I could, as to my business and who29 to intrust my affairs with, I had little to do but to resolve.
I went home that evening greatly oppressed in my mind, irresolute, and not knowing what to do. I had set the evening wholly apart to consider seriously about it, and was all alone; for already people had, as it were by a general consent, taken up the custom of not going out of doors after sunset: the reasons I shall have occasion to say more of by and by.
In the retirement of this evening I endeavored to resolve first what was my duty to do, and I stated the arguments with which my brother had pressed me to go into the country, and I set against them the strong impressions which I had on my mind for staying—the visible call I seemed to have from the particular circumstance of my calling, and the care due from me for the preservation of my effects, which were, as I might say, my estate; also the intimations which I thought I had from Heaven, that to me signified a kind of direction to venture; and it occurred to me, that, if I had what I call a direction to stay, I ought to suppose it contained a promise of being preserved, if I obeyed.
This lay close to me;30 and my mind seemed more and more encouraged to stay than ever, and supported with a secret satisfaction that I should be kept.31 Add to this, that turning over the Bible which lay before me, and while my thoughts were more than ordinary serious upon the question, I cried out, "Well, I know not what to do, Lord direct me!" and the like. And at that juncture I happened to stop turning over the book at the Ninety-first Psalm, and, casting my eye on the second verse, I read to the seventh verse exclusive, and after that included the tenth, as follows: "I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling," etc.
I scarce need tell the reader that from that moment I resolved that I would stay in the town, and, casting myself entirely upon the goodness and protection of the Almighty, would not seek any other shelter whatever; and that as my times were in his hands,32 he was as able to keep me in a time of the infection as in a time of health; and if he did not think fit to deliver me, still I was in his hands, and it was meet he should do with me as should seem good to him.
With this resolution I went to bed; and I was further confirmed in it the next day by the woman being taken ill with whom I had intended to intrust my house and all my affairs. But I had a further obligation laid on me on the same side: for the next day I found myself very much out of order also; so that, if I would have gone away, I could not. And I continued ill three or four days, and this entirely determined my stay: so I took my leave of my brother, who went away to Dorking in Surrey,33 and afterwards fetched around farther into Buckinghamshire or Bedfordshire, to a retreat he had found out there for his family.
It was a very ill time to be sick in; for if any one complained, it was immediately said he had the plague; and though I had, indeed, no symptoms of that distemper, yet, being very ill both in my head and in my stomach, I was not without apprehension that I really was infected. But in about three days I grew better. The third night I rested well, sweated a little, and was much refreshed. The apprehensions of its being the infection went also quite away with my illness, and I went about my business as usual.
These things, however, put off all my thoughts of going into the country; and my brother also being gone, I had no more debate either with him or with myself on that subject.
It was now mid-July; and the plague, which had chiefly raged at the other end of the town, and, as I said before, in the parishes of St. Giles's, St. Andrew's, Holborn, and towards Westminster, began now to come eastward, towards the part where I lived. It was to be observed, indeed, that it did not come straight on towards us; for the city, that is to say within the walls, was indifferent healthy still. Nor was it got then very much over the water into Southwark; for though there died that week twelve hundred and sixty-eight of all distempers, whereof it might be supposed above nine hundred died of the plague, yet there was but twenty-eight in the whole city, within the walls, and but nineteen in Southwark, Lambeth Parish included; whereas in the parishes of St. Giles and St. Martin's-in-the-Fields alone, there died four hundred and twenty-one.
But we perceived the infection kept chiefly in the outparishes, which being very populous and fuller also of poor, the distemper found more to prey upon than in the city, as I shall observe afterwards. We perceived, I say, the distemper to draw our way, viz., by the parishes of Clerkenwell, Cripplegate, Shoreditch, and Bishopsgate; which last two parishes joining to Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Stepney, the infection came at length to spread its utmost rage and violence in those parts, even when it abated at the western parishes where it began.
It was very strange to observe that in this particular week (from the 4th to the 11th of July), when, as I have observed, there died near four hundred of the plague in the two parishes of St. Martin's and St. Giles-in-the-Fields34 only, there died in the parish of Aldgate but four, in the parish of Whitechapel three, in the parish of Stepney but one.
Likewise in the next week (from the 11th of July to the 18th), when the week's bill was seventeen hundred and sixty-one, yet there died no more of the plague, on the whole Southwark side of the water, than sixteen.
But this face of things soon changed, and it began to thicken in Cripplegate Parish especially, and in Clerkenwell; so that by the second week in August, Cripplegate Parish alone buried eight hundred and eighty-six, and Clerkenwell one hundred and fifty-five. Of the first, eight hundred and fifty might well be reckoned to die of the plague; and of the last, the bill itself said one hundred and forty-five were of the plague.
During the month of July, and while, as I have observed, our part of the town seemed to be spared in comparison of the west part, I went ordinarily about the streets as my business required, and particularly went generally once in a day, or in two days, into the city, to my brother's house, which he had given me charge of, and to see it was safe; and having the key in my pocket, I used to go into the house, and over most of the rooms, to see that all was well. For though it be something wonderful to tell that any should have hearts so hardened, in the midst of such a calamity, as to rob and steal, yet certain it is that all sorts of villainies, and even levities and debaucheries, were then practiced in the town as openly as ever: I will not say quite as frequently, because the number of people were35 many ways lessened.
But the city itself began now to be visited too, I mean within the walls. But the number of people there were35 indeed extremely lessened by so great a multitude having been gone into the country; and even all this month of July they continued to flee, though not in such multitudes as formerly. In August, indeed, they fled in such a manner, that I began to think there would be really none but magistrates and servants left in the city.
As they fled now out of the city, so I should observe that the court36 removed early, viz., in the month of June, and went to Oxford, where it pleased God to preserve them; and the distemper did not, as I heard of, so much as touch them; for which I cannot say that I ever saw they showed any great token of thankfulness, and hardly anything of reformation, though they did not want being told that their crying vices might, without breach of charity, be said to have gone far in bringing that terrible judgment upon the whole nation.
The face of London was now, indeed, strangely altered: I mean the whole mass of buildings, city, liberties, suburbs, Westminster, Southwark, and altogether; for as to the particular part called the city, or within the walls, that was not yet much infected. But in the whole, the face of things, I say, was much altered. Sorrow and sadness sat upon every face, and though some part were not yet overwhelmed, yet all looked