desolating of some of the streets. But the fright was not yet near so
great in the city, abstractly so called, and particularly because, though
they were at first in a most inexpressible consternation, yet as I have
observed that the distemper intermitted often at first, so they were, as
it were, alarmed and unalarmed again, and this several times, till it
began to be familiar to them; and that even when it appeared violent,
yet seeing it did not presently spread into the city, or the east and
south parts, the people began to take courage, and to be, as I may say,
a little hardened. It is true a vast many people fled, as I have
observed, yet they were chiefly from the west end of the town, and
from that we call the heart of the city: that is to say, among the
wealthiest of the people, and such people as were unencumbered with
trades and business. But of the rest, the generality stayed, and seemed
to abide the worst; so that in the place we calf the Liberties, and in the
suburbs, in Southwark, and in the east part, such as Wapping, Ratcliff,
Stepney, Rotherhithe, and the like, the people generally stayed, except
here and there a few wealthy families, who, as above, did not depend
upon their business.
It must not be forgot here that the city and suburbs were
prodigiously full of people at the time of this visitation, I mean at the
time that it began; for though I have lived to see a further increase,
and mighty throngs of people settling in London more than ever, yet
we had always a notion that the numbers of people which, the wars
being over, the armies disbanded, and the royal family and the
monarchy being restored, had flocked to London to settle in business,
or to depend upon and attend the Court for rewards of services,
preferments, and the like, was such that the town was computed to
have in it above a hundred thousand people more than ever it held
before; nay, some took upon them to say it had twice as many,
because all the ruined families of the royal party flocked hither. All
the old soldiers set up trades here, and abundance of families settled
here. Again, the Court brought with them a great flux of pride, and
new fashions. All people were grown gay and luxurious, and the joy
of the Restoration had brought a vast many families to London.
I often thought that as Jerusalem was besieged by the Romans when
the Jews were assembled together to celebrate the Passover – by which
means an incredible number of people were surprised there who
would otherwise have been in other countries – so the plague entered
London when an incredible increase of people had happened
occasionally, by the particular circumstances above-named. As this
conflux of the people to a youthful and gay Court made a great trade
in the city, especially in everything that belonged to fashion and
finery, so it drew by consequence a great number of workmen,
manufacturers, and the like, being mostly poor people who depended
upon their labour. And I remember in particular that in a
representation to my Lord Mayor of the condition of the poor, it was
estimated that there were no less than an hundred thousand riband-
weavers in and about the city, the chiefest number of whom lived then
in the parishes of Shoreditch, Stepney, Whitechappel, and Bishopsgate,
that, namely, about Spitalfields; that is to say, as Spitalfields was then,
for it was not so large as now by one fifth part.
By this, however, the number of people in the whole may be judged
of; and, indeed, I often wondered that, after the prodigious numbers of
people that went away at first, there was yet so great a multitude left
as it appeared there was.
But I must go back again to the beginning of this surprising time.
While the fears of the people were young, they were increased
strangely by several odd accidents which, put altogether, it was really
a wonder the whole body of the people did not rise as one man and