mention for the encouragement of others in case of the like distress;
and doubtless, if they that give to the poor lend to the Lord, and He
will repay them, those that hazard their lives to give to the poor, and
to comfort and assist the poor in such a misery as this, may hope to be
protected in the work.
Nor was this charity so extraordinary eminent only in a few, but (for
I cannot lightly quit this point) the charity of the rich, as well in the
city and suburbs as from the country, was so great that, in a word, a
prodigious number of people who must otherwise inevitably have
perished for want as well as sickness were supported and subsisted by
it; and though I could never, nor I believe any one else, come to a full
knowledge of what was so contributed, yet I do believe that, as I heard
one say that was a critical observer of that part, there was not only
many thousand pounds contributed, but many hundred thousand
pounds, to the relief of the poor of this distressed, afflicted city; nay,
one man affirmed to me that he could reckon up above one hundred
thousand pounds a week, which was distributed by the churchwardens
at the several parish vestries by the Lord Mayor and aldermen in the
several wards and precincts, and by the particular direction of the
court and of the justices respectively in the parts where they resided,
over and above the private charity distributed by pious bands in the
manner I speak of; and this continued for many weeks together.
I confess this is a very great sum; but if it be true that there was
distributed in the parish of Cripplegate only, 17,800 in one week to
the relief of the poor, as I heard reported, and which I really believe
was true, the other may not be improbable.
It was doubtless to be reckoned among the many signal good
providences which attended this great city, and of which there were
many other worth recording, – I say, this was a very remarkable one,
that it pleased God thus to move the hearts of the people in all parts of
the kingdom so cheerfully to contribute to the relief and support of the
poor at London, the good consequences of which were felt many
ways, and particularly in preserving the lives and recovering the
health of so many thousands, and keeping so many thousands of
families from perishing and starving.
And now I am talking of the merciful disposition of Providence in
this time of calamity, I cannot but mention again, though I have
spoken several times of it already on other accounts, I mean that of
the progression of the distemper; how it began at one end of the town,
and proceeded gradually and slowly from one part to another, and like
a dark cloud that passes over our heads, which, as it thickens and
overcasts the air at one end, dears up at the other end; so, while the
plague went on raging from west to east, as it went forwards east, it
abated in the west, by which means those parts of the town which
were not seized, or who were left, and where it had spent its fury,
were (as it were) spared to help and assist the other; whereas, had the
distemper spread itself over the whole city and suburbs, at once,
raging in all places alike, as it has done since in some places abroad,
the whole body of the people must have been overwhelmed, and there
would have died twenty thousand a day, as they say there did at
Naples;, nor would the people have been able to have helped or
assisted one another.
For it must be observed that where the plague was in its full force,
there indeed the people were very miserable, and the consternation
was inexpressible. But a little before it reached even to that place, or
presently after it was gone, they were quite another sort of people; and
I cannot but acknowledge that there was too much of that common
temper of mankind to be found among us all at that time, namely, to