how many lives might be lost in consequence of such an action, must
be a trade that no men of conscience could suffer themselves to be
concerned in.
I do not take upon me to say that any harm was done, I mean of that
kind, by those people. But I doubt I need not make any such proviso
in the case of our own country; for either by our people of London, or
by the commerce which made their conversing with all sorts of people
in every country and of every considerable town necessary, I say, by
this means the plague was first or last spread all over the kingdom, as
well in London as in all the cities and great towns, especially in the
trading manufacturing towns and seaports; so that, first or last, all the
considerable places in England were visited more or less, and the
kingdom of Ireland in some places, but not so universally. How it
fared with the people in Scotland I had no opportunity to inquire.
It is to be observed that while the plague continued so violent in
London, the outports, as they are called, enjoyed a very great trade,
especially to the adjacent countries and to our own plantations. For
example, the towns of Colchester, Yarmouth, and Hun, on that side of
England, exported to Holland and Hamburg the manufactures of the
adjacent countries for several months after the trade with London was,
as it were, entirely shut up; likewise the cities of Bristol and Exeter,
with the port of Plymouth, had the like advantage to Spain, to the
Canaries, to Guinea, and to the West Indies, and particularly to
Ireland; but as the plague spread itself every way after it had been in
London to such a degree as it was in August and September, so all or
most of those cities and towns were infected first or last; and then
trade was, as it were, under a general embargo or at a full stop – as I
shall observe further when I speak of our home trade.
One thing, however, must be observed: that as to ships coming in
from abroad (as many, you may be sure, did) some who were out in all
parts of the world a considerable while before, and some who when
they went out knew nothing of an infection, or at least of one so
terrible – these came up the river boldly, and delivered their cargoes as
they were obliged to do, except just in the two months of August and
September, when the weight of the infection lying, as I may say, all
below Bridge, nobody durst appear in business for a while. But as this
continued but for a few weeks, the homeward-bound ships, especially
such whose cargoes were not liable to spoil, came to an anchor for a
time short of the Pool,* or fresh-water part of the river, even as low as
the river Medway, where several of them ran in; and others lay at the
Nore, and in the Hope below Gravesend. So that by the latter end of
October there was a very great fleet of homeward-bound ships to
come up, such as the like had not been known for many years.
* That part of the river where the ships lie up when they come home is
called the Pool, and takes in all the river on both sides of the water,
from the Tower to Cuckold’s Point and Limehouse. [Footnote in the original.]
Two particular trades were carried on by water-carriage all the
while of the infection, and that with little or no interruption, very
much to the advantage and comfort of the poor distressed people of
the city: and those were the coasting trade for corn and
the Newcastle trade for coals.
The first of these was particularly carried on by small vessels from
the port of Hull and other places on the Humber, by which great
quantities of corn were brought in from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
The other part of this corn-trade was from Lynn, in Norfolk, from
Wells and Burnham, and from Yarmouth, all in the same county; and
the third branch was from the river Medway, and from Milton,