Feversham, Margate, and Sandwich, and all the other little places and
ports round the coast of Kent and Essex.
There was also a very good trade from the coast of Suffolk with
corn, butter, and cheese; these vessels kept a constant course of trade,
and without interruption came up to that market known still by the
name of Bear Key, where they supplied the city plentifully with corn
when land-carriage began to fail, and when the people began to be
sick of coming from many places in the country.
This also was much of it owing to the prudence and conduct of the
Lord Mayor, who took such care to keep the masters and seamen from
danger when they came up, causing their corn to be bought off at any
time they wanted a market (which, however, was very seldom), and
causing the corn-factors immediately to unlade and deliver the vessels
loaden with corn, that they had very little occasion to come out of
their ships or vessels, the money being always carried on board to
them and put into a pail of vinegar before it was carried.
The second trade was that of coals from Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
without which the city would have been greatly distressed; for not in
the streets only, but in private houses and families, great quantities of
coals were then burnt, even all the summer long and when the weather
was hottest, which was done by the advice of the physicians. Some
indeed opposed it, and insisted that to keep the houses and rooms hot
was a means to propagate the temper, which was a fermentation and
heat already in the blood; that it was known to spread and increase in
hot weather and abate in cold; and therefore they alleged that all
contagious distempers are the worse for heat, because the contagion
was nourished and gained strength in hot weather, and was, as it were,
propagated in heat.
Others said they granted that heat in the climate might propagate
infection – as sultry, hot weather fills the air with vermin and
nourishes innumerable numbers and kinds of venomous creatures
which breed in our food, in the plants, and even in our bodies, by the
very stench of which infection may be propagated; also that heat in
the air, or heat of weather, as we ordinarily call it, makes bodies relax
and faint, exhausts the spirits, opens the pores, and makes us more apt
to receive infection, or any evil influence, be it from noxious
pestilential vapours or any other thing in the air; but that the heat of
fire, and especially of coal fires kept in our houses, or near us, had a
quite different operation; the heat being not of the same kind, but
quick and fierce, tending not to nourish but to consume and dissipate
all those noxious fumes which the other kind of heat rather exhaled
and stagnated than separated and burnt up. Besides, it was alleged
that the sulphurous and nitrous particles that are often found to be in
the coal, with that bituminous substance which burns, are all assisting
to clear and purge the air, and render it wholesome and safe to breathe
in after the noxious particles, as above, are dispersed and burnt up.
The latter opinion prevailed at that time, and, as I must confess, I
think with good reason; and the experience of the citizens confirmed
it, many houses which had constant fires kept in the rooms having
never been infected at all; and I must join my experience to it, for I
found the keeping good fires kept our rooms sweet and wholesome,
and I do verily believe made our whole family so, more than would
otherwise have been.
But I return to the coals as a trade. It was with no little difficulty
that this trade was kept open, and particularly because, as we were in an
open war with I the Dutch at that time, the Dutch capers at first took a
great many of our collier-ships, which made the rest cautious, and
made them to stay to come in fleets together. But after some time the
capers were either afraid to take them, or their masters, the States,