market just beyond Whitechappel Bars was sold at 4 pound per load.
But that affected not the poor. There was a most excessive plenty
of all sorts of fruit, such as apples, pears, plums, cherries, grapes,
and they were the cheaper because of the want of people; but this
made the poor eat them to excess, and this brought them into fluxes,
griping of the guts, surfeits, and the like, which often precipitated
them into the plague.
But to come to matters of trade. First, foreign exportation being
stopped or at least very much interrupted and rendered difficult, a
general stop of all those manufactures followed of course which were
usually brought for exportation; and though sometimes merchants
abroad were importunate for goods, yet little was sent, the passages
being so generally stopped that the English ships would not be
admitted, as is said already, into their port.
This put a stop to the manufactures that were for exportation in most
parts of England, except in some out-ports; and even that was soon
stopped, for they all had the plague in their turn. But though this was
felt all over England, yet, what was still worse, all intercourse of trade
for home consumption of manufactures, especially those which
usually circulated through the Londoner’s hands, was stopped at once,
the trade of the city being stopped.
All kinds of handicrafts in the city, &c., tradesmen and mechanics,
were, as I have said before, out of employ; and this occasioned the
putting-off and dismissing an innumerable number of journeymen and
workmen of all sorts, seeing nothing was done relating to such trades
but what might be said to be absolutely necessary.
This caused the multitude of single people in London to be
unprovided for, as also families whose living depended upon the
labour of the heads of those families; I say, this reduced them to
extreme misery; and I must confess it is for the honour of the city of
London, and will be for many ages, as long as this is to be spoken of,
that they were able to supply with charitable provision the wants of so
many thousands of those as afterwards fell sick and were distressed:
so that it may be safely averred that nobody perished for want, at least
that the magistrates had any notice given them of.
This stagnation of our manufacturing trade in the country would
have put the people there to much greater difficulties, but that the
master-workmen, clothiers and others, to the uttermost of their stocks
and strength, kept on making their goods to keep the poor at work,
believing that soon as the sickness should abate they would have a
quick demand in proportion to the decay of their trade at that time.
But as none but those masters that were rich could do thus, and that
many were poor and not able, the manufacturing trade in England
suffered greatly, and the poor were pinched all over England by the
calamity of the city of London only.
It is true that the next year made them full amends by another
terrible calamity upon the city; so that the city by one calamity
impoverished and weakened the country, and by another calamity,
even terrible too of its kind, enriched the country and made them
again amends; for an infinite quantity of household Stuff, wearing
apparel, and other things, besides whole warehouses filled with
merchandise and manufactures such as come from all parts of
England, were consumed in the fire of London the next year after this
terrible visitation. It is incredible what a trade this made all over the
whole kingdom, to make good the want and to supply that loss; so
that, in short, all the manufacturing hands in the nation were set on
work, and were little enough for several years to supply the market
and answer the demands. All foreign markets also were empty of our
goods by the stop which had been occasioned by the plague, and
before an open trade was allowed again; and the prodigious demand at
home falling in, joined to make a quick vent for all sort of goods; so
that there never was known such a trade all over England for the time