being at his own desire, his sister having been buried there a few
years before.]
(5) Stepney parish, extending itself from the east part of London to
the north, even to the very edge of Shoreditch Churchyard, had a piece
of ground taken in to bury their dead close to the said churchyard, and
which for that very reason was left open, and is since, I suppose, taken
into the same churchyard. And they had also two other burying-places
in Spittlefields, one where since a chapel or tabernacle has been built
for ease to this great parish, and another in Petticoat Lane.
There were no less than five other grounds made use of for the
parish of Stepney at that time: one where now stands the parish church
of St Paul, Shadwell, and the other where now stands the parish
church of St John’s at Wapping, both which had not the names of
parishes at that time, but were belonging to Stepney parish.
I could name many more, but these coming within my particular
knowledge, the circumstance, I thought, made it of use to record
them. From the whole, it may be observed that they were obliged in
this time of distress to take in new burying-grounds in most of the out-
parishes for laying the prodigious numbers of people which died in so
short a space of time; but why care was not taken to keep those places
separate from ordinary uses, that so the bodies might rest undisturbed,
that I cannot answer for, and must confess I think it was wrong. Who
were to blame I know not.
I should have mentioned that the Quakers had at that time also a
burying-ground set apart to their use, and which they still make use of;
and they had also a particular dead-cart to fetch their dead from their
houses; and the famous Solomon Eagle, who, as I mentioned before,
had predicted the plague as a judgement, and ran naked through the
streets, telling the people that it was come upon them to punish them
for their sins, had his own wife died the very next day of the plague,
and was carried, one of the first in the Quakers’ dead-cart, to their new
burying-ground.
I might have thronged this account with many more remarkable
things which occurred in the time of the infection, and particularly
what passed between the Lord Mayor and the Court, which was then
at Oxford, and what directions were from time to time received from
the Government for their conduct on this critical occasion. But really
the Court concerned themselves so little, and that little they did was of
so small import, that I do not see it of much moment to mention any
part of it here: except that of appointing a monthly fast in the city and
the sending the royal charity to the relief of the poor, both which I
have mentioned before.
Great was the reproach thrown on those physicians who left their
patients during the sickness, and now they came to town again nobody
cared to employ them. They were called deserters, and frequently bills
were set up upon their doors and written, ‘Here is a doctor to be let’, so
that several of those physicians were fain for a while to sit still and
look about them, or at least remove their dwellings, and set up in new
places and among new acquaintance. The like was the case with the
clergy, whom the people were indeed very abusive to, writing verses
and scandalous reflections upon them, setting upon the church-door,
‘Here is a pulpit to be let’, or sometimes, ‘to be sold’, which was worse.
It was not the least of our misfortunes that with our infection, when
it ceased, there did not cease the spirit of strife and contention, slander
and reproach, which was really the great troubler of the nation’s peace
before. It was said to be the remains of the old animosities, which had
so lately involved us all in blood and disorder. But as the late Act of
Indemnity had laid asleep the quarrel itself, so the Government had
recommended family and personal peace upon all occasions to the