never found, till after the plague was abated they returned; but as
nothing could be proved, so nothing could be done to them.
It is to be considered, too, that as these were prisons without bars
and bolts, which our common prisons are furnished with, so the
people let themselves down out of their windows, even in the face of
the watchman, bringing swords or pistols in their hands, and threatening
the poor wretch to shoot him if he stirred or called for help.
In other cases, some had gardens, and walls or pales, between them
and their neighbours, or yards and back-houses; and these, by
friendship and entreaties, would get leave to get over those walls or
pales, and so go out at their neighbours’ doors; or, by giving money to
their servants, get them to let them through in the night; so that in
short, the shutting up of houses was in no wise to be depended upon.
Neither did it answer the end at all, serving more to make the people
desperate, and drive them to such extremities as that they would break
out at all adventures.
And that which was still worse, those that did thus break out spread
the infection farther by their wandering about with the distemper upon
them, in their desperate circumstances, than they would otherwise
have done; for whoever considers all the particulars in such cases
must acknowledge, and we cannot doubt but the severity of those
confinements made many people desperate, and made them run out of
their houses at all hazards, and with the plague visibly upon them, not
knowing either whither to go or what to do, or, indeed, what they did;
and many that did so were driven to dreadful exigencies and
extremities, and perished in the streets or fields for mere want, or
dropped down by the raging violence of the fever upon them. Others
wandered into the country, and went forward any way, as their
desperation guided them, not knowing whither they went or would go:
till, faint and tired, and not getting any relief, the houses and villages
on the road refusing to admit them to lodge whether infected or no,
they have perished by the roadside or gotten into barns and died there,
none daring to come to them or relieve them, though perhaps not
infected, for nobody would believe them.
On the other hand, when the plague at first seized a family that is to
say, when any body of the family had gone out and unwarily or
otherwise catched the distemper and brought it home – it was certainly
known by the family before it was known to the officers, who, as you
will see by the order, were appointed to examine into the
circumstances of all sick persons when they heard of their being sick.
In this interval, between their being taken sick and the examiners
coming, the master of the house had leisure and liberty to remove
himself or all his family, if he knew whither to go, and many did so.
But the great disaster was that many did thus after they were really
infected themselves, and so carried the disease into the houses of
those who were so hospitable as to receive them; which, it must be
confessed, was very cruel and ungrateful.
And this was in part the reason of the general notion, or scandal
rather, which went about of the temper of people infected: namely,
that they did not take the least care or make any scruple of infecting
others, though I cannot say but there might be some truth in it too, but
not so general as was reported. What natural reason could be given for
so wicked a thing at a time when they might conclude themselves just
going to appear at the bar of Divine justice I know not. I am very well
satisfied that it cannot be reconciled to religion and principle any
more than it can be to generosity and Humanity, but I may speak of
that again.
I am speaking now of people made desperate by the apprehensions
of their being shut up, and their breaking out by stratagem or force,