there were innumerable such-like cases, and it was seldom that the
weekly bill came in but there were two or three put in, ‘frighted’; that
is, that may well be called frighted to death. But besides those who
were so frighted as to die upon the spot, there
were great numbers frighted to other extremes, some frighted out of
their senses, some out of their memory, and some out of their
understanding. But I return to the shutting up of houses.
As several people, I say, got out of their houses by stratagem after
they were shut UP, so others got out by bribing the watchmen, and
giving them money to let them go privately out in the night. I must
confess I thought it at that time the most innocent corruption or
bribery that any man could be guilty of, and therefore could not but
pity the poor men, and think it was hard when three of those
watchmen were publicly whipped through the streets for suffering
people to go out of houses shut up.
But notwithstanding that severity, money prevailed with the poor
men, and many families found means to make sallies out, and escape
that way after they had been shut up; but these were generally such as
had some places to retire to; and though there was no easy passing the
roads any whither after the 1st of August, yet there were many ways of
retreat, and particularly, as I hinted, some got tents and set them up in
the fields, carrying beds or straw to lie on, and provisions to eat, and
so lived in them as hermits in a cell, for nobody would venture to
come near them; and several stories were told of such, some comical,
some tragical, some who lived like wandering pilgrims in the deserts,
and escaped by making themselves exiles in such a manner as is
scarce to be credited, and who yet enjoyed more liberty than was to be
expected in such cases.
I have by me a story of two brothers and their kinsman, who being single men,
but that had stayed in the city too long to get away, and indeed not knowing
where to go to have any retreat, nor having wherewith to travel far,
took a course for their own preservation, which though in itself at
first desperate, yet was so natural that it may be wondered that no more
did so at that time. They were but of mean condition, and yet not so very
poor as that they could not furnish themselves with some little conveniences
such as might serve to keep life and soul together; and finding the distemper
increasing in a terrible manner, they resolved to shift as well as they could,
and to be gone.
One of them had been a soldier in the late wars, and before that in
the Low Countries, and having been bred to no particular employment
but his arms, and besides being wounded, and not able to work very hard,
had for some time been employed at a baker’s of sea-biscuit in Wapping.
The brother of this man was a seaman too, but somehow or other
had been hurt of one leg, that he could not go to sea, but had worked
for his living at a sailmaker’s in Wapping, or thereabouts; and being a
good husband, had laid up some money, and was the richest of the three.
The third man was a joiner or carpenter by trade, a handy fellow,
and he had no wealth but his box or basket of tools, with the help of
which he could at any time get his living, such a time as this excepted,
wherever he went – and he lived near Shadwell.
They all lived in Stepney parish, which, as I have said, being the last
that was infected, or at least violently, they stayed there till they
evidently saw the plague was abating at the west part of the town, and
coming towards the east, where they lived.
The story of those three men, if the reader will be content to have
me give it in their own persons, without taking upon me to either vouch