with the instrument they used and threw them into the cart, and, all
this while the piper slept soundly.
From hence they passed along and took in other dead bodies, till, as
honest John Hayward told me, they almost buried him alive in the
cart; yet all this while he slept soundly. At length the cart came to the
place where the bodies were to be thrown into the ground, which, as I
do remember, was at Mount Mill; and as the cart usually stopped
some time before they were ready to shoot out the melancholy load
they had in it, as soon as the cart stopped the fellow awaked and
struggled a little to get his head out from among the dead bodies,
when, raising himself up in the cart, he called out, ‘Hey! where am I?’
This frighted the fellow that attended about the work; but after some
pause John Hayward, recovering himself, said, ‘Lord, bless us!
There’s somebody in the cart not quite dead!’ So another called to him
and said, ‘Who are you?’ The fellow answered, ‘I am the poor piper.
Where am I?’ ‘Where are you?’ says Hayward. ‘Why, you are in the
dead-cart, and we are going to bury you.’ ‘But I an’t dead though, am
I?’ says the piper, which made them laugh a little though, as John said,
they were heartily frighted at first; so they helped the poor fellow
down, and he went about his business.
I know the story goes he set up his pipes in the cart and frighted the
bearers and others so that they ran away; but John Hayward did not
tell the story so, nor say anything of his piping at all; but that he was a
poor piper, and that he was carried away as above I am fully satisfied
of the truth of.
It is to be noted here that the dead-carts in the city were not
confined to particular parishes, but one cart went through several
parishes, according as the number of dead presented; nor were they
tied to carry the dead to their respective parishes, but many of the
dead taken up in the city were carried to the burying-ground in the
out-parts for want of room.
I have already mentioned the surprise that this judgement was at
first among the people. I must be allowed to give some of my
observations on the more serious and religious part. Surely never city,
at least of this bulk and magnitude, was taken in a condition so
perfectly unprepared for such a dreadful visitation, whether I am to
speak of the civil preparations or religious. They were, indeed, as if
they had had no warning, no expectation, no apprehensions, and
consequently the least provision imaginable was made for it in a
public way. For example, the Lord Mayor and sheriffs had made no
provision as magistrates for the regulations which were to be
observed. They had gone into no measures for relief of the poor. The
citizens had no public magazines or storehouses for corn or meal for
the subsistence of the poor, which if they had provided themselves, as
in such cases is done abroad, many miserable families who were now
reduced to the utmost distress would have been relieved, and that in a
better manner than now could be done.
The stock of the city’s money I can say but little to. The Chamber of
London was said to be exceedingly rich, and it may be concluded that
they were so, by the vast of money issued from thence in the
rebuilding the public edifices after the fire of London, and in building
new works, such as, for the first part, the Guildhall, Blackwell Hall,
part of Leadenhall, half the Exchange, the Session House, the
Compter, the prisons of Ludgate, Newgate, &c., several of the wharfs
and stairs and landing-places on the river; all which were either
burned down or damaged by the great fire of London, the next year
after the plague; and of the second sort, the Monument, Fleet Ditch
with its bridges, and the Hospital of Bethlem or Bedlam, &c. But
possibly the managers of the city’s credit at that time made more