innumerable trades which depend upon such as these; – I say, the
master-workmen in such stopped their work, dismissed their
journeymen and workmen, and all their dependents.
2. As merchandising was at a full stop, for very few ships ventured to
come up the river and none at all went out, so all the extraordinary
officers of the customs, likewise the watermen, carmen, porters, and
all the poor whose labour depended upon the merchants, were at once
dismissed and put out of business.
3. All the tradesmen usually employed in building or repairing of
houses were at a full stop, for the people were far from wanting to
build houses when so many thousand houses were at once stripped of
their inhabitants; so that this one article turned all the ordinary
workmen of that kind out of business, such as bricklayers, masons,
carpenters, joiners, plasterers, painters, glaziers, smiths, plumbers, and
all the labourers depending on such.
4. As navigation was at a stop, our ships neither coming in or going
out as before, so the seamen were all out of employment, and many of
them in the last and lowest degree of distress; and with the seamen
were all the several tradesmen and workmen belonging to and
depending upon the building and fitting out of ships, such as ship-
carpenters, caulkers, ropemakers, dry coopers, sailmakers,
anchorsmiths, and other smiths; blockmakers, carvers, gunsmiths,
ship-chandlers, ship-carvers, and the like. The masters of those
perhaps might live upon their substance, but the traders were
universally at a stop, and consequently all their workmen discharged.
Add to these that the river was in a manner without boats, and all or
most part of the watermen, lightermen, boat-builders, and lighter-
builders in like manner idle and laid by.
5. All families retrenched their living as much as possible, as well
those that fled as those that stayed; so that an innumerable multitude
of footmen, serving-men, shopkeepers, journeymen, merchants’
bookkeepers, and such sort of people, and especially poor maid-
servants, were turned off, and left friendless and helpless, without
employment and without habitation, and this was really a dismal article.
I might be more particular as to this part, but it may suffice to
mention in general, all trades being stopped, employment ceased: the
labour, and by that the bread, of the poor were cut off; and at first
indeed the cries of the poor were most lamentable to hear, though by
the distribution of charity their misery that way was greatly abated.
Many indeed fled into the counties, but thousands of them having
stayed in London till nothing but desperation sent them away, death
overtook them on the road, and they served for no better than the
messengers of death; indeed, others carrying the infection along with
them, spread it very unhappily into the remotest parts of the kingdom.
Many of these were the miserable objects of despair which I have
mentioned before, and were removed by the destruction which
followed. These might be said to perish not by the infection itself but
by the consequence of it; indeed, namely, by hunger and distress and
the want of all things: being without lodging, without money, without
friends, without means to get their bread, or without anyone to give it
them; for many of them were without what we call legal settlements,
and so could not claim of the parishes, and all the support they had
was by application to the magistrates for relief, which relief was (to
give the magistrates their due) carefully and cheerfully administered
as they found it necessary, and those that stayed behind never felt the
want and distress of that kind which they felt who went away in the
manner above noted.
Let any one who is acquainted with what multitudes of people get
their daily bread in this city by their labour, whether artificers or mere
workmen – I say, let any man consider what must be the miserable
condition of this town if, on a sudden, they should be all turned out of
employment, that labour should cease, and wages for work be no more.
This was the case with us at that time; and had not the sums of