possible caution for his safety.
I turned a little way from the man while these thoughts engaged me,
for, indeed, I could no more refrain from tears than he.
At length, after some further talk, the poor woman opened the door
and called, ‘Robert, Robert’. He answered, and bid her stay a few
moments and he would come; so he ran down the common stairs to
his boat and fetched up a sack, in which was the provisions he had
brought from the ships; and when he returned he hallooed again.
Then he went to the great stone which he showed me and emptied the
sack, and laid all out, everything by themselves, and then retired; and
his wife came with a little boy to fetch them away, and called and said
such a captain had sent such a thing, and such a captain such a thing,
and at the end adds, ‘God has sent it all; give thanks to Him.’ When the
poor woman had taken up all, she was so weak she could not carry it
at once in, though the weight was not much neither; so she left the
biscuit, which was in a little bag, and left a little boy to watch it till
she came again.
‘Well, but’, says I to him, ‘did you leave her the four shillings too,
which you said was your week’s pay?’
‘Yes, yes,’ says he; ‘you shall hear her own it.’ So he calls again,
‘Rachel, Rachel,’ which it seems was her name, ‘did you take up the
money?’ ‘Yes,’ said she. ‘How much was it?’ said he. ‘Four shillings
and a groat,’ said she. ‘Well, well,’ says he, ‘the Lord keep you all’; and
so he turned to go away.
As I could not refrain contributing tears to this man’s story, so
neither could I refrain my charity for his assistance. So I called him,
‘Hark thee, friend,’ said I, ‘come hither, for I believe thou art in health,
that I may venture thee’; so I pulled out my hand, which was in my
pocket before, ‘Here,’ says I, ‘go and call thy Rachel once more, and
give her a little more comfort from me. God will never forsake a
family that trust in Him as thou dost.’ So I gave him four other
shillings, and bid him go lay them on the stone and call his wife.
I have not words to express the poor man’s thankfulness, neither
could he express it himself but by tears running down his face.
He called his wife, and told her God had moved the heart of a stranger,
upon hearing their condition, to give them all that money, and a great
deal more such as that he said to her. The woman, too, made signs of the
like thankfulness, as well to Heaven as to me, and joyfully picked it up;
and I parted with no money all that year that I thought better bestowed.
I then asked the poor man if the distemper had not reached to
Greenwich. He said it had not till about a fortnight before; but that
then he feared it had, but that it was only at that end of the town
which lay south towards Deptford Bridge; that he went only to a
butcher’s shop and a grocer’s, where he generally bought such things
as they sent him for, but was very careful.
I asked him then how it came to pass that those people who had so
shut themselves up in the ships had not laid in sufficient stores of all
things necessary. He said some of them had – but, on the other hand,
some did not come on board till they were frighted into it and till it
was too dangerous for them to go to the proper people to lay in
quantities of things, and that he waited on two ships, which he showed
me, that had laid in little or nothing but biscuit bread and ship beer,
and that he had bought everything else almost for them. I asked him
if there was any more ships that had separated themselves as those
had done. He told me yes, all the way up from the point, right against