many died and were thrown overboard into the river, some in coffins,
and some, as I heard, without coffins, whose bodies were seen
sometimes to drive up and down with the tide in the river.
But I believe I may venture to say that in those ships which were
thus infected it either happened where the people had recourse to
them too late, and did not fly to the ship till they had stayed too long
on shore and had the distemper upon them (though perhaps they might
not perceive it) and so the distemper did not come to them on board
the ships, but they really carried it with them; or it was in these ships
where the poor waterman said they had not had time to furnish
themselves with provisions, but were obliged to send often on shore to
buy what they had occasion for, or suffered boats to come to them
from the shore. And so the distemper was brought insensibly among them.
And here I cannot but take notice that the strange temper of the
people of London at that time contributed extremely to their own
destruction. The plague began, as I have observed, at the other end of
the town, namely, in Long Acre, Drury Lane, &c., and came on
towards the city very gradually and slowly. It was felt at first in
December, then again in February, then again in April, and always but
a very little at a time; then it stopped till May, and even the last week
in May there was but seventeen, and all at that end of the town; and
all this while, even so long as till there died above 3000 a week, yet
had the people in Redriff, and in Wapping and Ratcliff, on both sides
of the river, and almost all Southwark side, a mighty fancy that they
should not be visited, or at least that it would not be so violent among
them. Some people fancied the smell of the pitch and tar, and such
other things as oil and rosin and brimstone, which is so much used by
all trades relating to shipping, would preserve them. Others argued it,
because it was in its extreamest violence in Westminster and the
parish of St Giles and St Andrew, &c., and began to abate again
before it came among them – which was true indeed, in part. For
example –
From the 8th to the 15th August –
St Giles-in-the-Fields 242
Cripplegate 886
Stepney 197
St Margaret, Bermondsey 24
Rotherhith 3
Total this week 4030
From the 15th to the 22nd August –
St Giles-in-the-Fields 175
Cripplegate 847
Stepney 273
St Margaret, Bermondsey 36
Rotherhith 2
Total this week 5319
N.B. – That it was observed the numbers mentioned in Stepney
parish at that time were generally all on that side where Stepney
parish joined to Shoreditch, which we now call Spittlefields, where
the parish of Stepney comes up to the very wall of Shoreditch
Churchyard, and the plague at this time was abated at St Giles-in-the-
Fields, and raged most violently in Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, and
Shoreditch parishes; but there was not ten people a week that died of
it in all that part of Stepney parish which takes in Limehouse, Ratdiff
Highway, and which are now the parishes of Shadwell and Wapping,
even to St Katherine’s by the Tower, till after the whole month of
August was expired. But they paid for it afterwards, as I shall observe
by-and-by.
This, I say, made the people of Redriff and Wapping, Ratcliff and
Limehouse, so secure, and flatter themselves so much with the
plague’s going off without reaching them, that they took no care either
to fly into the country or shut themselves up. Nay, so far were they
from stirring that they rather received their friends and relations from
the city into their houses, and several from other places really took
sanctuary in that part of the town as a Place of safety, and as a place
which they thought God would pass over, and not visit as the rest was
visited.
And this was the reason that when it came upon -them they were
more surprised, more unprovided, and more at a loss what to do than