them, and a prodigious multitude of them were also destroyed.
I often reflected upon the unprovided condition that the whole body
of the people were in at the first coming of this calamity upon them,
and how it was for want of timely entering into measures and
managements, as well public as private, that all the confusions that
followed were brought upon us, and that such a prodigious number of
people sank in that disaster, which, if proper steps had been taken,
might, Providence concurring, have been avoided, and which, if
posterity think fit, they may take a caution and warning from. But I
shall come to this part again.
I come back to my three men. Their story has a moral in every part
of it, and their whole conduct, and that of some whom they joined
with, is a pattern for all poor men to follow, or women either, if ever
such a time comes again; and if there was no other end in recording it,
I think this a very just one, whether my account be exactly according
to fact or no.
Two of them are said to be brothers, the one an old soldier, but now
a biscuit-maker; the other a lame sailor, but now a sailmaker; the third
a joiner. Says John the biscuit-maker one day to Thomas his brother,
the sailmaker, ‘Brother Tom, what will become of us? The plague
grows hot in the city, and increases this way. What shall we do?’
‘Truly,’ says Thomas, ‘I am at a great loss what to do, for I find if it
comes down into Wapping I shall be turned out of my lodging.’ And
thus they began to talk of it beforehand.
John. Turned out of your lodging, Tom I If you are, I don’t know
who will take you in; for people are so afraid of one another now,
there’s no getting a lodging anywhere.
Thomas. Why, the people where I lodge are good, civil people, and
have kindness enough for me too; but they say I go abroad every day
to my work, and it will be dangerous; and they talk of locking
themselves up and letting nobody come near them.
John. Why, they are in the right, to be sure, if they resolve to
venture staying in town.
Thomas. Nay, I might even resolve to stay within doors too, for,
except a suit of sails that my master has in hand, and which I am just
finishing, I am like to get no more work a great while. There’s no
trade stirs now. Workmen and servants are turned off everywhere, so
that I might be glad to be locked up too; but I do not see they will be
willing to consent to that, any more than
to the other.
John. Why, what will you do then, brother? And what shall I do?
for I am almost as bad as you. The people where I lodge are all gone
into the country but a maid, and she is to go next week, and to shut the
house quite up, so that I shall be turned adrift to the wide world before
you, and I am resolved to go away too, if I knew but where to go.
Thomas. We were both distracted we did not go away at first; then
we might have travelled anywhere. There’s no stirring now; we shall
be starved if we pretend to go out of town. They won’t let us have
victuals, no, not for our money, nor let us come into the towns, much
less into their houses.
John. And that which is almost as bad, I have but little money to
help myself with neither.
Thomas. As to that, we might make shift, I have a little, though not
much; but I tell you there’s no stirring on the road. I know a couple of
poor honest men in our street have attempted to travel, and at Barnet,
or Whetstone, or thereabouts, the people offered to fire at them if they
pretended to go forward, so they are come back again quite
discouraged.
John. I would have ventured their fire if I had been there. If I had