History of the Plague in London. Defoe Daniel

19 high; the articles of the fever, spotted fever, and teeth, began to swell: for all that could conceal their distempers did it to prevent their neighbors shunning and refusing to converse with them, and also to prevent authority shutting up their houses, which, though it was not yet practiced, yet was threatened; and people were extremely terrified at the thoughts of it.

      The second week in June, the parish of St. Giles's, where still the weight of the infection lay, buried one hundred and twenty, whereof, though the bills said but sixty-eight of the plague, everybody said there had been a hundred at least, calculating it from the usual number of funerals in that parish as above.

      Till this week the city continued free, there having never any died except that one Frenchman, who20 I mentioned before, within the whole ninety-seven parishes. Now, there died four within the city, – one in Wood Street, one in Fenchurch Street, and two in Crooked Lane. Southwark was entirely free, having not one yet died on that side of the water.

      I lived without Aldgate, about midway between Aldgate Church and Whitechapel Bars, on the left hand, or north side, of the street; and as the distemper had not reached to that side of the city, our neighborhood continued very easy. But at the other end of the town their consternation was very great; and the richer sort of people, especially the nobility and gentry from the west part of the city, thronged out of town, with their families and servants, in an unusual manner. And this was more particularly seen in Whitechapel; that is to say, the Broad Street where I lived. Indeed, nothing was to be seen but wagons and carts, with goods, women, servants, children, etc.; coaches filled with people of the better sort, and horsemen attending them, and all hurrying away; then empty wagons and carts appeared, and spare horses with servants, who it was apparent were returning, or sent from the country to fetch more people; besides innumerable numbers of men on horseback, some alone, others with servants, and, generally speaking, all loaded with baggage, and fitted out for traveling, as any one might perceive by their appearance.

      This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to see, and as it was a sight which I could not but look on from morning to night (for indeed there was nothing else of moment to be seen), it filled me with very serious thoughts of the misery that was coming upon the city, and the unhappy condition of those that would be left in it.

      This hurry of the people was such for some weeks, that there was no getting at the lord mayor's door without exceeding difficulty; there was such pressing and crowding there to get passes and certificates of health for such as traveled abroad; for, without these, there was no being admitted to pass through the towns upon the road, or to lodge in any inn. Now, as there had none died in the city for all this time, my lord mayor gave certificates of health without any difficulty to all those who lived in the ninety-seven parishes, and to those within the liberties too, for a while.

      This hurry, I say, continued some weeks, that is to say, all the months of May and June; and the more because it was rumored that an order of the government was to be issued out, to place turnpikes21 and barriers on the road to prevent people's traveling; and that the towns on the road would not suffer people from London to pass, for fear of bringing the infection along with them, though neither of these rumors had any foundation but in the imagination, especially at first.

      I now began to consider seriously with myself concerning my own case, and how I should dispose of myself; that is to say, whether I should resolve to stay in London, or shut up my house and flee, as many of my neighbors did. I have set this particular down so fully, because I know not but it may be of moment to those who come after me, if they come to be brought to the same distress and to the same manner of making their choice; and therefore I desire this account may pass with them rather for a direction to themselves to act by than a history of my actings, seeing it may not be of one farthing value to them to note what became of me.

      I had two important things before me: the one was the carrying on my business and shop, which was considerable, and in which was embarked all my effects in the world; and the other was the preservation of my life in so dismal a calamity as I saw apparently was coming upon the whole city, and which, however great it was, my fears perhaps, as well as other people's, represented to be much greater than it could be.

      The first consideration was of great moment to me. My trade was a saddler, and as my dealings were chiefly not by a shop or chance trade, but among the merchants trading to the English colonies in America, so my effects lay very much in the hands of such. I was a single man, it is true; but I had a family of servants, who22 I kept at my business; had a house, shop, and warehouses filled with goods; and in short to leave them all as things in such a case must be left, that is to say, without any overseer or person fit to be trusted with them, had been to hazard the loss, not only of my trade, but of my goods, and indeed of all I had in the world.

      I had an elder brother at the same time in London, and not many years before come over from Portugal; and, advising with him, his answer was in the three words, the same that was given in another case23 quite different, viz., "Master, save thyself." In a word, he was for my retiring into the country, as he resolved to do himself, with his family; telling me, what he had, it seems, heard abroad, that the best preparation for the plague was to run away from it. As to my argument of losing my trade, my goods, or debts, he quite confuted me: he told me the same thing which I argued for my staying, viz., that I would trust God with my safety and health was the strongest repulse24 to my pretensions of losing my trade and my goods. "For," says he, "is it not as reasonable that you should trust God with the chance or risk of losing your trade, as that you should stay in so eminent a point of danger, and trust him with your life?"

      I could not argue that I was in any strait as to a place where to go, having several friends and relations in Northamptonshire, whence our family first came from; and particularly, I had an only sister in Lincolnshire, very willing to receive and entertain me.

      My brother, who had already sent his wife and two children into Bedfordshire, and resolved to follow them, pressed my going very earnestly; and I had once resolved to comply with his desires, but at that time could get no horse: for though it is true all the people did not go out of the city of London, yet I may venture to say, that in a manner all the horses did; for there was hardly a horse to be bought or hired in the whole city for some weeks. Once I resolved to travel on foot with one servant, and, as many did, lie at no inn, but carry a soldier's tent with us, and so lie in the fields, the weather being very warm, and no danger from taking cold. I say, as many did, because several did so at last, especially those who had been in the armies, in the war25 which had not been many years past: and I must needs say, that, speaking of second causes, had most of the people that traveled done so, the plague had not been carried into so many country towns and houses as it was, to the great damage, and indeed to the ruin, of abundance of people.

      But then my servant who26 I had intended to take down with me, deceived me, and being frighted at the increase of the distemper, and not knowing when I should go, he took other measures, and left me: so I was put off for that time. And, one way or other, I always found that to appoint to go away was always crossed by some accident or other, so as to disappoint and put it off again. And this brings in a story which otherwise might be thought a needless digression, viz., about these disappointments being from Heaven.

      It came very warmly into my mind one morning, as I was musing on this particular thing, that as nothing attended us without the direction or permission of Divine Power, so these disappointments must have something in them extraordinary, and I ought to consider whether it did not evidently point out, or intimate to me, that it was the will of Heaven I should not go. It immediately followed in my thoughts, that, if it really was from God that I should stay, he was able effectually to preserve me in the midst of all the death and danger that would surround me; and that if I attempted to secure myself by fleeing from my habitation, and acted contrary to these intimations, which I believed to be divine, it was a kind of flying from God, and that he could cause his justice to overtake me when and where he thought fit.

20

Whom. We shall find many more instances of Defoe's misuse of this form, as also of others (see Introduction, p. 15).

21

Used almost in its original sense of a military barrier.

22

Whom.

23

See Matt, xxvii. 40; Mark xv. 30; Luke xxiii. 35.

24

Denial.

25

The civil war between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians, 1642-51.

26

Whom.