acknowledge that there was too much of that common temper of mankind to be found among us all at that time, namely, to forget the deliverance when the danger is past; but I shall come to speak of that part again.

It must not be forgot here to take some notice of the state of trade during the time of this common calamity; and this with respect to foreign trade, as also to our home trade.

As to foreign trade, there needs little to be said. The trading nations of Europe were all afraid of us; no port of France, or Holland, or Spain, or Italy, would admit our ships or correspond with us; indeed we stood on ill terms with the Dutch, and were in a furious war with them, though in a bad condition to fight abroad, who had such dreadful enemies to struggle with at home.

Our merchants were accordingly at a full stop, their ships could go nowhere, that is to say, to no place abroad; their manufactures and merchandise, that is to say of our growth, would not be touched abroad; they were as much afraid of our goods as they were of our people; and, indeed, they had reason, for our woollen manufactures are as retentive of infection as human bodies, and if packed up by persons infected, would receive the infection and be as dangerous to the touch as a man would be that was infected; and, therefore, when any English vessel arrived in foreign countries, if they did take the goods on shore, they always caused the bales to be opened and aired in places appointed for that purpose. But from London, they would not suffer them to come into port, much less to unload their goods upon any terms whatever; and this strictness was especially used with them in Spain and Italy: in Turkey, and the islands of the Arches indeed, as they are called, as well those belonging to the Turks as to the Venetians, they were not so very rigid; in the first there was no obstruction at all, and for ships which were then in the river loading for Italy, that is, for Leghorn and Naples, being denied product, as they call it, went on to Turkey, and were freely admitted to unlade their cargo without any difficulty, only that when they arrived there some of their cargo was not fit for sale in that country, and other parts of it being consigned to merchants at Leghorn, the captains of the ships had no right nor any orders to dispose of the goods, so that great inconveniences followed to the merchants. But this was nothing but what the necessity of affairs required, and

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the merchants at Leghorn and Naples having notice given them, sent again from thence to take care of the effects, which were particularly consigned to those ports, and to bring back in other ships such as were improper for the markets at Smyrna and Scanderoon.

The inconveniences in Spain and Portugal were still greater; for they would by no means suffer our ships, especially those from London, to come into any of their ports, much less to unlade. There was a report, that one of our ships, having by stealth delivered her cargo, among which were some bales of English cloth, cotton, kerseys and such-like goods, the Spaniards caused all the goods to be burnt, and punished the men with death who were concerned in carrying them on shore. This I believe was in part true, though I do not affirm it; but it is not at all unlikely, seeing the danger was really very great, the infection being so violent in London.

I heard likewise that the plague was carried into those countries by some of our ships, and particularly to the port of Faro, in the kingdom of Algarve, belonging to the King of Portugal; and that several persons died of it there, but it was not confirmed.

On the other hand, though the Spaniards and Portuguese were so shy of us, it is most certain that the plague, as has been said, keeping at first much at that end of the town next Westminster, the merchandising part of the town, such as the city, and the waterside, was perfectly sound, till at least the beginning of July; and the ships in the river till the beginning of August; for, to the 1st of July, there had died but seven within the whole city, and but 60 within the liberties; but one in all the parishes of Stepney, Aldgate, and Whitechapel, and but two in all the eight parishes of Southwark; but it was the same thing abroad, for the bad news was gone over the whole world, that the city of London was infected with the plague; and there was no inquiring there how the infection proceeded, or at which part of the town it was begun or was reached to.

Besides, after it began to spread, it increased so fast, and the bills grew so high all on a sudden, that it was to no purpose to lessen the report of it, or endeavour to make the people abroad think it better than it was, the account which the weekly bills gave in was sufficient; and that there died two thousand to three or four thousand a week, was sufficient

to alarm the whole trading part of the world, and the following time being so dreadful also in the very city itself, put the whole world, I say, upon their guard against it.

You may be sure also that the report of these things lost nothing in the carriage; the plague was itself very terrible, and the distress of the people very great, as you may observe of what I have said; but the rumour was infinitely greater, and it must not be wondered that our friends abroad, as my brother's correspondents in particular were told there, namely, in Portugal and Italy, where he chiefly traded, that in London there died twenty thousand in a week; that the dead bodies lay unburied by heaps; that the living were not sufficient to bury the dead, or the sound to look after the sick; that all the kingdom was infected likewise, so that it was an universal malady, such as was never heard of in those parts of the world; and they could hardly believe us when we gave them an account how things really were, and how there was not above one-tenth part of the people dead; that there were five hundred thousand left that lived all the time in the town; that now the people began to walk the streets again, and those who were fled to return; there was no miss of the usual throng of people in the streets, except as every family might miss their relations and neighbours, and the like; I say, they could not believe these things; and if inquiry were now to be made in Naples, or in other cities on the coast of Italy, they would tell you there was a dreadful infection in London so many years ago, in which, as above, there died twenty thousand in a week, &c., just as we have had it reported in London that there was a plague in the city of Naples in the year 1656, in which there died twenty thousand people in a day, of which I have had very good satisfaction that it was utterly false.

But these extravagant reports were very prejudicial to our trade, as well as unjust and injurious in themselves, for it was a long time after the plague was quite over before our trade could recover itself in those parts of the world; and the Flemings and Dutch, but especially the last, made very great advantages of it, having all the market to themselves, and even buying our manufactures in the several parts of England where the plague was not, and carrying them to Holland and Flanders, and from thence transporting them to Spain and to Italy, as if they had been of their own making.

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But they were detected sometimes and punished, that is to say, their goods confiscated, and ships also; for if it was true that our manufactures, as well as our people, were infected, and that it was dangerous to touch or to open and receive the smell of them, then those people ran the hazard by that clandestine trade, not only of carrying the contagion into their own country, but also of infecting the nations to whom they traded with those goods; which, considering how many lives might be lost in consequence of such an action, must be a trade that no men of conscience could suffer themselves to be concerned in.

I do not take upon me to say that any harm was done, I mean of that kind, by those people; but I doubt I need not make any such proviso in the case of our own country; for either by our people of London, or by the commerce, which made their conversing with all sorts of people in every county, and of every considerable town, necessary; I say by this means the plague was first or last spread all over the kingdom, as well in London as in all the cities and great towns, especially in the trading manufacturing towns and seaports; so that, first or last, all the considerable places in England were visited more or less, and the kingdom of Ireland in some places, but not so universally. How it fared with the people in Scotland I had no opportunity to inquire.

It is to be observed, that while the plague continued so violent in London, the outports, as they are called enjoyed a very great trade, especially to the adjacent countries, and to our own plantations; for example, the towns of Colchester, Yarmouth, and Hull, on that side of England, exported to Holland and Hamburgh, the manufactures of the adjacent counties for several months after the trade with London was as it were, entirely shut up; likewise the cities of Bristol, and Exeter, with the port of Plymouth, had the like advantage to Spain, to the Canaries, to Guinea, and to the West Indies, and particularly to Ireland; but as the plague spread itself every way after it had been in London to such a degree as it was in August and September, so all or most of those cities and towns were infected first or last, and then trade was, as it were, under a general embargo, or at a full stop, as I shall observe farther when I speak of our home trade.

One thing however must be observed, that as to ships coming in from abroad, as many you may be sure did, some

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who were out in all parts of the world a considerable while before, and some who, when they went out, knew nothing of an infection, or, at least, of one so terrible; these came up the river boldly, and delivered their cargoes as they were obliged to do, except just in the two months of August and September, when the weight of the infection lying, as I may say, all below bridge, nobody durst appear in business for a while; but, as this continued but for a few weeks, the homeward bound ships, especially such whose cargoes were not liable to spoil, came to an anchor for a time short of the Pool, or fresh water part of the river, even as low as the river Medway, where several of them ran in, and others lay at the Nore, and in the Hope below Gravesend; so that by the latter end of October there was a very great fleet of homeward bound ships to come up, such as the like had not been known for many years.

Two particular trades were carried on by water-carriage all the while of the infection, and that with little or no interruption, very much to the advantage and comfort of the poor distressed people of the city, and those were the coasting trade for corn, and the Newcastle trade for coals.

The first of these was particularly carried on by small vessels from the port of Hull, and other places in the Humber, by which great quantities of corn were brought in from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire; the other part of this corn trade was from Lynn in Norfolk, from Wells, and Burnham, and from Yarmouth all in the same county; and the third branch was from the river Medway, and from Milton, Feversham, Margate, and Sandwich, and all the other little places and ports round the cost of Kent and Essex.

There was also a very good trade from the coast of Suffolk, with corn, butter, and cheese. These vessels kept a constant course of trade, and without interruption came up to that market known still by the name of Bear-key, where they supplied the city plentifully with corn, when land carriage began to fail, and when the people began to be sick of coming from many places in the country.

This also was much of it owing to the prudence and conduct of the lord mayor, who took such care to keep the masters and seamen from danger when they came up, causing their corn to be bought off at any time they wanted a market (which, however, was very seldom), and causing the corn