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now called Spittlefields, were then indeed open fields: also, in St. George's-fields, in Southwark; in Bunhill-fields, and in a great field, called Wood's Close, near Islington; thither the lord mayor, aldermen, and magistrates, sent their officers and servants to buy for their families, themselves keeping within doors as much as possible, and the like did many other people; and after this method was taken, the country people came with great cheerfulness, and brought provisions of all sorts, and very seldom got any harm; which I suppose added also to that report, of their being miraculously preserved.

As for my little family, having thus, as I have said, laid in a store of bread, butter, cheese, and beer, I took my friend and physician's advice, and locked myself up, and my family, and resolved to suffer the hardship of living a few months without flesh meat, rather than to purchase it at the hazard of our lives.

But, though I confined my family, I could not prevail upon my unsatisfied curiosity to stay within entirely myself; and, though I generally came frighted and terrified home, yet I could not restrain; only, that indeed I did not do it so frequently as at first.

I had some little obligations indeed upon me, to go to my brother's house, which was in Coleman-street parish, and which he had left to my care; and I went at first every day, but afterwards only once or twice a week.

In these walks I had many dismal scenes before my eyes; as, particularly, of persons falling dead in the streets, terrible shrieks and screechings of women, who, in their agonies, would throw open their chamber windows, and cry out in a dismal surprising manner. It is impossible to describe the variety of postures in which the passions of the poor people would express themselves.

Passing through Token-House-yard, in Lothbury, of a sudden a casement violently opened just over my head, and a woman gave three frightful screeches, and then cried, Oh! death, death, death! in a most inimitable tone, and which struck me with horror, and a chilness in my very blood. There was nobody to be seen in the whole street, neither did any other window open, for people had no curiosity now in any case, nor could anybody help one another; so I went on to pass into Bell-alley.

Just in Bell-alley, on the right hand of the passage, there

was a more terrible cry than that, though it was not so directed out at the window, but the whole family was in a terrible fright, and I could hear women and children run screaming about the rooms like distracted, when a garret window opened, and somebody from a window on the other side the alley called and asked, What is the matter? Upon which, from the first window it was answered, O Lord, my old master has hanged himself! The other asked again, Is he quite dead? and the first answered, Ay, ay, quite dead: quite dead and cold! This person was a merchant, and a deputy alderman, and very rich. I care not to mention his name, though I knew his name too; but that would be a hardship to the family, which is now flourishing again.

But this is but one. It is scarce credible what dreadful cases happened in particular families every day; people, in the rage of the distemper, or in the torment of their swellings, which was indeed intolerable, running out of their own government, raving and distracted, and oftentimes laying violent hands upon themselves, throwing themselves out at their windows, shooting themselves, &c. Mothers murdering their own children, in their lunacy; some dying of mere grief, as a passion; some of mere fright and surprise, without any infection at all; others frighted into idiotism and foolish distractions; some into despair and lunacy; others into melancholy madness.

The pain of the swelling was in particular very violent, and to some intolerable; the physicians and surgeons may be said to have tortured many poor creatures even to death. The swellings in some grew hard, and they applied violent drawing plasters, or poultices, to break them; and if these did not do, they cut and scarified them in a terrible manner. In some,

those swellings were made hard, partly by the force of the distemper, and partly by their being too violently drawn, and were so hard, that no instrument could cut them, and then they burnt them with caustics, so that many died raving mad with the torment, and some in the very operation. In these distresses, some, for want of help to hold them down in their beds, or to look to them, laid hands upon themselves, as above; some broke out into the streets, perhaps naked, and would run directly down to the river, if they were not stopped by the watchmen, or other officers, and plunge themselves into the water, wherever they found it.

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It often pierced my very soul to hear the groans and cries of those who were thus tormented: but of the two this was counted the most promising particular in the whole infection; for, if these swellings could be brought to a head, and to break and run, or, as the surgeons call it, to digest, the patient generally recovered; whereas, those who, like the gentlewoman's daughter, were struck with death at the beginning, and had the tokens come out upon them, often went about indifferently easy, till a little before they died, and some till the moment they dropt down, as, in apoplexies and epilepsies, is often the case. Such would be taken suddenly very sick, and would run to a bench or bulk, or any convenient place that offered itself, or to their own houses, if possible, as I mentioned before, and there sit down, grow faint, and die. This kind of dying was much the same as it was with those who die of common mortifications, who die swooning, and, as it were, go away in a dream; such as died thus had very little notice of their being infected at all, till the gangrene was spread through their whole body; nor could physicians themselves know certainly how it was with them, till they opened their breasts, or other parts of their body, and saw the tokens.

We had at this time a great many frightful stories told us of nurses and watchmen, who looked after the dying people, that is to say, hired nurses, who attended infected people, using them barbarously, starving them, smothering them, or, by other wicked means, hastening their end; that is to say, murdering of them. And watchmen being set to guard houses that were shut up, when there has been but one person left, and perhaps that one lying sick, that they have broke in and murdered that body, and immediately thrown them out into the dead-cart; and so they have gone scarce cold to the grave.

I cannot say but that some such murders were committed, and I think two were sent to prison for it, but died before they could be tried; and I have heard that three others, at several times, were executed for murders of that kind. But, I must say, I believe nothing of its being so common a crime as some have since been pleased to say; nor did it seem to be so rational, where the people were brought so low as not to be able to help themselves, for such seldom recovered, and there was no temptation to commit a

murder; at least, not equal to the fact, where they were sure persons would die in so short a time, and could not live.

That there were a great many robberies and wicked practices committed even in this dreadful time, I do not deny; the power of avarice was so strong in some, that they would run any hazard to steal and to plunder; and, particularly, in houses where all the families or inhabitants have been dead and carried out, they would break in at all hazards, and, without regard to the danger of infection, take even the clothes off the dead bodies, and the bed clothes from others, where they lay dead.

This, I suppose, must be the case of a family in Houndsditch, where a man and his daughter, the rest of the family being, as I suppose, carried away before by the dead-cart, were found stark naked, one in one chamber, and one in another, lying dead on the floor, and the clothes of the beds, from whence it is supposed they were rolled off, by thieves, stolen, and carried quite away.

It is, indeed, to be observed, that the women were, in all this calamity, the most rash, fearless, and desperate creatures; and, as there were vast numbers that went about as nurses, to tend those that were sick, they committed a great many petty thieveries in the houses were they were employed; and some of them were publicly whipt for it, when, perhaps, they ought rather to have been hanged for examples, for numbers of houses were robbed on these occasions; till, at length, the parish officers were sent to recommend nurses to the sick, and always took an account who it was they sent, so as that they might call them to account, if the house had been abused where they were placed.

But these robberies extended chiefly to wearing clothes, linen, and what rings or money they could come at, when the person died who was under their care, but not to a general plunder of the houses; and I could give you an account of one of these nurses, who, several years after, being on her death-bed, confessed, with the utmost horror, the robberies she had committed at the time of her being a nurse, and by which she had enriched herself to a great degree; but as for murders, I do not find that there was ever any proofs of the fact, in the manner as it has been reported, except as above.

They did tell me, indeed, of a nurse in one place, that

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laid a wet cloth upon the face of a dying patient whom she tended, and so put an end to his life, who was just expiring before; and another that smothered a young woman she was looking to, when she was in a fainting fit, and would have come to herself; some that killed them by giving them one thing, some another, and some starved them by giving them nothing at all. But these stories had two marks of suspicion that always attended them, which caused me always to slight them, and to look on them as mere stories, that people continually frighted one another with. (1.) That, wherever it was that we heard it, they always placed the scene at the farther end of the town, opposite, or most remote from where you were to hear it. If you heard it in Whitechapel, it had happened at St. Giles's, or at Westminster, or Holborn, or that end of the town; if you heard it at that end of the town, then it was done in Whitechapel, or the Minories, or about Cripplegate parish; if you heard of it in the city, why then, it happened in Southwark; and if you heard of it in Southwark, then it was done in the city, and the like.

In the next place, of whatsoever part you heard the story, the particulars were always the same, especially that of laying a wet double clout on a dying man's face, and that of smothering a young gentlewoman; so that it was apparent, at least to my judgment, that there was more of tale than of truth in those things.

A neighbour and acquaintance of mine having some money owing to him from a shopkeeper in Whitecross-street, or thereabouts, sent his apprentice, a youth about eighteen years of age, to endeavour to get the money. He came to the door, and finding it shut, knocked pretty hard, and, as he thought, heard somebody answer within, but was not sure, so he waited, and after some stay, knocked again, and then a third time, when he heard somebody coming down stairs.

At length the man of the house came to the door; he had on his breeches, or drawers, and a yellow flannel waistcoat, no stockings, a pair of slip shoes, a white cap on his head, and, as the young man said, death in his face.

When he opened the door, says he, What do you disturb me thus for? The boy, though a little surprised, replied, I come from such a one, and my master sent me for the money. which he says you know of. Very well, child, returns the living ghost, call, as you go by, at Cripplegate church, and