that complained so loudly, were found in a condition to be continued; and others again, inspection being made upon the sick person, and the sickness not appearing infectious, or if uncertain, yet on his being content to be carried to the pest-house, were released.

It is true, that the locking up the doors of people's houses, and setting a watchman there night and day to prevent their stirring out, or any coming to them,-when, perhaps, the sound people in the family might have escaped, if they had been removed from the sick,-looked very hard and cruel; and many people perished in these miserable confinements, which 'tis reasonable to believe would not have been distempered if they had had liberty, though the plague was in the house; at which the people were very clamorous and uneasy at first, and several violences were committed, and injuries offered to the men who were set to watch the houses so shut up: also, several people broke out by force in many places, as I shall observe by and by. But it was a public good that justified the private mischief; and there was no obtaining the least mitigation, by any application to magistrates, or Government, at that time; at least, not that I heard of. This put the people upon all manner of stratagems, in order, if possible, to get out; and it would fill a little volume to set down the arts used by the people of such houses to shut the eyes of the watchmen who were employed, to deceive them, and to escape or break out from them, in which frequent scuffles and some mischief happened; of which by itself.

As I went along Houndsditch one morning, about eight a-clock, there was a great noise: it is true, indeed, there was not much crowd, because people were not very free to gather together, or to stay long together, when they were there; nor did I stay long there: but the outcry was loud enough to prompt my curiosity,

and I called to one that looked out of the window, and asked what was the matter.

A watchman, it seems, had been employed to keep his post at the door of a house which was infected, or said to be infected, and was shut up: he had been there all night for two nights. together, as he told his story, and the day-watchman had been there one day, and was now come to relieve him: all this while no noise had been heard in the house, no light had been seen; they called for nothing, sent him of no errands, which used to be the chief business of the watchmen; neither had they given him any disturbance, as he said, from the Monday afternoon, when he heard great crying and screaming in the house, which, as he supposed, was occasioned by some of the family dying just at that time it seems the night before, the dead cart, as it was called, had been stopped there, and a servant maid had been brought down to the door dead, and the buriers, or bearers, as they were called, put her into the cart, wrapped only in a green rug, and carried her away.

The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when he heard that noise and crying, as above, and nobody answered a great while; but at last one looked out, and said, with an angry quick tone, and yet a kind of crying voice, or a voice of one that was crying, "What d'ye want, that ye make such a knocking?" He answered, "I am the watchman: how do you do? what is the matter?" The person answered, "What is that to you? Stop the dead cart." This, it seems, was about one a-clock: soon after, as the fellow said, he stopped the dead cart, and then knocked again, but nobody answered: he continued knocking, and then the bellman called out several times,-"Bring out your dead!" but nobody answered, till the man that drove the cart, being called to other houses, would stay no longer, and drove

away.

The watchman knew not what to make of all this, so he let them alone till the morning-man, or day-watchman, as they called him, came to relieve him, giving him an account of the particulars; they knocked at the door a great while, but nobody answered; and they observed, that the window, or casement, at which the person had looked out who had answered before, continued open, being up two pair of stairs.

Upon this, the two men, to satisfy their curiosity, got a long ladder, and one of them went up to the window, and looked into the room, where he saw a woman lying dead upon the floor in a dismal manner, having no clothes on her but her shift: but though he called aloud, and putting in his long staff, knocked hard on the floor, yet nobody stirred or answered; neither could he hear any noise in the house.

He came down again upon this, and acquainted his fellow, who went up also; and finding it just so, they resolved to acquaint either the Lord Mayor, or some other magistrate, of it, but did not offer to go in at the window: the magistrate, it seems, upon the information of the two men, ordered the house to be broken open, a constable and other persons being appointed to be present, that nothing might be plundered; and accordingly it was so done, when nobody was found in the house but that young woman, who, having been infected, and past recovery, the rest had left her to die by herself, and were every one gone, having found some way to delude the watchman, and to get open the door, or get out at some back door, or over the tops of the houses, so that he knew nothing of it; and as to those cries and shrieks which he heard, it was supposed they were the passionate cries of the family at the bitter parting, which, to be sure, it was to them all, this being the sister to the mistress of the family. The man of the house, his wife, several children