began to be damp and cold in the beginning of September; but, this house being very well thatched, and the sides and roof made very thick, kept out the cold well enough; he made also an earthen wall at one end, with a chimney in it; and another of the company, with a vast deal of trouble and pains, made a funnel to the chimney to carry out the smoke.

Here they lived comfortably, though coarsely, till the beginning of September, when they had the bad news to hear, whether true or not, that the Plague, which was very hot at Waltham Abbey on one side, and at Rumford and Brentwood on the other side, was also come to Epping, to Woodford, and to most of the towns upon the forest, and which, as they said, was brought down among them chiefly by the higglers, and such people as went to and from London with provisions.

If this was true, it was an evident contradiction to that report which was afterwards spread all over England, but which, as I have said, I cannot confirm of my own knowledge, namely, that the market people, carrying provisions to the city, never got the infection, or carried it back into the country; both which, I have been assured, has been false.

It might be that they were preserved even beyond expectation, though not to a miracle, that abundance went and came, and were not touched, and that was much for the encouragement of the poor people of London, who had been completely miserable, if the people that brought provisions to the markets had not been many times wonderfully preserved, or, at least, were preserved, than could be reasonably expected.

But now these new inmates began to be disturbed more effectually; for the towns about

them were really infected, and they began to be afraid to trust one another so much as to go abroad for such things as they wanted, and this pinched them very hard; for now they had little or nothing but what the charitable gentlemen of the country supplied them with; but, for their encouragement, it happened, that other gentlemen in the country, who had not sent them any thing before, began to hear of them and supply them, and one sent them a large pig, that is to say, a porker; another, two sheep; and another sent them a calf; in short, they had meat enough, and sometimes had cheese and milk, and all such things; they were chiefly put to it for bread; for when the gentlemen sent them corn they had no where to bake it, or to grind it: this made them eat the first two bushels of wheat that was sent them in parched corn, as the Israelites of old did, without grinding or making bread of it.

At last they found means to carry their corn to a windmill near Woodford, where they had it ground; and afterwards the biscuit baker made a hearth so hollow and dry, that he could bake biscuit cakes tolerably well; and thus they came into a condition to live without any assistance or supplies from the towns; and it was well they did, for the country was soon after fully infected, and about 120 were said to have died of the distemper in the villages near them, which was a terrible thing to them.

On this they called a new council, and now the towns had no need to be afraid they should settle near them, but on the contrary several families of the poorer sort of the inhabitants quitted their houses and built huts in the forest after the same manner as they had done: but it was observed, that several of these poor people that had so removed, had the sickness even in their huts or

booths; the reason of which was plain, namely, not because they removed into the air, but because they did not remove time enough, that is to say, not till by openly conversing with the other people their neighbours, they had the distemper upon them, or, (as may be said) among them, and so carried about them whither they went: or, Secondly, because they were not careful enough after they were safely removed out of the towns, not to come in again and mingle with the diseased people.

But be it which of these it will, when our travellers began to perceive that the Plague was not only in the towns, but even in the tents and huts on the forest near them, they began then not only to be afraid, but to think of decamping and removing; for had they staid, they would have been in manifest danger of their lives.

It is not to be wondered that they were greatly afflicted at being obliged to quit the place where they had been so kindly received, and where they had been treated with so much humanity and charity; but necessity, and the hazard of life, which they came out so far to preserve, prevailed with them, and they saw no remedy. John, however, thought of a remedy for their present misfortune, namely, that he would first acquaint that gentleman who was their principal benefactor, with the distress they were in, and to crave his assistance and advice.

The good charitable gentleman encouraged them to quit the place, for fear they should be cut off from any retreat at all, by the violence of the distemper; but whither they should go, that he found very hard to direct them to. At last John asked of him, whether he (being a justice of the peace) would give them certificates of health

to other justices who they might come before, that so whatever might be their lot they might not be repulsed now they had been also so long from London. This his worship immediately granted, and gave them proper letters of health, and from thence they were at liberty to travel whither they pleased.

Accordingly they had a full certificate of health, intimating, That they had resided in a village in the county of Essex so long, that being examined and scrutinized sufficiently, and having been retired from all conversation for above forty days, without any appearance of sickness, they were therefore certainly concluded to be sound men, and might be safely entertained any where, having at last removed rather for fear of the Plague, which was come into such a town, rather than for having any signal of infection upon them, or upon any belonging to them.

With this certificate they removed, though with great reluctance; and John inclining not to go far from home, they moved towards the marshes on the side of Waltham: but here they found a man, who it seems kept a weer or stop upon the river, made to raise the water for the barges which go up and down the river, and he terrified them with dismal stories of the sickness having been spread into all the towns on the river, and near the river, on the side of Middlesex and Hertfordshire; that is to say, into Waltham-Cross, Enfield and Ware, and all the towns on the road, that they were afraid to go that way; though it seems the man imposed upon them, for that the thing was not really true.

However it terrified them, and they resolved to move across the Forest towards Rumford and Brentwood: but they heard that there were num

bers of people fled out of London that way, who lay up and down in the Forest called Henalt Forest, reaching near Rumford, and who, having no subsistence or habitation, not only lived oddly, and suffered great extremities in the woods and fields for want of relief, but were said to be made so desperate by those extremities, as that they offered many violences to the county, robbed and plundered, and killed cattle, and the like; that others building huts and hovels by the road-side, begged, and that with an importunity next door to demanding relief; so that the country was very uneasy, and had been obliged to take some of them up.

This, in the first place, intimated to them, that they would be sure to find the charity and kindness of the county, which they had found here where they were before, hardened and shut up against them; and that, on the other hand, they would be questioned wherever they came, and would be in danger of violence from others in like cases as themselves.

Upon all these considerations, John, their captain, in all their names, went back to their good friend and benefactor, who had relieved them before, and laying their case truly before him, humbly asked his advice; and he as kindly advised them to take up their old quarters again, or if not, to remove but a little further out of the road, and directed them to a proper place for them; and as they really wanted some house rather than huts to shelter them at that time of the year, it growing on towards Michaelmas, they found an old decayed house, which had been formerly some cottage or little habitation, but was so out of repair as scarce habitable, and by the consent of a farmer to whose farm it belonged,