History of the Plague in London

That all plays, bear baitings,[88 - Fights between dogs and bears. This was not declared a criminal offense in England until 1835.] games, singing of ballads, buckler play,[89 - Contests with sword and shield.] or such like causes of assemblies of people, be utterly prohibited, and the parties offending severely punished by every alderman in his ward.

Feasting prohibited

That all public feasting, and particularly by the companies[90 - The guilds or organizations of tradesmen, such as the goldsmiths, the fishmongers, the merchant tailors.] of this city, and dinners in taverns, alehouses, and other places of public entertainment, be forborne till further order and allowance, and that the money thereby spared be preserved, and employed for the benefit and relief of the poor visited with the infection.

Tippling-Houses

That disorderly tippling in taverns, alehouses, coffeehouses, and cellars, be severely looked unto as the common sin of the time, and greatest occasion of dispersing the plague. And that no company or person be suffered to remain or come into any tavern, alehouse, or coffeehouse, to drink, after nine of the clock in the evening, according to the ancient law and custom of this city, upon the penalties ordained by law.

And for the better execution of these orders, and such other rules and directions as upon further consideration shall be found needful, it is ordered and enjoined that the aldermen, deputies, and common councilmen shall meet together weekly, once, twice, thrice, or oftener, as cause shall require, at some one general place accustomed in their respective wards, being clear from infection of the plague, to consult how the said orders may be put in execution, not intending that any dwelling in or near places infected shall come to the said meeting while their coming may be doubtful. And the said aldermen, deputies, and common councilmen, in their several wards, may put in execution any other orders that by them, at their said meetings, shall be conceived and devised for the preservation of his Majesty's subjects from the infection.

I need not say that these orders extended only to such places as were within the lord mayor's jurisdiction: so it is requisite to observe that the justices of peace within those parishes and places as were called the "hamlets" and "outparts" took the same method. As I remember, the orders for shutting up of houses did not take place so soon on our side, because, as I said before, the plague did not reach to this eastern part of the town at least, nor begin to be violent till the beginning of August. For example, the whole bill from the 11th to the 18th of July was 1,761, yet there died but 71 of the plague in all those parishes we call the Tower Hamlets; and they were as follows: —

1. St. Katherine's by the Tower.

2. Trinity (east of the) Minories. The Minories (a street running north from the Tower) was so designated from an abbey of St. Clare nuns called Minoresses. They took their name from that of the Franciscan Order, Fratres Minores, or Lesser Brethren.

It was indeed coming on amain, for the burials that same week were, in the next adjoining parishes, thus: —

3. St. Luke's.

4. St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate.

5. St. Giles's, Cripplegate.

This shutting up of houses was at first counted a very cruel and unchristian method, and the poor people so confined made bitter lamentations. Complaints of the severity of it were also daily brought to my lord mayor, of houses causelessly, and some maliciously, shut up. I cannot say but upon inquiry many 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 pesthouse, was[91 - Were.] released.

As I went along Houndsditch one morning, about eight o'clock, there was a great noise. It is true, indeed, there was not much crowd, because the 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, who looked out of a 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 Monday afternoon, when he heard a 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 you 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 o'clock. Soon after, as the fellow said, he stopped the dead cart, and then knocked again, but nobody answered; he continued knocking, and 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 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.[92 - Chemise.] 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 broke 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 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 this 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 and servants, being all gone and fled: whether sick or sound, that I could never learn, nor, indeed, did I make much inquiry after it.

At another house, as I was informed, in the street next within Aldgate, a whole family was shut up and locked in because the maidservant was taken sick. The master of the house had complained by his friends to the next alderman, and to the lord mayor, and had consented to have the maid carried to the pesthouse, but was refused: so the door was marked with a red cross, a padlock on the outside, as above, and a watchman set to keep the door, according to public order.

After the master of the house found there was no remedy, but that he, his wife, and his children, were locked up with this poor distempered servant, he called to the watchman, and told him he must go then and fetch a nurse for them to attend this poor girl, for that it would be certain death to them all to oblige them to nurse her, and told him plainly that if he would not do this the maid would perish either[93 - This word is misplaced; it should go before "perish."] of the distemper, or be starved for want of food, for he was resolved none of his family should go near her; and she lay in the garret, four story high, where she could not cry out or call to anybody for help.

The watchman consented to that, and went and fetched a nurse as he was appointed, and brought her to them the same evening. During this interval, the master of the house took his opportunity to break a large hole through his shop into a bulk or stall, where formerly a cobbler had sat before or under his shop window; but the tenant, as may be supposed, at such a dismal time as that, was dead or removed, and so he had the key in his own keeping. Having[94 - Before "having," supply "the master."] made his way into this stall, which he could not have done if the man had been at the door, the noise he was obliged to make being such as would have alarmed the watchman, – I say, having made his way into this stall, he sat still till the watchman returned with the nurse, and all the next day also; but the night following, having contrived to send the watchman of another trifling errand (which, as I take it, was to an apothecary's for a plaster for the maid, which he was to stay for the making up, or some other such errand that might secure his staying some time), in that time he conveyed himself and all his family out of the house, and left the nurse and the watchman to bury the poor wench, that is, throw her into the cart, and take care of the house.

Not far from the same place they blowed up a watchman with gunpowder, and burned the poor fellow dreadfully; and while he made hideous cries, and nobody would venture to come near to help him, the whole family that were able to stir got out at the windows (one story high), two that were left sick calling out for help. Care was taken to give them nurses to look after them; but the persons fled were never found till, after the plague was abated, they returned. But as nothing could be proved, so nothing could be done to them.

In other cases, some had gardens and walls, or pales,[95 - Fences.] between them and their neighbors, or yards and backhouses; and these, by friendship and entreaties, would get leave to get over those walls or pales, and so go out at their neighbors' doors, or, by giving money to their servants, get them to let them through in the night. So that, in short, the shutting up of houses was in no wise to be depended upon; neither did it answer the end at all, serving more to make the people desperate, and drive them to such extremities as that they would break out at all adventures.

And that which was still worse, those that did thus break out spread the infection farther, by their wandering about with the distemper upon them in their desperate circumstances, than they would otherwise have done; for whoever considers all the particulars in such cases must acknowledge, and cannot doubt, but the severity of those confinements made many people desperate, and made them run out of their houses at all hazards, and with the plague visibly upon them, not knowing either whither to go, or what to do, or indeed what they did. And many that did so were driven to dreadful exigencies and extremities, and perished in the streets or fields for mere want, or dropped down by[96 - From.] the raging violence of the fever upon them. Others wandered into the country, and went forward any way, as their desperation guided them, not knowing whither they went or would go, till, faint and tired, and not getting any relief, the houses and villages on the road refusing to admit them to lodge, whether infected or no, they have perished by the roadside, or gotten into barns, and died there, none daring to come to them or relieve them, though perhaps not infected, for nobody would believe them.

On the other hand, when the plague at first seized a family, that is to say, when any one body of the family had gone out, and unwarily or otherwise catched[97 - This old form for "caught" is used frequently by Defoe.] the distemper and brought it home, it was certainly known by the family before it was known to the officers, who, as you will see by the order, were appointed to examine into the circumstances of all sick persons, when they heard of their being sick.

In this interval, between their being taken sick and the examiners coming, the master of the house had leisure and liberty to remove himself, or all his family, if he knew whither to go; and many did so. But the great disaster was, that many did thus after they were really infected themselves, and so carried the disease into the houses of those who were so hospitable as to receive them; which, it must be confessed, was very cruel and ungrateful.

I am speaking now of people made desperate by the apprehensions of their being shut up, and their breaking out by stratagem or force, either before or after they were shut up, whose misery was not lessened when they were out, but sadly increased. On the other hand, many who thus got away had retreats to go to, and other houses, where they locked themselves up, and kept hid till the plague was over; and many families, foreseeing the approach of the distemper, laid up stores of provisions sufficient for their whole families, and shut themselves up, and that so entirely, that they were neither seen or heard of till the infection was quite ceased, and then came abroad sound and well. I might recollect several such as these, and give you the particulars of their management; for doubtless it was the most effectual secure step that could be taken for such whose circumstances would not admit them to remove, or who had not retreats abroad proper for the case; for, in being thus shut up, they were as if they had been a hundred miles off. Nor do I remember that any one of those families miscarried.[98 - Came to grief.] Among these, several Dutch merchants were particularly remarkable, who kept their houses like little garrisons besieged, suffering none to go in or out, or come near them; particularly one in a court in Throckmorton Street, whose house looked into Drapers' Garden.

But I come back to the case of families infected, and shut up by the magistrates. The misery of those families is not to be expressed; and it was generally in such houses that we heard the most dismal shrieks and outcries of the poor people, terrified, and even frightened to death, by the sight of the condition of their dearest relations, and by the terror of being imprisoned as they were.

I remember, and while I am writing this story I think I hear the very sound of it: a certain lady had an only daughter, a young maiden about nineteen years old, and who was possessed of a very considerable fortune. They were only lodgers in the house where they were. The young woman, her mother, and the maid had been abroad on some occasion, I do not remember what, for the house was not shut up; but about two hours after they came home, the young lady complained she was not well; in a quarter of an hour more she vomited, and had a violent pain in her head. "Pray God," says her mother, in a terrible fright, "my child has not the distemper!" The pain in her head increasing, her mother ordered the bed to be warmed, and resolved to put her to bed, and prepared to give her things to sweat, which was the ordinary remedy to be taken when the first apprehensions of the distemper began.

While the bed was airing, the mother undressed the young woman, and just as she was laid down in the bed, she, looking upon her body with a candle, immediately discovered the fatal tokens on the inside of her thighs. Her mother, not being able to contain herself, threw down her candle, and screeched out in such a frightful manner, that it was enough to place horror upon the stoutest heart in the world. Nor was it one scream, or one cry, but, the fright having seized her spirits, she fainted first, then recovered, then ran all over the house (up the stairs and down the stairs) like one distracted, and indeed really was distracted, and continued screeching and crying out for several hours, void of all sense, or at least government of her senses, and, as I was told, never came thoroughly to herself again. As to the young maiden, she was a dead corpse from that moment: for the gangrene, which occasions the spots, had spread over her whole body, and she died in less than two hours. But still the mother continued crying out, not knowing anything more of her child, several hours after she was dead. It is so long ago that I am not certain, but I think the mother never recovered, but died in two or three weeks after.

I have by me a story of two brothers and their kinsman, who, being single men, but that had staid[99 - "Who, being," etc., i.e., who, although single men, had yet staid.] in the city too long to get away, and, indeed, not knowing where to go to have any retreat, nor having wherewith to travel far, took a course for their own preservation, which, though in itself at first desperate, yet was so natural that it may be wondered that no more did so at that time. They were but of mean condition, and yet not so very poor as that they could not furnish themselves with some little conveniences, such as might serve to keep life and soul together; and finding the distemper increasing in a terrible manner, they resolved to shift as well as they could, and to be gone.

One of them had been a soldier in the late wars,[100 - The wars of the Commonwealth or of the Puritan Revolution, 1640-52.] and before that in the Low Countries;[101 - Holland and Belgium.] and having been bred to no particular employment but his arms, and besides, being wounded, and not able to work very hard, had for some time been employed at a baker's of sea biscuit, in Wapping.

The brother of this man was a seaman too, but somehow or other had been hurt of[102 - "Hurt of," a common form of expression used in Defoe's time.] one leg, that he could not go to sea, but had worked for his living at a sailmaker's in Wapping or thereabouts, and, being a good husband,[103 - Manager, economist. This meaning of "husband" is obsolete.] had laid up some money, and was the richest of the three.

The third man was a joiner or carpenter by trade, a handy fellow, and he had no wealth but his box or basket of tools, with the help of which he could at any time get his living (such a time as this excepted) wherever he went; and he lived near Shadwell.

They all lived in Stepney Parish, which, as I have said, being the last that was infected, or at least violently, they staid there till they evidently saw the plague was abating at the west part of the town, and coming towards the east, where they lived.

The story of those three men, if the reader will be content to have me give it in their own persons, without taking upon me to either vouch the particulars or answer for any mistakes, I shall give as distinctly as I can, believing the history will be a very good pattern for any poor man to follow in case the like public desolation should happen here. And if there may be no such occasion, (which God of his infinite mercy grant us!) still the story may have its uses so many ways as that it will, I hope, never be said that the relating has been unprofitable.

I say all this previous to the history, having yet, for the present, much more to say before I quit my own part.

I went all the first part of the time freely about the streets, though not so freely as to run myself into apparent danger, except when they dug the great pit in the churchyard of our parish of Aldgate. A terrible pit it was, and I could not resist my curiosity to go and see it. As near as I may judge, it was about forty feet in length, and about fifteen or sixteen feet broad, and at the time I first looked at it about nine feet deep. But it was said they dug it near twenty feet deep afterwards, in one part of it, till they could go no deeper for the water; for they had, it seems, dug several large pits before this; for, though the plague was long a-coming[104 - A participial form of expression very common in Old English, the "a" being a corruption of "in" or "on."] to our parish, yet, when it did come, there was no parish in or about London where it raged with such violence as in the two parishes of Aldgate and Whitechapel.

I say they had dug several pits in another ground when the distemper began to spread in our parish, and especially when the dead carts began to go about, which was not in our parish till the beginning of August. Into these pits they had put perhaps fifty or sixty bodies each; then they made larger holes, wherein they buried all that the cart brought in a week, which, by the middle to the end of August, came to from two hundred to four hundred a week. And they could not well dig them larger, because of the order of the magistrates, confining them to leave no bodies within six feet of the surface; and the water coming on at about seventeen or eighteen feet, they could not well, I say, put more in one pit. But now, at the beginning of September, the plague raging in a dreadful manner, and the number of burials in our parish increasing to more than was[105 - Were.] ever buried in any parish about London of no larger extent, they ordered this dreadful gulf to be dug, for such it was rather than a pit.

They had supposed this pit would have supplied them for a month or more when they dug it; and some blamed the churchwardens for suffering such a frightful thing, telling them they were making preparations to bury the whole parish, and the like. But time made it appear, the churchwardens knew the condition of the parish better than they did: for, the pit being finished the 4th of September, I think they began to bury in it the 6th, and by the 20th, which was just two weeks, they had thrown into it eleven hundred and fourteen bodies, when they were obliged to fill it up, the bodies being then come to lie within six feet of the surface. I doubt not but there may be some ancient persons alive in the parish who can justify the fact of this, and are able to show even in what place of the churchyard the pit lay, better than I can: the mark of it also was many years to be seen in the churchyard on the surface, lying in length, parallel with the passage which goes by the west wall of the churchyard out of Houndsditch, and turns east again into Whitechapel, coming out near the Three Nuns Inn.

It was about the 10th of September that my curiosity led, or rather drove, me to go and see this pit again, when there had been near four hundred people buried in it. And I was not content to see it in the daytime, as I had done before, – for then there would have been nothing to have been seen but the loose earth, for all the bodies that were thrown in were immediately covered with earth by those they called the "buriers," which at other times were called "bearers," – but I resolved to go in the night, and see some of them thrown in.

There was a strict order to prevent people coming to those pits, and that was only to prevent infection. But after some time that order was more necessary; for people that were infected and near their end, and delirious also, would run to those pits wrapped in blankets, or rugs, and throw themselves in, and, as they said, "bury themselves." I cannot say that the officers suffered any willingly to lie there; but I have heard that in a great pit in Finsbury, in the parish of Cripplegate (it lying open then to the fields, for it was not then walled about), many came and threw themselves in, and expired there, before they threw any earth upon them; and that when they came to bury others, and found them there, they were quite dead, though not cold.

This may serve a little to describe the dreadful condition of that day, though it is impossible to say anything that is able to give a true idea of it to those who did not see it, other than this: that it was indeed very, very, very dreadful, and such as no tongue can express.

I got admittance into the churchyard by being acquainted with the sexton who attended, who, though he did not refuse me at all, yet earnestly persuaded me not to go, telling me very seriously (for he was a good, religious, and sensible man) that it was indeed their business and duty to venture, and to run all hazards, and that in it they might hope to be preserved; but that I had no apparent call to it but my own curiosity, which, he said, he believed I would not pretend was sufficient to justify my running that hazard. I told him I had been pressed in my mind to go, and that perhaps it might be an instructing sight that might not be without its uses. "Nay," says the good man, "if you will venture upon that score, 'name of God,[106 - "'Name of God," i.e., in the name of God.] go in; for, depend upon it, it will be a sermon to you, it may be, the best that ever you heard in your life. It is a speaking sight," says he, "and has a voice with it, and a loud one, to call us all to repentance;" and with that he opened the door, and said, "Go, if you will."

His discourse had shocked my resolution a little, and I stood wavering for a good while; but just at that interval I saw two links[107 - Torches.] come over from the end of the Minories, and heard the bellman, and then appeared a "dead cart," as they called it, coming over the streets: so I could no longer resist my desire of seeing it, and went in. There was nobody, as I could perceive at first, in the churchyard, or going into it, but the buriers, and the fellow that drove the cart, or rather led the horse and cart; but when they came up to the pit, they saw a man go to and again,[108 - "To and again," i.e., to and fro.] muffled up in a brown cloak, and making motions with his hands, under his cloak, as if he was[109 - Were.] in great agony. And the buriers immediately gathered about him, supposing he was one of those poor delirious or desperate creatures that used to pretend, as I have said, to bury themselves. He said nothing as he walked about, but two or three times groaned very deeply and loud, and sighed as[110 - As if.] he would break his heart.

When the buriers came up to him, they soon found he was neither a person infected and desperate, as I have observed above, or a person distempered in mind, but one oppressed with a dreadful weight of grief indeed, having his wife and several of his children all in the cart that was just come in with him; and he followed in an agony and excess of sorrow. He mourned heartily, as it was easy to see, but with a kind of masculine grief, that could not give itself vent by tears, and, calmly desiring the buriers to let him alone, said he would only see the bodies thrown in, and go away. So they left importuning him; but no sooner was the cart turned round, and the bodies shot into the pit promiscuously, – which was a surprise to him, for he at least expected they would have been decently laid in, though, indeed, he was afterwards convinced that was impracticable, – I say, no sooner did he see the sight, but he cried out aloud, unable to contain himself. I could not hear what he said, but he went backward two or three steps, and fell down in a swoon. The buriers ran to him and took him up, and in a little while he came to himself, and they led him away to the Pye[111 - Magpie.] Tavern, over against the end of Houndsditch, where, it seems, the man was known, and where they took care of him. He looked into the pit again as he went away; but the buriers had covered the bodies so immediately with throwing in earth, that, though there was light enough (for there were lanterns,[112 - This word is from the same root as "lamp." The old form "lanthorn" crept in from the custom of making the sides of a lantern of horn.] and candles in them, placed all night round the sides of the pit upon the heaps of earth, seven or eight, or perhaps more), yet nothing could be seen.

This was a mournful scene indeed, and affected me almost as much as the rest. But the other was awful, and full of terror: the cart had in it sixteen or seventeen bodies; some were wrapped up in linen sheets, some in rugs, some little other than naked, or so loose that what covering they had fell from them in the shooting out of the cart, and they fell quite naked among the rest; but the matter was not much to them, or the indecency much to any one else, seeing they were all dead, and were to be huddled together into the common grave of mankind, as we may call it; for here was no difference made, but poor and rich went together. There was no other way of burials, neither was it possible there should,[113 - Supply "be."] for coffins were not to be had for the prodigious numbers that fell in such a calamity as this.