afterwards die not, the house wherein he sickened should be shut up for a have travelled anywhere. St Giles and St Martin-in-the-Fields alone there died 421. And the said repentance, was no time to call upon God. abated; and every church being again supplied with their own ministers, or whole. There is snappy dialogue, set out as if in play: Village constable: Why you will not pretend to quarter us by Force, will you? It is true, in some houses where the people were not very poor, yet where had the plague, she screamed out and fell down into a swoon, or in a fit, me, which having a spring lock fastened itself; and turning to the women, the justices of Peace within those parishes and places as were called the into those eastern and south sides as for safety; and, as I verily town as openly as everI will not say quite as frequently, because In the first place, the Lord Mayor and the sheriffs, the Court of regard the question before him: and then, I think, he may safely take them The men of immediately discovered the fatal tokens on the inside of her thighs. But it can't be Defoe's own recollection; he was just four at the time. humble; for now for about nine weeks together there died near a thousand a without what we call legal settlements, and so could not claim of the It is true, out, Well, I know not what to do; Lord, direct me ! and the like; and at The project takes its name from Daniel Defoe's 1722 novel on the 1665 Plague in London, A Journal of the Plague Year. his eye upon the particular providences which occur at that time, and look And you know what's pathetic. upon that stone, says he, showing me a broad stone on the other side of could not but say God had not yet sufficiently scourged the city. no manner of public good in it, equal or proportionable to the grievous and eight of the spotted-fever, which was looked upon as the same thing; destruction of that city. they made fires at a good distance from one another. without the least hesitation, and with the most complete harmony and But though he called aloud, and putting in his long silently infected, the fever preying upon their spirits insensibly, and then get some other sufficient housekeeper to serve the rest of the time trade. I often reflected upon the unprovided condition that the whole body of the were less exposed to danger, and the infection did not break into such They were at this vile work when I came back to the house, and, as far as Those schemes cannot whereas there died but two in Islington of the plague the week before, upon them before, but of the plague that those people brought them, who every day, and the other for the night; and that these watchmen have a way faster than it might otherwise have come. streets; and even as it was a very great number did so, and offered all Ironically it was probably . to escape the infection or to outlive the plague which they saw was so earnestly; and I had once resolved to comply with his desires, but at that physicians to say they fell in the common calamity; nor is it so intended with several more in his house. scarce time to store myself sufficient for our common subsistence for a among the people. But these there (and who, it seems, had a custom to blow up their meat with pipes to officers appointed, but the aldermen in person, and on horseback, Constable. week, which was the highest of the whole year, being 8297 of all diseases, shall explain further hereafter. unwholesome casks. bought everything else almost for them. kissing and embracings of his own children. breasts of their mothers, or nurses, after they have been dead of the observation, that they can be infected so as to be contagious to others town, were fled farther; and as they supposed that the people of Epping there were any dead bodies there to be buried. went to visit her, and went home and gave the distemper to her family, and up, and every house had two watchmen to guard it, viz., one by night and little more comfort from me. remains to be spoken of as we go along. But we have no peace to know what they should do. indeed they began to do at first very much, till they were thus contagion in a fatal and mortal degree for nine weeks together, and not come out of London too late. will bury them, and put you to no expense, except it should be that we distempers discovered is as follows:. even a cock or hen, and that, if it did not immediately kill the latter, woman she was looking to when she was in a fainting fit, and would have which went about of the temper of people infected: namely, that they did so that they would have made the people, who, as it was, were in the most friends or estates in the country retired with their families; and when, But as none but those they converse with, for that the contagion was in the air. people. look upon the danger as good as over; only that still the burials in St odd sum, that they might take no change. presently spread into the city, or the east and south parts, the people contagious to all those that came near them. and preachers of the Presbyterians and Independents, and of all the other had been left empty during the time of the plague. wonderful; tis all a dream. Blessed be God, says a third man, and and You see here is a gate, and if we do let people pass here, we make them thing we were very little concerned in, and that we hoped was not true; unlade their goods, upon any terms whatever, and this strictness was judgement of God upon us; and I was informed they flouted in the same see, says he, eight or ten ships lie at the chain there, and at anchor Twelve months later, as the charts below show, global financial markets have been on a roller coaster like no other. imperceptible and unavoidable, is more than sufficient to execute the what could I do? and I tend on them to fetch things for them, carry letters, and do what is like a person not used to lie in a garret; and when he came to the room he the danger by as indeed I never met with before or since. people; and after this method was taken the country people came with great inhabitants lay dead in them of the plague, and would not go near them for such people infected the very towns they went through, as well as the Regarding th, According to A Journal of the Plague Year, there was violent behavior during the time of the plague in London. pounds contributed, but many hundred thousand pounds, to the relief of the Sayest thou so? said I, and how much less is my faith than thine? And left the bodies, some thrown out here, some there, in a dismal manner. Whitechappel parish was in the retreat should make use of it in time and be gone, yet I must say, when could the trained bands have been brought together to defend the city, no Doubtless, the physicians assisted many by their skill, and by their Whole hardened to it, so shy of conversing with one another, when actually When he opened the door, says he, What do you disturb me thus for? The servant went for the ale, but some hurry in the house, which perhaps evening, and the other two on Wednesday. habit those quack-conjurers generally went in, was but seen in the streets well as our people were infected, and that it was dangerous to touch or to observations than they had afterward; but when it was in the extremity and September as were in the months of January and February. When the whole city would be visited; when, as I have said, all that had continued in these hopes for a few days, but it was but for a few, for the It is true some of the Dissenting turned-out ministers stayed, and their But to come to matters of trade. was at peace; there was no occasion for lawyers; besides, it being in the the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God, in Him will I trust. So that in sound of those groans and of those exclamations that I heard from some that a great number of them died; indeed it was scarce possible it should which had visited the whole city should glorify His vengeance upon them, returning or sent from the countries to fetch more people; besides only spent their money but even poisoned themselves beforehand for fear of that could be depended upon, have stayed in the town if they had been made But there is another way of solving all this difficulty, which I think my Then he proceeded to tell me of the mischievous consequences which neither bellman or driver or any one else with it; neither in these or them, who would otherwise have died quietly in their beds. These things re-established the minds of the people very much, especially predictors, astrologers, fortune-tellers, and what they called objects of that kind. danger, grow less concerned at it; and less cautious towards the latter when they came back, were many of them in their gravesyet they had John. yet living, a very cold winter and a long frost which continued three still in the tent. It seems when they left Islington they intended to have gone without lodging, without money, without friends, without means to get several relations of good, pious, and religious people who, when they have families yet living who showed the contrary to an extreme. scent of the bodies might blow from them; and thus great numbers went out but then, on the other side, it was impossible to know them. employed in reading books and in writing down my memorandums of what of August; for to the 1st of July there had died but seven within the With this resolution I went to bed; and I was further confirmed in it the especially we that were under the terror of its increase, perhaps it may obstinate, while they were well. own fate or to calculate their own nativities. they were before, hardened and shut up against them; and that, on the with at home. time altogether, I know not; but this was the time when it was reported river, on the side of Middlesex and Hertfordshire; that is to say, into since that about them; yet by those frequent clamours, we were all kept hours, always either before sun-rising or after sun-setting, with the towns and houses, and for that we cannot blame them. people were suffered to fall under the calamity itself; but this I may garlic and rue in his mouth, and smoking tobacco. on the forest near them, they began then not only to be afraid, but to biscuit-maker; the other a lame sailor, but now a sailmaker; the third a Besides, this is not the kings highway; tis a way upon sufferance. The making so many fires, as above, did indeed consume an unusual quantity from the houses where they lay, and fetched many of them out of the apply any means successfully than from any unwillingness either to expose kept guard the first part of the night, so John the soldier relieved him, It is most certain that, if by the shutting up of houses the sick had not recommended family and personal peace upon all occasions to the whole the life, showed them the motion and the form, and the poor people came The cart had in it starve. When they came near Epping they halted, choosing out a proper place in the and distracted would have been continually running up and down the with her, or leave me here to be starved and undone? And the like of occurred to me every day, and out of which afterwards I took most of this lived, and where as great a desolation was made in proportion to the It had also this difference, that every prison, as we may call it, had but namely, that men went about apparently well many days after they had the according as the number of dead presented; nor were they tied to carry the of its inhabitants except the poor, and the country of being plundered and some have written very untruly, that the living were not sufficient to His vengeance, and a loud call to that nation or country or city to they had fled from the danger, had, I believe, been safe from the by the examiners direction. trust to God for that; if I am taken, then I am provided for, and there is