Даниэль Дефо - History of the Plague in London

I know the story goes, he set up [148] "Set up," i.e., began to play upon. his pipes in the cart, and frighted the bearers and others, so that they ran away; but John Hayward did not tell the story so, nor say anything of his piping at all. But that he was a poor piper, and that he was carried away as above, I am fully satisfied of the truth of.

It is to be noted here that the dead carts in the city were not confined to particular parishes; but one cart went through several parishes, according as the number of dead presented. Nor were they tied [149] Constrained. to carry the dead to their respective parishes; but many of the dead taken up in the city were carried to the burying ground in the outparts for want of room.

At the beginning of the plague, when there was now no more hope but that the whole city would be visited; when, as I have said, all that had friends or estates in the country retired with their families; and when, indeed, one would have thought the very city itself was running out of the gates, and that there would be nobody left behind,—you may be sure from that hour all trade, except such as related to immediate subsistence, was, as it were, at a full stop.

This is so lively a case, and contains in it so much of the real condition of the people, that I think I cannot be too particular in it, and therefore I descend to the several arrangements or classes of people who fell into immediate distress upon this occasion. For example:—

All master workmen in manufactures, especially such as belonged to ornament and the less necessary parts of the people's dress, clothes, and furniture for houses; such as ribbon–weavers and other weavers, gold and silver lacemakers, and gold and silver wire–drawers, seamstresses, milliners, shoemakers, hatmakers, and glovemakers, also upholsterers, joiners, cabinet–makers, looking–glass–makers, and innumerable trades which depend upon such as these,—I say, the master workmen in such stopped their work, dismissed their journeymen and workmen and all their dependents.

As merchandising was at a full stop (for very few ships ventured to come up the river, and none at all went out [150] Because they would have been refused admission to other ports. ), so all the extraordinary officers of the customs, likewise the watermen, carmen, porters, and all the poor whose labor depended upon the merchants, were at once dismissed, and put out of business.

All the tradesmen usually employed in building or repairing of houses were at a full stop; for the people were far from wanting to build houses when so many thousand houses were at once stripped of their inhabitants; so that this one article [151] Matter. So used by Sheridan in The Rivals, act iii. sc. 2. turned out all the ordinary workmen of that kind of business, such as bricklayers, masons, carpenters, joiners, plasterers, painters, glaziers, smiths, plumbers, and all the laborers depending on such.

As navigation was at a stop, our ships neither coming in or going out as before, so the seamen were all out of employment, and many of them in the last and lowest degree of distress. And with the seamen were all the several tradesmen and workmen belonging to and depending upon the building and fitting out of ships; such as ship–carpenters, calkers, ropemakers, dry coopers, sailmakers, anchor–smiths, and other smiths, blockmakers, carvers, gunsmiths, ship–chandlers, ship–carvers, and the like. The masters of those, perhaps, might live upon their substance; but the traders were universally at a stop, and consequently all their workmen discharged. Add to these, that the river was in a manner without boats, and all or most part of the watermen, lighter–men, boat–builders, and lighter–builders, in like manner idle and laid by.

All families retrenched their living as much as possible, as well those that fled as those that staid; so that an innumerable multitude of footmen, serving men, shopkeepers, journeymen, merchants' bookkeepers, and such sort of people, and especially poor maidservants, were turned off, and left friendless and helpless, without employment and without habitation; and this was really a dismal article.

I might be more particular as to this part; but it may suffice to mention, in general, all trades being stopped, employment ceased, the labor, and by that the bread of the poor, were cut off; and at first, indeed, the cries of the poor were most lamentable to hear, though, by the distribution of charity, their misery that way was gently [152] Probably a misprint for "greatly." abated. Many, indeed, fled into the country; but, thousands of them having staid in London till nothing but desperation sent them away, death overtook them on the road, and they served for no better than the messengers of death: indeed, others carrying the infection along with them, spread it very unhappily into the remotest parts of the kingdom.

The women and servants that were turned off from their places were employed as nurses to tend the sick in all places, and this took off a very great number of them.

And which, [153] This. though a melancholy article in itself, yet was a deliverance in its kind, namely, the plague, which raged in a dreadful manner from the middle of August to the middle of October, carried off in that time thirty or forty thousand of these very people, which, had they been left, would certainly have been an insufferable burden by their poverty; that is to say, the whole city could not have supported the expense of them, or have provided food for them, and they would in time have been even driven to the necessity of plundering either the city itself, or the country adjacent, to have subsisted themselves, which would, first or last, have put the whole nation, as well as the city, into the utmost terror and confusion.

It was observable, then, that this calamity of the people made them very humble; for now, for about nine weeks together, there died near a thousand a day, one day with another, even by the account of the weekly bills, which yet, I have reason to be assured, never gave a full account by many thousands; the confusion being such, and the carts working in the dark when they carried the dead, that in some places no account at all was kept, but they worked on; the clerks and sextons not attending for weeks together, and not knowing what number they carried. This account is verified by the following bills of mortality:—

Of All Diseases. Of the Plague.

Aug. 8 to Aug. 15 5,319 3,880

Aug. 15 to Aug. 22 5,668 4,237

Aug. 22 to Aug. 29 7,496 6,102

Aug. 29 to Sept. 5 8,252 6,988

Sept. 5 to Sept. 12 7,690 6,544

Sept. 12 to Sept. 19 8,297 7,165

Sept. 19 to Sept. 30 6,400 5,533

Sept. 27 to Oct. 3 5,728 4,929

Oct. 3 to Oct. 10 5,068 4,227

―— ―—

59,918 49,605

So that the gross of the people were carried off in these two months; for, as the whole number which was brought in to die of the plague was but 68,590, here is [154] Are. 50,000 of them, within a trifle, in two months: I say 50,000, because as there wants 395 in the number above, so there wants two days of two months in the account of time. [155] He has really given two days more than two months.

Now, when I say that the parish officers did not give in a full account, or were not to be depended upon for their account, let any one but consider how men could be exact in such a time of dreadful distress, and when many of them were taken sick themselves, and perhaps died in the very time when their accounts were to be given in (I mean the parish clerks, besides inferior officers): for though these poor men ventured at all hazards, yet they were far from being exempt from the common calamity, especially if it be true that the parish of Stepney had within the year one hundred and sixteen sextons, gravediggers, and their assistants; that is to say, bearers, bellmen, and drivers of carts for carrying off the dead bodies.