Даниэль Дефо - History of the Plague in London

This notion having, as I said, prevailed with the people in that part of the town, was in part the occasion, as I said before, that they had recourse to ships for their retreat; and where they did this early and with prudence, furnishing themselves so with provisions so that they had no need to go on shore for supplies, or suffer boats to come on board to bring them,—I say, where they did so, they had certainly the safest retreat of any people whatsoever. But the distress was such, that people ran on board in their fright without bread to eat, and some into ships that had no men on board to remove them farther off, or to take the boat and go down the river to buy provisions, where it may be done safely; and these often suffered, and were infected on board as much as on shore.

As the richer sort got into ships, so the lower rank got into hoys, [182] Small vessels, generally schooner–rigged, used for carrying heavy freight on rivers and harbors. smacks, lighters, and fishing boats; and many, especially watermen, lay in their boats: but those made sad work of it, especially the latter; for going about for provision, and perhaps to get their subsistence, the infection got in among them, and made a fearful havoc. Many of the watermen died alone in their wherries as they rid at their roads, as well above bridge [183] London Bridge. as below, and were not found sometimes till they were not in condition for anybody to touch or come near them.

Indeed, the distress of the people at this seafaring end of the town was very deplorable, and deserved the greatest commiseration. But, alas! this was a time when every one's private safety lay so near them that they had no room to pity the distresses of others; for every one had death, as it were, at his door, and many even in their families, and knew not what to do, or whither to fly.

This, I say, took away all compassion. Self–preservation, indeed, appeared here to be the first law: for the children ran away from their parents as they languished in the utmost distress; and in some places, though not so frequent as the other, parents did the like to their children. Nay, some dreadful examples there were, and particularly two in one week, of distressed mothers, raving and distracted, killing their own children; one whereof was not far off from where I dwelt, the poor lunatic creature not living herself long enough to be sensible of the sin of what she had done, much less to be punished for it.

It is not, indeed, to be wondered at; for the danger of immediate death to ourselves took away all bowels of love, all concern for one another. I speak in general: for there were many instances of immovable affection, pity, and duty in many, and some that came to my knowledge, that is to say, by hearsay; for I shall not take upon me to vouch the truth of the particulars.

I could tell here dismal stories of living infants being found sucking the breasts of their mothers or nurses after they have been dead of the plague; of a mother in the parish where I lived, who, having a child that was not well, sent for an apothecary to view the child, and when he came, as the relation goes, was giving the child suck at her breast, and to all appearance was herself very well; but, when the apothecary came close to her, he saw the tokens upon that breast with which she was suckling the child. He was surprised enough, to be sure; but, not willing to fright the poor woman too much, he desired she would give the child into his hand: so he takes the child, and, going to a cradle in the room, lays it in, and, opening its clothes, found the tokens upon the child too; and both died before he could get home to send a preventive medicine to the father of the child, to whom he had told their condition. Whether the child infected the nurse mother, or the mother the child, was not certain, but the last most likely.

Likewise of a child brought home to the parents from a nurse that had died of the plague; yet the tender mother would not refuse to take in her child, and laid it in her bosom, by which she was infected and died, with the child in her arms dead also.

It would make the hardest heart move at the instances that were frequently found of tender mothers tending and watching with their dear children, and even dying before them, and sometimes taking the distemper from them, and dying, when the child for whom the affectionate heart had been sacrificed has got over it and escaped.

I have heard also of some who, on the death of their relations, have grown stupid with the insupportable sorrow; and of one in particular, who was so absolutely overcome with the pressure upon his spirits, that by degrees his head sunk into his body so between his shoulders, that the crown of his head was very little seen above the bone of his shoulders; and by degrees, losing both voice and sense, his face, looking forward, lay against his collar bone, and could not be kept up any otherwise, unless held up by the hands of other people. And the poor man never came to himself again, but languished near a year in that condition, and died. Nor was he ever once seen to lift up his eyes, or to look upon any particular object. [184] This incident is so overdone, that it fails to be pathetic, and rather excites our laughter.

I cannot undertake to give any other than a summary of such passages as these, because it was not possible to come at the particulars where sometimes the whole families where such things happened were carried off by the distemper; but there were innumerable cases of this kind which presented [185] Supply "themselves." to the eye and the ear, even in passing along the streets, as I have hinted above. Nor is it easy to give any story of this or that family, which there was not divers parallel stories to be met with of the same kind.

But as I am now talking of the time when the plague raged at the easternmost parts of the town; how for a long time the people of those parts had flattered themselves that they should escape, and how they were surprised when it came upon them as it did (for indeed it came upon them like an armed man when it did come),—I say this brings me back to the three poor men who wandered from Wapping, not knowing whither to go or what to do, and whom I mentioned before,—one a biscuit baker, one a sailmaker, and the other a joiner, all of Wapping or thereabouts.

The sleepiness and security of that part, as I have observed, was such, that they not only did not shift for themselves as others did, but they boasted of being safe, and of safety being with them. And many people fled out of the city, and out of the infected suburbs, to Wapping, Ratcliff, Limehouse, Poplar, and such places, as to places of security. And it is not at all unlikely that their doing this helped to bring the plague that way faster than it might otherwise have come: for though I am much for people's flying away, and emptying such a town as this upon the first appearance of a like visitation, and that all people who have any possible retreat should make use of it in time, and begone, yet I must say, when all that will fly are gone, those that are left, and must stand it, should stand stock–still where they are, and not shift from one end of the town or one part of the town to the other; for that is the bane and mischief of the whole, and they carry the plague from house to house in their very clothes.

Wherefore were we ordered to kill all the dogs and cats, but because, as they were domestic animals, and are apt to run from house to house and from street to street, so they are capable of carrying the effluvia or infectious steams of bodies infected, even in their furs and hair? And therefore it was, that, in the beginning of the infection, an order was published by the lord mayor and by the magistrates, according to the advice of the physicians, that all the dogs and cats should be immediately killed; and an officer was appointed for the execution.