History of the Plague in London by Daniel Defoe
indeed, not knowing where to go to have any retreat, nor havingwherewith to travel far, took a course for their own preservation,which, though in itself at first desperate, yet was so natural that itmay be wondered that no more did so at that time. They were but of meancondition, and yet not so very poor as that they could not furnishthemselves with some little conveniences, such as might serve to keeplife and soul together; and finding the distemper increasing in aterrible manner, they resolved to shift as well as they could, and to begone.
One of them had been a soldier in the late wars,[105] and before that inthe Low Countries;[106] and having been bred to no particular employmentbut his arms, and besides, being wounded, and not able to work veryhard, had for some time been employed at a baker's of sea biscuit, inWapping.
The brother of this man was a seaman too, but somehow or other had beenhurt of[107] one leg, that he could not go to sea, but had worked forhis living at a sailmaker's in Wapping or thereabouts, and, being a goodhusband,[108] 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 hehad no wealth but his box or basket of tools, with the help of which hecould at any time get his living (such a time as this excepted) whereverhe went; and he lived near Shadwell.
They all lived in Stepney Parish, which, as I have said, being the lastthat was infected, or at least violently, they staid there till theyevidently saw the plague was abating at the west part of the town, andcoming towards the east, where they lived.
The story of those three men, if the reader will be content to have megive it in their own persons, without taking upon me to either vouch theparticulars or answer for any mistakes, I shall give as distinctly as Ican, believing the history will be a very good pattern for any poor manto follow in case the like public desolation should happen here. And ifthere may be no such occasion, (which God of his infinite mercy grantus!) still the story may have its uses so many ways as that it will, Ihope, 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, thoughnot so freely as to run myself into apparent danger, except when theydug the great pit in the churchyard of our parish of Aldgate. A terriblepit it was, and I could not resist my curiosity to go and see it. Asnear as I may judge, it was about forty feet in length, and aboutfifteen or sixteen feet broad, and at the time I first looked at itabout nine feet deep. But it was said they dug it near twenty feet deepafterwards, in one part of it, till they could go no deeper for thewater; for they had, it seems, dug several large pits before this; for,though the plague was long a-coming[109] to our parish, yet, when it didcome, there was no parish in or about London where it raged with suchviolence as in the two parishes of Aldgate and Whitechapel.
I say they had dug several pits in another ground when the distemperbegan to spread in our parish, and especially when the dead carts beganto 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; thenthey made larger holes, wherein they buried all that the cart brought ina week, which, by the middle to the end of August, came to from twohundred to four hundred a week. And they could not well dig them larger,because of the order of the magistrates, confining them to leave nobodies within six feet of the surface; and the water coming on at aboutseventeen or eighteen feet, they could not well, I say, put more in onepit. But now, at the beginning of September, the plague raging in adreadful manner, and the number of burials in our parish increasing tomore than was[110] ever buried in any parish about London of no largerextent, they ordered this dreadful gulf to be dug, for such it wasrather than a pit.
They had supposed this pit would have supplied them for a month or morewhen they dug it; and some blamed the churchwardens for suffering such afrightful thing, telling them they were making preparations to bury thewhole parish, and the like. But time made it appear, the churchwardensknew the condition of the parish better than they did: for, the pitbeing finished the 4th of September, I think they began to bury in itthe 6th, and by the 20th, which was just two weeks, they had thrown intoit eleven hundred and fourteen bodies, when they were obliged to fill itup, the bodies being then come to lie within six feet of the surface. Idoubt not but there may be some ancient persons alive in the parish whocan justify the fact of this, and are able to show even in what place ofthe churchyard the pit lay, better than I can: the mark of it also wasmany 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 churchyardout of Houndsditch, and turns east again into Whitechapel, coming outnear the Three Nuns Inn.
It was about the 10th of September that my curiosity led, or ratherdrove, me to go and see this pit again, when there had been near fourhundred people buried in it. And I was not content to see it in thedaytime, as I had done before,--for then there would have been nothingto have been seen but the loose earth, for all the bodies that werethrown in were immediately covered with earth by those they called the"buriers," which at other times were called "bearers,"--but I resolvedto go in the night, and see some of them thrown in.
There was a strict order to prevent people coming to those pits, andthat was only to prevent infection. But after some time that order wasmore necessary; for people that were infected and near their end, anddelirious also, would run to those pits wrapped in blankets, or rugs,and throw themselves in, and, as they said, "bury themselves." I cannotsay that the officers suffered any willingly to lie there; but I haveheard that in a great pit in Finsbury, in the parish of Cripplegate (itlying open then to the fields, for it was not then walled about), manycame and threw themselves in, and expired there, before they threw anyearth upon them; and that when they came to bury others, and found themthere, 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 ideaof it to those who did not see it, other than this: that it was indeedvery, very, very dreadful, and such as no tongue can express.
I got admittance into the churchyard by being acquainted with the sextonwho attended, who, though he did not refuse me at all, yet earnestlypersuaded me not to go, telling me very seriously (for he was a good,religious, and sensible man) that it was indeed their business and dutyto venture, and to run all hazards, and that in it they might hope to bepreserved; but that I had no apparent call to it but my own curiosity,which, he said, he believed I would not pretend was sufficient tojustify my running that hazard. I told him I had been pressed in my mindto go, and that perhaps it might be an instructing sight that might notbe without its uses. "Nay," says the good man, "if you will venture uponthat score, 'name of God,[111] go in; for, depend upon it, it will be asermon to you, it may be, the best that ever you heard in your life. Itis a speaking sight," says he, "and has a voice with it, and a loudone, 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 waveringfor a good while; but just at that interval I saw two links[112] comeover from the end of the Minories, and heard the bellman, and thenappeared a "dead cart," as they called it, coming over the streets: so Icould no longer resist my desire of seeing it, and went in. There wasnobody, as I could perceive at first, in the churchyard, or going intoit, but the buriers, and the fellow that drove the cart, or rather ledthe horse and cart; but when they came up to the pit, they saw a man goto and again,[113] muffled up in a brown cloak, and making motions withhis hands, under his cloak, as if he was[114] in great agony. And theburiers immediately gathered about him, supposing he was one of thosepoor delirious or desperate creatures that used to pretend, as I havesaid, to bury themselves. He said nothing as he walked about, but two orthree times groaned very deeply and loud, and sighed as[115] he wouldbreak his
heart.
When the buriers came up to him, they soon found he was neither a personinfected and desperate, as I have observed above, or a persondistempered in mind, but one oppressed with a dreadful weight of griefindeed, having his wife and several of his children all in the cart thatwas just come in with him; and he followed in an agony and excess ofsorrow. He mourned heartily, as it was easy to see, but with a kind ofmasculine grief, that could not give itself vent by tears, and, calmlydesiring the buriers to let him alone, said he would only see the bodiesthrown in, and go away. So they left importuning him; but no sooner wasthe cart turned round, and the bodies shot into the pitpromiscuously,--which was a surprise to him, for he at least expectedthey would have been decently laid in, though, indeed, he was afterwardsconvinced that was impracticable,--I say, no sooner did he see thesight, but he cried out aloud, unable to contain himself. I could nothear what he
One of them had been a soldier in the late wars,[105] and before that inthe Low Countries;[106] and having been bred to no particular employmentbut his arms, and besides, being wounded, and not able to work veryhard, had for some time been employed at a baker's of sea biscuit, inWapping.
The brother of this man was a seaman too, but somehow or other had beenhurt of[107] one leg, that he could not go to sea, but had worked forhis living at a sailmaker's in Wapping or thereabouts, and, being a goodhusband,[108] 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 hehad no wealth but his box or basket of tools, with the help of which hecould at any time get his living (such a time as this excepted) whereverhe went; and he lived near Shadwell.
They all lived in Stepney Parish, which, as I have said, being the lastthat was infected, or at least violently, they staid there till theyevidently saw the plague was abating at the west part of the town, andcoming towards the east, where they lived.
The story of those three men, if the reader will be content to have megive it in their own persons, without taking upon me to either vouch theparticulars or answer for any mistakes, I shall give as distinctly as Ican, believing the history will be a very good pattern for any poor manto follow in case the like public desolation should happen here. And ifthere may be no such occasion, (which God of his infinite mercy grantus!) still the story may have its uses so many ways as that it will, Ihope, 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, thoughnot so freely as to run myself into apparent danger, except when theydug the great pit in the churchyard of our parish of Aldgate. A terriblepit it was, and I could not resist my curiosity to go and see it. Asnear as I may judge, it was about forty feet in length, and aboutfifteen or sixteen feet broad, and at the time I first looked at itabout nine feet deep. But it was said they dug it near twenty feet deepafterwards, in one part of it, till they could go no deeper for thewater; for they had, it seems, dug several large pits before this; for,though the plague was long a-coming[109] to our parish, yet, when it didcome, there was no parish in or about London where it raged with suchviolence as in the two parishes of Aldgate and Whitechapel.
I say they had dug several pits in another ground when the distemperbegan to spread in our parish, and especially when the dead carts beganto 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; thenthey made larger holes, wherein they buried all that the cart brought ina week, which, by the middle to the end of August, came to from twohundred to four hundred a week. And they could not well dig them larger,because of the order of the magistrates, confining them to leave nobodies within six feet of the surface; and the water coming on at aboutseventeen or eighteen feet, they could not well, I say, put more in onepit. But now, at the beginning of September, the plague raging in adreadful manner, and the number of burials in our parish increasing tomore than was[110] ever buried in any parish about London of no largerextent, they ordered this dreadful gulf to be dug, for such it wasrather than a pit.
They had supposed this pit would have supplied them for a month or morewhen they dug it; and some blamed the churchwardens for suffering such afrightful thing, telling them they were making preparations to bury thewhole parish, and the like. But time made it appear, the churchwardensknew the condition of the parish better than they did: for, the pitbeing finished the 4th of September, I think they began to bury in itthe 6th, and by the 20th, which was just two weeks, they had thrown intoit eleven hundred and fourteen bodies, when they were obliged to fill itup, the bodies being then come to lie within six feet of the surface. Idoubt not but there may be some ancient persons alive in the parish whocan justify the fact of this, and are able to show even in what place ofthe churchyard the pit lay, better than I can: the mark of it also wasmany 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 churchyardout of Houndsditch, and turns east again into Whitechapel, coming outnear the Three Nuns Inn.
It was about the 10th of September that my curiosity led, or ratherdrove, me to go and see this pit again, when there had been near fourhundred people buried in it. And I was not content to see it in thedaytime, as I had done before,--for then there would have been nothingto have been seen but the loose earth, for all the bodies that werethrown in were immediately covered with earth by those they called the"buriers," which at other times were called "bearers,"--but I resolvedto go in the night, and see some of them thrown in.
There was a strict order to prevent people coming to those pits, andthat was only to prevent infection. But after some time that order wasmore necessary; for people that were infected and near their end, anddelirious also, would run to those pits wrapped in blankets, or rugs,and throw themselves in, and, as they said, "bury themselves." I cannotsay that the officers suffered any willingly to lie there; but I haveheard that in a great pit in Finsbury, in the parish of Cripplegate (itlying open then to the fields, for it was not then walled about), manycame and threw themselves in, and expired there, before they threw anyearth upon them; and that when they came to bury others, and found themthere, 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 ideaof it to those who did not see it, other than this: that it was indeedvery, very, very dreadful, and such as no tongue can express.
I got admittance into the churchyard by being acquainted with the sextonwho attended, who, though he did not refuse me at all, yet earnestlypersuaded me not to go, telling me very seriously (for he was a good,religious, and sensible man) that it was indeed their business and dutyto venture, and to run all hazards, and that in it they might hope to bepreserved; but that I had no apparent call to it but my own curiosity,which, he said, he believed I would not pretend was sufficient tojustify my running that hazard. I told him I had been pressed in my mindto go, and that perhaps it might be an instructing sight that might notbe without its uses. "Nay," says the good man, "if you will venture uponthat score, 'name of God,[111] go in; for, depend upon it, it will be asermon to you, it may be, the best that ever you heard in your life. Itis a speaking sight," says he, "and has a voice with it, and a loudone, 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 waveringfor a good while; but just at that interval I saw two links[112] comeover from the end of the Minories, and heard the bellman, and thenappeared a "dead cart," as they called it, coming over the streets: so Icould no longer resist my desire of seeing it, and went in. There wasnobody, as I could perceive at first, in the churchyard, or going intoit, but the buriers, and the fellow that drove the cart, or rather ledthe horse and cart; but when they came up to the pit, they saw a man goto and again,[113] muffled up in a brown cloak, and making motions withhis hands, under his cloak, as if he was[114] in great agony. And theburiers immediately gathered about him, supposing he was one of thosepoor delirious or desperate creatures that used to pretend, as I havesaid, to bury themselves. He said nothing as he walked about, but two orthree times groaned very deeply and loud, and sighed as[115] he wouldbreak his
When the buriers came up to him, they soon found he was neither a personinfected and desperate, as I have observed above, or a persondistempered in mind, but one oppressed with a dreadful weight of griefindeed, having his wife and several of his children all in the cart thatwas just come in with him; and he followed in an agony and excess ofsorrow. He mourned heartily, as it was easy to see, but with a kind ofmasculine grief, that could not give itself vent by tears, and, calmlydesiring the buriers to let him alone, said he would only see the bodiesthrown in, and go away. So they left importuning him; but no sooner wasthe cart turned round, and the bodies shot into the pitpromiscuously,--which was a surprise to him, for he at least expectedthey would have been decently laid in, though, indeed, he was afterwardsconvinced that was impracticable,--I say, no sooner did he see thesight, but he cried out aloud, unable to contain himself. I could nothear what he