History of the Plague in London by Daniel Defoe
same bulk orstall, the people of some house in the alley of which the house was acorner, hearing a bell (which they always rung before the cart came),had laid a body really dead of the plague just by him, thinking too thatthis poor fellow had been a dead body as the other was, and laid thereby some of the neighbors.
Accordingly, when John Hayward with his bell and the cart came along,finding two dead bodies lie upon the stall, they took them up with theinstrument they used, and threw them into the cart; and all this whilethe piper slept soundly.
From hence they passed along, and took in other dead bodies, till, ashonest John Hayward told me, they almost buried him alive in the cart;yet all this while he slept soundly. At length the cart came to theplace where the bodies were to be thrown into the ground, which, as I doremember, was at Mountmill; and, as the cart usually stopped some timebefore they were ready to shoot out the melancholy load they had in it,as soon as the cart stopped, the fellow awaked, and struggled a littleto get his head out from among the dead bodies; when, raising himself upin the cart, he called out, "Hey, where am I?" This frighted the fellowthat attended about the work; but, after some pause, John Hayward,recovering himself, said, "Lord bless us! There's somebody in the cartnot quite dead!" So another called to him, and said, "Who are you?" Thefellow answered, "I am the poor piper. Where am I?"--"Where are you?"says Hayward. "Why, you are in the dead cart, and we are going to buryyou."--"But I ain't dead, though, am I?" says the piper; which made themlaugh a little, though, as John said, they were heartily frightened atfirst. So they helped the poor fellow down, and he went about hisbusiness.
I know the story goes, he set up[148] his pipes in the cart, andfrighted the bearers and others, so that they ran away; but John Haywarddid not tell the story so, nor say anything of his piping at all. Butthat he was a poor piper, and that he was carried away as above, I amfully satisfied of the truth of.
It is to be noted here that the dead carts in the city were not confinedto particular parishes; but one cart went through several parishes,according as the number of dead presented. Nor were they tied[149] tocarry the dead to their respective parishes; but many of the dead takenup in the city were carried to the burying ground in the outparts forwant of room.
At the beginning of the plague, when there was now no more hope but thatthe whole city would be visited; when, as I have said, all that hadfriends or estates in the country retired with their families; and when,indeed, one would have thought the very city itself was running out ofthe gates, and that there would be nobody left behind,--you may be surefrom that hour all trade, except such as related to immediatesubsistence, was, as it were, at a full stop.
This is so lively a case, and contains in it so much of the realcondition of the people, that I think I cannot be too particular in it,and therefore I descend to the several arrangements or classes of peoplewho fell into immediate distress upon this occasion. For example:--
1. All master workmen in manufactures, especially such as belonged toornament and the less necessary parts of the people's dress, clothes,and furniture for houses; such as ribbon-weavers and other weavers, goldand silver lacemakers, and gold and silver wire-drawers, seamstresses,milliners, shoemakers, hatmakers, and glovemakers, also upholsterers,joiners, cabinet-makers, looking-glass-makers, and innumerable tradeswhich depend upon such as these,--I say, the master workmen in suchstopped their work, dismissed their journeymen and workmen and all theirdependents.
2. As merchandising was at a full stop (for very few ships ventured tocome up the river, and none at all went out[150]), so all theextraordinary officers of the customs, likewise the watermen, carmen,porters, and all the poor whose labor depended upon the merchants, wereat once dismissed, and put out of business.
3. All the tradesmen usually employed in building or repairing of houseswere at a full stop; for the people were far from wanting to buildhouses when so many thousand houses were at once stripped of theirinhabitants; so that this one article[151] turned out all the ordinaryworkmen of that kind of business, such as bricklayers, masons,carpenters, joiners, plasterers, painters, glaziers, smiths, plumbers,and all the laborers depending on such.
4. As navigation was at a stop, our ships neither coming in or going outas before, so the seamen were all out of employment, and many of them inthe last and lowest degree of distress. And with the seamen were all theseveral tradesmen and workmen belonging to and depending upon thebuilding 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 thelike. The masters of those, perhaps, might live upon their substance;but the traders were universally at a stop, and consequently all theirworkmen discharged. Add to these, that the river was in a manner withoutboats, and all or most part of the watermen, lighter-men, boat-builders,and lighter-builders, in like manner idle and laid by.
5. All families retrenched their living as much as possible, as wellthose that fled as those that staid; so that an innumerable multitude offootmen, serving men, shopkeepers, journeymen, merchants' bookkeepers,and such sort of people, and especially poor maidservants, were turnedoff, and left friendless and helpless, without employment and withouthabitation; and this was really a dismal article.
I might be more particular as to this part; but it may suffice tomention, in general, all trades being stopped, employment ceased, thelabor, 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, bythe distribution of charity, their misery that way was gently[152]abated. Many, indeed, fled into the country; but, thousands of themhaving staid in London till nothing but desperation sent them away,death overtook them on the road, and they served for no better than themessengers of death: indeed, others carrying the infection along withthem, spread it very unhappily into the remotest parts of the kingdom.
The women and servants that were turned off from their places wereemployed as nurses to tend the sick in all places, and this took off avery great number of them.
And which,[153] though a melancholy article in itself, yet was adeliverance in its kind, namely, the plague, which raged in a dreadfulmanner from the middle of August to the middle of October, carried offin that time thirty or forty thousand of these very people, which, hadthey been left, would certainly have been an insufferable burden bytheir poverty; that is to say, the whole city could not have supportedthe expense of them, or have provided food for them, and they would intime have been even driven to the necessity of plundering either thecity itself, or the country adjacent, to have subsisted themselves,which would, first or last, have put the whole nation, as well as thecity, into the utmost terror and confusion.
It was observable, then, that this calamity of the people made them veryhumble; for now, for about nine weeks together, there died near athousand a day, one day with another, even by the account of the weeklybills, which yet, I have reason to be assured, never gave a full accountby many thousands; the confusion being such, and the carts working inthe dark when they carried the dead, that in some places no account atall was kept, but they worked on; the clerks and sextons not attendingfor weeks together, and not knowing what number they carried. Thisaccount 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 wasb
ut 68,590, here is[154] 50,000 of them, within a trifle, in twomonths: I say 50,000, because as there wants 395 in the number above, sothere wants two days of two months in the account of time.[155]
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 butconsider how men could be exact in such a time of dreadful distress, andwhen many of them were taken sick themselves, and perhaps died in thevery time when their accounts were to be given in (I mean the parishclerks, besides inferior officers): for though these poor men venturedat all hazards, yet they were far from being exempt from the commoncalamity, especially if it be true that the parish of Stepney had withinthe year one hundred and sixteen sextons, gravediggers, and theirassistants; that is to say, bearers, bellmen, and drivers of carts forcarrying off the dead bodies.
Indeed, the work was not of such a nature as to allow them leisure
Accordingly, when John Hayward with his bell and the cart came along,finding two dead bodies lie upon the stall, they took them up with theinstrument they used, and threw them into the cart; and all this whilethe piper slept soundly.
From hence they passed along, and took in other dead bodies, till, ashonest John Hayward told me, they almost buried him alive in the cart;yet all this while he slept soundly. At length the cart came to theplace where the bodies were to be thrown into the ground, which, as I doremember, was at Mountmill; and, as the cart usually stopped some timebefore they were ready to shoot out the melancholy load they had in it,as soon as the cart stopped, the fellow awaked, and struggled a littleto get his head out from among the dead bodies; when, raising himself upin the cart, he called out, "Hey, where am I?" This frighted the fellowthat attended about the work; but, after some pause, John Hayward,recovering himself, said, "Lord bless us! There's somebody in the cartnot quite dead!" So another called to him, and said, "Who are you?" Thefellow answered, "I am the poor piper. Where am I?"--"Where are you?"says Hayward. "Why, you are in the dead cart, and we are going to buryyou."--"But I ain't dead, though, am I?" says the piper; which made themlaugh a little, though, as John said, they were heartily frightened atfirst. So they helped the poor fellow down, and he went about hisbusiness.
I know the story goes, he set up[148] his pipes in the cart, andfrighted the bearers and others, so that they ran away; but John Haywarddid not tell the story so, nor say anything of his piping at all. Butthat he was a poor piper, and that he was carried away as above, I amfully satisfied of the truth of.
It is to be noted here that the dead carts in the city were not confinedto particular parishes; but one cart went through several parishes,according as the number of dead presented. Nor were they tied[149] tocarry the dead to their respective parishes; but many of the dead takenup in the city were carried to the burying ground in the outparts forwant of room.
At the beginning of the plague, when there was now no more hope but thatthe whole city would be visited; when, as I have said, all that hadfriends or estates in the country retired with their families; and when,indeed, one would have thought the very city itself was running out ofthe gates, and that there would be nobody left behind,--you may be surefrom that hour all trade, except such as related to immediatesubsistence, was, as it were, at a full stop.
This is so lively a case, and contains in it so much of the realcondition of the people, that I think I cannot be too particular in it,and therefore I descend to the several arrangements or classes of peoplewho fell into immediate distress upon this occasion. For example:--
1. All master workmen in manufactures, especially such as belonged toornament and the less necessary parts of the people's dress, clothes,and furniture for houses; such as ribbon-weavers and other weavers, goldand silver lacemakers, and gold and silver wire-drawers, seamstresses,milliners, shoemakers, hatmakers, and glovemakers, also upholsterers,joiners, cabinet-makers, looking-glass-makers, and innumerable tradeswhich depend upon such as these,--I say, the master workmen in suchstopped their work, dismissed their journeymen and workmen and all theirdependents.
2. As merchandising was at a full stop (for very few ships ventured tocome up the river, and none at all went out[150]), so all theextraordinary officers of the customs, likewise the watermen, carmen,porters, and all the poor whose labor depended upon the merchants, wereat once dismissed, and put out of business.
3. All the tradesmen usually employed in building or repairing of houseswere at a full stop; for the people were far from wanting to buildhouses when so many thousand houses were at once stripped of theirinhabitants; so that this one article[151] turned out all the ordinaryworkmen of that kind of business, such as bricklayers, masons,carpenters, joiners, plasterers, painters, glaziers, smiths, plumbers,and all the laborers depending on such.
4. As navigation was at a stop, our ships neither coming in or going outas before, so the seamen were all out of employment, and many of them inthe last and lowest degree of distress. And with the seamen were all theseveral tradesmen and workmen belonging to and depending upon thebuilding 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 thelike. The masters of those, perhaps, might live upon their substance;but the traders were universally at a stop, and consequently all theirworkmen discharged. Add to these, that the river was in a manner withoutboats, and all or most part of the watermen, lighter-men, boat-builders,and lighter-builders, in like manner idle and laid by.
5. All families retrenched their living as much as possible, as wellthose that fled as those that staid; so that an innumerable multitude offootmen, serving men, shopkeepers, journeymen, merchants' bookkeepers,and such sort of people, and especially poor maidservants, were turnedoff, and left friendless and helpless, without employment and withouthabitation; and this was really a dismal article.
I might be more particular as to this part; but it may suffice tomention, in general, all trades being stopped, employment ceased, thelabor, 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, bythe distribution of charity, their misery that way was gently[152]abated. Many, indeed, fled into the country; but, thousands of themhaving staid in London till nothing but desperation sent them away,death overtook them on the road, and they served for no better than themessengers of death: indeed, others carrying the infection along withthem, spread it very unhappily into the remotest parts of the kingdom.
The women and servants that were turned off from their places wereemployed as nurses to tend the sick in all places, and this took off avery great number of them.
And which,[153] though a melancholy article in itself, yet was adeliverance in its kind, namely, the plague, which raged in a dreadfulmanner from the middle of August to the middle of October, carried offin that time thirty or forty thousand of these very people, which, hadthey been left, would certainly have been an insufferable burden bytheir poverty; that is to say, the whole city could not have supportedthe expense of them, or have provided food for them, and they would intime have been even driven to the necessity of plundering either thecity itself, or the country adjacent, to have subsisted themselves,which would, first or last, have put the whole nation, as well as thecity, into the utmost terror and confusion.
It was observable, then, that this calamity of the people made them veryhumble; for now, for about nine weeks together, there died near athousand a day, one day with another, even by the account of the weeklybills, which yet, I have reason to be assured, never gave a full accountby many thousands; the confusion being such, and the carts working inthe dark when they carried the dead, that in some places no account atall was kept, but they worked on; the clerks and sextons not attendingfor weeks together, and not knowing what number they carried. Thisaccount 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 wasb
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 butconsider how men could be exact in such a time of dreadful distress, andwhen many of them were taken sick themselves, and perhaps died in thevery time when their accounts were to be given in (I mean the parishclerks, besides inferior officers): for though these poor men venturedat all hazards, yet they were far from being exempt from the commoncalamity, especially if it be true that the parish of Stepney had withinthe year one hundred and sixteen sextons, gravediggers, and theirassistants; that is to say, bearers, bellmen, and drivers of carts forcarrying off the dead bodies.
Indeed, the work was not of such a nature as to allow them leisure