History of the Plague in London by Daniel Defoe (easy readers .txt) π
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- Author: Daniel Defoe
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O m I s E r Y!
We Bo T H Sh a L L D y E,
W o E, W o E
I have given an account already of what I found to have been the case down the river among the seafaring men, how the ships lay in the "offing," as it is called, in rows or lines, astern of one another, quite down from the Pool as far as I could see. I have been told that they lay in the same manner quite down the river as low as Gravesend,222 and some far beyond, even everywhere, or in every place where they could ride with safety as to wind and weather. Nor did I ever hear that the plague reached to any of the people on board those ships, except such as lay up in the Pool, or as high as Deptford Reach, although the people went frequently on shore to the country towns and villages, and farmers' houses, to buy fresh provisions (fowls, pigs, calves, and the like) for their supply.
Likewise I found that the watermen on the river above the 152bridge found means to convey themselves away up the river as far as they could go; and that they had, many of them, their whole families in their boats, covered with tilts223 and bales, as they call them, and furnished with straw within for their lodging; and that they lay thus all along by the shore in the marshes, some of them setting up little tents with their sails, and so lying under them on shore in the day, and going into their boats at night. And in this manner, as I have heard, the riversides were lined with boats and people as long as they had anything to subsist on, or could get anything of the country; and indeed the country people, as well gentlemen as others, on these and all other occasions, were very forward to relieve them, but they were by no means willing to receive them into their towns and houses, and for that we cannot blame them.
There was one unhappy citizen, within my knowledge, who had been visited in a dreadful manner, so that his wife and all his children were dead, and himself and two servants only left, with an elderly woman, a near relation, who had nursed those that were dead as well as she could. This disconsolate man goes to a village near the town, though not within the bills of mortality, and, finding an empty house there, inquires out the owner, and took the house. After a few days he got a cart, and loaded it with goods, and carries them down to the house. The people of the village opposed his driving the cart along, but, with some arguings and some force, the men that drove the cart along got through the street up to the door of the house. There the constable resisted them again, and would not let them be brought in. The man caused the goods to be unloaded and laid at the door, and sent the cart away, upon which they carried the man before a justice of peace; that is to say, they commanded him to go, which he did. The justice ordered him to cause the cart to fetch away the goods again, which he refused to do; upon which the justice ordered the constable to pursue the carters and fetch them back, and make them reload the goods and carry 153them away, or to set them in the stocks224 till they225 came for further orders; and if they could not find them,226 and the man would not consent to take them227 away, they225 should cause them227 to be drawn with hooks from the house door, and burned in the street. The poor distressed man, upon this, fetched the goods again, but with grievous cries and lamentations at the hardship of his case. But there was no remedy: self-preservation obliged the people to those severities which they would not otherwise have been concerned in. Whether this poor man lived or died, I cannot tell, but it was reported that he had the plague upon him at that time, and perhaps the people might report that to justify their usage of him; but it was not unlikely that either he or his goods, or both, were dangerous, when his whole family had been dead of the distemper so little a while before.
I know that the inhabitants of the towns adjacent to London were much blamed for cruelty to the poor people that ran from the contagion in their distress, and many very severe things were done, as may be seen from what has been said; but I cannot but say also, that where there was room for charity and assistance to the people, without apparent danger to themselves, they were willing enough to help and relieve them. But as every town were indeed judges in their own case, so the poor people who ran abroad in their extremities were often ill used, and driven back again into the town; and this caused infinite exclamations and outcries against the country towns, and made the clamor very popular.
And yet more or less, maugre228 all the caution, there was not a town of any note within ten (or, I believe, twenty) miles of the city, but what was more or less infected, and had some229 died 154among them. I have heard the accounts of several, such as they were reckoned up, as follows:β
Another thing might render the country more strict with respect to the citizens, and especially with respect to the poor, and this was what I hinted at before; namely, that there was a seem155ing propensity, or a wicked inclination, in those that were infected, to infect others.
There have been great debates among our physicians as to the reason of this. Some will have it to be in the nature of the disease, and that it impresses every one that is seized upon by it with a kind of rage and a hatred against their own kind, as if there were a malignity, not only in the distemper to communicate itself, but in the very nature of man, prompting him with evil will, or an evil eye, that as they say in the case of a mad dog, who, though the gentlest creature before of any of his kind, yet then will fly upon and bite any one that comes next him, and those as soon as any, who have been most observed231 by him before.
Others placed it to the account of the corruption of human nature, who232 cannot bear to see itself more miserable than others of its own species, and has a kind of involuntary wish that all men were as unhappy or in as bad a condition as itself.
Others say it was only a kind of desperation, not knowing or regarding what they did, and consequently unconcerned at the danger or safety, not only of anybody near them, but even of themselves also. And indeed, when men are once come to a condition to abandon themselves, and be unconcerned for the safety or at the danger of themselves, it cannot be so much wondered that they should be careless of the safety of other people.
But I choose to give this grave debate quite a different turn, and answer it or resolve it all by saying that I do not grant the fact. On the contrary, I say that the thing is not really so, but that it was a general complaint raised by the people inhabiting the outlying villages against the citizens, to justify, or at least excuse, those hardships and severities so much talked of, and in which complaints both sides may be said to have injured one another; that is to say, the citizens pressing to be received and harbored in time of distress, and with the plague upon them, complain of the cruelty and injustice of the country people in being refused 156entrance, and forced back again with their goods and families; and the inhabitants, finding themselves so imposed upon, and the citizens breaking in, as it were, upon them, whether they would or no, complain that when they233 were infected, they were not only regardless of others, but even willing to infect them: neither of which was really true, that is to say, in the colors they234 were described in.
It is true there is something to be said for the frequent alarms which were given to the country, of the resolution of the people of London to come out by force, not only for relief, but to plunder and rob; that they ran about the streets with the distemper upon them without any control; and that no care was taken to shut up houses, and confine the sick people from infecting others; whereas, to do the Londoners justice, they never practiced such things, except in such particular cases as I have mentioned above, and such like. On the other hand, everything was managed with so much care, and such excellent order was observed in the whole city and suburbs, by the care of the lord mayor and aldermen, and by the justices of the peace, churchwardens, etc., in the outparts, that London may be a pattern to all the cities in the world for the good government and the excellent order that was everywhere kept, even in the time of the most violent infection, and when the people were in the utmost consternation and distress. But of this I shall speak by itself.
One thing, it is to be observed, was owing principally to the prudence of the magistrates, and ought to be mentioned to their honor; viz., the moderation which they used in the great and difficult work of shutting up houses. It is true, as I have mentioned, that the shutting up of houses was a great subject of discontent, and I may say, indeed, the only subject of discontent among the people at that time; for the confining the sound in the same house with the sick was counted very terrible, and the complaints of people so confined were very grievous: they were heard in the very streets, and they were sometimes such 157that called for resentment, though oftener for compassion. They had no way to converse with any of their friends but out of their windows, where they would make such piteous lamentations as often moved the hearts of those they talked with, and of others who, passing by, heard their story; and as those complaints oftentimes reproached the severity, and sometimes the insolence, of the watchmen placed at their doors, those watchmen would answer saucily enough, and perhaps be apt to affront the people who were in the street talking to the said families; for which, or for their ill treatment of the families, I think seven or eight of them in several places were killed. I know not whether I should say murdered or not, because I cannot
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