A journal of the plague year, or, Memorials of the great pestilence in London, in 1665 / by Daniel De Foe. Revised edition with historical notes by E. W. Brayley ... Also, some account of the great fire in London in 1666, by Gideon Harvey ... with an appendix containing the Earl of Clarendon's account of the fire. With illustrations on steel by George Cruikshank.

  • Daniel Defoe
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A journal of the plague year, or, Memorials of the great pestilence in London, in 1665 / by Daniel De Foe. Revised edition with historical notes by E. W. Brayley ... Also, some account of the great fire in London in 1666, by Gideon Harvey ... with an appendix containing the Earl of Clarendon's account of the fire. With illustrations on steel by George Cruikshank. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    Other places really took sanctuary in tliat part of the town as a place of safety, and as a place which they thought God would pass over, and not visit as the rest was visited. And this was the reason, that when it came upon them they were more surprised, more unprovided, and more at a loss what to do, than they were in other places, for, when it came among them really, and with violence, as it did in September and October, there was then no stirring out into the country, nobody would suffer a strajQger to come near them, no, nor near the towns where they dwel- led ; and, as I have been told, several that wandered into the country, on Surrey side, were found starved to death in the woods and commons, that countiy being more open and more woody than any other part so near London; especially about Norwood and the parishes of Camberwell, DuUege [Dulwich], and Lusum [Lewisham], where, it seems, nobody durst relieve the poor distressed people for fear of the infection. 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 i-ccourse to ships for their re- treat ; and where they did this early, and with prudence, furnishing themselves so with provisions, that they had no need to go on shore for supplies, nor 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 might be done safely; and these often suffered, and were infected on board as much as on shore.