A journal of the Plague Year, or, Memorials of the great pestilence in London, in 1665 / By Daniel De Foe.

  • Daniel Defoe
Date:
1835
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. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and certificates of Health, for such as travelled abroad; for without these, there was no being ad- mitted to pass through the towns upon the road, nor to lodge in any inn. Now as there had none died in the city for all this time, my Lord Mayor gave certificates of Health without any difficulty to all those who lived in the 97 parishes, and to those within the liberties too for a while *. | This hurry, I say, continued some weeks, that is to say, all the month of May and June, and the more, because it was rumoured that an Order of the Government was to be issued out, to place turnpikes and barriers on the road, to prevent people’s travel- * The rapid increase of the Plague in the month of Junc, and the haste with which the people departed from the metropolis, are noticed in various passages of Pepys’s “ Diary :” vol. ii. for instance : June 17th.—* It struck me very deep this afternoon going with a hackney coach from [the] Lord Treasurer’s down Holborne, the coachman 4 found to drive easily and easily, at last stood still, and came down hardly able to stand, and told me that he was suddenly struck very sick, and almost blind, he could not see; so I light and went into another coach, with a sad heart for the poor man, and for myself also, lest he should have been struck with the Plague.” June 20th.—* This day I informed myself that there died four or five at Westminster, of the Plague, in several houses upon Sunday last, in Bell Alley, over against the Palace-gate.” June 21st.—“T find all the town going out of town, the coaches and carriages being all full of people going into the country.” June 25th.—“ The Plague encreases mightily. I this day seeing a house, at a bitt-maker’s over against St. Clement’s church, in the open street, shut up; which is a sad sight.” June 28th.—“ In my way to Westminster Hall, I observed several Plague houses in King’s Street and the Palace.” June 29th.—* To White Hall, where the court was full of waggons and people ready to go out of town. This end of the town every day grows very bad of the Plague. The Mortality Bill is come to 267; which is about ninety more than the last.—Home; calling at Somerset House, where all were packing up too.” Ls