by Daniel Defoe
me when and where he thought fit.[27]
These thoughts quite turned my resolutions again; and when I came todiscourse with my brother again, I told him that I inclined to stay andtake my lot in that station in which God had placed me; and that itseemed to be made more especially my duty, on the account of what I havesaid.
My brother, though a very religious man himself, laughed at all I hadsuggested about its being an intimation from Heaven, and told me severalstories of such foolhardy people, as he called them, as I was; that Iought indeed to submit to it as a work of Heaven if I had been any waydisabled by distempers or diseases, and that then, not being able to go,I ought to acquiesce in the direction of Him, who, having been my Maker,had an undisputed right of sovereignty in disposing of me; and that thenthere had been no difficulty to determine which was the call of hisprovidence, and which was not; but that I should take it as anintimation from Heaven that I should not go out of town, only because Icould not hire a horse to go, or my fellow was run away that was toattend me, was ridiculous, since at the same time I had my health andlimbs, and other servants, and might with ease travel a day or two onfoot, and, having a good certificate of being in perfect health, mighteither hire a horse, or take post on the road, as I thought fit.
Then he proceeded to tell me of the mischievous consequences whichattend the presumption of the Turks and Mohammedans in Asia, and inother places where he had been (for my brother, being a merchant, was afew years before, as I have already observed, returned from abroad,coming last from Lisbon); and how, presuming upon their professedpredestinating[28] notions, and of every man's end being predetermined,and unalterably beforehand decreed, they would go unconcerned intoinfected places, and converse with infected persons, by which means theydied at the rate of ten or fifteen thousand a week, whereas theEuropeans, or Christian merchants, who kept themselves retired andreserved, generally escaped the contagion.
Upon these arguments my brother changed my resolutions again, and Ibegan to resolve to go, and accordingly made all things ready; for, inshort, the infection increased round me, and the bills were risen toalmost seven hundred a week, and my brother told me he would venture tostay no longer. I desired him to let me consider of it but till the nextday, and I would resolve; and as I had already prepared everything aswell as I could, as to my business and who[29] to intrust my affairswith, I had little to do but to resolve.
I went home that evening greatly oppressed in my mind, irresolute, andnot knowing what to do. I had set the evening wholly apart to considerseriously about it, and was all alone; for already people had, as itwere by a general consent, taken up the custom of not going out of doorsafter sunset: the reasons I shall have occasion to say more of by andby.
In the retirement of this evening I endeavored to resolve first what wasmy duty to do, and I stated the arguments with which my brother hadpressed me to go into the country, and I set against them the strongimpressions which I had on my mind for staying,--the visible call Iseemed to have from the particular circumstance of my calling, and thecare due from me for the preservation of my effects, which were, as Imight say, my estate; also the intimations which I thought I had fromHeaven, that to me signified a kind of direction to venture; and itoccurred to me, that, if I had what I call a direction to stay, I oughtto suppose it contained a promise of being preserved, if I obeyed.
This lay close to me;[30] and my mind seemed more and more encouraged tostay than ever, and supported with a secret satisfaction that I shouldbe kept.[31] Add to this, that turning over the Bible which lay beforeme, and while my thoughts were more than ordinary serious upon thequestion, I cried out, "Well, I know not what to do, Lord direct me!"and the like. And at that juncture I happened to stop turning over thebook at the Ninety-first Psalm, and, casting my eye on the second verse,I read to the seventh verse exclusive, and after that included thetenth, as follows: "I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and myfortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee fromthe snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall coverthee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truthshall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for theterror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for thepestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction thatwasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousandat thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyesshalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hastmade the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation;there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thydwelling," etc.
I scarce need tell the reader that from that moment I resolved that Iwould stay in the town, and, casting myself entirely upon the goodnessand protection of the Almighty, would not seek any other shelterwhatever; and that as my times were in his hands,[32] he was as able tokeep me in a time of the infection as in a time of health; and if he didnot think fit to deliver me, still I was in his hands, and it was meethe should do with me as should seem good to him.
With this resolution I went to bed; and I was further confirmed in itthe next day by the woman being taken ill with whom I had intended tointrust my house and all my affairs. But I had a further obligation laidon me on the same side: for the next day I found myself very much out oforder also; so that, if I would have gone away, I could not. And Icontinued ill three or four days, and this entirely determined my stay:so I took my leave of my brother, who went away to Dorking inSurrey,[33] and afterwards fetched around farther into Buckinghamshireor Bedfordshire, to a retreat he had found out there for his family.
It was a very ill time to be sick in; for if any one complained, it wasimmediately said he had the plague; and though I had, indeed, nosymptoms of that distemper, yet, being very ill both in my head and inmy stomach, I was not without apprehension that I really was infected.But in about three days I grew better. The third night I rested well,sweated a little, and was much refreshed. The apprehensions of itsbeing the infection went also quite away with my illness, and I wentabout my business as usual.
These things, however, put off all my thoughts of going into thecountry; and my brother also being gone, I had no more debate eitherwith him or with myself on that subject.
It was now mid-July; and the plague, which had chiefly raged at theother end of the town, and, as I said before, in the parishes of St.Giles's, St. Andrew's, Holborn, and towards Westminster, began now tocome eastward, towards the part where I lived. It was to be observed,indeed, that it did not come straight on towards us; for the city, thatis to say within the walls, was indifferent healthy still. Nor was itgot then very much over the water into Southwark; for though there diedthat week twelve hundred and sixty-eight of all distempers, whereof itmight be supposed above nine hundred died of the plague, yet there wasbut twenty-eight in the whole city, within the walls, and but nineteenin Southwark, Lambeth Parish included; whereas in the parishes of St.Giles and St. Martin's-in-the-Fields alone, there died four hundred andtwenty-one.
But we perceived the infection kept chiefly in the outparishes, whichbeing very populous and fuller also of poor, the distemper found more toprey upon than in the city, as I shall observe afterwards. We perceived,I say, the distemper to draw our way, viz., by the parishes ofClerkenwell, Cripplegate, Shoreditch, and Bishopsgate; which last twoparishes joining to Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Stepney, the infectioncame at length to spread its utmost rage and violence in those parts,even when it abated at the western parishes where it began.
It was very strange to observe that in this particular week (from the4th to the 11th of July), when, as I have observed, there died near fourhundred of the plague in the two parishes of St. Martin's and St.Giles-in-the-Fields[34] only, there died in the parish of Aldgate butfour, in the parish of Whitechapel three, in the parish of Stepney butone.
Likewise in the next week (from the 11th of July to the 18th), when theweek's bill was seventeen hundred and sixty-one, yet there died no moreof the plague, on the whole Sou
thwark side of the water, than sixteen.
But this face of things soon changed, and it began to thicken inCripplegate Parish especially, and in Clerkenwell; so that by the secondweek in August, Cripplegate Parish alone buried eight hundred andeighty-six, and Clerkenwell one hundred and fifty-five. Of the first,eight hundred and fifty might well be reckoned to die of the plague; andof the last, the bill itself said one hundred and forty-five were of theplague.
During the month of July, and while, as I have observed, our part of thetown seemed to be spared in comparison of the west part, I wentordinarily about the streets as my business required, and particularlywent generally once in a day, or in two days, into the city, to mybrother's house, which he had given me charge of, and to see it wassafe; and having the key in my pocket, I used to go into the house, andover most of the rooms, to see that all was well. For though it besomething wonderful to tell that any should have hearts so hardened,