.
  A JOURNAL OF THE
      PLAGUE YEAR
        being observations
              or memorials of the
                   most remarkable occurrences,
           as well public as private,
         which happened in London
           during the last great visitation
                          in 1665.

    Written by a Citizen
         who continued all the
           while in London.

    Never made public before

    It was
           about the beginning of September,
         1664,
         that I,
           among the rest
               of my neighbours,
         heard in ordinary discourse
             that the plague
                was returned again in Holland;
        for it
            had been very violent there,
           and particularly
               at Amsterdam and Rotterdam,
         in the year 1663,
           whither,
         they say,
           it was brought,
         some said from Italy,
           others from the Levant,
         among some goods
              which were brought
                   home by their Turkey fleet;
        others said it
            was brought from Candia;
        others from Cyprus.

    It mattered not from
         whence it came;
        but all agreed it
            was come into Holland again.

    We had
           no such thing as
          printed newspapers
               in those days to spread
             rumours and reports of things,
           and to improve them
               by the invention of men,
         as I
              have lived to see
                 practised since.

    But such things as these
        were gathered from the
            letters of merchants and others
         who corresponded abroad,
           and from them
            was handed
                   about by word
                       of mouth only;
        so that things
            did not
                  spread instantly
                       over the whole nation,
           as they do now.

    But it seems
         that the Government
            had a true account
                   of it,
           and several councils
            were held about ways
                  to prevent its coming over;
        but all
            was kept very private.

    Hence it was
         that this rumour
            died off again,
           and people
            began to forget it
                   as a thing
             we were
                   very little concerned in,
         and that
             we hoped was not true;
        till the latter end
               of November
              or the beginning
                   of December 1664
             when two men,
           said to be Frenchmen,
         died of the plague
               in Long Acre,
           or rather
               at the upper end
                   of Drury Lane.

    The family
         they were in
            endeavoured to conceal it
         as much as possible,
           but as it
            had gotten some vent
                   in the discourse
                       of the neighbourhood,
         the Secretaries of State
            got knowledge of it;
        and concerning themselves
              to inquire about it,
           in order
              to be certain
                   of the truth,
         two physicians and a surgeon
            were ordered
                  to go
                       to the house
                           and make inspection.

    This they did;
        and finding evident tokens
               of the sickness upon
             both the bodies
             that were dead,
           they gave their opinions publicly
             that they
                died of the plague.

    Whereupon it
        was given
               in to the parish clerk,
           and he also
              returned them to the Hall;
        and it
            was printed
                   in the weekly bill
                       of mortality
                   in the usual manner,
           thus -

    Plague,
           2. Parishes infected,
         1.

    The people
          showed a great concern
               at this,
           and began
              to be
                  alarmed all over the town,
         and the more,
           because in the last week
               in December 1664 another man
            died in the same house,
         and of the same distemper.

    And then
         we were easy
              again for
               about six weeks,
           when none
            having died
                   with any marks of infection,
         it was said the distemper
            was gone;
        but after that,
           I think it
            was about the 12th
                   of February,
         another died in another house,
           but in
               the same parish and
             in the same manner.

    This turned
           the people's eyes pretty
               much towards
         that end of the town,
           and the weekly bills
             showing an increase of burials
                   in St Giles's parish
                 more than usual,
         it began to be suspected
             that the plague
                was among the people at
             that end of the town,
           and that many
            had died of it,