{"product_id":"2940013787537","title":"HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE IN LONDON","description":"HISTORY\u003cbr\u003eOF\u003cbr\u003eTHE PLAGUE IN LONDON.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, among\u003cbr\u003ethe rest of my neighbors, heard in ordinary discourse that the\u003cbr\u003eplague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very\u003cbr\u003eviolent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in\u003cbr\u003ethe year 1663, whither, they say, it was brought (some said from\u003cbr\u003eItaly, others from the Levant) among some goods which were\u003cbr\u003ebrought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought\u003cbr\u003efrom Candia; others, from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence\u003cbr\u003eit came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again.[4]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days, to\u003cbr\u003espread rumors and reports of things, and to improve them by the\u003cbr\u003einvention of men, as I have lived to see practiced since. But\u003cbr\u003esuch things as those were gathered from the letters of merchants\u003cbr\u003eand others who corresponded abroad, and from them was handed\u003cbr\u003eabout by word of mouth only; so that things did not spread instantly\u003cbr\u003eover the whole nation, as they do now. But it seems that\u003cbr\u003ethe government had a true account of it, and several counsels[5]\u003cbr\u003ewere held about ways to prevent its coming over; but all was\u003cbr\u003ekept very private. Hence it was that this rumor died off again;\u003cbr\u003eand people began to forget it, as a thing we were very little concerned\u003cbr\u003ein and that we hoped was not true, till the latter end of\u003cbr\u003eNovember or the beginning of December, 1664, when two men,\u003cbr\u003esaid to be Frenchmen, died of the plague in Longacre, or rather\u003cbr\u003eat the upper end of Drury Lane.[6] The family they were in endeavored\u003cbr\u003eto conceal it as much as possible; but, as it had gotten\u003cbr\u003esome vent in the discourse of the neighborhood, the secretaries\u003cbr\u003eof state[7] got knowledge of it. And concerning themselves to\u003cbr\u003einquire about it, in order to be certain of the truth, two physicians\u003cbr\u003eand a surgeon were ordered to go to the house, and make inspection.\u003cbr\u003eThis they did, and finding evident tokens[8] of the sickness\u003cbr\u003eupon both the bodies that were dead, they gave their opinions\u003cbr\u003epublicly that they died of the plague. Whereupon it was given\u003cbr\u003ein to the parish clerk,[9] and he also returned them[10] to the hall; and\u003cbr\u003eit was printed in the weekly bill of mortality in the usual manner,\u003cbr\u003ethus:--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    PLAGUE, 2. PARISHES INFECTED, 1.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe people showed a great concern at this, and began to be alarmed all\u003cbr\u003eover the town, and the more because in the last week in December, 1664,\u003cbr\u003eanother man died in the same house and of the same distemper. And then\u003cbr\u003ewe were easy again for about six weeks, when, none having died with any\u003cbr\u003emarks of infection, it was said the distemper was gone; but after that,\u003cbr\u003eI think it was about the 12th of February, another died in another\u003cbr\u003ehouse, but in the same parish and in the same manner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis turned the people's eyes pretty much towards that end of the town;\u003cbr\u003eand, the weekly bills showing an increase of burials in St. Giles's\u003cbr\u003eParish more than usual, it began to be suspected that the plague was\u003cbr\u003eamong the people at that end of the town, and that many had died of it,\u003cbr\u003ethough they had taken care to keep it as much from the knowledge of the\u003cbr\u003epublic as possible. This possessed the heads of the people very much;\u003cbr\u003eand few cared to go through Drury Lane, or the other streets suspected,\u003cbr\u003eunless they had extraordinary business that obliged them to it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis increase of the bills stood thus: the usual number of burials in a\u003cbr\u003eweek, in the parishes of St. Giles-in-the-Fields and St. Andrew's,\u003cbr\u003eHolborn,[11] were[12] from twelve to seventeen or nineteen each, few\u003cbr\u003emore or less; but, from the time that the plague first began in St.\u003cbr\u003eGiles's Parish, it was observed that the ordinary burials increased in\u003cbr\u003enumber considerably. For example:--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Dec. 27 to Jan. 3,  St. Giles's      16\u003cbr\u003e                        St. Andrew's     17\u003cbr\u003e    Jan. 3 to Jan. 10,  St. Giles's      12\u003cbr\u003e                        St. Andrew's     25\u003cbr\u003e    Jan. 10 to Jan. 17, St. Giles's      18\u003cbr\u003e                        St. Andrew's     18\u003cbr\u003e    Jan. 17 to Jan. 24, St. Giles's      23\u003cbr\u003e                        St. Andrew's     16","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47152759341296,"sku":"2940013787537","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013787537_p0.jpg?v=1763590226","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013787537","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}