Portuguese were so shy of
us, it is most certain that the plague, as has been said, keeping at
first much at that end of the town next Westminster, the merchandising
part of the town, such as the city and the waterside, was perfectly
sound till at least the beginning of July, and the ships in the river
till the beginning of August; for to the 1st of July there had died but
seven within the whole city, and but sixty within the liberties; but one
in all the parishes of Stepney, Aldgate, and Whitechapel, and but two in
all the eight parishes of Southwark. But it was the same thing abroad,
for the bad news was gone over the whole world, that the city of London
was infected with the plague; and there was no inquiring there how the
infection proceeded, or at which part of the town it was begun or was
reached to.

Besides, after it began to spread, it increased so fast, and the bills
grew so high all on a sudden, that it was to no purpose to lessen the
report of it, or endeavor to make the people abroad think it better than
it was. The account which the weekly bills gave in was sufficient; and
that there died two thousand to three or four thousand a week was
sufficient to alarm the whole trading part of the world: and the
following time being so dreadful also in the very city itself, put the
whole world, I say, upon their guard against it.

You may be sure also that the report of these things lost nothing in the
carriage. The plague was itself very terrible, and the distress of the
people very great, as you may observe of what I have said, but the rumor
was infinitely greater; and it must not be wondered that our friends
abroad, as my brother's correspondents in particular, were told there
(namely, in Portugal and Italy, where he chiefly traded), that in London
there died twenty thousand in a week; that the dead bodies lay unburied
by heaps; that the living were not sufficient to bury the dead, or the
sound to look after the sick; that all the kingdom was infected
likewise, so that it was an universal malady such as was never heard of
in those parts of the world. And they could hardly believe us when we
gave them an account how things really were; and how there was not above
one tenth part of the people dead; that there were five hundred thousand
left that lived all the time in the town; that now the people began to
walk the streets again, and those who were fled to return; there was no
miss of the usual throng of people in t