n, serving-men, shopkeepers, journeymen, merchants'
bookkeepers, and such sort of people, and especially poor maid-servants,
were turned off, and left friendless and helpless, without employment
and without habitation, and this was really a dismal article.

I might be more particular as to this part, but it may suffice to
mention in general, all trades being stopped, employment ceased: the
labour, and by that the bread, of the poor were cut off; and at first
indeed the cries of the poor were most lamentable to hear, though by the
distribution of charity their misery that way was greatly abated. Many
indeed fled into the counties, but thousands of them having stayed in
London till nothing but desperation sent them away, death overtook them
on the road, and they served for no better than the messengers of death;
indeed, others carrying the infection along with them, spread it very
unhappily into the remotest parts of the kingdom.

Many of these were the miserable objects of despair which I have
mentioned before, and were removed by the destruction which followed.
These might be said to perish not by the infection itself but by the
consequence of it; indeed, namely, by hunger and distress and the want
of all things: being without lodging, without money, without friends,
without means to get their bread, or without anyone to give it them; for
many of them were without what we call legal settlements, and so
could not claim of the parishes, and all the support they had was by
application to the magistrates for relief, which relief was (to give
the magistrates their due) carefully and cheerfully administered as they
found it necessary, and those that stayed behind never felt the want and
distress of that kind which they felt who went away in the manner above
noted.

Let any one who is acquainted with what multitudes of people get their
daily bread in this city by their labour, whether artificers or
mere workmen--I say, let any man consider what must be the miserable
condition of this town if, on a sudden, they should be all turned out of
employment, that labour should cease, and wages for work be no more.

This was the case with us at that time; and had not the sums of money
contributed in charity by well-disposed people of every kind, as well
abroad as at home, been prodigiously great, it had not been in the power
of the Lord Mayor and sheriffs to have kept the public peace. Nor were
they without apprehensions, as it was