almost for them. I asked him if there was any
more ships that had separated themselves as those had done. He told me
yes, all the way up from the point, right against Greenwich, to within
the shore of Limehouse and Redriff, all the ships that could have room
rid two and two in the middle of the stream, and that some of them had
several families on board. I asked him if the distemper had not reached
them. He said he believed it had not, except two or three ships whose
people had not been so watchful to keep the seamen from going on shore
as others had been, and he said it was a very fine sight to see how the
ships lay up the Pool.

When he said he was going over to Greenwich as soon as the tide began to
come in, I asked if he would let me go with him and bring me back, for
that I had a great mind to see how the ships were ranged, as he had told
me. He told me, if I would assure him on the word of a Christian and of
an honest man that I had not the distemper, he would. I assured him
that I had not; that it had pleased God to preserve me; that I lived in
Whitechappel, but was too impatient of being so long within doors, and
that I had ventured out so far for the refreshment of a little air, but
that none in my house had so much as been touched with it.

Well, sir,' says he, 'as your charity has been moved to pity me and my
poor family, sure you cannot have so little pity left as to put yourself
into my boat if you were not sound in health which would be nothing less
than killing me and ruining my whole family.' The poor man troubled me
so much when he spoke of his family with such a sensible concern and in
such an affectionate manner, that I could not satisfy myself at first
to go at all. I told him I would lay aside my curiosity rather than make
him uneasy, though I was sure, and very thankful for it, that I had
no more distemper upon me than the freshest man in the world. Well, he
would not have me put it off neither, but to let me see how confident
he was that I was just to him, now importuned me to go; so when the tide
came up to his boat I went in, and he carried me to Greenwich. While he
bought the things which he had in his charge to buy, I walked up to the
top of the hill under which the town stands, and on the east side of the
town, to get a prospect of the river. But it was a surprising sight to
see the number of ships which lay in rows, two and two, and some places
two or three such lines in the breadth of the