hem, that they took no care either to fly
into the country or shut themselves up. Nay, so far were they from
stirring that they rather received their friends and relations from
the city into their houses, and several from other places really took
sanctuary in that part of the town as a Place of safety, and as a place
which they thought God would pass over, and not visit as the rest was
visited.

And this was the reason that when it came upon--them they were more
surprised, more unprovided, and more at a loss what to do than they were
in other places; for when it came among them really and with violence,
as it did indeed in September and October, there was then no stirring
out into the country, nobody would suffer a stranger to come near them,
no, nor near the towns where they dwelt; and, as I have been told,
several that wandered into the country on Surrey side were found starved
to death in the woods and commons, that country being more open and more
woody than any other part so near London, especially about Norwood and
the parishes of Camberwell, Dullege, and Lusum, where, it seems, nobody
durst relieve the poor distressed people for fear of the infection.

This notion having, as I said, prevailed with the people in that part
of the town, was in part the occasion, as I said before, that they had
recourse to ships for their retreat; and where they did this early and
with prudence, furnishing themselves so with provisions that they had
no need to go on shore for supplies or suffer boats to come on board
to bring them,--I say, where they did so they had certainly the safest
retreat of any people whatsoever; but the distress was such that people
ran on board, in their fright, without bread to eat, and some into ships
that had no men on board to remove them farther off, or to take the boat
and go down the river to buy provisions where it might be done safely,
and these often suffered and were infected on board as much as on shore.

As the richer sort got into ships, so the lower rank got into hoys,
smacks, lighters, and fishing-boats; and many, especially watermen, lay
in their boats; but those made sad work of it, especially the latter,
for, going about for provision, and perhaps to get their subsistence,
the infection got in among them and made a fearful havoc; many of the
watermen died alone in their wherries as they rid at their roads, as
well as above bridge as below, and were not found sometimes till they
were not