would not otherwise have been concerned in.
Whether this poor man lived or died I cannot tell, but it was reported
that he had the plague upon him at that time; and perhaps the people
might report that to justify their usage of him; but it was not unlikely
that either he or his goods, or both, were dangerous, when his whole
family had been dead of the distempers so little a while before.

I know that the inhabitants of the towns adjacent to London were much
blamed for cruelty to the poor people that ran from the contagion in
their distress, and many very severe things were done, as may be seen
from what has been said; but I cannot but say also that, where there was
room for charity and assistance to the people, without apparent danger
to themselves, they were willing enough to help and relieve them. But as
every town were indeed judges in their own case, so the poor people
who ran abroad in their extremities were often ill-used and driven back
again into the town; and this caused infinite exclamations and outcries
against the country towns, and made the clamour very popular.

And yet, more or less, maugre all the caution, there was not a town of
any note within ten (or, I believe, twenty) miles of the city but what
was more or less infected and had some died among them. I have heard the
accounts of several, such as they were reckoned up, as follows:--

In Enfield 32 In Uxbridge 117
" Hornsey 58 " Hertford 90
" Newington 17 " Ware 160
" Tottenham 42 " Hodsdon 30
" Edmonton 19 " Waltham Abbey 23
" Barnet and Hadly 19 " Epping 26
" St Albans 121 " Deptford 623
" Watford 45 " Greenwich 231
" Eltham and Lusum 85 " Kingston 122
" Croydon 61 " Stanes 82
" Brentwood 70 " Chertsey 18
" Rumford 109 " Windsor 103
" Barking Abbot 200
" Brentford 432 Cum aliis.

Another thing might render the country more strict with respect to the
citizens, and especially with respect to the poor, and this was what
I hinted at before: namely, that there was a seeming propensity or a
wicked inclination in those that were infected to i