But there was an absolute necessity for it, that
must be confessed, unless some other measures had been timely entered
upon, and it was too late for that.

Had not this particular (of the sick being restrained as above) been our
case at that time, London would have been the most dreadful place that
ever was in the world; there would, for aught I know, have as many
people died in the streets as died in their houses; for when the
distemper was at its height it generally made them raving and delirious,
and when they were so they would never be persuaded to keep in their
beds but by force; and many who were not tied threw themselves out of
windows when they found they could not get leave to go out of their
doors.

It was for want of people conversing one with another, in this time of
calamity, that it was impossible any particular person could come at
the knowledge of all the extraordinary cases that occurred in different
families; and particularly I believe it was never known to this day how
many people in their deliriums drowned themselves in the Thames, and
in the river which runs from the marshes by Hackney, which we generally
called Ware River, or Hackney River. As to those which were set down in
the weekly bill, they were indeed few; nor could it be known of any of
those whether they drowned themselves by accident or not. But I believe
I might reckon up more who within the compass of my knowledge or
observation really drowned themselves in that year, than are put down
in the bill of all put together: for many of the bodies were never
found who yet were known to be lost; and the like in other methods of
self-destruction. There was also one man in or about Whitecross Street
burned himself to death in his bed; some said it was done by himself,
others that it was by the treachery of the nurse that attended him; but
that he had the plague upon him was agreed by all.

It was a merciful disposition of Providence also, and which I have many
times thought of at that time, that no fires, or no considerable ones
at least, happened in the city during that year, which, if it had been
otherwise, would have been very dreadful; and either the people must
have let them alone unquenched, or have come together in great crowds
and throngs, unconcerned at the danger of the infection, not concerned
at the houses they went into, at the goods they handled, or at the
persons or the people they came among. But so it was, that excepting
tha