s. For
example, the towns of Colchester, Yarmouth, and Hun, on that side
of England, exported to Holland and Hamburg the manufactures of the
adjacent countries for several months after the trade with London was,
as it were, entirely shut up; likewise the cities of Bristol and Exeter,
with the port of Plymouth, had the like advantage to Spain, to the
Canaries, to Guinea, and to the West Indies, and particularly to
Ireland; but as the plague spread itself every way after it had been
in London to such a degree as it was in August and September, so all
or most of those cities and towns were infected first or last; and then
trade was, as it were, under a general embargo or at a full stop--as I
shall observe further when I speak of our home trade.

One thing, however, must be observed: that as to ships coming in from
abroad (as many, you may be sure, did) some who were out in all parts of
the world a considerable while before, and some who when they went out
knew nothing of an infection, or at least of one so terrible--these came
up the river boldly, and delivered their cargoes as they were obliged
to do, except just in the two months of August and September, when the
weight of the infection lying, as I may say, all below Bridge, nobody
durst appear in business for a while. But as this continued but for a
few weeks, the homeward-bound ships, especially such whose cargoes were
not liable to spoil, came to an anchor for a time short of the Pool,*
or fresh-water part of the river, even as low as the river Medway, where
several of them ran in; and others lay at the Nore, and in the Hope
below Gravesend. So that by the latter end of October there was a very
great fleet of homeward-bound ships to come up, such as the like had not
been known for many years.

* That part of the river where the ships lie up when they
come home is called the Pool, and takes in all the river on
both sides of the water, from the Tower to Cuckold's Point
and Limehouse. [Footnote in the original.]

Two particular trades were carried on by water-carriage all the while of
the infection, and that with little or no interruption, very much to
the advantage and comfort of the poor distressed people of the city:
and those were the coasting trade for corn and the Newcastle trade for
coals.

The first of these was particularly carried on by small vessels from the
port of Hull and other places on the Humber, by which great quantities
of co