the time when 'tis said the Plague first
began. Doctor _Mead_, by what Information he has not thought fit to tell
us, does affirm, That its Beginning was in _Autumn_ before the Year
1664/5; whereas Dr. _Hodges_ says, in the very first Page of his
_Liomologia_, that it was not till the Close of the Year 1664; at that
Season two or three Persons died suddenly in one Family at _Westminster_,
of which he gives a further Light from his visiting the first Patient in
the _Christmas_ Holidays, and fully confirmed by the Weekly Bills of
Mortality, whose first Account of those who died of the Plague were from
_December_ the 27th, 1664/5.

As those Gentlemen have forfeited their Infallibility by what I have
proved hitherto against them, we have further Reason to suspect, whether
or not the late Plague in 1665 was occasioned by that Bale of Cotton
imported from _Turkey_ to _Holland_, and thence to _England_, as Dr.
_Hodges_ makes irrefregable, and Dr. _Mead_'s Authority indisputable;
which is no less a Subject of Wonder and Admiration how many Years we have
escaped from the Plagues that have happened and are frequent in so many
Parts of _Turkey_; as at _Grand Cairo_, which is seldome or never free
from that Distemper, at _Alexandria_, _Rosetta_, _Constantinople_,
_Smyrna_, _Scanderoon_, and _Aleppo_, from which Places we have the most
considerable Import of any of our Neighbours, and of such Goods as are
most receptive of those infectious Seeds, such as Cotton, Raw Silk,
Mohair, _&c._ And though Coffee may seem less dangerous, from its Quality
of being more able to resist its pestilential Effluvia, yet from the many
Coverings the Bales are wrapped in, it is not hard to conceive the
contagious Power might be latent in some Part of the Packidge; which
Escape is the more surprising and to be wondred at from the great Encrease
of our Trade and Shipping which yearly arrive from those Countries; and
yet to be preserved from the like Misfortune near to this 60 Years.

_Gockelius_ informs us, [5]"That the Contagion in the same Year 1665 was
brought into _Germany_ by a Body of Soldiers returning from the Wars in
_Hungary_ against the _Turks_, spread the Infection about _Ulm_ and
_Ausburgh_, where he then lived, and besides the Plague, they brought
along with them the _Hungarian_ and other malignant Fevers, which diffused
themselves about the Neighbourhood, whereof many died.[6]

And with Submission to the wise Judgment and Opinion of these