f
November or the beginning of December, 1664, when two men,
said to be Frenchmen, died of the plague in Longacre, or rather
at the upper end of Drury Lane.[6] The family they were in endeavored
to conceal it as much as possible; but, as it had gotten
some vent in the discourse of the neighborhood, the secretaries
of state[7] got knowledge of it. And concerning themselves to
inquire about it, in order to be certain of the truth, two physicians
and a surgeon were ordered to go to the house, and make inspection.
This they did, and finding evident tokens[8] of the sickness
upon both the bodies that were dead, they gave their opinions
publicly that they died of the plague. Whereupon it was given
in to the parish clerk,[9] and he also returned them[10] to the hall; and
it was printed in the weekly bill of mortality in the usual manner,
thus:--

PLAGUE, 2. PARISHES INFECTED, 1.

The people showed a great concern at this, and began to be alarmed all
over the town, and the more because in the last week in December, 1664,
another man died in the same house and of the same distemper. And then
we were easy again for about six weeks, when, none having died with any
marks of infection, it was said the distemper was gone; but after that,
I think it was about the 12th of February, another died in another
house, but in the same parish and in the same manner.

This turned the people's eyes pretty much towards that end of the town;
and, the weekly bills showing an increase of burials in St. Giles's
Parish more than usual, it began to be suspected that the plague was
among the people at that end of the town, and that many had died of it,
though they had taken care to keep it as much from the knowledge of the
public as possible. This possessed the heads of the people very much;
and few cared to go through Drury Lane, or the other streets suspected,
unless they had extraordinary business that obliged them to it.

This increase of the bills stood thus: the usual number of burials in a
week, in the parishes of St. Giles-in-the-Fields and St. Andrew's,
Holborn,[11] were[12] from twelve to seventeen or nineteen each, few
more or less; but, from the time that the plague first began in St.
Giles's Parish, it was observed that the ordinary burials increased in
number considerably. For example:--

Dec. 27 to Jan. 3, St. Giles's 16
St. Andrew's 17
Jan. 3 to Jan. 10, St. Giles's 12