board removed
and went farther off, till, as I was told, some went quite away to sea,
and put into such harbors and safe roads[175] on the north coast as they
could best come at.

But it was also true, that all the people who thus left the land, and
lived on board the ships, were not entirely safe from the infection; for
many died, and were thrown overboard into the river, some in coffins,
and some, as I heard, without coffins, whose bodies were seen sometimes
to drive up and down with the tide in the river.

But I believe I may venture to say, that, in those ships which were thus
infected, it either happened where the people had recourse to them too
late, and did not fly to the ship till they had staid too long on shore,
and had the distemper upon them, though perhaps they might not perceive
it (and so the distemper did not come to them on board the ships, but
they really carried it with them), or it was in these ships where the
poor waterman said they had not had time to furnish themselves with
provisions, but were obliged to send often on shore to buy what they had
occasion for, or suffered boats to come to them from the shore; and so
the distemper was brought insensibly among them.

And here I cannot but take notice that the strange temper of the people
of London at that time contributed extremely to their own destruction.
The plague began, as I have observed, at the other end of the town
(namely, in Longacre, Drury Lane, etc.), and came on towards the city
very gradually and slowly. It was felt at first in December, then again
in February, then again in April (and always but a very little at a
time), then it stopped till May; and even the last week in May there
were but seventeen in all that end of the town. And all this while, even
so long as till there died about three thousand a week, yet had the
people in Redriff and in Wapping and Ratcliff, on both sides the river,
and almost all Southwark side, a mighty fancy that they should not be
visited, or at least that it would not be so violent among them. Some
people fancied the smell of the pitch and tar, and such other things, as
oil and resin and brimstone (which is much used by all trades relating
to shipping), would preserve them. Others argued it,[176] because
it[177] was in its extremest violence in Westminster and the parish of
St. Giles's and St. Andrew's, etc., and began to abate again before it
came among them, which was true, indeed, in part. For example