that I do not relate this, any more than some of the
other, as a fact within my own knowledge, so as that I can vouch the
truth of them; and especially that of the man being cured by the
extravagant adventure, which I confess I do not think very possible, but
it may serve to confirm the many desperate things which the distressed
people, falling into deliriums and what we call light-headedness, were
frequently run upon at that time, and how infinitely more such there
would have been if such people had not been confined by the shutting up
of houses; and this I take to be the best, if not the only good thing,
which was performed by that severe method.

On the other hand, the complaints and the murmurings were very bitter
against the thing itself.

It would pierce the hearts of all that came by, to hear the piteous
cries of those infected people, who, being thus out of their
understandings by the violence of their pain or the heat of their blood,
were either shut in, or perhaps tied in their beds and chairs, to
prevent their doing themselves hurt, and who would make a dreadful
outcry at their being confined, and at their being not permitted to "die
at large," as they called it, and as they would have done before.

This running of distempered people about the streets was very dismal,
and the magistrates did their utmost to prevent it; but as it was
generally in the night, and always sudden, when such attempts were made,
the officers could not be at hand to prevent it; and even when they got
out in the day, the officers appointed did not care to meddle with
them, because, as they were all grievously infected, to be sure, when
they were come to that height, so they were more than ordinarily
infectious, and it was one of the most dangerous things that could be to
touch them. On the other hand, they generally ran on, not knowing what
they did, till they dropped down stark dead, or till they had exhausted
their spirits so as that they would fall and then die in perhaps half an
hour or an hour; and, which was most piteous to hear, they were sure to
come to themselves entirely in that half hour or hour, and then to make
most grievous and piercing cries and lamentations, in the deep
afflicting sense of the condition they were in. There was much of it
before the order for shutting up of houses was strictly put into
execution; for at first the watchmen were not so rigorous and severe as
they were afterwards in the keeping the peopl