ity for all this time, my
lord mayor gave certificates of health without any difficulty to all
those who lived in the ninety-seven parishes, and to those within the
liberties too, for a while.

This hurry, I say, continued some weeks, that is to say, all the months
of May and June; and the more because it was rumored that an order of
the government was to be issued out, to place turnpikes[21] and barriers
on the road to prevent people's traveling; and that the towns on the
road would not suffer people from London to pass, for fear of bringing
the infection along with them, though neither of these rumors had any
foundation but in the imagination, especially at first.

I now began to consider seriously with myself concerning my own case,
and how I should dispose of myself; that is to say, whether I should
resolve to stay in London, or shut up my house and flee, as many of my
neighbors did. I have set this particular down so fully, because I know
not but it may be of moment to those who come after me, if they come to
be brought to the same distress and to the same manner of making their
choice; and therefore I desire this account may pass with them rather
for a direction to themselves to act by than a history of my actings,
seeing it may not be of one farthing value to them to note what became
of me.

I had two important things before me: the one was the carrying on my
business and shop, which was considerable, and in which was embarked all
my effects in the world; and the other was the preservation of my life
in so dismal a calamity as I saw apparently was coming upon the whole
city, and which, however great it was, my fears perhaps, as well as
other people's, represented to be much greater than it could be.

The first consideration was of great moment to me. My trade was a
saddler, and as my dealings were chiefly not by a shop or chance trade,
but among the merchants trading to the English colonies in America, so
my effects lay very much in the hands of such. I was a single man, it is
true; but I had a family of servants, who[22] I kept at my business; had
a house, shop, and warehouses filled with goods; and in short to leave
them all as things in such a case must be left, that is to say, without
any overseer or person fit to be trusted with them, had been to hazard
the loss, not only of my trade, but of my goods, and indeed of all I had
in the world.

I had an elder brother at the same time in London, and not many