4] that is to say, when it became certain that it would spread
over the whole town, when, as I have said, the better sort of people
first took the alarm, and began to hurry themselves out of town. It was
true, as I observed in its place, that the throng was so great, and the
coaches, horses, wagons, and carts were so many, driving and dragging
the people away, that it looked as if all the city was running away; and
had any regulations been published that had been terrifying at that
time, especially such as would pretend to dispose of the people
otherwise than they would dispose of themselves, it would have put both
the city and suburbs into the utmost confusion.

The magistrates wisely caused the people to be encouraged, made very
good by-laws[255] for the regulating the citizens, keeping good order in
the streets, and making everything as eligible as possible to all sorts
of people.

In the first place, the lord mayor and the sheriffs,[256] the court of
aldermen, and a certain number of the common councilmen, or their
deputies, came to a resolution, and published it; viz., that they would
not quit the city themselves, but that they would be always at hand for
the preserving good order in every place, and for doing justice on all
occasions, as also for the distributing the public charity to the poor,
and, in a word, for the doing the duty and discharging the trust reposed
in them by the citizens, to the utmost of their power.

In pursuance of these orders, the lord mayor, sheriffs, etc., held
councils every day, more or less, for making such dispositions as they
found needful for preserving the civil peace; and though they used the
people with all possible gentleness and clemency, yet all manner of
presumptuous rogues, such as thieves, housebreakers, plunderers of the
dead or of the sick, were duly punished; and several declarations were
continually published by the lord mayor and court of aldermen against
such.

Also all constables and churchwardens were enjoined to stay in the city
upon severe penalties, or to depute such able and sufficient
housekeepers as the deputy aldermen or common councilmen of the precinct
should approve, and for whom they should give security, and also
security, in case of mortality, that they would forthwith constitute
other constables in their stead.

These things reestablished the minds of the people very much, especially
in the first of their fright, when they talked of making so univ