and the trade in the city. At the first breaking out of the
infection there was, as it is easy to suppose, a very great fright among
the people, and consequently a general stop of trade, except in
provisions and necessaries of life; and even in those things, as there
was a vast number of people fled and a very great number always sick,
besides the number which died, so there could not be above two thirds,
if above one half, of the consumption of provisions in the city as used
to be.

It pleased God to send a very plentiful year of corn and fruit, and not
of hay or grass, by which means bread was cheap by reason of the plenty
of corn, flesh was cheap by reason of the scarcity of grass, but butter
and cheese were dear for the same reason; and hay in the market, just
beyond Whitechapel Bars, was sold at four pounds per load; but that
affected not the poor. There was a most excessive plenty of all sorts of
fruit, such as apples, pears, plums, cherries, grapes; and they were the
cheaper because of the wants of the people; but this made the poor eat
them to excess, and this brought them into surfeits and the like, which
often precipitated them into the plague.

But to come to matters of trade. First, foreign exportation being
stopped, or at least very much interrupted and rendered difficult, a
general stop of all those manufactures followed of course, which were
usually brought for exportation; and, though sometimes merchants abroad
were importunate for goods, yet little was sent, the passages being so
generally stopped that the English ships would not be admitted, as is
said already, into their port.

This put a stop to the manufactures that were for exportation in most
parts of England, except in some outports; and even that was soon
stopped, for they all had the plague in their turn. But though this was
felt all over England, yet, what was still worse, all intercourse of
trade for home consumption of manufactures, especially those which
usually circulated through the Londoners' hands, was stopped at once,
the trade of the city being stopped.

All kinds of handicrafts in the city, etc., tradesmen and mechanics,
were, as I have said before, out of employ; and this occasioned the
putting off and dismissing an innumerable number of journeymen and
workmen of all sorts, seeing nothing was done relating to such trades
but what might be said to be absolutely necessary.

This caused the multitude of single people in London to