ven in the month of December, and the bills increased
near a hundred; but it went off again, and so in a short while things
began to return to their own channel. And wonderful it was to see how
populous the city was again all on a sudden; so that a stranger could
not miss the numbers that were lost, neither was there any miss of the
inhabitants as to their dwellings. Few or no empty houses were to be
seen, or, if there were some, there was no want of tenants for them.

I wish I could say, that, as the city had a new face, so the manners of
the people had a new appearance. I doubt not but there were many that
retained a sincere sense of their deliverance, and that were heartily
thankful to that Sovereign Hand that had protected them in so dangerous
a time. It would be very uncharitable to judge otherwise in a city so
populous, and where the people were so devout as they were here in the
time of the visitation itself; but, except what of this was to be found
in particular families and faces, it must be acknowledged that the
general practice of the people was just as it was before, and very
little difference was to be seen.

Some, indeed, said things were worse; that the morals of the people
declined from this very time; that the people, hardened by the danger
they had been in, like seamen after a storm is over, were more wicked
and more stupid, more bold and hardened in their vices and immoralities,
than they were before; but I will not carry it so far, neither. It would
take up a history of no small length to give a particular of all the
gradations by which the course of things in this city came to be
restored again, and to run in their own channel as they did before.

Some parts of England were now infected as violently as London had been.
The cities of Norwich, Peterborough, Lincoln, Colchester, and other
places, were now visited, and the magistrates of London began to set
rules for our conduct as to corresponding with those cities. It is true,
we could not pretend to forbid their people coming to London, because
it was impossible to know them asunder; so, after many consultations,
the lord mayor and court of aldermen were obliged to drop it. All they
could do was to warn and caution the people not to entertain in their
houses, or converse with, any people who they knew came from such
infected places.

But they might as well have talked to the air; for the people of London
thought themselves so plague-free now, that