ord mayor of London, and the court of aldermen, as I
have said, began more particularly to concern themselves for the
regulation of the city.

The justices of the peace for Middlesex,[77] by direction of the
secretary of state, had begun to shut up houses in the parishes of St.
Giles-in-the-Fields, St. Martin's, St. Clement's-Danes, etc., and it was
with good success; for in several streets where the plague broke out,
upon strict guarding the houses that were infected, and taking care to
bury those that died as soon as they were known to be dead, the plague
ceased in those streets. It was also observed that the plague decreased
sooner in those parishes after they had been visited to the full than it
did in the parishes of Bishopsgate, Shoreditch, Aldgate, Whitechapel,
Stepney, and others; the early care taken in that manner being a great
means to the putting a check to it.

This shutting up of the houses was a method first taken, as I
understand, in the plague which happened in 1603, at the coming of King
James I. to the crown; and the power of shutting people up in their own
houses was granted by act of Parliament, entitled "An Act for the
Charitable Relief and Ordering of Persons Infected with Plague." On
which act of Parliament the lord mayor and aldermen of the city of
London founded the order they made at this time, and which took place
the 1st of July, 1665, when the numbers of infected within the city
were but few; the last bill for the ninety-two parishes being but four,
and some houses having been shut up in the city, and some people being
removed to the pesthouse beyond Bunhill Fields, in the way to Islington.
I say by these means, when there died near one thousand a week in the
whole, the number in the city was but twenty-eight; and the city was
preserved more healthy, in proportion, than any other place all the time
of the infection.

These orders of my lord mayor's were published, as I have said, the
latter end of June, and took place from the 1st of July, and were as
follow: viz.,--

ORDERS CONCEIVED AND PUBLISHED BY THE LORD MAYOR AND ALDERMEN OF
THE CITY OF LONDON, CONCERNING THE INFECTION OF THE PLAGUE; 1665.

Whereas in the reign of our late sovereign King James, of happy
memory, an act was made for the charitable relief and ordering of
persons infected with the plague; whereby authority was given to
justices of the peace, mayors, bailiffs, and other head officers,