e,
and drive them to such extremities as that they would break out at all
adventures.

And that which was still worse, those that did thus break out spread the
infection farther by their wandering about with the distemper upon them,
in their desperate circumstances, than they would otherwise have
done; for whoever considers all the particulars in such cases must
acknowledge, and we cannot doubt but the severity of those confinements
made many people desperate, and made them run out of their houses at
all hazards, and with the plague visibly upon them, not knowing either
whither to go or what to do, or, indeed, what they did; and many that
did so were driven to dreadful exigencies and extremities, and perished
in the streets or fields for mere want, or dropped down by the raging
violence of the fever upon them. Others wandered into the country, and
went forward any way, as their desperation guided them, not knowing
whither they went or would go: till, faint and tired, and not getting
any relief, the houses and villages on the road refusing to admit them
to lodge whether infected or no, they have perished by the roadside or
gotten into barns and died there, none daring to come to them or relieve
them, though perhaps not infected, for nobody would believe them.

On the other hand, when the plague at first seized a family that is to
say, when any body of the family had gone out and unwarily or otherwise
catched the distemper and brought it home--it was certainly known by the
family before it was known to the officers, who, as you will see by
the order, were appointed to examine into the circumstances of all sick
persons when they heard of their being sick.

In this interval, between their being taken sick and the examiners
coming, the master of the house had leisure and liberty to remove
himself or all his family, if he knew whither to go, and many did so.
But the great disaster was that many did thus after they were really
infected themselves, and so carried the disease into the houses of those
who were so hospitable as to receive them; which, it must be confessed,
was very cruel and ungrateful.

And this was in part the reason of the general notion, or scandal
rather, which went about of the temper of people infected: namely,
that they did not take the least care or make any scruple of infecting
others, though I cannot say but there might be some truth in it too, but
not so general as was reported. What natural reason