the remoter parts of the country, small
detachments excepted, who did duty at the Tower and at Whitehall, and
these but very few. Neither am I positive that there was any other guard
at the Tower than the warders, as they called them, who stand at the
gate with gowns and caps, the same as the yeomen of the guard, except
the ordinary gunners, who were twenty-four, and the officers appointed
to look after the magazine, who were called armourers. As to trained
bands, there was no possibility of raising any; neither, if the
Lieutenancy, either of London or Middlesex, had ordered the drums to
beat for the militia, would any of the companies, I believe, have drawn
together, whatever risk they had run.

This made the watchmen be the less regarded, and perhaps occasioned the
greater violence to be used against them. I mention it on this score to
observe that the setting watchmen thus to keep the people in was, first
of all, not effectual, but that the people broke out, whether by force
or by stratagem, even almost as often as they pleased; and, second, that
those that did thus break out were generally people infected who, in
their desperation, running about from one place to another, valued not
whom they injured: and which perhaps, as I have said, might give birth
to report that it was natural to the infected people to desire to infect
others, which report was really false.

And I know it so well, and in so many several cases, that I could give
several relations of good, pious, and religious people who, when they
have had the distemper, have been so far from being forward to infect
others that they have forbid their own family to come near them, in
hopes of their being preserved, and have even died without seeing their
nearest relations lest they should be instrumental to give them the
distemper, and infect or endanger them. If, then, there were cases
wherein the infected people were careless of the injury they did to
others, this was certainly one of them, if not the chief, namely, when
people who had the distemper had broken out from houses which were so
shut up, and having been driven to extremities for provision or for
entertainment, had endeavoured to conceal their condition, and have
been thereby instrumental involuntarily to infect others who have been
ignorant and unwary.

This is one of the reasons why I believed then, and do believe still,
that the shutting up houses thus by force, and restraining, or rather
impri