ble, had she gone up with the ale, she had found
him dead in a few minutes after he sat down upon the bed. The alarm was
great in the house, as anyone may suppose, they having been free from
the distemper till that disaster, which, bringing the infection to the
house, spread it immediately to other houses round about it. I do not
remember how many died in the house itself, but I think the maid-servant
who went up first with him fell presently ill by the fright, and several
others; for, whereas there died but two in Islington of the plague the
week before, there died seventeen the week after, whereof fourteen were
of the plague. This was in the week from the 11th of July to the 18th.

There was one shift that some families had, and that not a few, when
their houses happened to be infected, and that was this: the families
who, in the first breaking-out of the distemper, fled away into the
country and had retreats among their friends, generally found some or
other of their neighbours or relations to commit the charge of those
houses to for the safety of the goods and the like. Some houses were,
indeed, entirely locked up, the doors padlocked, the windows and doors
having deal boards nailed over them, and only the inspection of them
committed to the ordinary watchmen and parish officers; but these were
but few.

It was thought that there were not less than 10,000 houses forsaken
of the inhabitants in the city and suburbs, including what was in
the out-parishes and in Surrey, or the side of the water they called
Southwark. This was besides the numbers of lodgers, and of particular
persons who were fled out of other families; so that in all it was
computed that about 200,000 people were fled and gone. But of this I
shall speak again. But I mention it here on this account, namely, that
it was a rule with those who had thus two houses in their keeping or
care, that if anybody was taken sick in a family, before the master
of the family let the examiners or any other officer know of it, he
immediately would send all the rest of his family, whether children or
servants, as it fell out to be, to such other house which he had so in
charge, and then giving notice of the sick person to the examiner, have
a nurse or nurses appointed, and have another person to be shut up in
the house with them (which many for money would do), so to take charge
of the house in case the person should die.

This was, in many cases, the saving a whole fa