off in that time
thirty or forty thousand of these very people which, had they been left,
would certainly have been an insufferable burden by their poverty; that
is to say, the whole city could not have supported the expense of them,
or have provided food for them; and they would in time have been even
driven to the necessity of plundering either the city itself or the
country adjacent, to have subsisted themselves, which would first or
last have put the whole nation, as well as the city, into the utmost
terror and confusion.

It was observable, then, that this calamity of the people made them very
humble; for now for about nine weeks together there died near a thousand
a day, one day with another, even by the account of the weekly bills,
which yet, I have reason to be assured, never gave a full account, by
many thousands; the confusion being such, and the carts working in the
dark when they carried the dead, that in some places no account at all
was kept, but they worked on, the clerks and sextons not attending for
weeks together, and not knowing what number they carried. This account
is verified by the following bills of mortality:--

- Of all of the
- Diseases. Plague
From August 8 to August 15 5319 3880
" " 15 " 22 5568 4237
" " 22 " 29 7496 6102
" " 29 to September 5 8252 6988
" September 5 " 12 7690 6544
" " 12 " 19 8297 7165
" " 19 " 26 6460 5533
" " 26 to October 3 5720 4979
" October 3 " 10 5068 4327
- ----- -----
- 59,870 49,705

So that the gross of the people were carried off in these two months;
for, as the whole number which was brought in to die of the plague was
but 68,590, here is 50,000 of them, within a trifle, in two months; I
say 50,000, because, as there wants 295 in the number above, so there
wants two days of two months in the account of time.

Now when I say that the parish officers did not give in a full account,
or were not to be depended upon for their account, let any one but
consider how men