who wanted
employment and wanted bread (as I have said before) was so great that
necessity drove them to undertake anything and venture anything, they
would never have found people to be employed. And then the bodies of
the dead would have lain above ground, and have perished and rotted in a
dreadful manner.

But the magistrates cannot be enough commended in this, that they kept
such good order for the burying of the dead, that as fast as any of
these they employed to carry off and bury the dead fell sick or died,
as was many times the case, they immediately supplied the places with
others, which, by reason of the great number of poor that was left
out of business, as above, was not hard to do. This occasioned, that
notwithstanding the infinite number of people which died and were sick,
almost all together, yet they were always cleared away and carried off
every night, so that it was never to be said of London that the living
were not able to bury the dead.

As the desolation was greater during those terrible times, so the
amazement of the people increased, and a thousand unaccountable things
they would do in the violence of their fright, as others did the same in
the agonies of their distemper, and this part was very affecting. Some
went roaring and crying and wringing their hands along the street; some
would go praying and lifting up their hands to heaven, calling upon
God for mercy. I cannot say, indeed, whether this was not in their
distraction, but, be it so, it was still an indication of a more serious
mind, when they had the use of their senses, and was much better, even
as it was, than the frightful yellings and cryings that every day, and
especially in the evenings, were heard in some streets. I suppose the
world has heard of the famous Solomon Eagle, an enthusiast. He, though
not infected at all but in his head, went about denouncing of judgement
upon the city in a frightful manner, sometimes quite naked, and with a
pan of burning charcoal on his head. What he said, or pretended, indeed
I could not learn.

I will not say whether that clergyman was distracted or not, or whether
he did it in pure zeal for the poor people, who went every evening
through the streets of Whitechappel, and, with his hands lifted up,
repeated that part of the Liturgy of the Church continually, 'Spare
us, good Lord; spare Thy people, whom Thou has redeemed with Thy most
precious blood.' I say, I cannot speak positively of these thin