a letter for my brother to the
post-house. Then it was indeed that I observed a profound silence in the
streets. When I came to the post-house, as I went to put in my letter
I saw a man stand in one corner of the yard and talking to another at
a window, and a third had opened a door belonging to the office. In the
middle of the yard lay a small leather purse with two keys hanging at
it, with money in it, but nobody would meddle with it. I asked how long
it had lain there; the man at the window said it had lain almost an
hour, but that they had not meddled with it, because they did not know
but the person who dropped it might come back to look for it. I had no
such need of money, nor was the sum so big that I had any inclination to
meddle with it, or to get the money at the hazard it might be attended
with; so I seemed to go away, when the man who had opened the door
said he would take it up, but so that if the right owner came for it he
should be sure to have it. So he went in and fetched a pail of water and
set it down hard by the purse, then went again and fetch some gunpowder,
and cast a good deal of powder upon the purse, and then made a train
from that which he had thrown loose upon the purse. The train reached
about two yards. After this he goes in a third time and fetches out a
pair of tongs red hot, and which he had prepared, I suppose, on purpose;
and first setting fire to the train of powder, that singed the purse and
also smoked the air sufficiently. But he was not content with that, but
he then takes up the purse with the tongs, holding it so long till the
tongs burnt through the purse, and then he shook the money out into the
pail of water, so he carried it in. The money, as I remember, was about
thirteen shilling and some smooth groats and brass farthings.

There might perhaps have been several poor people, as I have observed
above, that would have been hardy enough to have ventured for the sake
of the money; but you may easily see by what I have observed that the
few people who were spared were very careful of themselves at that time
when the distress was so exceeding great.

Much about the same time I walked out into the fields towards Bow; for
I had a great mind to see how things were managed in the river and among
the ships; and as I had some concern in shipping, I had a notion that it
had been one of the best ways of securing one's self from the infection
to have retired into a ship; and musing how to