dinary operation in June and
July, and the beginning of August, when, as I have observed, many were
infected, and continued so many days, and then went off after having had
the poison in their blood a long time; but now, on the contrary, most of
the people who were taken during the two last weeks in August and in the
three first weeks in September, generally died in two or three days
at furthest, and many the very same day they were taken; whether the
dog-days, or, as our astrologers pretended to express themselves, the
influence of the dog-star, had that malignant effect, or all those who
had the seeds of infection before in them brought it up to a maturity
at that time altogether, I know not; but this was the time when it was
reported that above 3000 people died in one night; and they that would
have us believe they more critically observed it pretend to say that
they all died within the space of two hours, viz., between the hours of
one and three in the morning.

As to the suddenness of people's dying at this time, more than before,
there were innumerable instances of it, and I could name several in my
neighbourhood. One family without the Bars, and not far from me, were
all seemingly well on the Monday, being ten in family. That evening one
maid and one apprentice were taken ill and died the next morning--when
the other apprentice and two children were touched, whereof one died the
same evening, and the other two on Wednesday. In a word, by Saturday
at noon the master, mistress, four children, and four servants were all
gone, and the house left entirely empty, except an ancient woman who
came in to take charge of the goods for the master of the family's
brother, who lived not far off, and who had not been sick.

Many houses were then left desolate, all the people being carried away
dead, and especially in an alley farther on the same side beyond the
Bars, going in at the sign of Moses and Aaron, there were several houses
together which, they said, had not one person left alive in them; and
some that died last in several of those houses were left a little too
long before they were fetched out to be buried; the reason of which
was not, as some have written very untruly, that the living were not
sufficient to bury the dead, but that the mortality was so great in the
yard or alley that there was nobody left to give notice to the buriers
or sextons that there were any dead bodies there to be buried. It
was said, how tru