ips in the river
till the beginning of August; for to the 1st of July there had died but
seven within the whole city, and but sixty within the liberties, but one
in all the parishes of Stepney, Aldgate, and Whitechappel, and but two
in the eight parishes of Southwark. But it was the same thing abroad,
for the bad news was gone over the whole world that the city of London
was infected with the plague, and there was no inquiring there how the
infection proceeded, or at which part of the town it was begun or was
reached to.

Besides, after it began to spread it increased so fast, and the bills
grew so high all on a sudden, that it was to no purpose to lessen the
report of it, or endeavour to make the people abroad think it better
than it was; the account which the weekly bills gave in was sufficient;
and that there died two thousand to three or-four thousand a week
was sufficient to alarm the whole trading part of the world; and the
following time, being so dreadful also in the very city itself, put the
whole world, I say, upon their guard against it.

You may be sure, also, that the report of these things lost nothing in
the carriage. The plague was itself very terrible, and the distress of
the people very great, as you may observe of what I have said. But the
rumour was infinitely greater, and it must not be wondered that our
friends abroad (as my brother's correspondents in particular were told
there, namely, in Portugal and Italy, where he chiefly traded) [said]
that in London there died twenty thousand in a week; that the dead
bodies lay unburied by heaps; that the living were not sufficient to
bury the dead or the sound to look after the sick; that all the kingdom
was infected likewise, so that it was an universal malady such as
was never heard of in those parts of the world; and they could hardly
believe us when we gave them an account how things really were, and how
there was not above one-tenth part of the people dead; that there was
500,000, left that lived all the time in the town; that now the people
began to walk the streets again, and those who were fled to return,
there was no miss of the usual throng of people in the streets, except
as every family might miss their relations and neighbours, and the like.
I say they could not believe these things; and if inquiry were now to
be made in Naples, or in other cities on the coast of Italy, they would
tell you that there was a dreadful infection in London so many