faint, exhausts the spirits, opens the pores, and makes us more apt
to receive infection, or any evil influence, be it from noxious
pestilential vapours or any other thing in the air; but that the heat of
fire, and especially of coal fires kept in our houses, or near us, had
a quite different operation; the heat being not of the same kind, but
quick and fierce, tending not to nourish but to consume and dissipate
all those noxious fumes which the other kind of heat rather exhaled and
stagnated than separated and burnt up. Besides, it was alleged that the
sulphurous and nitrous particles that are often found to be in the coal,
with that bituminous substance which burns, are all assisting to clear
and purge the air, and render it wholesome and safe to breathe in after
the noxious particles, as above, are dispersed and burnt up.

The latter opinion prevailed at that time, and, as I must confess, I
think with good reason; and the experience of the citizens confirmed it,
many houses which had constant fires kept in the rooms having never been
infected at all; and I must join my experience to it, for I found the
keeping good fires kept our rooms sweet and wholesome, and I do verily
believe made our whole family so, more than would otherwise have been.

But I return to the coals as a trade. It was with no little difficulty
that this trade was kept open, and particularly because, as we were in
an open war with I the Dutch at that time, the Dutch capers at first
took a great many of our collier-ships, which made the rest cautious,
and made them to stay to come in fleets together. But after some time
the capers were either afraid to take them, or their masters, the
States, were afraid they should, and forbade them, lest the plague
should be among them, which made them fare the better.

For the security of those northern traders, the coal-ships were ordered
by my Lord Mayor not to come up into the Pool above a certain number at
a time, and ordered lighters and other vessels such as the woodmongers
(that is, the wharf-keepers or coal-sellers) furnished, to go down and
take out the coals as low as Deptford and Greenwich, and some farther
down.

Others delivered great quantities of coals in particular places where
the ships could come to the shore, as at Greenwich, Blackwall, and other
places, in vast heaps, as if to be kept for sale; but were then fetched
away after the ships which brought them were gone, so that the seamen
had