h,
coming to see me the week before, told me he was sure that the violence
of it would assuage in a few days; but when I saw the weekly bill of
that week, which was the highest of the whole year, being 8297 of all
diseases, I upbraided him with it, and asked him what he had made
his judgement from. His answer, however, was not so much to seek as I
thought it would have been. 'Look you,' says he, 'by the number which
are at this time sick and infected, there should have been twenty
thousand dead the last week instead of eight thousand, if the inveterate
mortal contagion had been as it was two weeks ago; for then it
ordinarily killed in two or three days, now not under eight or ten; and
then not above one in five recovered, whereas I have observed that now
not above two in five miscarry. And, observe it from me, the next bill
will decrease, and you will see many more people recover than used to
do; for though a vast multitude are now everywhere infected, and as many
every day fall sick, yet there will not so many die as there did, for
the malignity of the distemper is abated';--adding that he began now to
hope, nay, more than hope, that the infection had passed its crisis and
was going off; and accordingly so it was, for the next week being, as I
said, the last in September, the bill decreased almost two thousand.

It is true the plague was still at a frightful height, and the next bill
was no less than 6460, and the next to that, 5720; but still my friend's
observation was just, and it did appear the people did recover faster
and more in number than they used to do; and indeed, if it had not been
so, what had been the condition of the city of London? For, according
to my friend, there were not fewer than 60,000 people at that time
infected, whereof, as above, 20,477 died, and near 40,000 recovered;
whereas, had it been as it was before, 50,000 of that number would very
probably have died, if not more, and 50,000 more would have sickened;
for, in a word, the whole mass of people began to sicken, and it looked
as if none would escape.

But this remark of my friend's appeared more evident in a few weeks
more, for the decrease went on, and another week in October it decreased
1843, so that the number dead of the plague was but 2665; and the next
week it decreased 1413 more, and yet it was seen plainly that there
was abundance of people sick, nay, abundance more than ordinary, and
abundance fell sick every day but (as above)