o the great disadvantage of
our fleet; but it cannot be helped.

_August 10._ To the office, where we sat all morning; in great trouble
to see the bill this week rise so high, to above 4,000 in all, and of
them above 3,000 of the plague. Home to draw over anew my will, which I
had bound myself by oath to dispatch by to-morrow night; the town
growing so unhealthy that a man cannot depend upon living two days.

_August 12._ The people die so that now it seems they are fain to carry
the dead to be buried by daylight, the nights not sufficing to do it in.
And my lord mayor commands people to be within at nine at night, that
the sick may have liberty to go abroad for air. There is one also dead
out of one of our ships at Deptford, which troubles us mightily. I am
told, too, that a wife of one of the grooms at court is dead at
Salisbury, so that the king and queen are speedily to be all gone to
Milton. So God preserve us!

_August 16._ To the Exchange, where I have not been in a great while.
But, Lord! how sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people, and
very few upon the 'Change. Jealous of every door that one sees shut up
lest it should be the plague; and about two shops in three, if not more,
generally shut up.

_August 22._ I walked to Greenwich, in my way seeing a coffin with a
dead body therein, dead of the plague, which was carried out last night,
and the parish have not appointed anybody to bury it; but only set a
watch there all day and night, that nobody should go thither or come
thence, this disease making us more cruel to one another than we are to
dogs.

_August 25._ This day I am told that Dr. Burnett, my physician, is this
morning dead of the plague, which is strange, his man dying so long ago,
and his house this month open again. Now himself dead. Poor, unfortunate
man!

_August 30._ I went forth and walked towards Moorfields to see (God
forgive my presumption!) whether I could see any dead corpse going to
the grave. But, Lord! how everybody looks, and discourse in the street
is of death and nothing else, and few people going up and down, that the
town is like a place distressed and forsaken.

_September 3 (Lord's Day)._ Up; and put on my coloured silk suit very
fine, and my new periwig, bought a good while since, but durst not wear,
because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it; and it is a
wonder what will be the fashion after the plague is done as to periwigs,
for nobody will dare