finding it just so, they resolved to acquaint either the lord
mayor or some other magistrate of it, but did not offer to go in at
the window. The magistrate, it seems, upon the information of the two
men ordered the house to be broken open, a constable and other persons
being appointed to be present, that nothing might be plundered; and
accordingly it was so done, when nobody was found in the house but
that young woman, who having been infected and past recovery, the rest
had left her to die by herself, and every one gone, having found some
way to delude the watchman and to get open the door, or get out at
some back door, or over the tops of the houses, so that he knew
nothing of it; and as to those cries and shrieks which he heard, it
was supposed they were the passionate cries of the family at this
bitter parting, which to be sure it was to them all, this being the
sister to the mistress of the family. The man of the house, his wife,
several children and servants, being all gone and fled; whether sick
or sound, that I could never learn, nor indeed did I make much inquiry
after it....

This [38,195 deaths in about a month] was a prodigious number of
itself; but if I should add the reasons which I have to believe that
this account was deficient, and how deficient it was, you would with
me make no scruple to believe that there died above 10,000 a week for
all those weeks, and a proportion for several weeks both before and
after. The confusion among the people, especially within the city, at
that time was inexpressible; the terror was so great at last that the
courage of the people appointed to carry away the dead began to fail
them; nay, several of them died, altho they had the distemper before,
and were recovered; and some of them had dropt down when they had been
carrying the bodies even at the pitside, and just ready to throw them
in; and this confusion was greater in the city, because they had
flattered themselves with hopes of escaping, and thought the
bitterness of death was past. One cart, they told us, going up to
Shoreditch, was forsaken by the drivers, or being left to one man to
drive, he died in the street; and the horses, going on, overthrew the
cart and left the bodies, some thrown here, some there, is a dismal
manner. Another cart was, it seems, found in the great pit in Finsbury
Fields, the driver being dead, or having been gone and abandoned it;
and the horses running too near it, the cart fell in and d