Nor,indeed,could less be expected,for here were so many prisons in the town as there were houses shut up;and as the people shut up or imprisoned so were guilty of no crime,only shut up because miserable,it was really the more intolerable to them.
It had also this difference,that every prison,as we may call it,had but one jailer,and as he had the whole house to guard,and that many houses were so situated as that they had several ways out,some more,some less,and some into several streets,it was impossible for one man so to guard all the passages as to prevent the escape of people made desperate by the fright of their circumstances,by the resentment of their usage,or by the raging of the distemper itself;so that they would talk to the watchman on one side of the house,while the family made their escape at another.
For example,in Coleman Street there are abundance of alleys,as appears still.A house was shut up in that they call White's Alley;and this house had a back-window,not a door,into a court which had a passage into Bell Alley.A watchman was set by the constable at the door of this house,and there he stood,or his comrade,night and day,while the family went all away in the evening out at that window into the court,and left the poor fellows warding and watching for near a fortnight.
Not far from the same place they blew up a watchman with gunpowder,and burned the poor fellow dreadfully;and while he made hideous cries,and nobody would venture to come near to help him,the whole family that were able to stir got out at the windows one storey high,two that were left sick calling out for help.Care was taken to give them nurses to look after them,but the persons fled were never found,till after the plague was abated they returned;but as nothing could be proved,so nothing could be done to them.
It is to be considered,too,that as these were prisons without bars and bolts,which our common prisons are furnished with,so the people let themselves down out of their windows,even in the face of the watchman,bringing swords or pistols in their hands,and threatening the poor wretch to shoot him if he stirred or called for help.
In other cases,some had gardens,and walls or pales,between them and their neighbours,or yards and back-houses;and these,by friendship and entreaties,would get leave to get over those walls or pales,and so go out at their neighbours'doors;or,by giving money to their servants,get them to let them through in the night;so that in short,the shutting up of houses was in no wise to be depended upon.
Neither did it answer the end at all,serving more to make the people desperate,and drive them to such extremities as that they would break out at all adventures.
And that which was still worse,those that did thus break out spread the infection farther by their wandering about with the distemper upon them,in their desperate circumstances,than they would otherwise have done;for whoever considers all the particulars in such cases must acknowledge,and we cannot doubt but the severity of those confinements made many people desperate,and made them run out of their houses at all hazards,and with the plague visibly upon them,not knowing either whither to go or what to do,or,indeed,what they did;and many that did so were driven to dreadful exigencies and extremities,and perished in the streets or fields for mere want,or dropped down by the raging violence of the fever upon them.Others wandered into the country,and went forward any way,as their desperation guided them,not knowing whither they went or would go:
till,faint and tired,and not getting any relief,the houses and villages on the road refusing to admit them to lodge whether infected or no,they have perished by the roadside or gotten into barns and died there,none daring to come to them or relieve them,though perhaps not infected,for nobody would believe them.
On the other hand,when the plague at first seized a family that is to say,when any body of the family had gone out and unwarily or otherwise catched the distemper and brought it home -it was certainly known by the family before it was known to the officers,who,as you will see by the order,were appointed to examine into the circumstances of all sick persons when they heard of their being sick.
In this interval,between their being taken sick and the examiners coming,the master of the house had leisure and liberty to remove himself or all his family,if he knew whither to go,and many did so.
But the great disaster was that many did thus after they were really infected themselves,and so carried the disease into the houses of those who were so hospitable as to receive them;which,it must be confessed,was very cruel and ungrateful.
And this was in part the reason of the general notion,or scandal rather,which went about of the temper of people infected:namely,that they did not take the least care or make any scruple of infecting others,though I cannot say but there might be some truth in it too,but not so general as was reported.What natural reason could be given for so wicked a thing at a time when they might conclude themselves just going to appear at the bar of Divine justice I know not.I am very well satisfied that it cannot be reconciled to religion and principle any more than it can be to generosity and Humanity,but I may speak of that again.