They had supposed this pit would have supplied them for a month or more when they dug it,and some blamed the churchwardens for suffering such a frightful thing,telling them they were making preparations to bury the whole parish,and the like;but time made it appear the churchwardens knew the condition of the parish better than they did:for,the pit being finished the 4th of September,I think,they began to bury in it the 6th,and by the 20th,which was just two weeks,they had thrown into it 1114bodies when they were obliged to fill it up,the bodies being then come to lie within six feet of the surface.Idoubt not but there may be some ancient persons alive in the parish who can justify the fact of this,and are able to show even in what place of the churchyard the pit lay better than I can.The mark of it also was many years to be seen in the churchyard on the surface,lying in length parallel with the passage which goes by the west wall of the churchyard out of Houndsditch,and turns east again into Whitechappel,coming out near the Three Nuns'Inn.
It was about the 10th of September that my curiosity led,or rather drove,me to go and see this pit again,when there had been near 400people buried in it;and I was not content to see it in the day-time,as I had done before,for then there would have been nothing to have been seen but the loose earth;for all the bodies that were thrown in were immediately covered with earth by those they called the buriers,which at other times were called bearers;but I resolved to go in the night and see some of them thrown in.
There was a strict order to prevent people coming to those pits,and that was only to prevent infection.But after some time that order was more necessary,for people that were infected and near their end,and delirious also,would run to those pits,wrapt in blankets or rugs,and throw themselves in,and,as they said,bury themselves.I cannot say that the officers suffered any willingly to lie there;but I have heard that in a great pit in Finsbury,in the parish of Cripplegate,it lying open then to the fields,for it was not then walled about,[many]came and threw themselves in,and expired there,before they threw any earth upon them;and that when they came to bury others and found them there,they were quite dead,though not cold.
This may serve a little to describe the dreadful condition of that day,though it is impossible to say anything that is able to give a true idea of it to those who did not see it,other than this,that it was indeed very,very,very dreadful,and such as no tongue can express.
I got admittance into the churchyard by being acquainted with the sexton who attended;who,though he did not refuse me at all,yet earnestly persuaded me not to go,telling me very seriously (for he was a good,religious,and sensible man)that it was indeed their business and duty to venture,and to run all hazards,and that in it they might hope to be preserved;but that I had no apparent call to it but my own curiosity,which,he said,he believed I would not pretend was sufficient to justify my running that hazard.I told him I had been pressed in my mind to go,and that perhaps it might be an instructing sight,that might not be without its uses.'Nay,'says the good man,'if you will venture upon that score,name of God go in;for,depend upon it,'twill be a sermon to you,it may be,the best that ever you heard in your life.'Tis a speaking sight,'says he,'and has a voice with it,and a loud one,to call us all to repentance';and with that he opened the door and said,'Go,if you will.'
His discourse had shocked my resolution a little,and I stood wavering for a good while,but just at that interval I saw two links come over from the end of the Minories,and heard the bellman,and then appeared a dead-cart,as they called it,coming over the streets;so I could no longer resist my desire of seeing it,and went in.There was nobody,as I could perceive at first,in the churchyard,or going into it,but the buriers and the fellow that drove the cart,or rather led the horse and cart;but when they came up to the pit they saw a man go to and again,muffled up in a brown Cloak,and making motions with his hands under his cloak,as if he was in great agony,and the buriers immediately gathered about him,supposing he was one of those poor delirious or desperate creatures that used to pretend,as I have said,to bury themselves.He said nothing as he walked about,but two or three times groaned very deeply and loud,and sighed as he would break his heart.
End of Part 2