My brother,who had already sent his wife and two children into Bedfordshire,and resolved to follow them,pressed my going very earnestly;and I had once resolved to comply with his desires,but at that time could get no horse;for though it is true all the people did not go out of the city of London,yet I may venture to say that in a manner all the horses did;for there was hardly a horse to be bought or hired in the whole city for some weeks.Once I resolved to travel on foot with one servant,and,as many did,lie at no inn,but carry a soldier's tent with us,and so lie in the fields,the weather being very warm,and no danger from taking cold.I say,as many did,because several did so at last,especially those who had been in the armies in the war which had not been many years past;and I must needs say that,speaking of second causes,had most of the people that travelled done so,the plague had not been carried into so many country towns and houses as it was,to the great damage,and indeed to the ruin,of abundance of people.
But then my servant,whom I had intended to take down with me,deceived me;and being frighted at the increase of the distemper,and not knowing when I should go,he took other measures,and left me,so I was put off for that time;and,one way or other,I always found that to appoint to go away was always crossed by some accident or other,so as to disappoint and put it off again;and this brings in a story which otherwise might be thought a needless digression,viz.,about these disappointments being from Heaven.
I mention this story also as the best method I can advise any person to take in such a case,especially if he be one that makes conscience of his duty,and would be directed what to do in it,namely,that he should keep his eye upon the particular providences which occur at that time,and look upon them complexly,as they regard one another,and as all together regard the question before him:and then,I think,he may safely take them for intimations from Heaven of what is his unquestioned duty to do in such a case;I mean as to going away from or staying in the place where we dwell,when visited with an infectious distemper.
It came very warmly into my mind one morning,as I was musing on this particular thing,that as nothing attended us without the direction or permission of Divine Power,so these disappointments must have something in them extraordinary;and I ought to consider whether it did not evidently point out,or intimate to me,that it was the will of Heaven I should not go.It immediately followed in my thoughts,that if it really was from God that I should stay,He was able effectually to preserve me in the midst of all the death and danger that would surround me;and that if I attempted to secure myself by fleeing from my habitation,and acted contrary to these intimations,which I believe to be Divine,it was a kind of flying from God,and that He could cause His justice to overtake me when and where He thought fit.
These thoughts quite turned my resolutions again,and when I came to discourse with my brother again I told him that I inclined to stay and take my lot in that station in which God had placed me,and that it seemed to be made more especially my duty,on the account of what I have said.
My brother,though a very religious man himself,laughed at all Ihad suggested about its being an intimation from Heaven,and told me several stories of such foolhardy people,as he called them,as I was;that I ought indeed to submit to it as a work of Heaven if I had been any way disabled by distempers or diseases,and that then not being able to go,I ought to acquiesce in the direction of Him,who,having been my Maker,had an undisputed right of sovereignty in disposing of me,and that then there had been no difficulty to determine which was the call of His providence and which was not;but that I should take it as an intimation from Heaven that I should not go out of town,only because I could not hire a horse to go,or my fellow was run away that was to attend me,was ridiculous,since at the time I had my health and limbs,and other servants,and might with ease travel a day or two on foot,and having a good certificate of being in perfect health,might either hire a horse or take post on the road,as I thought fit.
Then he proceeded to tell me of the mischievous consequences which attended the presumption of the Turks and Mahometans in Asia and in other places where he had been (for my brother,being a merchant,was a few years before,as I have already observed,returned from abroad,coming last from Lisbon),and how,presuming upon their professed predestinating notions,and of every man's end being predetermined and unalterably beforehand decreed,they would go unconcerned into infected places and converse with infected persons,by which means they died at the rate of ten or fifteen thousand a week,whereas the Europeans or Christian merchants,who kept themselves retired and reserved,generally escaped the contagion.
Upon these arguments my brother changed my resolutions again,and I began to resolve to go,and accordingly made all things ready;for,in short,the infection increased round me,and the bills were risen to almost seven hundred a week,and my brother told me he would venture to stay no longer.I desired him to let me consider of it but till the next day,and I would resolve:and as I had already prepared everything as well as I could as to MY business,and whom to entrust my affairs with,I had little to do but to resolve.
I went home that evening greatly oppressed in my mind,irresolute,and not knowing what to do.I had set the evening wholly -apart to consider seriously about it,and was all alone;for already people had,as it were by a general consent,taken up the custom of not going out of doors after sunset;the reasons I shall have occasion to say more of by-and-by.