December 31. Thus ends this year, to my great joy, in this manner.  I have raised my estate from L1,300 in this year to L4,400.  I have got myself greater interest, I think, by my diligence, and my employments increased by that of treasurer for Tangier and surveyor of the victuals.  It is true we have gone through great melancholy because of the plague, and I put to great charges by it, by keeping my family long at Woolwich, and myself and my clerks at Greenwich, and a maid at London; but I hope the king will give us some satisfaction for that.  But now the plague is abated almost to nothing, and I intending to get to London as fast as I can.  To our great joy the town fills apace, and shops begin to be open again.

III.—­The Great Fire

September 2, 1666. Some of our maids sitting up late last night to get things ready against our feast to-day, Jane called us up about three in the morning to tell us of a great fire they saw in the City.  So I rose, and slipped on my nightgown, and went to her window, and thought it to be on the back side of Mark Lane at the farthest, and so went to bed again.  About seven rose again to dress myself, and there looked out at the window, and saw the fire not so much as it was, and further off.  By-and-by Jane comes and tells me that above 300 houses have been burned down, and that it is now burning down all Fish Street, by London Bridge.  So I made myself ready, and walked to the Tower, and there got up upon one of the high places; and there I did see the houses at that end of the bridge all on fire, and an infinite great fire on this and the other side of the bridge.  So down with my heart full of trouble to the lieutenant of the Tower, who tells me that it begun this morning in the king’s baker’s house in Pudding Lane.

So I down to the waterside, and there got a boat, and through bridge, and there saw a lamentable fire.  Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river, or bringing them into lighters that lay off; poor people staying in their houses till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats or clambering from one pair of stairs by the waterside to another.  And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconies till they burned their wings and fell down.  Having staid, and in an hour’s time seen the fire rage every way, and nobody, to my sight, endeavouring to quench it, I to White Hall, and there up to the king’s closet in the chapel, where people come about me, and I did give them an account which dismayed them all, and word was carried in to the king.