Here is a strange change of things indeed, and a sad change it was; and, had it held for two months more than it did, very few people would have been left alive; but then such, I say, was the merciful disposition of God, that when it was thus, the west and north part, which had been so dreadfully visited at first, grew, as you see, much better; and, as the people disappeared here, they began to look abroad again there; and the next week or two altered it still more, that is, more to the encouragement of the other part of the town.  For example:—­

                                      Sept. 19-26. 
    St. Giles’s, Cripplegate 277
    St. Giles-in-the-Fields 119
    Clerkenwell 76
    St. Sepulchre’s 193
    St. Leonard, Shoreditch 146
    Stepney Parish 616
    Aldgate 496
    Whitechapel 346
    In the 97 parishes within the walls 1,268
    In the 8 parishes on Southwark side 1,390
                                         -----
                                         4,927

                                 Sept. 26-Oct. 3. 

St. Giles’s, Cripplegate 196
St. Giles-in-the-Fields 95
Clerkenwell 48
St. Sepulchre’s 137
St. Leonard, Shoreditch 128
Stepney Parish 674
Aldgate 372
Whitechapel 328
In the 97 parishes within the walls 1,149
In the 8 parishes on Southwark side 1,201

          
                                                                -----

          
                           4,328

And now the misery of the city, and of the said east and south parts, was complete indeed; for, as you see, the weight of the distemper lay upon those parts, that is to say, the city, the eight parishes over the river, with the parishes of Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Stepney, and this was the time that the bills came up to such a monstrous height as that I mentioned before, and that eight or nine, and, as I believe, ten or twelve thousand a week died; for it is my settled opinion that they[260] never could come at any just account of the numbers, for the reasons which I have given already.

Nay, one of the most eminent physicians, who has since published in Latin an account of those times and of his observations, says that in one week there died twelve thousand people, and that particularly there died four thousand in one night; though I do not remember that there ever was any such particular night so remarkably fatal as that such a number died in it.  However, all this confirms what I have said above of the uncertainty of the bills of mortality, etc., of which I shall say more hereafter.