And here let me take leave to enter again, though it may seem a repetition of circumstances, into a description of the miserable condition of the city itself, and of those parts where I lived, at this particular time.  The city, and those other parts, notwithstanding the great numbers of people that were gone into the country, was[261] vastly full of people; and perhaps the fuller because people had for a long time a strong belief that the plague would not come into the city, nor into Southwark, no, nor into Wapping or Ratcliff at all; nay, such was the assurance of the people on that head, that many removed from the suburbs on the west and north sides into those eastern and south sides as for safety, and, as I verily believe, carried the plague amongst them there, perhaps sooner than they would otherwise have had it.

Here, also, I ought to leave a further remark for the use of posterity, concerning the manner of people’s infecting one another; namely, that it was not the sick people only from whom the plague was immediately received by others that were sound, but the well.  To explain myself:  by the sick people, I mean those who were known to be sick, had taken their beds, had been under cure, or had swellings or tumors upon them, and the like.  These everybody could beware of:  they were either in their beds, or in such condition as could not be concealed.

By the well, I mean such as had received the contagion, and had it really upon them and in their blood, yet did not show the consequences of it in their countenances; nay, even were not sensible of it themselves, as many were not for several days.  These breathed death in every place, and upon everybody who came near them; nay, their very clothes retained the infection; their hands would infect the things they touched, especially if they were warm and sweaty, and they were generally apt to sweat, too.

Now, it was impossible to know these people, nor did they sometimes, as I have said, know themselves, to be infected.  These were the people that so often dropped down and fainted in the streets; for oftentimes they would go about the streets to the last, till on a sudden they would sweat, grow faint, sit down at a door, and die.  It is true, finding themselves thus, they would struggle hard to get home to their own doors, or at other times would be just able to go into their houses, and die instantly.  Other times they would go about till they had the very tokens come out upon them, and yet not know it, and would die in an hour or two after they came home, but be well as long as they were abroad.  These were the dangerous people; these were the people of whom the well people ought to have been afraid:  but then, on the other side, it was impossible to know them.