It pleased God that I was still spared, and very hearty and sound in health, but very impatient of being pent up within doors without air, as I had been for fourteen days or thereabouts.  And I could not restrain myself, but I would go and carry a letter for my brother to the posthouse; then it was, indeed, that I observed a profound silence in the streets.  When I came to the posthouse, as I went to put in my letter, I saw a man stand in one corner of the yard, and talking to another at a window; and a third had opened a door belonging to the office.  In the middle of the yard lay a small leather purse, with two keys hanging at it, with money in it; but nobody would meddle with it.  I asked how long it had lain there.  The man at the window said it had lain almost an hour, but they had not meddled with it, because they did not know but the person who dropped it might come back to look for it.  I had no such need of money, nor was the sum so big that I had any inclination to meddle with it or to get the money at the hazard it might be attended with:  so I seemed to go away, when the man who had opened the door said he would take it up, but so that, if the right owner came for it, he should be sure to have it.  So he went in and fetched a pail of water, and set it down hard by the purse, then went again and fetched some gunpowder, and cast a good deal of powder upon the purse, and then made a train from that which he had thrown loose upon the purse (the train reached about two yards); after this he goes in a third time, and fetches out a pair of tongs red hot, and which he had prepared, I suppose, on purpose; and first setting fire to the train of powder, that singed the purse, and also smoked the air sufficiently.  But he was not content with that, but he then takes up the purse with the tongs, holding it so long till the tongs burnt through the purse, and then he shook the money out into the pail of water:  so he carried it in.  The money, as I remember, was about thirteen shillings, and some smooth groats[168] and brass farthings.[169]

Much about the same time, I walked out into the fields towards Bow; for I had a great mind to see how things were managed in the river and among the ships; and, as I had some concern in shipping, I had a notion that it had been one of the best ways of securing one’s self from the infection to have retired into a ship.  And, musing how to satisfy my curiosity in that point, I turned away over the fields, from Bow to Bromley, and down to Blackwall, to the stairs that are there for landing, or taking water.

Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank, or “sea wall” as they call it, by himself.  I walked awhile also about, seeing the houses all shut up.  At last I fell into some talk, at a distance, with this poor man.  First I asked how people did thereabouts.  “Alas, sir!” says he, “almost desolate, all dead or sick; here are very few families in this part, or in that village,” pointing at Poplar,