— The next week — prodigiously To the 1st of — increased, as:  Aug. thus:  St Leonard’s, Shoreditch 64 84 110 St Botolph’s, Bishopsgate 65 105 116 St Giles’s, Cripplegate 213 421 554 — —–­ —–­ —–­ — 342 610 780

This shutting up of houses was at first counted a very cruel and unchristian method, and the poor people so confined made bitter lamentations.  Complaints of the severity of it were also daily brought to my Lord Mayor, of houses causelessly (and some maliciously) shut up.  I cannot say; but upon inquiry many that complained so loudly were found in a condition to be continued; and others again, inspection being made upon the sick person, and the sickness not appearing infectious, or if uncertain, yet on his being content to be carried to the pest-house, were released.

It is true that the locking up the doors of people’s houses, and setting a watchman there night and day to prevent their stirring out or any coming to them, when perhaps the sound people in the family might have escaped if they had been removed from the sick, looked very hard and cruel; and many people perished in these miserable confinements which, ’tis reasonable to believe, would not have been distempered if they had had liberty, though the plague was in the house; at which the people were very clamorous and uneasy at first, and several violences were committed and injuries offered to the men who were set to watch the houses so shut up; also several people broke out by force in many places, as I shall observe by-and-by.  But it was a public good that justified the private mischief, and there was no obtaining the least mitigation by any application to magistrates or government at that time, at least not that I heard of.  This put the people upon all manner of stratagem in order, if possible, to get out; and it would fill a little volume to set down the arts used by the people of such houses to shut the eyes of the watchmen who were employed, to deceive them, and to escape or break out from them, in which frequent scuffles and some mischief happened; of which by itself.

As I went along Houndsditch one morning about eight o’clock there was a great noise.  It is true, indeed, there was not much crowd, because people were not very free to gather together, or to stay long together when they were there; nor did I stay long there.  But the outcry was loud enough to prompt my curiosity, and I called to one that looked out of a window, and asked what was the matter.