“In spite of the well intentioned measures of the authorities, the plague continued through May and June with more or less severity, sometimes in one place, sometimes in another, till the people becoming thoroughly frightened, flocked out of town in crowds. But the disease raged with redoubled fury among those that remained. Then the authorities bestirred themselves to the utmost. They instituted a monthly fast; and the King commanded the College of Physicians ‘to write somewhat in English,’ that might serve as ‘a general directory.’ The college not only obeyed the royal commands, by inventing a ‘Plague Water,’ consisting of a cordial distilled off from a vinous infusion of a score of very harmless roots, leaves, and flowers, but also appointed two of their number to co-operate with two chosen from among the aldermen in attending the infected; while Dr. Glisson, Regius Professor at Cambridge, and Drs. Paget, Wharton, Berwick and Brookes volunteered their help, with many others who survived, and eight or nine who fell victims to their self-devotion, among whom Dr. Conyers receives honourable mention.

“Still, in the face of every precaution, the plague continued its work of destruction, especially among the common people, so as to be called the ‘Poor’s Plague,’ and, in August and September, completely got the mastery, ‘so that three, four or five thousand died in a week, and once 8,000.’

“And here I will follow Dr. Hodges’ example, and try to give you some idea of the state of things then prevailing. But in doing so I must shorten and tone down his description. ‘In some houses,’ he says ‘carcases lay waiting for burial,’ ‘in others, persons in their last agonies.’ ‘In one room might be heard dying groans, in another the ravings of delirium,’ and, near at hand, relations and friends bewailing their loss and their own dismal prospects. ‘Death was the sure midwife to all children, and infants passed immediately from the womb to the grave.’ Some of the infected ran about staggering like drunken men, and fell down dead in the streets, or they lay there comatose and half dead; some lay vomiting as if they had drunk poison; others fell dead in the market in the act of buying provisions. The plague spared ‘no order, age or sex.’ The divine was taken in the very exercise of his priestly office, and the physician while administering his own antidote; and though the soldiers retreated, and encamped out of the city, the contagion followed, and vanquished them. Many in their old age, others in their prime, most women and still more children, perished; ‘and it was not uncommon to see an inheritance pass successively to three or four heirs in as many days.’ There were not sextons enough to bury the dead, the bells ceased tolling, the burying places were full, so that the dead were thrown into large pits, dug in waste ground, in heaps 30 or 40 together; and those who attended the funerals of their friends one evening were often carried the next to their own long home.

“This is written of a time when the worst had not yet happened. It was about the beginning of September that the disease was at its height. Then fires were ordered to be burnt in the streets for three days together; but before the time had expired, they were extinguished by heavy rains, which ushered in the most fatal night of all with its register of more than 4,000 deaths.

“From this, its culminating point, the plague, ‘by leisurely degrees declined,’ ‘and before the number infected decreased, its malignity began to relax, insomuch that few died, and those chiefly such as were ill-managed.’ Dr. Hodges distinctly states that the pestilence did not stop for want of subjects, but from the nature of the distemper. ‘Its decrease was, like its beginning, moderate.’ Early in November, people grew more healthful, and though the funerals were still frequent, ‘yet many who had made most haste in retiring, made the most to return;’ ‘insomuch that in December, they crowded back as thick as they fled.’ The houses were again inhabited; the shops re-opened; the people went cheerfully to their work; the rooms, in which a short time before infected persons had breathed their last, were peopled afresh, and many went into their beds ‘before they were even cold or cleansed from the stench of the diseased.’ ‘They had the courage now to marry again,’ ‘and even women, before deemed barren, were said to prove prolific, so that, although the contagion had carried off, as some computed, about 100,000, after a few months, their loss was hardly discernable.’ But the next spring there appeared ‘some remains of the contagion,’ which was easily conquered by the physicians; and the whole malignity ceasing, the city returned to perfect health, as after the great fire, ‘a new city suddenly arose out of the ashes of the old, much better able to stand the like flames another time.’”