April 24 90 15 427 May 1 77 10 369 8 89 9 413 15 80 5 395 22 101 3 428 29 72 8 430 June 5 112 12 469 12 113 12 434 19 113 11 430 26 99 14 396 July 3 94 11 423 17 86 10 445 24 115 13 507 31 84 13 484 Aug. 7 99 10 462 14 110 20 530 21 135 19 583 28 111 20 510 Sept. 5 115 16 505 12 112 12 462 18 98 9 504 25 106 4 490 Oct. 2 124 8 533 9 125 10 553 16 114 9 552 23 104 3 511 30 118 3 528 Nov. 6 70 3 439 10 89 7 453 13 106 2 471 20 117 13 538 27 79 6 456 Dec. 4 87 6 475 11 87 3 407 18 78 4 445 25 66 3 394 The year 1694, to which the epidemic of malignant fever (as well as malignant smallpox) belongs, was one of the series of “seven ill years” at the end of the 17th century (1693-99). They were long noted, says Thorold Rogers, “for the distress of the people and for the exalted profits of the farmer.” The price of wheat in the autumn and winter of 1693 was the highest since the famine of 1661. In 1697-8 corn was again dear and much of it was spoilt. At Norwich in 1698 wheat was sold at 44_s._ a comb. Harvests spoiled by wet weather or unseasonable cold appear to have been the most general cause of the high prices of food. In London there was no unusual sickness except in 1694; indeed the other years to the end of the century show a somewhat low mortality, the year 1696, which Macaulay marks as a time of severe distress among the common people owing to the calling in of the debased coinage[66], had the smallest number of deaths from all causes (18,638) since many years before, and for a century after allowing for the increase of population. But the deaths from “fever” were some three thousand every year, and the births, so far as registered, were, as usual, far below the deaths. It was in the country at large that the effects of the “seven ill years” were chiefly felt. According to Short’s abstracts of parish registers, there was unusual mortality at the beginning of the period and at the end of it; in his Chronology he mentions spotted fever, bloody flux and agues in 1693 (besides an influenza or universal slight fever recorded by Molyneux of Dublin), and again in 1697 and 1698 “purples, quinsies, Hungarian and spotted fever, universal pestilential spotted fever,” from famine and bad food.