[19] In their paroxysm of phrensy, the populace attempted to wreak their vengeance upon those who had laboured for their preservation. After they had sacrificed one victim to their blind rage, they sought for the physicians and surgeons. Some of the lowest rabble broke into my house, and destroyed every thing they could lay hold of; they also went in search of the other physicians and surgeons, and pursued such as they met with. Providence rescued us all from their hands. Little suspecting what was to happen, I had gone four days before, by order of council, to the Foundling-Hospital, to superintend more closely the health of the children there. [20] There is some little variation between this author's spelling of these Russian names and Mr. _Coxe_'s. The last-mentioned traveller writes the 1st. Kremlin; the 2nd. Khitaigorod; the 3rd. Bielgorod; and the 4th. Semlainogorod. This last takes its name from the rampart of earth with which it is surrounded. Tr. [21] Mr. _Coxe_ describes the wooden houses of the common people in Moscow, as mean hovels, in no degree superior to peasants cottages. It is easy to conceive how favourable these low and crouded habitations must have been to the harbouring and spreading of contagion. Tr. [22] Now Prince _Orlow_. [23] See Addenda, Note B. [24] In Russia it is no uncommon thing to have a large edifice built of wood in a few days. See _Coxe_'s Travels. To persons unacquainted with this fact, the erecting of new hospitals might seem a very tardy measure for checking the progress of the plague. Tr. [25] _Reaumur_'s thermometer was constantly in the morning between 16 and 22 degrees below the freezing point. [26] See Addenda, note C. [27] Dr. _Pogaretzky_, who had the care of the pest-hospital, Laforte, told me that some of the bearers of the dead had put on sheep-skins that had been worn by the impested, after having exposed them to the open air for forty-eight hours, in the month of December, when the frost was very intense; and that none of them became infected. [28] The author remarks in a note, that the number of deaths in the month of September, probably amounted to as many as twenty-seven thousand. At this time, which was during the riots, the number of deaths could not be accurately registered. [29] The number of these was by no means inconsiderable; for during the height of the plague, there was scarcely a sufficient number of men, horses, and carts to carry off the dead; many remained uninterred for two or three days, and were at length taken away by their relations, friends, or poor people hired for that purpose. Many of these could not be registered, besides numbers of others who were buried in secret, and whose illness was never reported to the Senate.