The beginning of the year 1670, the city of London was rebuilt, with more space and splendour than had been before seen in England. The act for rebuilding it was drawn by Sir Matthew Hale, with so true judgment and foresight, that the whole city was raised out of its ashes without any suits of law; which if that bill had not prevented them, would have brought a second charge on the city, not much less than the fire itself had been. And upon that, to the amazement of all Europe, London was, in four years' time, rebuilt with so much beauty and magnificence, that they who saw it in both states, before and after the fire, could not reflect on it, without wondering where the wealth could be found to bear so vast a loss as was made by the fire, and so prodigious an expense as was laid out in the rebuilding. This good and great work was very much forwarded by Sir William Turner, lord mayor, 1669. He was so much honoured and beloved, that at the end of the year they chose him again; but he refused it, as being an unusual thing. Whatever the unfortunate citizens of London suffered by this dreadful fire, it is manifest, that a greater blessing could not have happened for the good of posterity; for, instead of very narrow, crooked, and incommodious streets, dark, irregular and ill-contrived wooden houses, with their several stories jutting out, or hanging over each other, whereby the circulation of the air was obstructed, noisome vapours harboured, and verminious, pestilential atoms nourished, as is manifest, by the city not being clear of the plague for twenty-five years before, and only free from contagion three years in above seventy; enlarging of the streets, and modern way of building, there is such a free circulation of sweet air through the streets, that offensive vapours are expelled, and the city freed from pestilential symptoms: so that it may now justly be averred that there is no place in the kingdom where the inhabitants enjoy a better state of health, or live to a greater age, than the citizens of London. SECTION III. VARIOUS OPINIONS CONCERNING THE CAUSES OF THE GREAT FIRE. Whether the fire came casually, or on design, remains still a secret: though the general opinion might be that it was casual, yet there were presumptions on the other side of a very odd nature. Great calamities naturally produce various conjectures; men seldom considering, that the most stupendous effects often proceed from the most minute causes, or most remote accidents. People failed not to give a scope to their imagination, and to form guesses concerning the causes and authors of this afflicting and astonishing misfortune. The king in his speech calls it "God's judgment;" the pious and religious, and at first all other men, generally and naturally ascribed it to the just vengeance of Heaven, on a city where vice and immorality reigned so openly and shamefully, and which had not been sufficiently humbled by the raging pestilence of the foregoing year.