The officers also and the soldiers were mightily changed, and became very respectful to me, and when they had occasion to speak of me they would say, "He is as stiff as a tree, and as pure as a bell; for we could never bow him." [Here is an interesting entry in the Journal in the year 1669: "I then visited friends at Whitby and Scarborough. When I was at Scarborough, the governor, hearing I was come, sent to invite me to his house, saying, 'Surely, you would not be so unkind as not to come and see me and my wife.' After the meeting I went to visit him, and he received me very courteously and lovingly."] The very next day after my release, the fire broke out in London, and the report of it came quickly down into the country. Then I saw the Lord God was true and just in His Word, which he had shown me before in Lancaster jail, when I saw the angel of the Lord with a glittering sword drawn southward, as before expressed. The people of London were forewarned of this fire; yet few laid to heart, or believed it; but rather grew more wicked, and higher in pride. For a Friend was moved to come out of Huntingdonshire a little before the fire, to scatter his money, and turn his horse loose on the streets, to untie the knees of his trousers, let his stockings fall down, and to unbutton his doublet, and tell the people that so should they run up and down, scattering their money and their goods, half undressed, like mad people, as he was sign to them;[146] and so they did, when the city was burning. [146] This was Thomas Ibbett, of Huntingdonshire. He went distracted a little later, and, standing in Cheapside during the great fire, he tried to stop its progress with his outspread arms, so that he nearly perished in the flames. For a remarkable prophecy of the "great plague" see "Writings of George Fox the Younger," 1662, pages 219-221. Thus hath the Lord exercised His prophets and servants by His power, shown them signs of His judgments, and sent them to forewarn the people; but, instead of repenting, they have beaten and cruelly entreated some, and some they have imprisoned, both in the former power's days[AN] and since. [AN] The days of Oliver Cromwell. But the Lord is just, and happy are they that obey His word. Some have been moved to go naked in their streets, in the other power's days and since, as signs of their nakedness; and have declared amongst them that God would strip them of their hypocritical professions, and make them as bare and naked as they were. But instead of considering it, they have many times whipped, or otherwise abused them, and sometimes imprisoned them.