Pleased with these victories, the king grew careless, and forgot to have the Dutch fleets properly watched, so one of them sailed into the river Medway, and burnt a number of English ships at Chatham, and did more mischief by landing at different places, and burning ships and houses, than had ever been done in the same way since the days of the old Danes. This was near the end of the war. The English, Dutch, and French were equally glad to make peace. The plague now broke out, first in Holland, then in England. Hundreds of people died every day, and it seemed shocking to be killing more men when so many were dying of that dreadful disorder. Often when people did not know they had the plague they dropped down dead in the streets. Sometimes a friend would be talking to another and seem quite well and merry, and in a minute he would feel sick, and die before he could get home. Sometimes everybody in a house would die, and then the grave diggers had to go and get the dead out of the house, and put them in a cart at night, and carry them to a place near London, where a great grave was dug, so big that many hundred people were buried there together. Sometimes a poor mother would follow the dead-cart crying because all her children were in it, and she had nobody left alive to love. And often little children were found almost starved, because their fathers and mothers were dead and there was nobody to feed them. There was one lady whose name was North, who had a very little baby; that baby caught the plague. The mother sent all her other children, and her servants, and everybody else into the country, and stayed by herself with the baby and nursed him, and would not fear the plague while she was watching her sick child; and it pleased God to save her and the child too. I have read what he says of his dear mother’s love to him, in a book he wrote when he was an oldish man; and I think that the love he always kept for his mother, and the remembrance of her kindness, made him a good man all his life. This sad plague was put an end to by a dreadful fire, which burnt down a great part of London. It lasted for four days; and though everybody tried to put an end to it, it still burned on, for there was a strong wind, which blew the flames from one house to another. At that time the streets were very narrow, and most of the houses were built of wood, so no wonder they burned fiercely. But good arose from this evil: when London was built again the streets were made wider, and the houses were built of brick and stone, so they were not so apt to burn, and they could be kept cleaner; and as the plague seldom comes to clean places, it has never been in London since the fire.