Eighthly, an easterly wind, which is the driest of all others, had blown for several days together before, and at that time very strongly. Ninthly, the unexpected failing of the water thereabouts at that time: for the engine at the North end of London Bridge, called the Thames Water Tower, was out of Order, and in a few hours was itself burnt down, so that the water pipes which conveyed the water from thence through the streets were soon empty. Lastly, an unusual negligence at first, and a confidence of easily quenching it, and of its stopping at several probable places afterwards, turning at length into a confusion, consternation, and despair: people choosing rather by flight to save their goods, than by a vigorous opposition to save their own houses and the whole City.” This dry reasoning would not satisfy the people. They began to whisper among each other that this was the work of an incendiary and a stranger; a Dutchman, or, more likely, a Roman Catholic. Divers strangers, Dutch and French, were arrested on suspicion of firing the City, but as there was no evidence they were released. What gave some colour to the suspicion was that, in April of that year, certain old officers and soldiers in Cromwell’s army, eight in number, were tried for conspiracy and treason, their design having been to surprise the Tower, to kill the Lieutenant, and then to have declared for an equal division of lands. After taking the Tower their purpose was to set fire to the City. They were all found guilty, condemned, and executed. After the fire there was brought to the Lord Chief Justice a boy of ten, who declared that his father and uncle, Dutchmen both, were the persons who set fire to the house in Pudding Lane with fire-balls. This little villain appears to have been sent off as an impostor. [Illustration: _A View of the Monument of London, in remembrance of the dreadful Fire in 1666. Its height is 202 Feet_.]