“Alas, my lord, all London almost within the walls, and some part of it which was without the walls, lies now in ashes. A most lamentable devouring fire began upon Sunday morning last, at one of the clock, at a baker’s house in Pudding Lane beyond the bridge, immediately burned down all the new houses upon the bridge, and left the old ones standing, and so came on into Thames Street, and went backwards towards the Tower, meeting with nothing by the way but old paper buildings and the most combustible matter of tar, pitch, hemp, rosin, and flax, which was all laid up thereabouts: so that in six hours it became a large stream of fire, at least a mile long, and could not possibly be approached or quenched. And that which contributed to the devastation was the extreme dryness of the season, which laid all the springs so low, that no considerable quantity of water could be had, either in pipes or conduits: and above all, a most violent and tempestuous east wind, which had sometimes one point towards the north, then again a point towards the south, as if it have been sent on purpose to help the fire to execute upon the City the commission which it had from Heaven. From Thames Street it went up Fish Street Hill into Canning Street, Gracechurch Street, Lombard Street, Cornhill, Bartholomew Lane, Lothbury, Austin Friars, and Broad Street northwards, and likewise into Fenchurch Street and Lime Street, burning down all the churches, the Royal Exchange, and all the little lanes and alleys as it went. From thence westward it swept away Friday Street, Watling Street, Cheapside, Newgate market, and the Prison, Paternoster Row, St. Sepulchre’s, and so up to Smithfield Bars, and down to Holborn bridge. Also all St. Paul’s Churchyard, the roof of Paul’s Church, Ludgate Hill, part of Fleet Street, Blackfriars, Whitefriars, and all the Inner Temple, till it came to the Hall, a corner of which had taken fire, and was there most happily quenched, as likewise in Fleet St. over against St. Dunstan’s Church: else, for aught appears, it might have swept away Whitehall and all the City of Westminster too, which is now left standing, together with all the suburbs: viz. the Strand, Covent Garden, Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn fields, Holborn as far as the Bridge, and all Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, and St. John Street. Of the City itself, from the Tower unto Temple Bar, remains only all Smithfield and St. Bartholomew’s, being stopped there before it came to Sir Elias Harvey’s, wherefrom, together with Sir John Shaw’s and Gresham College and so forward, are preserved: all Bishopsgate Street, Leadenhall Street, Duke’s Place, and so to Aldgate.