After the master of the house found there was no remedy, but that he, his
wife, and his children were to be locked up with this poor distempered
servant, he called to the watchman and told him he must go then and fetch a
nurse for them to attend this poor girl, for that it would be certain death
to them all to oblige them to nurse her; and that if he would not do this
the maid must perish, either of the distemper, or be starved for want of
food, for he was resolved none of his family should go near her, and she
lay in the garret, four-story high, where she could not cry out or call to
anybody for help.
The watchman went and fetched a nurse as he was appointed, and brought her
to them the same evening; during this interval the master of the house took
the opportunity of breaking a large hole through his shop into a stall
where formerly a cobbler had sat, before or under his shop window, but the
tenant, as may be supposed, at such a dismal time as that, was dead or
removed, and so he had the key in his own keeping. Having made his way
into this stall, which he could not have done if the man had been at the
door--the noise he was obliged to make being such as would have alarmed the
watchman--I say, having made his way into this stall, he sat still till the
watchman returned with the nurse, and all the next day also. But the night
following, having contrived to send the watchman another trifling errand,
he conveyed himself and all his family out of the house, and left the nurse
and the watchman to bury the poor woman, that is, to throw her into the
cart and take care of the house.
I could give a great many such stories as these which in the long course of
that dismal year I met with, that is, heard of, and which are very certain
to be true or very near the truth; that is to say, true in general, for no
man could at such a time learn all the particulars. There was, likewise,
violence used with the watchmen, as was reported, in abundance of places;
and I believe that, from the beginning of the visitation to the end, not
less than eighteen or twenty of them were killed or so severely wounded as
to be taken up for dead; which was supposed to have been done by the people
in the infected houses which were shut up, and where they attempted to come
out and were opposed.
For example, not far from Coleman Street they blowed up a watchman with
gunpowder, and burned the poor fellow dreadfully; and while he made hideous
cries, and nobody would venture to come near to help him, the whole family
that were able to stir got out at the windows one story high, two that were
left sick calling out for help. Care was taken to give the latter nurses
to look after them, but the fugitives were not found till after the plague
abated, when they returned; but as nothing could be proved, so nothing
could be done to them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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