they did not content themselves with giving the necessary orders to the officers appointed; but the aldermen, in person and on horseback, frequently rode to such houses, and caused the people to be asked at their windows whether they were duly attended or not, also whether they wanted anything that was necessary, and if the officers had constantly carried their messages, and fetched them such things as they wanted, or not.  And if they answered in the affirmative, all was well; but if they complained that they were ill supplied, and that the officer did not do his duty, or did not treat them civilly, they (the officers) were generally removed, and others placed in their stead.

It is true, such complaint might be unjust; and if the officer had such arguments to use as would convince the magistrate that he was right, and that the people had injured him, he was continued, and they reproved.  But this part could not well bear a particular inquiry, for the parties could very ill be well heard and answered in the street from the windows, as was the case then.  The magistrates, therefore, generally chose to favor the people, and remove the man, as what seemed to be the least wrong and of the least ill consequence; seeing, if the watchman was injured, yet they could easily make him amends by giving him another post of a like nature; but, if the family was injured, there was no satisfaction could be made to them, the damage, perhaps, being irreparable, as it concerned their lives.

A great variety of these cases frequently happened between the watchmen and the poor people shut up, besides those I formerly mentioned about escaping.  Sometimes the watchmen were absent, sometimes drunk, sometimes asleep, when the people wanted them; and such never failed to be punished severely, as indeed they deserved.

But, after all that was or could be done in these cases, the shutting up of houses, so as to confine those that were well with those that were sick, had very great inconveniences in it, and some that were very tragical, and which merited to have been considered, if there had been room for it:  but it was authorized by a law, it had the public good in view as the end chiefly aimed at; and all the private injuries that were done by the putting it in execution must be put to the account of the public benefit.

It is doubtful whether, in the whole, it contributed anything to the stop of the infection; and indeed I cannot say it did, for nothing could run with greater fury and rage than the infection did when it was in its chief violence, though the houses infected were shut up as exactly and effectually as it was possible.  Certain it is, that, if all the infected persons were effectually shut in, no sound person could have been infected by them, because they could not have come near them.[237] But the case was this (and I shall only touch it here); namely, that the infection was propagated insensibly, and by such persons as were not visibly infected, who neither knew whom they infected, nor whom they were infected by.