I cannot guess at the number of ships, but I think there must have been several hundreds of sail; and I could not but applaud the contrivance, for ten thousand people and more who attended ship affairs were certainly sheltered here from the violence of the contagion, and lived very safe and very easy.

I returned to my own dwelling very well satisfied with my day’s journey, and particularly with the poor man; also I rejoiced to see that such little sanctuaries were provided for so many families on board in a time of such desolation.  I observed, also, that, as the violence of the plague had increased, so the ships which had families on board removed and went farther off, till, as I was told, some went quite away to sea, and put into such harbors and safe roads[175] on the north coast as they could best come at.

But it was also true, that all the people who thus left the land, and lived on board the ships, were not entirely safe from the infection; for many died, and were thrown overboard into the river, some in coffins, and some, as I heard, without coffins, whose bodies were seen sometimes to drive up and down with the tide in the river.

But I believe I may venture to say, that, in those ships which were thus infected, it either happened where the people had recourse to them too late, and did not fly to the ship till they had staid too long on shore, and had the distemper upon them, though perhaps they might not perceive it (and so the distemper did not come to them on board the ships, but they really carried it with them), or it was in these ships where the poor waterman said they had not had time to furnish themselves with provisions, but were obliged to send often on shore to buy what they had occasion for, or suffered boats to come to them from the shore; and so the distemper was brought insensibly among them.

And here I cannot but take notice that the strange temper of the people of London at that time contributed extremely to their own destruction.  The plague began, as I have observed, at the other end of the town (namely, in Longacre, Drury Lane, etc.), and came on towards the city very gradually and slowly.  It was felt at first in December, then again in February, then again in April (and always but a very little at a time), then it stopped till May; and even the last week in May there were but seventeen in all that end of the town.  And all this while, even so long as till there died about three thousand a week, yet had the people in Redriff and in Wapping and Ratcliff, on both sides the river, and almost all Southwark side, a mighty fancy that they should not be visited, or at least that it would not be so violent among them.  Some people fancied the smell of the pitch and tar, and such other things, as oil and resin and brimstone (which is much used by all trades relating to shipping), would preserve them.  Others argued it,[176] because it[177] was in its extremest violence in Westminster and the parish of St. Giles’s and St. Andrew’s, etc., and began to abate again before it came among them, which was true, indeed, in part.  For example:—­