After this preface, Harmer proceeded to tell his household what he
had himself resolved upon. His two apprentices--other than his own
son Joseph--were sons of a farmer living in Greenwich; and he
purposed that very day to get his sailor son Dan to take them down
the river in a boat, that he might deliver the lads safe and sound
to their parents before further peril threatened, advising them to
keep them at home till the distemper should have abated, and
arranging with them for a regular supply of fresh and untainted
provisions, to be conveyed to his house from week to week by water,
so long as there should be any fear of marketing in the city. He
foresaw that very soon trade would come almost to a standstill. The
scare and the pestilence together were emptying London of all its
wealthier inhabitants. There would be soon no work for either
shopmen or apprentices, and he counselled the former, if they had
homes out of London to go to, to remain no longer in town, but to
take their wages and seek safety and employment elsewhere, until
the calamity should be overpast. He also gave the same liberty to
the serving wenches, one of whom came from Islington and the other
from Rotherhithe. And all of these persons having home and friends,
decided to leave forthwith, to be out of the danger of infection,
and of that still more dreaded danger of being shut up in an
infected house with a plague-stricken person.

The master gave liberally to each of his servants according to
their past service, and promised that if he should escape the
pestilence, and continue his business in more prosperous times, he
would take them back into his house again.

For the present, however, it seemed good to him that only his own