to abide the worst; so that in the place we call the liberties, and in
the suburbs, in Southwark, and in the east part, such as Wapping,
Ratcliff, Stepney, Rotherhithe, and the like, the people generally
staid, except here and there a few wealthy families, who, as above, did
not depend upon their business.

It must not be forgot here that the city and suburbs were prodigiously
full of people at the time of this visitation, I mean at the time that
it began. For though I have lived to see a further increase, and mighty
throngs of people settling in London, more than ever; yet we had always
a notion that numbers of people which--the wars being over, the armies
disbanded, and the royal family and the monarchy being restored--had
flocked to London to settle in business, or to depend upon and attend
the court for rewards of services, preferments, and the like, was[42]
such that the town was computed to have in it above a hundred thousand
people more than ever it held before. Nay, some took upon them to say
it had twice as many, because all the ruined families of the royal party
flocked hither, all the soldiers set up trades here, and abundance of
families settled here. Again: the court brought with it a great flux of
pride and new fashions; all people were gay and luxurious, and the joy
of the restoration had brought a vast many families to London.[43]

But I must go back again to the beginning of this surprising time. While
the fears of the people were young, they were increased strangely by
several odd accidents, which put altogether, it was really a wonder the
whole body of the people did not rise as one man, and abandon their
dwellings, leaving the place as a space of ground designed by Heaven for
an Aceldama,[44] doomed to be destroyed from the face of the earth, and
that all that would be found in it would perish with it. I shall name
but a few of these things; but sure they were so many, and so many