from Heaven that I should not go out of town, only because I could not
hire a horse to go, or my fellow was run away that was to attend me,
was ridiculous, since at the time I had my health and limbs, and other
servants, and might with ease travel a day or two on foot, and having a
good certificate of being in perfect health, might either hire a horse
or take post on the road, as I thought fit.

Then he proceeded to tell me of the mischievous consequences which
attended the presumption of the Turks and Mahometans in Asia and in
other places where he had been (for my brother, being a merchant, was
a few years before, as I have already observed, returned from abroad,
coming last from Lisbon), and how, presuming upon their professed
predestinating notions, and of every man's end being predetermined and
unalterably beforehand decreed, they would go unconcerned into infected
places and converse with infected persons, by which means they died at
the rate of ten or fifteen thousand a week, whereas the Europeans or
Christian merchants, who kept themselves retired and reserved, generally
escaped the contagion.

Upon these arguments my brother changed my resolutions again, and I
began to resolve to go, and accordingly made all things ready; for, in
short, the infection increased round me, and the bills were risen to
almost seven hundred a week, and my brother told me he would venture to
stay no longer. I desired him to let me consider of it but till the next
day, and I would resolve: and as I had already prepared everything as
well as I could as to MY business, and whom to entrust my affairs with,
I had little to do but to resolve.

I went home that evening greatly oppressed in my mind, irresolute, and
not knowing what to do. I had set the evening wholly--apart to consider