But it seems that the Government had a true account of it, and several
councils were held about ways to prevent its coming over; but all was
kept very private. Hence it was that this rumour died off again, and
people began to forget it as a thing we were very little concerned in,
and that we hoped was not true; till the latter end of November or the
beginning of December 1664 when two men, said to be Frenchmen, died of
the plague in Long Acre, or rather at the upper end of Drury Lane. The
family they were in endeavoured to conceal it as much as possible, but
as it had gotten some vent in the discourse of the neighbourhood, the
Secretaries of State got knowledge of it; and concerning themselves to
inquire about it, in order to be certain of the truth, two physicians
and a surgeon were ordered to go to the house and make inspection.
This they did; and finding evident tokens of the sickness upon both the
bodies that were dead, they gave their opinions publicly that they died
of the plague. Whereupon it was given in to the parish clerk, and he
also returned them to the Hall; and it was printed in the weekly bill of
mortality in the usual manner, thus--

Plague, 2. Parishes infected, 1.

The people showed a great concern at this, and began to be alarmed all
over the town, and the more, because in the last week in December 1664
another man died in the same house, and of the same distemper. And then
we were easy again for about six weeks, when none having died with any
marks of infection, it was said the distemper was gone; but after that,
I think it was about the 12th of February, another died in another
house, but in the same parish and in the same manner.

This turned the people's eyes pretty much towards that end of the town,
and the weekly bills showing an increase of burials in St Giles's parish