In the year of our Lord 1666. 2d Sept. This fatal night, about ten, began
that deplorable fire near Fish Street, in London.

3. The fire continuing, after dinner I took coach with my wife and son, and
went to the Bankside in Southwark, where we beheld that dismal spectacle,
the whole city in dreadful flames near the water-side; all the houses from
the bridge, all Thames Street, and upward toward Cheapside, down to the
Three Cranes, were now consumed.

The fire having continued all this night--if I may call that night
which was as light as day for ten miles round about, after a dreadful
manner--when conspiring with a fierce eastern wind in a very dry season; I
went on foot to the same place, and saw the whole south part of the city
burning from Cheapside to the Thames, and all along Cornhill--for it
kindled back against the wind as well as forward--Tower Street, Fenchurch
Street, Gracechurch Street, and so along to Bainard's castle, and was
now taking hold of St. Paul's Church, to which the scaffolds contributed
exceedingly. The conflagration was so universal, and the people so
astonished, that from the beginning, I know not by what despondency or
fate, they hardly stirred to quench it; so that there was nothing heard
or seen but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted
creatures, without at all attempting to save even their goods; such a
strange consternation there was upon them, so as it burned both in breadth
and length, the churches, public halls, exchange, hospitals, monuments,
and ornaments, leaping after a prodigious manner from house to house, and
street to street, at great distances one from the other; for the heat, with
a long set of fair and warm weather, had even ignited the air and prepared
the materials to conceive the fire, which devoured, after an incredible
manner, houses, furniture, and everything.