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Daniel Defoe - History of the Plague in London

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ECLECTIC ENGLISH CLASSICS


HISTORY
OF
THE PLAGUE IN LONDON

BY
DANIEL DEFOE


NEW YORK .:. CINCINNATI .:. CHICAGO
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY



Copyright, 1894, by
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY.

DEFOE--THE PLAGUE IN LONDON.
M. 2


[Illustration: PRINCIPAL WARDS AND PARISHES IN THE CITY OF LONDON,
1665.]

[Illustration: LONDON AND THE SUBURBS, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.]




INTRODUCTION.


The father of Daniel Defoe was a butcher in the parish of St. Giles's,
Cripplegate, London. In this parish, probably, Daniel Defoe was born in
1661, the year after the restoration of Charles II. The boy's parents
wished him to become a dissenting minister, and so intrusted his
education to a Mr. Morton who kept an academy for the training of
nonconformist divines. How long Defoe staid at this school is not known.
He seems to think himself that he staid there long enough to become a
good scholar; for he declares that the pupils were "made masters of the
English tongue, and more of them excelled in that particular than of any
school at that time." If this statement be true, we can only say that
the other schools must have been very bad indeed. Defoe never acquired a
really good style, and can in no true sense be called a "master of the
English tongue."

Nature had gifted Defoe with untiring energy, a keen taste for public
affairs, and a special aptitude for chicanery and intrigue. These were
not qualities likely to advance him in the ministry, and he wisely
refused to adopt that profession. With a young man's love for adventure
and a dissenter's hatred for Roman Catholicism, he took part in the Duke
of Monmouth's rebellion (1685) against James II. More fortunate than
three of his fellow students, who were executed for their share in this
affair, Defoe escaped the hue and cry that followed the battle of
Sedgemoor, and after some months' concealment set up as a wholesale
merchant in Cornhill. When James II. was deposed in 1688, and the
Protestant William of Orange elected to the English throne, Defoe
hastened to give in his allegiance to the new dynasty. In 1691 he
published his first pamphlet, "A New Discovery of an Old Intrigue, a
Satire leveled at Treachery and Ambition." This is written in miserable
doggerel verse. That Defoe should have mistaken it for poetry, and
should have prided himself upon it accordingly, is only a proof of how
incompetent an author is to pass judgment upon what is good and what is
bad in his own work.

In 1692 Defoe failed in business, probably from too much attention to
politics, which were now beginning to engross more and more of his time
and thoughts. His political attitude is clearly defined in the title of
his next pamphlet, "The Englishman's Choice and True Interest: in the
Vigorous Prosecution of the War against France, and serving K. William
and Q. Mary, and acknowledging their Right." "K. William" was too astute
a manager to neglect a writer who showed the capacity to become a
dangerous opponent. Defoe was accordingly given the place of accountant
to the commissioners of the glass duty (1694). From this time until
William's death (1702), he had no more loyal and active servant than
Defoe. Innumerable pamphlets bear tribute to his devotion to the King
and his policy,--pamphlets written in an easy, swinging, good-natured
style, with little imagination and less passion; pamphlets whose
principal arguments are based upon a reasonable self-interest, and for
the comprehension of which no more intellectual power is called for than
Providence has doled out to the average citizen. Had Defoe lived in the
nineteenth century, instead of in the seventeenth, he would have
commanded a princely salary as writer for the Sunday newspaper, and as
composer of campaign documents and of speeches for members of the House
of Representatives.

In 1701 Defoe published his "True-born Englishman," a satire upon the
English people for their stupid opposition to the continental policy of
the King. This is the only metrical composition of prolific Daniel that
has any pretensions to be called a poem. It contains some lines not
unworthy to rank with those of Dryden at his second-best. For instance,
the opening:--

"Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found upon examination
The latter has the largest congregation."

Or, again, this keen and spirited description of the origin of the
English race:--

"These are the heroes that despise the Dutch,
And rail at newcome foreigners so much,
Forgetting that themselves are all derived
From the most scoundrel race that ever lived;
A horrid crowd of rambling thieves and drones,
Who ransacked kingdoms and dispeopled towns:
The Pict and painted Briton, treach'rous Scot
By hunger, theft, and rapine hither brought;
Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes,
Whose red-haired offspring everywhere remains:
Who, joined with Norman French, compound the breed
From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed."

Strange to say, the English people were so pleased with this humorous
sketch of themselves, that they bought eighty thousand copies of the
work. Not often is a truth teller so rewarded.

Not unnaturally elated by the success of this experiment, the next year
Defoe came out with his famous "Shortest Way with the Dissenters," a
satire upon those furious High Churchmen and Tories, who would devour
the dissenters tooth and nail. Unfortunately, the author had
overestimated the capacity of the average Tory to see through a stone
wall. The irony was mistaken for sincerity, and quoted approvingly by
those whom it was intended to satirize. When the truth dawned through
the obscuration of the Tories' intellect, they were naturally enraged.
They had influence enough to have Defoe arrested, and confined in
Newgate for some eighteen months. He was also compelled to stand in the
pillory for three days; but it is not true that his ears were cropped,
as Pope intimates in his

"Earless on high stood unabashed Defoe."

What are the exact terms Defoe made with the ministry, and on exactly
what conditions he was released from Newgate, have not been ascertained.
It is certain he never ceased to write, even while in prison, both
anonymously and under his own name. For some years, in addition to
pamphlet after pamphlet, he published a newspaper which he called the
"Review,"[1] in which he generally sided with the moderate Whigs,
advocated earnestly the union with Scotland, and gave the English people
a vast deal of good advice upon foreign policy and domestic trade. There
is no doubt that during this time he was in the secret service of the
government. When the Tories displaced the Whigs in 1710, he managed to
keep his post, and took his "Review" over to the support of the new
masters, justifying his turncoating by a disingenuous plea of preferring
country to party. His pamphleteering pen was now as active in the
service of the Tory prime minister Harley as it had been in that of the
Whig Godolphin. The party of the latter rightly regarded him as a
traitor to their cause, and secured an order from the Court of Queen's
Bench, directing the attorney-general to prosecute Defoe for certain
pamphlets, which they declared were directed against the Hanoverian
succession. Before the trial took place, Harley, at whose instigation
the pamphlets had been written, secured his henchman a royal pardon.

When the Tories fell from power at the death of Queen Anne (1714), and
the Whigs again obtained possession of the government, only one of two
courses was open to Defoe: he must either retire permanently from
politics, or again change sides. He unhesitatingly chose the latter. But
his political reputation had now sunk so low, that no party could afford
the disgrace of his open support. He was accordingly employed as a
literary and political spy, ostensibly opposing the government, worming
himself into the confidence of Tory editors and politicians, using his
influence as an editorial writer to suppress items obnoxious to the
government, and suggesting the timely prosecution of such critics as he
could not control. He was able to play this double part for eight years,
until his treachery was discovered by one Mist, whose "Journal" Defoe
had, in his own words, "disabled and enervated, so as to do no mischief,
or give any offense to the government." Mist hastened to disclose
Defoe's real character to his fellow newspaper proprietors; and in 1726
we find the good Daniel sorrowfully complaining, "I had not published my
project in this pamphlet, could I have got it inserted in any of the
journals without feeing the journalists or publishers.... I have not
only had the mortification to find what I sent rejected, but to lose my
originals, not having taken copies of what I wrote."[2] Heavy-footed
justice had at last overtaken the arch liar of his age.

Of the two hundred and fifty odd books and pamphlets written by Defoe,
it may fairly be said that only two--"Robinson Crusoe" and the "History
of the Plague in London"--are read by any but the special students of
eighteenth-century literature. The latter will be discussed in another
part of this Introduction. Of the former it may be asserted, that it
arose naturally out of the circumstances of Defoe's trade as a
journalist. So long as the papers would take his articles, nobody of
distinction could die without Defoe's rushing out with a biography of
him. In these biographies, when facts were scanty, Defoe supplied them
from his imagination, attributing to his hero such sentiments as he
thought the average Londoner could understand, and describing his
appearance with that minute fidelity of which only an eyewitness is
supposed to be capable. Long practice in this kind of composition made
Defoe an adept in the art of "lying like truth." When, therefore, the
actual and extraordinary adventures of Alexander Selkirk came under his
notice, nothing was more natural and more profitable for Defoe than to
seize upon this material, and work it up, just as he worked up the lives
of Jack Sheppard the highwayman, and of Avery the king of the pirates.
It is interesting to notice also that the date of publication of
"Robinson Crusoe" (1719) corresponds with a time at which Defoe was
playing the desperate and dangerous game of a political spy. A single
false move might bring him a stab in the dark, or might land him in the
hulks for transportation to some tropical island, where he might have
abundant need for the exercise of those mental resources that interest
us so much in Crusoe. The secret of Defoe's life at this time was known
only to himself and to the minister that paid him. He was almost as much
alone in London as was Crusoe on his desert island.

The success which Defoe scored in "Robinson Crusoe" he never repeated.
His entire lack of artistic conscience is shown by his adding a dull
second part to "Robinson Crusoe," and a duller series of serious
reflections such as might have passed through Crusoe's mind during his
island captivity. Of even the best of Defoe's other novels,--"Moll
Flanders," "Roxana," "Captain Singleton,"--the writer must confess that
his judgment coincides with that of Mr. Leslie Stephen, who finds two
thirds of them "deadly dull," and the treatment such as "cannot raise
[the story] above a very moderate level."[3]

The closing scenes of Defoe's life were not cheerful. He appears to have
lost most of the fortune he acquired from his numerous writings and
scarcely less numerous speculations. For the two years immediately
preceding his death, he lived in concealment away from his home, though
why he fled, and from what danger, is not definitely known. He died in a
lodging in Ropemaker's Alley, Moorfields, on April 26, 1731.

The only description we have of Defoe's personal appearance is an
advertisement published in 1703, when he was in hiding to avoid arrest
for his "Shortest Way with the Dissenters:"--

"He is a middle-aged, spare man, about forty years old, of a brown
complexion, and dark-brown colored hair, but wears a wig; a hooked nose,
a sharp chin, gray eyes, and a large mole near his mouth."

In the years 1720-21 the plague, which had not visited Western Europe
for fifty-five years, broke out with great violence in Marseilles. About
fifty thousand people died of the disease in that city, and great alarm
was felt in London lest the infection should reach England. Here was a
journalistic chance that so experienced a newspaper man as Defoe could
not let slip. Accordingly, on the 17th of March, 1722, appeared his
"Journal of the Plague Year: Being Observations or Memorials of the most
Remarkable Occurrences, as well Publick as Private, which happened in
London during the Last Great Visitation in 1665. Written by a Citizen
who continued all the while in London. Never made public before." The
story is told with such an air of veracity, the little circumstantial
details are introduced with such apparent artlessness, the grotesque
incidents are described with such animation, (and relish!) the horror
borne in upon the mind of the narrator is so apparently genuine, that we
can easily understand how almost everybody not in the secret of the
authorship believed he had here an authentic "Journal," written by one
who had actually beheld the scenes he describes. Indeed, we know that
twenty-three years after the "Journal" was published, this impression
still prevailed; for Defoe is gravely quoted as an authority in "A
Discourse on the Plague; by Richard Mead, Fellow of the College of
Physicians and of the Royal Society, and Physician to his Majesty. 9th
Edition. London, 1744." Though Defoe, like his admiring critic Mr.
Saintsbury, had but small sense of humor, even he must have felt tickled
in his grave at this ponderous scientific tribute to his skill in the
art of realistic description.

If we inquire further into the secret of Defoe's success in the "History
of the Plague," we shall find that it consists largely in his vision,
or power of seeing clearly and accurately what he describes, before he
attempts to put this description on paper. As Defoe was but four years
old at the time of the Great Plague, his personal recollection of its
effects must have been of the dimmest; but during the years of childhood
(the most imaginative of life) he must often have conversed with persons
who had been through the plague, possibly with those who had recovered
from it themselves. He must often have visited localities ravaged by the
plague, and spared by the Great Fire of 1666; he must often have gazed
in childish horror at those awful mounds beneath which hundreds of human
bodies lay huddled together,--rich and poor, high and low, scoundrel and
saint,--sharing one common bed at last. His retentive memory must have
stored away at least the outline of those hideous images, so effectively
recombined many years later by means of his powerful though limited
imagination.

* * * * *

Defoe had the ability to become a good scholar, and to acquire the
elements of a good English style; but it is certain he never did. He
never had time, or rather he never took time, preferring invariably
quantity to quality. What work of his has survived till to-day is read,
not for its style, but in spite of its style. His syntax is loose and
unscholarly; his vocabulary is copious, but often inaccurate; many of
his sentences ramble on interminably, lacking unity, precision, and
balance. Figures of speech he seldom abuses because he seldom uses; his
imagination, as noticed before, being extremely limited in range. That
Defoe, in spite of these defects, should succeed in interesting us in
his "Plague," is a remarkable tribute to his peculiar ability as
described in the preceding paragraph.

In the course of the Notes, the editor has indicated such corrections
as are necessary to prevent the student from thinking that in reading
Defoe he is drinking from a "well of English undefiled." The art of
writing an English prose at once scholarly, clear-cut, and vigorous, was
well understood by Defoe's great contemporaries, Dryden, Swift, and
Congreve; it does not seem to have occurred to Defoe that he could learn
anything from their practice. He has his reward. "Robinson Crusoe" may
continue to hold the child and the kitchen wench; but the "Essay on
Dramatic Poesy," "The Battle of the Books," and "Love for Love," are for
the men and women of culture.

* * * * *

The standard Life of Defoe is by William Lee (London, J.C. Hotten,
1869). William Minto, in the "English Men of Letters Series," has an
excellent short biography of Defoe. For criticism, the only good
estimate I am acquainted with is by Leslie Stephen, in "Hours in a
Library, First Series." The nature of the article on Defoe in the
"Britannica" may be indicated by noticing that the writer (Saintsbury)
seriously compares Defoe with Carlyle as a descriptive writer. It would
be consoling to think that this is intended as a joke.

Those who wish to know more about the plague than Defoe tells them
should consult Besant's "London," pp. 376-394 (New York, Harpers).
Besant refers to two pamphlets, "The Wonderful Year" and "Vox
Civitatis," which he thinks Defoe must have used in writing his book.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] At first, a weekly; with the fifth number, a bi-weekly; after the
first year, a tri-weekly.

[2] Preface to his pamphlet entitled Street Robberies.

[3] For a very different estimate, see Saintsbury's Selections from
Defoe's Minor Novels.




HISTORY
OF
THE PLAGUE IN LONDON.


It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, among
the rest of my neighbors, heard in ordinary discourse that the
plague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very
violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in
the year 1663, whither, they say, it was brought (some said from
Italy, others from the Levant) among some goods which were
brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought
from Candia; others, from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence
it came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again.[4]

We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days, to
spread rumors and reports of things, and to improve them by the
invention of men, as I have lived to see practiced since. But
such things as those were gathered from the letters of merchants
and others who corresponded abroad, and from them was handed
about by word of mouth only; so that things did not spread instantly
over the whole nation, as they do now. But it seems that
the government had a true account of it, and several counsels[5]
were held about ways to prevent its coming over; but all was
kept very private. Hence it was that this rumor 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 Longacre, or rather
at the upper end of Drury Lane.[6] The family they were in endeavored
to conceal it as much as possible; but, as it had gotten
some vent in the discourse of the neighborhood, the secretaries
of state[7] 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[8] 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,[9] and he also returned them[10] 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 more than usual, it began to be suspected that the plague was
among the people at that end of the town, and that many had died of it,
though they had taken care to keep it as much from the knowledge of the
public as possible. This possessed the heads of the people very much;
and few cared to go through Drury Lane, or the other streets suspected,
unless they had extraordinary business that obliged them to it.

This increase of the bills stood thus: the usual number of burials in a
week, in the parishes of St. Giles-in-the-Fields and St. Andrew's,
Holborn,[11] were[12] from twelve to seventeen or nineteen each, few
more or less; but, from the time that the plague first began in St.
Giles's Parish, it was observed that the ordinary burials increased in
number considerably. For example:--

Dec. 27 to Jan. 3, St. Giles's 16
St. Andrew's 17
Jan. 3 to Jan. 10, St. Giles's 12
St. Andrew's 25
Jan. 10 to Jan. 17, St. Giles's 18
St. Andrew's 18
Jan. 17 to Jan. 24, St. Giles's 23
St. Andrew's 16
Jan. 24 to Jan. 31, St. Giles's 24
St. Andrew's 15
Jan. 31 to Feb. 7, St. Giles's 21
St. Andrew's 23
Feb. 7 to Feb. 14, St. Giles's 24
Whereof one of the plague.

The like increase of the bills was observed in the parishes of St.
Bride's, adjoining on one side of Holborn Parish, and in the parish of
St. James's, Clerkenwell, adjoining on the other side of Holborn; in
both which parishes the usual numbers that died weekly were from four to
six or eight, whereas at that time they were increased as follows:--

Dec. 20 to Dec. 27, St. Bride's 0
St. James's 8
Dec. 27 to Jan. 3, St. Bride's 6
St. James's 9
Jan. 3 to Jan. 10, St. Bride's 11
St. James's 7
Jan. 10 to Jan. 17, St. Bride's 12
St. James's 9
Jan. 17 to Jan. 24, St. Bride's 9
St. James's 15
Jan. 24 to Jan. 31, St. Bride's 8
St. James's 12
Jan. 31 to Feb. 7, St. Bride's 13
St. James's 5
Feb. 7 to Feb. 14, St. Bride's 12
St. James's 6

Besides this, it was observed, with great uneasiness by the people, that
the weekly bills in general increased very much during these weeks,
although it was at a time of the year when usually the bills are very
moderate.

The usual number of burials within the bills of mortality for a week was
from about two hundred and forty, or thereabouts, to three hundred. The
last was esteemed a pretty high bill; but after this we found the bills
successively increasing, as follows:--

Buried. Increased.
Dec. 20 to Dec. 27 291 0
Dec. 27 to Jan. 3 349 58
Jan. 3 to Jan. 10 394 45
Jan. 10 to Jan. 17 415 21
Jan. 17 to Jan. 24 474 59

This last bill was really frightful, being a higher number than had
been known to have been buried in one week since the preceding
visitation of 1656.

However, all this went off again; and the weather proving cold, and the
frost, which began in December, still continuing very severe, even till
near the end of February, attended with sharp though moderate winds, the
bills decreased again, and the city grew healthy; and everybody began to
look upon the danger as good as over, only that still the burials in St.
Giles's continued high. From the beginning of April, especially, they
stood at twenty-five each week, till the week from the 18th to the 25th,
when there was[13] buried in St. Giles's Parish thirty, whereof two of
the plague, and eight of the spotted fever (which was looked upon as the
same thing); likewise the number that died of the spotted fever in the
whole increased, being eight the week before, and twelve the week above
named.

This alarmed us all again; and terrible apprehensions were among the
people, especially the weather being now changed and growing warm, and
the summer being at hand. However, the next week there seemed to be some
hopes again: the bills were low; the number of the dead in all was but
388; there was none of the plague, and but four of the spotted fever.

But the following week it returned again, and the distemper was spread
into two or three other parishes, viz., St. Andrew's, Holborn, St.
Clement's-Danes; and, to the great affliction of the city, one died
within the walls, in the parish of St. Mary-Wool-Church, that is to say,
in Bearbinder Lane, near Stocks Market: in all, there were nine of the
plague, and six of the spotted fever. It was, however, upon inquiry,
found that this Frenchman who died in Bearbinder Lane was one who,
having lived in Longacre, near the infected houses, had removed for fear
of the distemper, not knowing that he was already infected.

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