Page:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu/176

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168
Memoirs of

tion or carry’d it back into the Country; both which I have been aſſured, has been falſe.

It might be that they were preſerv’d even beyond Expectation, though not to a Miracle, that abundance went and come, and were not touch’d, and that was much for the Encouragement of the poor People of London, who had been compleatly miſerable, if the People that brought Proviſions to the Markets had not been many times wonderfully preſerv’d, or at leaſt more preſerv’d than cou'd be reaſonably expected.

But now theſe new Inmates began to be diſturb’d more effectually, for the Towns about them were really infected, and they began to be afraid to truſt one another ſo much as to go abroad for ſuch things as they wanted, and this pinch’d them very hard; for now they had little or nothing but what the charitable Gentlemen of the Country ſupply’d them with: But for their Encouragement it happen’d, that other Gentlemen in the Country who had not ſent em any thing before, began to hear of them and ſupply them, and one ſent them a large Pig, that is to ſay a Porker; another two Sheep; and another ſent them a Calf: In ſhort, they had Meat enough, and, ſometimes had Cheeſe and Milk, and all ſuch things; They were chiefly put to it for Bread, for when the Gentlemen ſent them Corn they had no where to bake it, or to grind it: This made them eat the firſt two Buſhel of Wheat that was ſent them in parched Corn, as the Iſraelites of old did without grinding or making Bread of it.

At laſt they found means to carry their Corn to a Windmill near Woodford, where they had it ground; and afterwards the Biſcuit Baker made a Hearth ſo hollow and dry that he cou’d bake Biſcuit Cakes tolerably well; and thus they came into a Condition to live without any aſſiſtance or ſupplies from the Towns; and it was well they did, for the Country was ſoon after fully Infected, and about 120 were