count, for they had given me a great deal of ill Language too, I mean Perſonally; but after ſome Pauſe, and having a Weight of Grief upon my Mind, I retir’d my ſelf, as ſoon as I came home, for I ſlept not that Night, and giving God moſt humble Thanks for my Preſervation in the eminent Danger I had been in, I ſet my Mind ſeriouſly, and with the utmoſt Earneſtneſs, to pray for thoſe deſparate Wretches, that God would pardon them, open their Eyes, and effectually humble them.
By this I not only did my Duty, namely, to pray for thoſe who diſpitefully uſed me, but I fully try’d my own Heart, to my full Satisfaction; that it was not fill’d with any Spirit of Reſentment as they had offended me in particular; and I humbly recommend the Method to all thoſe that would know, or be certain, how to diſtinguiſh between their real Zeal for the Honour of God, and the Effects of their private Paſſions and Reſentment.
But I muſt go back here to the particular Incidents which occur to my Thoughts of the Time of the Viſitation, and particularly, to the Time of their ſhutting up Houſes, in the firſt Part of the Sickneſs; for before the Sickneſs was come to its Height, People had more Room to make their Obſervations, than they had afterward: But when it was in the Extremity, there was no ſuch Thing as Communication with one another, as before.
During the ſhutting up of Houſes, as I have ſaid, ſome Violence was offered to the Watchmen; as to Soldiers, there were none to be found; the few Guards which the King then had, which were nothing like the Number, entertain’d ſince, were diſperſs’d, either at Oxford with the Court, or in Quarters in the remoter Parts of the Country; ſmall detatchments excepted, who did Duty at the Tower, and at White-Hall, and theſe but very few; neither am I poſitive, that there was any other Guard at the Tower, than the Warders, as they call’d them, who ſtand at the
