History of the Plague in England | Page 8

of making
their choice; and therefore I desire this account may pass with them
rather for a direction to themselves to act by than a history of my
actings, seeing it may not be of one farthing value to them to note what
became of me.
I had two important things before me: the one was the carrying on my
business and shop, which was considerable, and in which was
embarked all my effects in the world; and the other was the
preservation of my life in so dismal a calamity as I saw apparently was
coming upon the whole city, and which, however great it was, my fears
perhaps, as well as other people's, represented to be much greater than
it could be.

The first consideration was of great moment to me. My trade was a
saddler, and as my dealings were chiefly not by a shop or chance trade,
but among the merchants trading to the English colonies in America, so
my effects lay very much in the hands of such. I was a single man, it is
true; but I had a family of servants, who[22] I kept at my business; had
a house, shop, and warehouses filled with goods; and in short to leave
them all as things in such a case must be left, that is to say, without any
overseer or person fit to be trusted with them, had been to hazard the
loss, not only of my trade, but of my goods, and indeed of all I had in
the world.
I had an elder brother at the same time in London, and not many years
before come over from Portugal; and, advising with him, his answer
was in the three words, the same that was given in another case[23]
quite different, viz., "Master, save thyself." In a word, he was for my
retiring into the country, as he resolved to do himself, with his family;
telling me, what he had, it seems, heard abroad, that the best
preparation for the plague was to run away from it. As to my argument
of losing my trade, my goods, or debts, he quite confuted me: he told
me the same thing which I argued for my staying, viz., that I would
trust God with my safety and health was the strongest repulse[24] to
my pretensions of losing my trade and my goods. "For," says he, "is it
not as reasonable that you should trust God with the chance or risk of
losing your trade, as that you should stay in so eminent a point of
danger, and trust him with your life?"
I could not argue that I was in any strait as to a place where to go,
having several friends and relations in Northamptonshire, whence our
family first came from; and particularly, I had an only sister in
Lincolnshire, very willing to receive and entertain me.
My brother, who had already sent his wife and two children into
Bedfordshire, and resolved to follow them, pressed my going very
earnestly; and I had once resolved to comply with his desires, but at
that time could get no horse: for though it is true all the people did not
go out of the city of London, yet I may venture to say, that in a manner
all the horses did; for there was hardly a horse to be bought or hired in

the whole city for some weeks. Once I resolved to travel on foot with
one servant, and, as many did, lie at no inn, but carry a soldier's tent
with us, and so lie in the fields, the weather being very warm, and no
danger from taking cold. I say, as many did, because several did so at
last, especially those who had been in the armies, in the war[25] which
had not been many years past: and I must needs say, that, speaking of
second causes, had most of the people that traveled done so, the plague
had not been carried into so many country towns and houses as it was,
to the great damage, and indeed to the ruin, of abundance of people.
But then my servant who[26] I had intended to take down with me,
deceived me, and being frighted at the increase of the distemper, and
not knowing when I should go, he took other measures, and left me: so
I was put off for that time. And, one way or other, I always found that
to appoint to go away was always crossed by some accident or other, so
as to disappoint and put it off again. And this brings in a story which
otherwise might be thought a needless digression, viz., about these
disappointments being from Heaven.
It came very warmly into my mind one morning, as I