to fee that they were found, and might not infedct others; and we thought twenty or thirty Days enough for this.
Now certainly, if Houſes had been provided on purpoſe for thoſe that were found to perform this demy Quarantine in, they wou’d have much leſs Reaſon to think themſelves injur’d in ſuch a reſtraint, than in being confin’d with infected People, in the Houſes where they liv’d.
It is here, however, to be obſerv’d, that after the Funerals became ſo many, that People could not Toll the Bell, Mourn, or Weep, or wear Black for one another, as they did before; no, nor ſo much as make Coffins for thoſe that died; ſo after a while the fury of the Infection appeared to be ſo encreaſed, that in ſhort, they ſhut up no Houſes at all; it ſeem’d enough that all the Remedies of that Kind had been uſed till they were found fruitleſs, and that the Plague ſpread itſelf with an irreſiſtible Fury, ſo that, as the Fire the ſucceeding Year, ſpread itſelf and burnt with ſuch Violence, that the Citizens in Deſpair, gave over their Endeavours to extinguiſh it, ſo in the Plague, it came at laſt to ſuch Violence that the People ſat ſtill looking at one another, and ſeem’d quite abandon’d to Deſpair; whole Streets ſeem’d to be deſolated, and not to be ſhut up only, but to be emptied of their Inhabitants; Doors were left open, Windows ſtood ſhattering with the Wind in empty Houſes, for want of People to ſhut them: In a Word, People began to give up themſelves to their Fears, and to think that all regulations and Methods were in vain, and that there was nothing to be hoped for, but an univerſal Defolation; and it was even in the height of this general Deſpair, that it pleaſed God to ſtay his Hand, and to ſlacken the Fury of the Contagion, in ſuch a manner as was even ſurprizing like its beginning, and demonſtrated it to be his own particular Hand, and that above, if
