that it was to no purpoſe to leſſen the Report of it, or endeavour to make the People abroad think it better than it was, the Account which the Weekly Bills gave in was ſufficient; and that there died two thouſand to three or four thouſand a Week, was ſufficient to alarm the whole trading part of the World, and the following time being ſo dreadful alſo in the very City it ſelf, put the whole World, I ſay, upon their Guard againſt it.
You may be ſure alſo, that the Report of theſe things loft nothing in the Carriage, the Plague was it ſelf very terrible, and the Diſtreſs of the People very great, as you may obſerve by what I have ſaid: But the Rumor was infinitely greater, and it muſt not be wonder’d, that our Friends abroad, as my Brother’s Correſpondents in particular were told there, namely in Portugal and Italy where he chiefly traded, that in London there died twenty thouſand in a Week; that the dead Bodies lay unburied by Heaps; that the living were not ſufficient to bury the dead, or the Sound to look after the Sick; that all the Kingdom was infected likewiſe, ſo that it was an univerſal Malady, ſuch as was never heard of in thoſe parts of the World; and they could hardly believe us, when we gave them an Account how things really were, and how there was not above one Tenth part of the People dead; that there was 500000 left that lived all the time in the Town; that now the People began to walk the Streets again, and thoſe, who were fled, to return, there was no Miſs of the uſual Throng of people in the Streets, except as every Family might miſs their Relations and Neighbours, and the like; I ſay they could not believe theſe things; and if Enquiry were now to be made in Naples, or in other Cities on the Coaſt of Italy, they would tell you that there was a dreadful Infection in London ſo many Years ago;
