all Parts of England, were conſum’d in the Fire of London, the next Year after this terrible Viſitation: It is incredible what a Trade this made all over the whole Kingdom, to make good the Want, and to ſupply that Loſs: So that, in ſhort, all the manufacturing Hands in the Nation were ſet on Work, and were little enough, for ſeveral Years, to ſupply the Market and anſwer the Demands; all Foreign Markets, alſo were empty of our Goods, by the ſtop which had been occaſioned by the Plague, and before an open Trade was allow’d again; and the prodigious Demand at Home falling in join’d to make a quick Vent for all Sorts of Goods; ſo that there never was known ſuch a Trade all over England for the Time, as was in the firſt ſeven Years after the Plague, and after the Fire of London.
It remains now, that I ſhould ſay ſomething of the merciful Part of this terrible Judgment: The laſt Week in September, the Plague being come to its Criſis, its Fury began to aſſwage. I remember my Friend Doctor Heath coming to ſee me the Week before, told me, he was ſure that the Violence of it would aſſwage in a few Days; but when I ſaw the weekly Bill of that Week, which was the higheſt of the whole Year, being 8297 of all Diſeaſes, I upbraided him with it, and aſk’d him, what he had made his Judgment from? His Anſwer, however, was not ſo much to ſeek, as I thought it would have been; look you, ſays he, by the Number which are at this Time ſick and infected,there ſhould have been twenty Thouſand dead the laſt Week, inſtead of eight Thouſand, if the inveterate mortal Contagion had been, as it was two Weeks ago; for then it ordinarily kill’d in two or three Days, now not under Fight or Ten; and then not above One in Five recovered; whereas I have obſerv’d, that now not above Two in Five miſcarry; and obſerve it from me, the next Bill wilt decreaſe, and you
