were ſome, there was no want of Tenants for them.
I wiſh I cou’d ſay, that as the City had a new Face, ſo the Manners of the People had a new Appearance: I doubt not but there were many that retain’d a ſincere Senſe of their Deliverance, and that were heartily thankful to that ſovereign Hand, that had protected them in ſo dangerous a Time; it would be very uncharitable to judge otherwiſe in a City ſo populous, and where the People were ſo devout, as they were here in the Time of the Viſitation it ſelf; but except what of this was to be found in particular Families, and Faces, it muſt be acknowlede’d that the general Practice of the People was juſt as it was before, and very little Difference was to be ſeen.
Some indeed ſaid Things were worſe, that the Morals of the People declin’d from this vere time; that the People harden’d by the Danger they had been in, like Sea-men after a Storm is over, were more wicked and more ſtupid, more bold and hardened in their Vices and Immoralities than they were before; but I will not carry it ſo far neither: It would take up a Hiſtory of no ſmall Length, to give a Particular of all the Gradations, by which the Courſe of Things in this City came to be reſtor’d again, and to run in their own Channel as they did before.
Some Parts of England were now infected as violently as London had been; the Cities of Norwich, Peterborough, Lincoln, Colcheſter, and other Places were now viſited; and the Magiſtrates of London began to ſet Rules for our Conduct, as to correſponding with thoſe Cities: It is true, we could not pretend to forbid their People coming to London, becauſe it was impoſſible to know them aſſunder, ſo after many Conſultations, the Lord Mayor, and Court of Aldermen were oblig’d to drop it: All they cou’d do,
