I am speaking now of people made desperate by the apprehensions of their being shut up, and their breaking out by stratagem or force, either before or after they were shut up, whose misery was not lessened when they were out, but sadly increased. On the other hand, many that thus got away had retreats to go to and other houses, where they locked themselves up and kept hid till the plague was over; and many families, foreseeing the approach of the distemper, laid up stores of provisions sufficient for their whole families, and shut themselves up, and that so entirely that they were neither seen or heard of till the infection was quite ceased, and then came abroad sound and well. I might recollect several such as these, and give you the particulars of their management; for, doubtless, it was the most effectual secure step that could be taken for such whose circumstances would not admit them to remove, or who had not retreats abroad proper for the case; for, in being thus shut up, they were as if they had been a hundred miles off. Nor do I recall that any one of those families miscarried.
Daniel DeFoe, Journal Of The Plague Year (pub. 1722)
Everything old is new again!
Another great source for the history of this plague is “The Diary of Samuel Pepys”.
I think it’s more interesting than Defoe, who is memoiring.
Pepys wrote contemporaneously. His prose is more vivid. His experiences are more meaningful. He was a young married man at the time, desperate to get his family out of London. He did, and they all survived.
Great quote, thanks for posting!