Page:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu/151

 own, and without Lodging in any Bodies elſe; there is no lying in the Street at ſuch a Time as this; we had as good go into the Dead-Cart at once: Therefore I ſay, if we ſtay here we are ſure to die, and if we go away we can but die: I am reſolv’d to be gone. Tho. ''You will go away: Whither will you go? and what can you do? I would as willingly go away as you, if I knew whither: But we have no Acquaintance, no Friends. Here we were born, and here we muſt die.''

John, Look you Tom'', the whole Kingdom is my Native Country as well as this Town. You may as well ſay, I muſt not go out of my Houſe if it is on Five, as that I muſt not go out of the Town I was born in, when it is infected with the Plague. I was born in England, and have a Right to live in it if I can.''

Tho. But you know every vagrant Perſon may by the Laws of England, be taken up, and paſs’d back to their laſt legal Settlement.

John, But how ſhall they make me vagrant; I deſire only to travel on, upon my lawful Occaſions.

Tho. What lawful Occaſions can we pretend to travel, or rather wander upon, they will not be put off with Words. John, ''Is not flying to ſave our Lives, a Lawful Occaſion! and do they not all know that the Fact is true: We cannot be ſaid to diſſemble.''

Tho. But ſuppoſe they let us paſs, Whither ſhall we go?

John, ''Any where to ſave our Lives: It is Time enough to conſider that when we are got out of this Town. If I am once out of this dreadful Place I care not where I go.''

Tho. ''We ſhall be driven to great Extremities. I know not what to think of it.''

John, Well Tom, conſider of it a little.

This was about the Beginning of July, and tho’ the Plague was come forward in the Weſt and North Parts of the Town, yet all Wapping, as I have obſerved before, and Redriff, and Ratcliff, and Lime-Houſe, and Poplar, in ſhort, Deptford and Greenwich,