CONTENTS
Defoe convincingly presents the shift among Londoners from initial complacency to incipient anxiety. At first, people "had a mighty fancy that they should not be visited or at least that it would not be so violent among them." However, a sense of insecurity soon develops, not least because of the invisibility of a Plague that can be passed on by what we would now refer to as "asymptomatic" carriers: "The Infection was propagated insensibly and by such Persons as were not visibly infected, who neither knew who they infected or who they were infected by... We see Men alive and well to Outward appearance one Hour and dead the next." He reflects on the tragic irony that "a Person had been a walking Destroyer, perhaps for a week or fortnight... how he had ruin'd those that he would have hazarded his life to save." HF criticises the City authorities for their initial hesitation to take action: for want of timely entering into Measures and Management... such a prodigious Number of People sunk in that Disaster which... if proper steps had been taken might... have been avoided" which mirrors current criticism of the Government over the timing of lockdown. And, in the seventeenth century, as in 2020, it was often the poorest members of society who were placed at the most risk: "The richer sort of People.... throng'd out of Town with their Families and Servants... all hurrying away... the Poor... push'd into any kind of Business, the most dangerous and the most liable to Infection." There are surprisingly few references to God in Defoe’s account; however, it
(image: J. Burkinshaw)
should be remembered that this was the century of the Scientific Revolution. HF notes that "We must consider (the Plague) as it was really propagated by natural means... No one in this whole nation ever received the sickness or infection but who receiv'd it in the ordinary way of Infection from some Body." Wondering about the nature of the Plague, he also speculates whether "There might living Creatures be seen by a microscope of strange, monstrous and frightful shapes." Just as our daily governmental press briefings invariably begin with the number of Covid-19 fatalities, Defoe's narrative is punctuated by the "Bills" - daily and weekly tallies of the dead. He also notes that then (as now) there were concerns that the numbers were being under-reported: "It was found that there were more who were dead of the Plague... but had been set down of the Spotted Fever or other Distempers, beside others concealed." During the Covid-19 crisis, hope has been expressed that, once this has passed, we can transform ourselves, our society and our world for the better. HF reflects, "I
Walpole Park, Gosport (image by John Sadden)
wish I could say that as the City had a new Face so the Manners of the People had a new appearance... the general Practice of the People was just as it was before and very little Difference was to be seen... there did not cease the Spirit of Strife... which was really the great Troubler of the Nation's Peace before." One of the most important things we can learn from history is how not to repeat it.
P O R T S M O U T H P O I N T. B L O G S P O T. C O M
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