Fleeing or Staying? • 93could afford to rent lodging in the country was to remain with the danger
while the rest of the family left, especially the young ones, who were thought
to be most susceptible to the infection. But some citizens’ stratagems defied
conventional wisdom. The wealthy London dealer in lead, John Moore,
feared for his nephew John’s health and chances of getting an apprenticeship
because of the plague. He wrote to his brother Charles up in Leicestershire,
telling him of the dangers and asking if he wanted his son home, a reasona-
ble idea. But John also offered to keep his nephew on if his father approved.
“I shalbe as carefull of him as myself,” John informed Charles. Whatever
happened, the nephew survived. John Moore died in 1704 , passing on his es-
tate to his nephew John.^42
Another privileged Londoner returned to London after an early flight.
Two months after leaving Covent Garden for that Midland spa in North-
amptonshire, the Reverend Symon Patrick decided to go back to his parish.
By this point, his parish clerk was no longer hiding plague fatalities. They
came in twos and threes, and these numbers would soon triple and then
quadruple. “Notwithstanding” these factors, Patrick wrote in his memoirs, “I
resolved to commit myself to the care of God in the discharge of my duty.”
Refusing to be talked out of returning by Dr. Willis, Patrick accepted his ad-
vice on how to fend off the contagion, visited his mother and fast-failing
father on the way south, and preached his first sermon back in his pulpit on
July 23.^43
Samuel Pepys’ inn-keeping cousin, Kate Joyce, and her husband, Anthony,
faced their own quandary. As the plague in their poor, infected parish came
closer and closer, Pepys grew more and more anxious for Kate’s safety. Dur-
ing the third week in July, the plague carried away 141 persons in Saint Sep-
ulchre—the fourth highest toll within the metropolis. In a single night 40
persons had expired, “the [church] bell always going,” Pepys moaned. De-
spite his fears of hackney coaches and the Holborn Road, he took that route
to their inn. He argued with Anthony to let Kate go to the Pepys’ homestead
in Cambridgeshire. Anthony balked. His arguments were “profit, minding
the house—and the distance, if either of them should be ill.” He simply
could not afford to have his wife leave. Pepys was beside himself, and Kate
“troubled.” Finally, Anthony agreed to let Kate go a short way, to Hampton
Court, where she had friends near the palace.
Pepys returned home, limp with exhaustion, relieved, and yet fearful of
what lay ahead, “believing that it is great odds we shall see one another
again.” He, the daredevil of all daredevils in the city, was staying on—so long
as his navy suppliers were around to sign contracts and add a gratuity. He did