Everyone hastes out of town, which causes that there is no sale for goods, and
merchants pay ill.
—Sir William Turner,London, to M. Pocquelin of Paris, June 29 , 1665In the early hours of July 22 , 1665 , an elegantly dressed man could be seen
passing through the city. His silk shirt, well-tailored doublet, and flouncy
breeches made him stand out as he stopped at the goldsmiths on Lombard
Street and paused at Saint Paul’s churchyard near the tenements of Saint
Gregory’s parish. Resuming his travels, he sped along Fleet Street and onto
the Strand, crossing the river to the archbishop’s palace at Lambeth before
heading back to Westminster and the old city. Here was someone who ap-
peared to be thriving in spite of the sharp drop-off in trade and manufactur-
ing in the city and suburbs. The attire of the self-confident Samuel Pepys
was all the more surprising because the downturn had left few sectors of
London’s economy unaffected. It reached into the great merchant families
and leading financial circles of Cheapside and Lombard Street—the pillars
of the guild economy and mainstays of financial operations by the Guild-
hall.^1
“The sicknesse encreaseath and the towne is empty,” Alderman Turner in-
formed his partners in Paris two weeks later. He had just returned from a
brief trip to the country, and the capital looked more deserted than ever. To
be sure, some fellow guildsmen in the major trades inside the walls were still
carrying on but, in addition to most of Turner’s noble customers, many of
his wholesale buyers were now out of town. “I am not in any condition to
make any considerable advances,” he informed Pocquelin père et fils. “When
Business Not as Usual
[ 158 ]8