246 • Survivingonly keeps me so.” His diligence had garnered him new deals with suppliers
in October even though the money supply from his goldsmiths and the
Treasury had gone dry. To keep up his frantic pace required blinkers. He an-
esthetized himself against the appalling mortality and misery in the city and
countryside. He couldn’t even react to the sight of bodies lying by the road-
side or left unattended in a coffin. This disease, he said, “[is] making us more
cruel to one another than we are [to] dogs.”^4
Certainly, Pepys’ wheeling and dealing sometimes left him out of sorts and
impatient, in contrast to the polite and measured Turner. After hearing Albe-
marle, Craven, and Robinson ramble on about state finances and poor relief,
Samuel simmered with frustration, “But Lord to hear the silly talk between
these three great people.” On reflection, he saw that he could tolerate inef-
ficiency at the top because these “very great friends” opened doors for him.
Happily, as November drew to an end, he found the business climate inside
the wall dramatically different from a month before. “So to the Change,
where busy with several people, and mightily glad to see the Change so full,
and hopes of an abatement still [of the plague] the next week.” A great frost,
he exclaimed, “gives us hope for a perfect cure of the plague.”^5 His eyes and
everyone else’s remained riveted on the weekly bills, anxious to see whether
the downward trend would continue (table 9 ).
Table 9.Greater London Bills of Mortality,
October 31–December 19, 1665Number of Burials
Number
Change from of Infected
Week Plague Total Previous Week Parishes
October 31–November 7 1,414 1,787 +399 110
November 7–14 1,050 1,359 -428 99
November 14–21 652 905 -454 84
November 21–28 333 544 -361 60
November 28–December 5 210 428 -116 48
December 5–12 243 442 +14 57
December 12–19 281 525 +83 68