The Great Plague. The Story of London\'s Most Deadly Year

256 • Surviving

Spring brought new setbacks. Admiral Albemarle suffered an ignomin-
ious defeat at sea. Evelyn and Pepys failed to get approval for a large infir-

mary at Chatham to house sick sailors. The plague count soared in Deptford.
John and Mary Evelyn were forced to hold church services in their home,
and the town appealed to the privy council for help.^32
Deptford joined a queue of beleaguered towns in the countryside of south-

ern and central England, each crying that this second year’s toll exceeded the
first. Reverend Josselin recorded an alarming rise in deaths at Colchester,
Braintree, and Cambridge. As he wrote, one of his parishioners at Earls
Colne was dying of the infection, and the man’s wife would succumb a week

later. But Colchester offered the saddest story. The acting mayor appealed to
the royal council, “Within the space of seven months [the plague] hath taken
way 3 , 500 inhabitants and brought the town to extreme poverty.” Neither the
town nor the county of Essex could carry the burden of relief any longer.^33

London’s response was immediate and substantial. The bishop of London
exhorted his parishes to contribute weekly until further notice. Five huge
sacks of money reached Colchester on the twenty-sixth of May. Colchester’s
acting mayor and chamberlain counted out £ 360 , not a penny less than the

amount entrusted to the carrier. The next installment came on June 2 .Yet
another arrived on June 9. The relief monies came up the Roman road
through June and July, when Colchester reached a weekly peak of 175 deaths.
When the Great Plague finally ended in Colchester in December 1666 , the

most reliable death count from all causes since August 1665 stood at 5 , 259.^34
The town received outside relief money in taxes and gifts of £ 2 , 700 , of which
£ 1 ,307 10s. had come from metropolitan London. The capital’s generosity
proved essential to Colchester’s relief undertakings.^35

Counting the Blessings

One gentleman would have carried me to the king, and acquainted him with my

care of my flock. But I did not think it fit to accept of his kindness, having happi-

ness enough in being preserved and assisted in the performance of my duty.

—Symon Patrick,Brief Account of My Life

Samuel Pepys delighted in the great and small harbingers of renewal that Sy-

mon Patrick and Sir William Turner failed to record. As the end of 1665
drew near, Pepys attended a church wedding at Greenwich “which I have not