Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty ImageĪt the end of August, he cited the bill of mortality as having recorded 6,102 victims of the plague, but feared “that the true number of the dead this week is near 10,000,” mostly because the victims among the urban poor weren’t counted. ‘Bills of mortality’ were regularly posted. Just as we follow these numbers closely today, Pepys documented the growing number of plague victims in his diary. In London, the Company of Parish Clerks printed “ bills of mortality,” the weekly tallies of burials.īecause these lists noted London’s burials – not deaths – they undoubtedly undercounted the dead. He soon observed corpses being taken to their burial in the streets, and a number of his acquaintances died, including his own physician.īy mid-August, he had drawn up his will, writing, “that I shall be in much better state of soul, I hope, if it should please the Lord to call me away this sickly time.” Later that month, he wrote of deserted streets the pedestrians he encountered were “walking like people that had taken leave of the world.” Tracking mortality counts Pepys continued to live his life normally until the beginning of June, when, for the first time, he saw houses “shut up” – the term his contemporaries used for quarantine – with his own eyes, “marked with a red cross upon the doors, and ‘Lord have mercy upon us’ writ there.” After this, Pepys became increasingly troubled by the outbreak. Portrait of Samuel Pepys by John Hayls (1666).
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