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Some
of our maids sitting up late last night to get things ready against
our feast today, Jane called up about three in the morning, to tell
us of a great fire they saw in the City. So I rose, and slipped on
my night-gown and went to her window, and thought it to be on the
back side of Mark Lane at the farthest; but, being unused to such
fires as followed, I thought it far enough off, and so went to bed
again, and to sleep. . . . By and by Jane comes and tells me that
she hears that above 300 houses have been burned down tonight by the
fire we saw, and that it is now burning down all Fish Street, by London
Bridge. So I made myself ready presently, and walked to the Tower;
and there got up upon one of the high places, . . .and there I did
see the houses at the end of the bridge all on fire, and an infinite
great fire on this and the other side . . . of the bridge. . . .
So down [I
went], with my heart full of trouble, to the Lieutenant of the Tower,
who tells me that it began this morning in the King's baker's house
in Pudding Lane, and that it hath burned St. Magnus's Church and
most part of Fish Street already. So I rode down to the waterside,
. . . and there saw a lamentable fire. . . . Everybody endeavouring
to remove their goods, and flinging into the river or bringing them
into lighters that lay off; poor people staying in their houses
as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into
boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the waterside to
another. And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were
loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconies,
till they some of them burned their wings and fell down.
Having stayed,
and in an hour's time seen the fire rage every way, and nobody to
my sight endeavouring to quench it, . . . I [went next] to Whitehall
(with a gentleman with me, who desired to go off from the Tower
to see the fire in my boat); and there up to the King's closet in
the Chapel, where people came about me, and I did give them an account
[that]dismayed them all, and the word was carried into the King.
so I was called for, and did tell the King and Duke of York what
I saw; and that unless His Majesty did command houses to be pulled
down, nothing could stop the fire. They seemed much troubled, and
the King commanded me to go to my Lord Mayor from him, and command
him to spare no houses. . . .
[I hurried]
to [St.] Paul's; and there walked along Watling Street, as well
as I could, every creature coming away laden with goods to save
and, here and there, sick people carried away in beds. Extraordinary
goods carried in carts and on backs. At last [I] met my Lord Mayor
in Cannon Street, like a man spent, with a [handkerchief] about
his neck. To the King's message he cried, like a fainting woman,
'Lord, what can I do? I am spent: people will not obey me. I have
been pulling down houses, but the fire overtakes us faster than
we can do it.' . . . So he left me, and I him, and walked home;
seeing people all distracted, and no manner of means used to quench
the fire. The houses, too, so very thick thereabouts, and full of
matter for burning, as pitch and tar, in Thames Street; and warehouses
of oil and wines and brandy and other things.
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