1665-6. JANUARY 3. I to the Duke of Albemarle and back again:
and at the Duke's with great joy I received the good news of the
decrease of the plague this week to 70, and but 253 in all; which
is the least Bill hath been known these twenty years in the City.
Through the want of people in London, is it that must make it so
low below the ordinary number for Bills.
5th. I with my Lord Brouncker and Mrs. Williams by coach with
four horses to London, to my Lord's house in Covent-Garden. But,
Lord! what staring to see a nobleman's coach come to town. And
porters every where bow to us; and such begging of beggars! And
delightful it is to see the town full of people again; and shops
begin to open, though in many places seven or eight together, and
more, all shut; but yet the town is full, compared with what it
used to be. I mean the City end: for Covent-Garden and
Westminster are yet very empty of people, no Court nor gentry
being there. Reading a discourse about the River of Thames, the
reason of its being choked up in several places with shelfes:
which is plain is by the encroachments made upon the River, and
running out of causeways into the River at every wood-wharfe;
which was not heretofore when Westminster Hall and White Hall
were built, and Redriffe Church, which now are sometimes
overflown with water.
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