Fire of London. by repeated messages insisted that the Dutch should proceed to give it protection. But their ships had suffered severely from the weather; the admiral was still unable to take the command; and instead of joining their allies, they embraced the first opportunity of returning to their own ports. Beaufort, however, extricated himself from the danger, and stole his way down the Channel with no other loss than that of the Ruby, of fifty-four guns. 1 The storm which had driven the English fleet into St. Helens, was productive of the most disastrous consequences by land. On the night of Sunday, the 2d of SepSep. 2. tember, a fire burst out in Pudding-lane, near Fish street, one of the most crowded quarters of the metropolis. It originated in a bake-house; the buildings in the neighbourhood, formed of wood, with pitched roofs, quickly caught the flames; and the stores with which they were filled, consisting of those combustible articles used in the equipment of shipping, nourished the conflagration. To add to the mischief, the pipes from the new river were found empty 2, and the engine, which raised water from the Thames, was reduced to ashes. The lord mayor arrived on the first alarm but his timidity and inexperience shrunk from the adoption of decisive measures : : Clarendon, 347. Heath, 553. Miscel. Aul. 418. Louis XIV. ii. 219. 221—226. Temple, i. 477. 2 On the authority of an old woman, the countess of Clarendon, and of a divine, Dr. Lloyd, whose brain had been affected by the study of the Apocalypse, Burnet gravely tells a story of one Grant, a papist, a partner in the works at Islington, having on the preceding Saturday turned the cocks, and carried away the keys (Hist. i. 401.) But the fire happened on the 2d of September, and Higgons (Remarks, 219) proves from the books of the company, that Grant had no share in the works before the 25th of that month. he refused for several hours to admit the aid of the military, and to those who advised the demolition of a range of houses, replied that he must previously obtain the consent of their respective owners. 1 During the day the wind, which blew from the east, Sep. 3. hourly augmented in violence; and the fire spread with astonishing velocity, leaping from roof to roof, and frequently igniting houses at a distance, and in apparent security. The following night («< if night, » says an eyewitness, «< that could be called, which was light as day <<< for ten miles round, ») presented a most magnificent, but appalling spectacle. A vast column of fire, a mile in diameter, was seen ascending to the clouds; the flames, as they rose, were bent and broken, and shivered by the fury of the wind; and every blast scattered through the air innumerable flakes of fire, which falling on inflammable substances kindled new conflagrations. The lurid glare of the sky, the oppressive heat of the atmosphere, the crackling of the flames, and the falling of the houses and churches, combined to fill every breast with astonishment and terror. Instead, however, of adverting to the natural causes of the calamity, causes too obvious to escape an observant eye, the public credulity listened to stories of malice and treachery. It was said and believed, that men had been apprehended carrying with them parcels of an unknown substance, which on compression produced heat and ' The duke of York says, that the expedient of blowing up houses with gunpowder was suggested by an old woman (Macpher. Pap. i. 36.); Evelyn, by a party of sailors; but « some tenacious and avaritious « men, aldermen, etc. would not permit it, because their houses must have been the first ». ii. 266. Exertions flame; that others had been seen throwing fire balls into houses as they passed along the street; that the foreign enemy had combined with the republicans and papists to burn the city; and that the French residents in the capital, to the number of twenty thousand had taken up arms, and were massacring every native, who came in the way. These reports augmented the general terror and confusion. All were mingled together, men labouring to extinguish the flames, citizens conveying away their families and goods, crowds flying from the imaginary massacre, others in arms hastening to oppose the murderers, and mobs surrounding and ill-treating every stranger, foreigner, and reputed papist, who ventured into the streets. Charles never appeared so deeply affected as at the sight of the king of the conflagration. Breaking from his pleasures and his mistresses, he displayed an energy of mind and body of which his most intimate friends thought him no longer capable. Wherever the danger appeared the greatest, the king was to be found with his brother, mixing among the workmen, animating them by his example, and with his own hand rewarding their exertions'. He divided the city into districts, and gave the command of each district to one of the privy council. He ordered biscuits and other necessaries to be brought from the royal stores for the relief of the families in the fields, and ordered out strong patroles of his guards, to prevent robbery, and to conduct to prison all persons suspected and arrested by the " " I << It is not indeed imaginable how extraordinary the vigilance and activity of the king and the duke was, even labouring in person, and being present to command, order, reward, or encourage worka men ». Evelyn, ii. 268. Life of James, i. 424. populace, as the most likely means of preserving their lives. While the storm continued, the conflagration bade de- End of the conflagra. fiance to all the exertions of human ingenuity or power. tion. In many places houses had been blown up or demolished: but the ignited flakes were carried over the empty space, or the ruins again took fire, or the flames unexpectedly turned in a new direction. On the evening of Wednesday Sep. 5. the violence of the wind began to abate; and the duke of York saved the church of the Temple by the destruction of the neighbouring buildings: the next morning a similar precaution was adopted by the king to preserve West- Sep. 6. minster-abbey and the palace of Whitehall, About five in the evening of Thursday the weather became calm; and every heart beat with the hope that this dreadful visitation was approaching to its close. But in the night new alarms were excited. The fire burst out again in the Temple; it was still seen to rage with unabated fury near Cripplegate, and a large body of flame made rapid advance towards the Tower. The duke and the other noblemen were immediately at their posts. With the aid of gunpowder large openings were made; Charles attended at the demolition of the houses on the graff near the magazine in the Tower; and the conflagration, being thus prohibited from extending its ravages, gradually died away, though months elapsed before the immense accumulation of ruins ceased to present appearances of internal heat and combustion. ' By this deplorable accident two-thirds of the metro- Its extent. * London Gazette, No. 85. Clarend. 348-352. Evelyn, ii. 263—7. Philips, 652. Burnet, i. 401. 2; and Pepys, who in the confusion has divided one day into two. Diary, iii. 16–35. polis, the whole space from the Tower to the Temple, had been reduced to ashes. The number of houses consumed amounted to thirteen thousand two hundred, of churches, including St. Paul's, to eighty-nine, covering three hundred and seventy three acres within, and sixtySep. 7. three without the walls. In the fields about Islington and Highgate were seen lying on the bare ground, or under huts hastily erected, two hundred thousand individuals, many in a state of utter destitution, and the others watching the small remnant of their property which they had snatched from the flames. Charles was indefatigable in his exertions to afford relief, and to procure them lodgings in the nearest towns and villages. ' Its cause. Whoever considers the place in which the fire began, the violence of the wind, and the materials of which the houses were built, will not be at a loss to account for the origin and the extent of the conflagration. But it was an age in which political and religious prejudices had perverted the judgments of men. Some considered it as an evident visitation of Providence in punishment of sin; but of what sin? Of the immorality of the king and the courtiers, replied the more rigid religionists; of the late rebellion, recriminated the cavaliers 2. Others attributed St. Trials, vi. 807. Evelyn, ii. 271. 2 Two remarkable coincidences have been noticed. At the trials of certain conspirators in the preceding April, it appeared that they had intended to set fire to London on the 3d of September of the last year, that they might avail themselves of the confusion to overturn the government (London Gazette, Ap. 23—26) : and it was about one in the morning of Sep. 3, of this year that the fire made its appearance. Again, in 1656, a treatise was advertised, purporting to show from the Apocalypse, that in the year 1666 the Romish Babylon would be destroyed by fire. (Marc. Pol. iu Burton's Diary, i. cxlvii.) Now this |