The Great Fire - page 3
"About the Tower the seasonal orders given for plucking down the Houses to secure the Magazines of Powder was more especially successful, that part being up the Wind, not withstanding which it came almost to the very Gates of it. So as by this early the general Stores of War lodged in the Tower were entirely saved: And we have further this intimate cause to give God thanks, that the fire did not happen where his Majesties Naval Stores are kept. So as though it had pleased God to visit us with his own hand, he hath not, by disfurnishing us with the means of carrying on the War, subjected us to our enemies.
"It must be observed, that this fire happened in a part of the Town, where tho the commodities were not very rich, yet they were so bulky that they could not be well removed, so that the Inhabitants of that part where it first began have sustained very great loss, but the best enquiry we can make, the other parts of the Town where the commoditieis were of greater value, took the Alarum so early, that they saved most of their goods of value; which posibly may have diminished the loss. tho some think that if the whole industry of the Inhabitants had been applyed to the stopping of the fire, and not to the saving of their particular Goods, the success might have been much better,not only to the publick, but to many of them in their own particulars.
"Through this sad Accident it is easie to be imagined how many persons were neccessitated to remove themselves and Goods into the open fields, where they were forced to continue some time, which could not but work compassion in the beholders, but his Majesties care was most signal in this occasion, who besides his personal pains was frequent in consulting all ways for relieving those distressed persons, which produced so good effect, as well as by his Majesties Proclomations and Orders issued to the Neighbours Justices of the Peace to encourage the sending in provisions to the Markets, which are publickly known, as by other directions, that when his Majesty, fearing lest other Orders might not have been sufficient, had comanded the Victualer of his Navy to send bread into the Moore-fields for relief of the poor, which for the more speedy supply he sent in Bisket out of the Sea Stores; it was found that the Markets had already been so well supplyd that the people being un-accustomed to that kind of Bread declined it, and so it was returned in greater part to his Majesties Stores again without any use made of it.
"And we cannot but observe the confutation of all his Majesties enemies, who endevour to perswade the world abroad of great parties, and disaffection at home against his Majesties Government; that a greater instance of the affections of this City could never have been given than have now been given in this sad and deplorable Accident when if at any time disorder might have been expected from the losses, distraction,and almost desperation of some people in their private fortune, thousands of people not having had habitation to cover them. And yet in all this time it hath been so far from any appearance of designs or attemts against his Majesties Government, that his Majesty and his Royal Brother, out of their care to stop and prevent the fire, frequently exposing their persons with very small attendants in all parts of the town sometimes even to be intermixed with those who laboured in the business, yet never the less there have not been observed so much as a murmuring word to fall from any, but on the contrary, even those persons, whose losses rendered their conditions most desperate, and to be fit objects of others prayers, beholding those frequent instances of his Majesties care of his people, forgot their own misery, and filled the streets with their prayers for his Majesty, whose trouble they seemed to compassionate before their own."
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Last updated:
23 October, 2008