produce and incomes of many years hard labour and careful industry all in a few moments swept away and consumed by devouring flames.—To have seen dear relations, faithful servants, even yourselves and families, reduced from plentiful, affluent, comfortable trade and fortune, over-night, to the extremest misery next morning! without an house to shelter, goods to accommodate, or settled course of trade to support. Many forced, in old age, to begin the world anew; and exposed to all the hardships and inconveniences of want and poverty.

Should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my father's sepulchre, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?

While the terrors occasioned by the conflagration remained in the minds of men, many eminent, learned, pious divines of the Church of England were more than ordinary diligent in the discharge of their holy function in this calamitous time; and many ministers who had not conformed, preached in the midst of the burning ruins, to a willing and attentive people: conventicles abounded in every part; it was thought hard to hinder men from worshipping God in any way they would, when there were no churches, nor ministers to look after them. Tabernacles, with all possible expedition, were everywhere raised for public worship till churches could be built. Among the established clergy were Dr. Tillotson, Dr. Stillingfleet, Dr. Whitcot, Dr. Horton, Dr. Patrick, Mr. White, Dr. Outram, Mr. Giffard, Mr. Nest, Mr. Meriton, and many others: divines of equal merit and moderation, ornaments of their sacred profession and the Established Church. Among the Presbyterians were Dr. Manton, Mr. Thomas Vincent, Mr. Wadsworth, Mr. Janeway, Mr. Thomas Doolittle, Mr. Annesley, Mr. Chester, Mr. Franklin, Mr. Grimes, Mr. Watson, Dr. Jacomb, Mr. Nathaniel Vincent, Mr. Turner, Mr. Griffiths, Mr. Brooks, Dr. Owen, Mr. Nye, Mr. Caryl, Dr. Goodwin, and Mr. Barker.

The loss in goods and houses is scarcely to be valued, or even conceived. The loss of books was an exceeding great detriment, not to the owners only, but to learning in general. The library at Sion-college, and most private libraries in London, were burnt.

The fire of London most of all endamaged the Company of Printers and Stationers, most of whose habitations, storehouses, shops, stocks, and books, were not only consumed, but their ashes and scorched leaves conveyed aloft, and dispersed by the winds to places above sixteen miles distant, to the great admiration of beholders!

Notwithstanding the great losses by the fire, the devouring pestilence in the city the year preceding, and the chargeable war with the Dutch at that time depending, yet by the king's grace, the wisdom of the Parliament then sitting at Westminster, the diligence and activity of the lord mayor, aldermen, and commoners of the city, (who were likewise themselves the most considerable losers by the fatal accident) it was in the space of four or five years well nigh rebuilt. Divers churches, the stately Guildhall, many halls of companies, and other public edifices; all infinitely more uniform, more solid, and more magnificent than before; so that no city in Europe (scarcely in the universe) can stand in competition with it in many particulars.[2]

The fire of London ending at the east end of Tower-street, the extent of which came just to the dock on the west side of the Tower, there was nothing between the Tower-walls and it but the breadth of the dock, and a great many old timber houses which were built upon the banks of the dock, and in the outward bulwark of the Tower and Tower-ditch (which then was very foul) to the very wall of the Tower itself. Which old houses, if the fire had taken hold of, the Tower itself, and all the buildings within it, had in all probability been destroyed. But such was the lieutenant's care of the great charge committed to him, that to prevent future damage, a few weeks after, he caused all these old houses which stood between the Tower-dock and the Tower-wall, to be pulled down: and not only them, but all those which were built upon or near the Tower-ditch, from the bulwark-gate along both the Tower-hills, and so to the Iron-gate; and caused strong rails of oak to be set up upon the wharf where those houses stood which were about four hundred: so that by these means, not only the White-tower but the whole outward Tower-wall and the ditch round about the same, are all visible to passengers, and afford a very fine prospect.

During the whole continuance of this unparalleled calamity, the king himself, roused from his pleasures, commiserated the care of the distressed, and acted like a true father of his people. In a manuscript from the secretary's office, we find these words, "All own the immediate hand of God, and bless the goodness and tender care of the king, who made the round of the fire usually twice every day, and, for many hours together, on horseback and on foot; gave orders for pursuing the work, by commands, threatenings, desires, example, and good store of money, which he himself distributed to the workers, out of an hundred pound bag which he carried with him for that purpose." At the same time, his royal highness, the Duke of York also, and many of the nobility, were as diligent as possible; they commended and encouraged the forward, assisted the miserable sufferers, and gave a most generous example to all, by the vigorous opposition they made against the devouring flames.

The king and the duke, with the guards, were almost all the day on horseback, seeing to all that could be done, either for quenching the fire, or for carrying off persons or goods to the fields. The king was never observed to be so much struck with anything in his whole life.

In the dreadful fire of London, the king and the duke did their utmost in person to extinguish it; and after it had been once mastered, and broke out again in the Temple, the duke watching there all night, put an effectual stop to it by blowing up houses.

Afterward, when the multitudes of poor people were forced to lodge in the fields, or crowd themselves into poor huts and booths built with deal boards, his majesty was frequent in consulting all ways to relieve these wretches, as well by proclamations, as by his orders to the justices of the peace, to send provisions into Moorfields and other places; and moreover he sent them out of the Tower the warlike provisions which were there deposited for the seamen and soldiers, to keep them from starving in this extremity.

At the same time he proclaimed a fast throughout England and Wales; and ordered that the distressed condition of the sufferers should be recommended to the charity of all well-disposed persons, upon that day, to be afterwards distributed by the hands of the lord mayor of London. Lastly, to shew his special care for the city's restoration, in council, wherein he first prohibited the hasty building any houses till care should be taken for its re-edification, so as might best secure it from the like fatal accident; for the encouragement of others, he promised to rebuild his Custom-house, and to enlarge it, for the benefit of the merchants and trade; which he performed at his own particular charge, and at the expense of ten thousand pounds.

At the news of the fire of London all the good subjects of Ireland were seized with the utmost consternation upon that deplorable accident in compassion to the sufferers, the lord-lieutenant (the Duke of Ormond) set on foot a subscription for their relief, which rose to a higher value than could be expected in so distressed a country, where there was not money to circulate for the common necessities of the people, or to pay the public taxes: therefore, the subscription was made in beeves, thirty thousand of which were sent to London.