The pestilence itself it was said, would have been no serious calamity if it had not been aggravated by the wickedness of man.

The disease had generally spared those who had warm garments and bedding, and had swept away by thousands those who were thinly clad and who slept on the wet ground.

Immense sums had been drawn out of the Treasury: yet the pay of the troops was in arrear.

Hundreds of horses, tens of thousands of shoes, had been paid for by the public: yet the baggage was left behind for want of beasts to draw it; and the soldiers were marching barefoot through the mire.

Seventeen hundred pounds had been charged to the government for medicines: yet the common drugs with which every apothecary in the smallest market town was provided were not to be found in the plaguestricken camp.