Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/535

Conditions snrronndiiig Settlement of J'irginia 525 Catholic recusants executed or allowed to die in prison under Eliza- beth, and twenty-four under James ;' and executions connected with special occurrences such as the rebellion of Essex and the Gunpow- der Plot. When it is realized that, in each of the fifty-two shires of England and Wales, four times a year the justices of the peace and twice the justices of assize ; and in each of the numerous chartered towns the corresponding judicial authorities were all busily apply- ing a severe criminal code, it will be recognized that a check to over- population was being applied closely analogous to war and pestilence. Yet there can be no doubt that the plague was the most de- structive of all causes of the depletion of population at that time. At intervals approximating ten years this enemy, ill-understood, unprepared for, weakly opposed, invaded England and raised the death-rate for one or more years to many times its usual height. In 1593, in 1603, in the period from 1606 to 1610, and in 1625, London suffered losses that can be measured with considerable exactness ; and during these and other years we have many glimpses of the ravages of the plague in other cities and in the rural parts of England. In the year 1593 there were 17,844 deaths in London and its immediate suburbs, of which 10,662 were attrib- uted to the plague. Deaths from all other causes together were therefore but 7,182, and this was a larger number than usual. Ac- cording to Stow, " There died in London and the liberties thereof, from the 23 rd day of December 1602 to the 22nd day of December 1603, of all diseases 38,244, whereof of the plague 30,578."- The usual death-rate, according to these figures, was more than quad- rupled; and there is other testimony to indicate that this is rather within than beyond the facts, another estimate, including some out- lying districts, giving 42,945 deaths, whereof of the plague about 33,347.^ During the years from 1606 to 1610, the initial years of the settlement of Virginia, the plague was constantly active, though not nearly so destructive as in 1593 and 1603. The deaths speci- fically from the plague were as follows: 1606, 2,124; 1607, 2,352; 1608, 2,262; 1609, 4,240; and 1610, i,8o3. The last serious visitation of the plague in London in this period was in 1625, in which year there were 54,265 deaths, of which 35,417 were attributed to the plague.^ In the middle of the sum- mer the deaths from plague numbered more than 4,000 a week. In certain parishes where a maze of narrow streets, lanes, and alleys, ' Dodd-Tierney, History of the Church of England, III. 159-170; IV. 179-180. ' Annates, p. 857. ' Creighton, Epidemics in Britain, I. 478. « Ibid., 494. 5 London's Remembrancer.