morning about eight o'clock
It is true that the locking up the doors of people 's houses , and setting a watchman there night and day to prevent their stirring out or any coming to them , when perhaps the sound people in the family might have escaped if they had been removed from the sick , looked very hard and cruel ; and many people perished in these miserable confinements which , 't is reasonable to believe , would not have been distempered if they had had liberty , though the plague was in the house ; at which the people were very clamorous and uneasy at first , and several violences were committed and injuries offered to the men who were set to watch the houses so shut up ; also several people broke out by force in many places , as I shall observe by-and-by . But it was a public good that justified the private mischief , and there was no obtaining the least mitigation by any application to magistrates or government at that time , at least not that I heard of . This put the people upon all manner of stratagem in order , if possible , to get out ; and it would fill a little volume to set down the arts used by the people of such houses to shut the eyes of the watchmen who were employed , to deceive them , and to escape or break out from them , in which frequent scuffles and some mischief happened ; of which by itself . As I went along Houndsditch one morning about eight o'clock there was a great noise . It is true , indeed , there was not much crowd , because people were not very free to gather together , or to stay long together when they were there ; nor did I stay long there . But the outcry was loud enough to prompt my curiosity , and I called to one that looked out of a window , and asked what was the matter . A watchman , it seems , had been employed to keep his post at the door of a house which was infected , or said to be infected , and was shut up .