On Thursday, by the blessing of God, it was wholly beat down and extinguished. But so as that evening it burst out afresh at the Temple, by the falling of some sparks (as is supposed, upon a pile of wooden buildings); but his royal highness, who watched there the whole night in person, by the great labour and diligence used, and especially by applying powder to blow up the houses about it, before day, happily mastered it.
Divers strangers, Dutch and French, were, during the fire, apprehended, upon suspicion that they contributed maliciously to it, who are all imprisoned, and informations prepared to make severe inquisition hereupon by my Lord Chief Justice Keeling, assisted by some of the Lords of the privy council, and some principal members of the city: notwithstanding which suspicions, the manner of the burning all along in a train, and so blown forward in all its ways by strong winds, makes us conclude the whole was an effect of an unhappy chance, or to speak better, the heavy hand of God upon us, for our sins, shewing us the terror of his judgment, in thus raising the fire, and immediately after, his miraculous and never enough to be acknowledged mercy, in putting a stop to it when we were in the last despair, and that all attempts for the quenching it, however industriously pursued, seemed insufficient. His Majesty then sat hourly in council, and ever since hath continued making rounds about the city, in all parts of it where the danger and mischief was greatest, till this morning that he hath sent his Grace the Duke of Albemarle, whom he hath called for to assist him in this great occasion: to put his happy and successful hand to the finishing this memorable deliverance.
About the Tower, the seasonable orders given for pulling down houses to secure the magazines of powder, was most especially successful, that part being up the wind; notwithstanding which, it came almost to the very gates of it, so as, by the early provision, the several stores of war lodged in the Tower were entirely saved; and we have hitherto this infinite cause particularly to give God thanks that the fire did not happen in any of those places where his Majesty's naval stores are kept; so as though it hath 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 at a part of the town, where, though the commodities were not very rich, yet they were so bulky that they could not be removed, so that the inhabitants of that part where it first began, have sustained very great loss; but, by the best inquiry we can make, the other parts of the town, where the commodities were of greater value, took the alarm so early, that they saved most of their goods of value, which possibly may have diminished the loss; though some think, that if the whole industry of the inhabitants had been applied to the stopping of the fire, and not to the saving their particular goods, the success might have been much better; not only to the public, but to many of them in their own particulars.
Through this sad accident it is easy to be imagined how many persons were necessitated 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 Majesty's care was most signal on 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 by his Majesty's proclamations and orders issued to the neighbouring justices of the peace, to encourage the sending provisions into the markets, which are publicly known, as by other directions, that when his Majesty, fearing lest other orders might not yet have been sufficient, had commanded the victualler of his navy to send bread into Moorfields for the relief of the poor, which, for the more speedy supply, he sent in biscuit out of the sea stores; it was found that the market had been already so well supplied that the people, being unaccustomed to that kind of bread, declined it, and so it was returned in great part to his Majesty's stores again, without any use made of it.
And we cannot but observe, to the confusion of all his Majesty's enemies, who endeavoured to persuade the world abroad of great parties and disaffection at home, against his Majesty's government, that a greater instance of the affections of this city could never be given, than hath now been given in this sad and most deplorable accident, when, if at any time, disorder might have been expected, from the losses, distractions, and almost desperation of some persons in their private fortunes—thousands of people not having habitations to cover them. And yet all this time it hath been so far from any appearance of designs or attempts against his Majesty's government, that his Majesty and his royal brother, out of their care to stop and prevent the fire, exposing frequently 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, nevertheless, there hath not been observed so much as a murmuring word to fall from any; but, on the contrary, even those persons whose losses render their conditions most desperate, and to be fit objects of others' prayers, beholding those frequent instances of his Majesty's 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.
Whitehall, Sept. 12.—His Majesty, in a religious sense of God's heavy hand upon this kingdom, in the late dreadful fire happened in the city of London, hath been pleased to order that the tenth of October next, be observed as a general and solemn fast throughout England, Wales, &c.; and that the distresses of those who have more particularly suffered in that calamity be on that day most effectually recommended to the charity of all well-disposed Christians, in the respective churches and chapels of this kingdom, to be afterward, by the hands of the Lord Mayor of the city of London, distributed for the relief of such as shall be found most to need it.
Whitehall, Sept. 15.—His Majesty pursuing, with a gracious impatience, his pious care for the speedy restoration of his city of London, was pleased to pass, the twelfth instant, his declaration, in council to his city of London upon that subject, full of that princely tenderness and affection which he is pleased on all occasions to express for that, his beloved city.
In the first place, upon the desires of the lord mayor and court of aldermen, he is pleased to prohibit the hasty building of any edifice, till such speedy care be taken for the re-edification of the city as may best secure it from the like accidents, and raise it to a greater beauty and comeliness than formerly it had; the lord mayor and aldermen being required to pull down what shall, contrary to this prohibition be erected, and return the names of such refractory persons to his Majesty and his council, to be proceeded against according to their deserts.
That any considerable number of men addressing themselves to the court of aldermen, and manifesting in what places their ground lies upon which they intend to build, shall in short time receive such order and direction that they shall have no cause to complain.