The daily records of the fire and of the movements of the people are most striking. Now we see the river crowded with boats filled with the goods of those who are houseless, and then we pass to Moorfields, where are crowds carrying their belongings about with them, and doing their best to keep these separate till some huts can be built to receive them. Soon paved streets and two-storey houses were seen in Moorfields, the city authorities having let the land on leases for seven years.
The wearied people complained that their feet were "ready to burn" through walking in the streets "among the hot coals."
(September 5th, 1666.) Means were provided to save the unfortunate multitudes from starvation, and on this same day proclamation was made
"... ordering that for the supply of the distressed persons left destitute ... great proportions of bread be brought daily, not only to the former markets, but to those lately ordained. Churches and public places were to be thrown open for the reception of poor people and their goods."
Westminster Hall was filled with "people's goods."
On September 7th Evelyn went towards Islington and Highgate
"... where one might have seen 200,000 people of all ranks and degrees dispers'd and lying along by their heapes of what they could save from the fire, deploring their losse, and tho' ready to perish for hunger and destitution yet not asking one penny for reliefe, which to me appear'd a stranger sight than any I had yet beheld."
The fire was fairly got under on September 7th, but on the previous day Clothworkers' Hall was burning, as it had been for three days and nights, in one volume of flame. This was caused by the cellars being full of oil. How long the streets remained in a dangerous condition may be guessed by Pepys's mention, on May 16th, 1666-7, of the smoke issuing from the cellars in the ruined streets of London.
The fire consumed about five-sixths of the whole city, and outside the walls a space was cleared about equal to an oblong square of a mile and a half in length and half a mile in breadth. Well might Evelyn say, "I went againe to ye ruines for it was no longer a citty" (September 10th, 1666).
The destruction was fearful, and the disappearance of the grand old Cathedral of St. Paul's was among the most to be regretted of the losses. One reads these particulars with a sort of dulled apathy, and it requires such a terribly realistic picture as the following, by Evelyn, to bring the scene home to us in all its magnitude and horror: