Wesley Corpus

would fain have sent him back without delay, offering him my chaise and my servant to attend him ; though I could ill spare either one or the other. But he could not in anywise be prevailed on to accept of the proposal. I afterwards heard, he had been insane before he left London. However, I could now only make the best of it. Dec. 1775.1 Fri. DECEMBER 1.-After preaching at Loddon, I returned to Norwich, and procured Mr. - a lodging in a friend's house, where I knew he would want nothing. I now again advised him to go straight to London inmy chaise ; but it was lost labour. Sat. 2-. I procured " the History of Norwich," published but a few years since. The author shows, that it was built about the year 418. But it increased in succeeding ages, till it was more than double to what it is now, having no less than sixty churches. Its populousness may be indisputably proved, by one single circumstance :-The first time it was visited with the sweating-sickness, (which usually killed in ten hours,) there died, in about six months, upwards of fifty-seven thousand persons ; which is a considerably greater number than were in the whole city a few years ago. He remarks concerning this unaccounta- ble kind of plague, 1. That it seized none but Englishmen ; none of the French, Flemings, or other foreigners then in the kingdom, being at all affected : 2. That it seized upon English- men in other kingdoms, and upon none else : And, 3. That the method at last taken was this, The patient, if seized in the day-time, was immediately to lie down in his clothes, and to be covered up; if in the night-time, he was to keep in bed ; and if they remained four-and-twenty hours without eating or drink- ing any thing, then they generally recovered. In the evening a large mob gathered at the door of the preaching-house, the captain of which struck many (chiefly women) with a large stick. Mr. Randal going out to see what was the matter, he struck him with it in the face. But he was soon secured, and carried before the Mayor ; who knowing him to be a notorious offender, against whom one or two warrants were then lying, sent him to gaol without delay.