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 y^e 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:
"The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonish'd, that from the beginning I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirr'd to quench it, so that there was nothing heard or seene but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures without at all attempting to save even their goods; such a strange consternation there was upon them, so as it burned both in breadth and length, the churches, public halls, Exchange, hospitals, monuments and ornaments, leaping after a prodigious manner, from house to house, and streete to streete, at greate distances one from y^e other; for y^e heat with a long set of faire and warm weather had even ignited the aire and prepared the materials to conceive the fire, which devour'd after an incredible manner houses, furniture, and every thing. Here we saw the Thames cover'd with goods floating, all the barges and boates laden with what some had time and courage to save, as, on y^e other, y^e carts, &c., carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strew'd with moveables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. Oh the miserable and calamitous spectacle! Such as haply the world had not seene since the foundation of it, nor be outdon till the universal conflagration thereof. All the skie was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, and the light seene above 40 miles round about for many nights. God grant mine eyes may never behold the like, who now saw above 10,000 houses all in one flame; the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, y^e shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of towers, houses and churches was like a hideous storme and the aire all about so hot and inflam'd that at the last one was not able to approach it, so that they were forc'd to stand still and let y^e flames burn on, which they did neere two miles in length and one in breadth. The clouds also of smoke were dismall and reach'd upon computation neer 50 miles in length. Thus I left it this afternoone burning, a resemblance of Sodom, or the last day. It forcibly call'd to mind that passage--_non enim hic habemus stabilem civitatem_: the ruines resembling the picture of Troy. London was, but is no more."--(Sept. 3rd, 1666.)