21st This was the most interesting day of my life
as far as viewing the splended works of man
was concerned. I started in coompany with Elders
, & , for a walk over the city of
we crossed over , through
King Williams st & passed through several other
streets visited the cup & garden, passed through
St Martin street & court, & &
Sidney Alley, Coventry st, , Glasshouse St
& we passed through most the whol length of
one of the most splended streets in the
world, we passed through Langham place, with a spire naked from its base to the point
we also passed through We returned
by the way of a description of which
I shall give another day.
To end the sceneries of
this days walk, we visited the Noted monument
erected in commemoration of the DREADFUL FIRE
OF LONDON in the year 1666 built under the inspec
tion of that great Architect SIR
we entered a door at its base (paid /6 on entering) & assended
345 black marble steps which brought us 200 feet
into the air, about 100 feet higher than the highest
dwellings we steped on the outside of the piller surround
ed by an Iron railing which at once presented to our
view an indescribable scenery upon evry hand.
Here we were standing about 200 feet in the air
upon the highest & finest modern column in the
world & with the glance of the naked eye we could
overlook & survey the largest most noted, populous
& splended city upon the face of the whole earth
even a city containing a million & a half of human
beings, & such a splendid prospect & grand scenery I
never before beheld, we were situated so as to overlo-
ok nearly evry part of the city east of us lay the splended
& the Mint, North the
of Lord Mayor of London. North West St Pauls Churc[h]
West, & the , south
lies the with five large arched Bridges
acrossed it in full view, & another which is not seen from
the pillar making six, five of which are hewn stone
& one is all of solid cast Iron, viz Southwark Bridge
while London, Blackfriars Waterloo, &
Vauxhall Bridges are all stone. South of the River
lies London Borough & in addition to this were
hundreds of churches, chapels, & spires standing
in the midst of one universal dens mass [o]f brick & stone
buildings, covering about six miles squair of ground
while viewing this scenery in a clear day we were
conversing with a Prussian traveller (citizen of )
who had travled much over & & other
parts of the world, & he declaired we could not
find another spot upon the face of the earth that
would present to our view as grand a scenery as
the one before us. This monument was 24 feet higher
than at . This pillar cost £14,500
or $75,500 dollars. The following is inscribed upon
one side of the monument in LATIN
In the year of Christ 1666 the second
day of September from hence at the distance of two hund-
red & two feet the hight of this column about midnight
a most terrible fire broke out which driven on by a high
wind not ownly wasted the adjacent parts but also places vary
remote with incredible noise & fury. It consumed 89
churches, the gates of the city Guild hall many public struc-
tures, hospitals, schoosls, libraries a vast number of stately
edifices, 13,200 dwelling houses 400 streets of 26 wards
it utterly destroyed 15 & left 8 others shattered & half
burnt. The ruins of the were 436 acres from the
by the side to the Temple Church &
from the North east Gate along the city wall to Holborn
Bridge. To the estates & fortunes of the citizens it
was merciless but to their lives vary favorable (ownly
eight being lost) That it might in all things resemble the
last conflog^r^ation of the world. The destruction
was sudden for in a small space of time the same
city was seen most flourishing & reduced to
nothing three days after when the fatal fire
had Baffled all human councils & endeavorsurs,
the opinion of all, as it were, by the will of heaven
it stoped & on evry side was extinguished [past]
6 m[iles].
