Whose hardships and uncertainties industry leads were interspersed in the story with the daily figures of deaths by parish. In 1665, the plague struck a still medieval city that was expanding rapidly but disorderly: overcrowded, congested, polluted. New constructions industry leads multiplied without control or planning despite the efforts of the municipal government to regulate them. Peasants expelled from their lands by the process of accumulation and enclosure of rural properties gathered there, together with a commercial bourgeoisie made up of industry leads merchants like HF who had become rich through colonial traffic from the application of the navigation laws since 1651.
London, moreover, was a deeply industry leads divided city for political and religious reasons. In 1660, the restoration of the monarchy buried, to this day, the "good old cause" of a republican England and ended two decades of bloody civil wars and religious ferment. In industry leads of the plague the last act of the Clarendon Code was enacted, providing for the removal from public office (ecclesiastical and civil) of those who refused to conform to the Church of England. This created the industry leads figure of the "dissidents" or "non-conformists", among whom were Presbyterians, such as Defoe's parents and uncle.
The plague bracketed industry leads social and ideological divisions. According to Rogelio Paredes , during the illness the hierarchical differences disappeared because there was a dissolution of the public spaces where the communities assigned and industry leads recognized those positions. in the diarythis is recorded in two memorable passages. In one, HF describes a cart with corpses: “some were wrapped in linen sheets, others in rags, some little more than naked, or so stripped that their industry leads clothing fell off when the cart was unloaded; and they fell like that naked among the rest",