The Republican Compiler

Extract of a letter from a gentleman, of N. York, to his correspondent, dated, Natchez, Aug. 21.

“All is bustle and confusion here – the Yellow Fever is raging with unexampled violence. Some, who were well at breakfast, are in their coffins before 6 o’clock at night. There were about seventy five cases reported yesterday. The inhabitants are removing, and are expected to go out “en masse” today.

Extract of a letter from a gentleman of the first respectability in Natchez, dated Natchez, August 27.

“Knowing your anxiety for our health in these distressing times, I seize a moment of leisure to inform you that we still continue well. Mr. Turner lost his son Edward, on Sunday last, from fever. He was his only son. His daughter Mary is lying sick, but is salivated and I thick do well. The city, although deserted by all who have the means of doing so, presents a most awful spectacle. From 10 to 20 it is supposed die every day, even with its reduced population, and the disease seems to assume more and more the virulent as part of the plague. We have already lost some of our most esteemed citizens. Henry Postlethwarte died this morning. Mr. Thompson yesterday, and his wife is probably dead by the time – in all, it is supposed about 100 persons have died in the short space of a week or ten days.”

“We are kept in a constant state of anxiety and alarm for our friends and the news of the evening is, generally, of a melancholy nature. We are very fortunate, mired, in having a place of refuge in the county. The disease broke out, very suddenly, about the 20^th inst.”

The last mail from Natchez brought letters dated 3d inst. The disease is represented to “continue its ravages with unabated fury, and with a malignancy and mortality unprecedented in our county. The remaining population cannot exceed 100 souls, and the deaths on the 1^st inst. Were 14; on the 2d 13. No business is doing in the city or vicinity – only one store is kept open, and that has no customers.

Ten dollars a day has been offered for a person to attend to an establishment which has been left, but no one would accept.” It is remaked, as extraordinary, that, while Natchez is literally depopulated, in inhabitants of the low lands in Concordia, directly opposite, enjoy tolerable health. Some of the residents, two or three miles from Natchez, consider it unsafe to remain so near, and are retiring to a greater distance.

The Lexington, Ky. Monitor of Sept 19 says: - “Our latest accounts from Natchez still represent that city as being in the most deplorable condition. It is almost literally depopulated. Scarcely an instance of so distressing a calamity is on record in history. Among the devastating ravages of armies, the storming and sacking of towns and cities, and the dreadful convulsions of earthquakes, so shocking a picture of the miseries of man is nowhere to be found, as the city of Natchez presents to view.”

After the lapse of four weeks, we are enabled to resume the publication of the Mississippian, and we trust that the late fearful disease which has ravaged the city of Natchez, will serve as a full apology for the suspension. Indeed, it was utterly impossible to have avoided it, for of five or six journeymen employed, all were taken down with the fever, and three have died. Under these circumstances, we were necessarily compelled to suspend further operations in our business, until returning health enabled the surviving printers to resume their work. Those who have died from this office were Messrs. S. W. H. Cissna, and William Livingston, formerly of New York, and J. L. Mattingly, of Kentucky.

In no preceding year has the mortality been so great. In the years of 1817 and 1819, the cases were not, either year, equal in number to those of the present, nor were they equal in fatality. To publish the distresses and misfortunes of our city, is an ungrateful subject, but it becomes our melancholy duty to record what we have been compelled to witness, that the situation of Natchez should be neither exaggerated nor paltiated.

Out of a population of about three thousand, we must have lost three hundred; although the official returns of deaths fall short of it. This discrepancy in numbers arises from the many who have left the city, died and were buried in the country.

To account for this visitation upon a city generally healthy, is more than we can pretend to do satisfactorily; but we certainly believe that the late overflow was the prime agent in generating the disease. Some have attributed it to cutting down of the streets. We are inclined to hold to the former opinion, although the result, as following the rev(?)ing of the hills in the city, was predicted many years ago, by the late Dr. John Shaw, whose opinions were certainly entitled to the highest respect and consideration. But were this the fact, every year would prove uniformly unhealthy, whereas, with the exception of the two years above mentioned, viz. 1817 and 1819, Natchez has, for a wholesome atmosphere, rivaled any part of the state if Mississippi.

For some days past we have had uncommonly cold weather for the season, but we fear not sufficiently so to insure safety yet to returning inhabitants. There is on the Louisiana side of the river Mississippi a wide extent of low ground, we believe of nearly forty miles in width. This part of the country was entirely covered by the late flood; covering many farms of cotton and corn, and drowning, it is said, great numbers of cattle and horses; and leaving vast quantities of fish in the low swamps.

These swamps have since become perfectly dry; and the vegetable and animal putrefaction must have generated the miasma which has spread its deadly influence over our city. It was remarked for about two weeks previous to the arrival of the disease, that there was a continuance of westerly breezes, which doubtless wafted over the poisonous vapours of the westerly swamps. This appears to us the most rational manner of accounting for the origin of the disease, as there certainly existed no local causes within the city which could justify the idea that it was generated within the limits.

We shall afford weekly information of the state of health in the city, and shall acquaint our fellow citizens at what time it would be prudent to enter their houses. – Mississippian.