Dear Sir,
I have to acknowledge yours of May the 19th and 29th, and July 20th; being Nos. 72, 73, and 76. It is long since I wrote to you, because I know you must be where you could not receive my letters: and perhaps it may be some time before I write to you again, on account of a contagious and mortal fever which has arisen here, and is driving us all away. It is called a yellow fever, but is like nothing known or read of by the physicians. The week before last the deaths were about forty; the last week about eighty; and this week, I think they will be two hundred; and it goes on spreading. All persons who can find asylum elsewhere, are flying from the city: this will doubtless extend it to other towns, and spread it through the country, unless an early winter should stop it. Colonel Hamilton is ill of it, but is on the recovery.
The Indians have refused to meet our commissioners unless they would agree to the Ohio as our boundary, by way of preliminary article. This being impossible, because of the army locations and sales to individuals beyond the Ohio, the war is to go on, and we may soon expect to hear of General Wayne’s being in motion.
The President set out yesterday for Mount Vernon, according to an arrangement of some time ago. General Knox is setting out for Massachusetts, and I am thinking to go to Virginia in some days. When and where we shall re-assemble, will depend on the course of this malady.
I have the honor to be, with great and sincere esteem and respect, Dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CLXXI.—TO MR. GENET, October 3, 1793
TO MR. GENET.
Monticello, October 3, 1793.