The National Intelligencer And Washington Advertiser

CARLISLE, October 14.

Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Granville County, N. C. to the Editor, dated Sept. 20th, 1801.

"It is probable you have, before this time, received accounts of the alarming drought, that has entirely blasted the hopes of the husbandman, in some parts of the southern states. It extends from James river in Virginia entirely across the Carolinas, and Georgia, and is in breadth upwards of 100 miles. The inhabitants of Cumberland and Prince Edward counties in Virginia, through which I passed in my way out, will be in a very distressing situation for want of bread, great numbers of them not receiving one grain of corn, for the subsistence of their families or stock. They have not had even a refreshing shower since before their harvest, which was in the latter end of June. This I had from several persons living in the counties above-mentioned. To complete the misery of their situation, a very mortal dysentery rages among them, which carries off great numbers daily, particularly of the younger class. I am happy however in stating that from the luxuriance of crops, in the other parts of those states, the scarcity of corn, so necessary an article of diet, in the southern states, will in some measure be supplied, although at a dear rate. It is not, however the white inhabitants of these counties who claim much of pity at this time, it is their miserable slaves whose allowances, at best but scanty, will now be considerably curtailed by their unfeeling masters, who, incapable of just reflection, and callous to every sentiment of humanity, think they can subsist, to use their own words, upon "any thing." What I have said on this subject relative to Virginia, I give you from my own knowledge, and observation; and you may consider it as strictly true: —the other is from information, which I believe to be equally true. The crops in the country have a fine appearance, the weather being in general pretty seasonable."