Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

BY THIS DAY's MAILS.

NEW-YORK, July 1.

CHARLESTON, June 22.

CIRCULAR LETTER agreed upon by the citizens of Charleston, June 19.

Friends and Fellow Citizens,

United to you by the endearing ties of private friendship, and a common citizenship, we feel ourselves encouraged to apply to you for aid in the work of benevolence, imposed upon us by the late desolating fire, which has recently ruined a fair portion of our city.

Scarcely had we recovered from the confusion and distress arising from the fire, which laid waste the upper part of the city—scarcely had we enjoyed the melancholy pleasure of distributing the fruits of the benevolence of the citizens, to the amount of 10,000 dollars, amongst the sons and daughters of affliction, than we are again assailed by a heavier calamity. A fire more rapid, extensive, devouring and irresistible than any we have experienced for nearly twenty years, sweeps off a great part of the city, destroying houses, furniture, and goods, to an immense amount, and reducing many industrious families to famine and to ruin.

Time has not yet allowed us to calculate the extent of the loss, but a partial view exhibits the miserable picture of 350 houses reduced to ashes, and of 400 families driven for shelter into the houses of their friends—into the buildings appropriated to the comfort of the poor, of the orphan, and of the helpless—which being insufficient to afford shelter, some of the unfortunate victims have been obliged to convert the House of God into the abode of man, and to take refuge at the altar.

Many are reduced from affluence to beggary—almost all who have been burnt out have sustained great losses, and are placed in circumstances which call for immediate relief.

Every exertion is making by the citizens of the town to alleviate the miseries of these unfortunate fellow creatures. Every heart feels for their distresses. Every hand is open for their relief. Much has been done and more will certainly be done—but much remains for the exercise of the friendly affections. The resources of the inhabitants of the city already exhausted by the almost continued draughts made upon them, by the unfortunate of our own, as well as of foreign countries, are inadequate to meet the exigence of the present enormous evil.

Where can we turn for assistance so naturally, or we trust so efficaciously, as to our friends and brethren of the country, whose interest and whose affections are bound up with ours, and who share in our prosperity, and in our adversity—we are commanded by the voice of this community, to make the appeal to the feelings of our fellow citizens in the country; and we make the appeal in the confidence that it will be effectual; and that they will readily seize the occasion of co-operating with us, in these great duties of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, and comforting the afflicted.

John Matthews, Chairman; Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, William Washington, David Ramsay, Aedanus Burke, John Huger, Robert Smith, H. W. De Saussure, James Ladson, John Ball, Isaac Holmes, William Somerall, John B. Holmes, A. Adam Tunno, Keating Simons, Daniel Cannon, Wm. Johnson, Rev. William Crafts, J. S. Crips, Richard Furman, Thomas Waties, Nathaniel Russell, Anthony Toomer, John Blake, William Marshall, John Champneys, Thomas Lee.

Charleston, June 18, 1796.

[Gen. Pinckney's draught of a petition.]

To the honorable the Speaker and the other Members of the House of Representatives of the State of South-Carolina.

The Memorial and Petition of the citizens of Charleston,

Respectfully sheweth,

That a considerable part of their city has been lately reduced to ashes by two dreadful and destructive fires.

That the frequency of fires, and the extent of their devastation in this city, has been chiefly occasioned by many of the houses having been built with wood, and by more having been covered with shingles.

That the building and covering houses in this manner, not only endangers the property of the proprietors of them, but renders insecure the houses of other citizens in their vicinity, built of brick or stone, and covered with slate or tile.

That these fires do not only occasion great loss and damage to those whose properties are immediately consumed, but the injury sustained extends widely, and involves many others in the ruinous consequences; they even cause a diminution of the public revenue, as vacant lots pay a much less tax to the state and city, than lots improved.

That as it is contrary to the social compact for any person to make such use of his property as will be injurious to his neighbour, and as your petitioners are thoroughly convinced, by sad experience, of the pernicious consequences of their building with wood or covering with shingles, they most earnestly request you to ordain, that the outside of all buildings, hereafter to be erected in the city of Charleston, or within half a mile thereof, be henceforth built of brick, stone, tabby, or some other incombustible material, with party walls of the same; and that all buildings which shall hereafter be covered within the above limits, be henceforth covered with either slate, tile, stone, brick, tabby, or some other incombustible material; and that you will make such further provision, as to your wisdom shall seem meet to prevent, as far as human care and foresight can prevent, the repetition of the dreadful calamities they have suffered.