MARCH 4, 1805.
FIFTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.
DECEMBER 3, 1805.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_.
At a moment when the nations of Europe are in commotion and arming
against each other, and when those with whom we have principal
intercourse are engaged in the general contest, and when the countenance
of some of them toward our peaceable country threatens that even that
may not be unaffected by what is passing on the general theater, a
meeting of the representatives of the nation in both Houses of Congress
has become more than usually desirable. Coming from every section of our
country, they bring with them the sentiments and the information of the
whole, and will be enabled to give a direction to the public affairs
which the will and the wisdom of the whole will approve and support.
In taking a view of the state of our country we in the first place
notice the late affliction of two of our cities under the fatal fever
which in latter times has occasionally visited our shores. Providence in
His goodness gave it an early termination on this occasion and lessened
the number of victims which have usually fallen before it. In the course
of the several visitations by this disease it has appeared that it
is strictly local, incident to cities and on the tide waters only,
incommunicable in the country either by persons under the disease or by
goods carried from diseased places; that its access is with the autumn
and it disappears with the early frosts.
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