From the most diligent enquiry in regard to the state of the town, and the cases of fever, which had existed before the arrival of the Patriot, the condition of that vessel, the passengers and crew, as well as the vessels which arrived from New Orleans and elsewhere, the committee are constrained to express their decided conviction, that the malignant fever which so recently afflicted our town, originated in the numerous causes they have mentioned, favoured by the destructive effects of the storm and the subsequent season. The effects of the change of weather on the 10th of September, were very obvious to all. In a few days after the wind changed to the northward, with a clear sky and hot sun, the fever made its appearance in different parts of the town in all its fearful, deadly type. On the 16th, 17th, and 18th, _thirty_ persons are reported to have died. Alarm spread through the town, and those who could conveniently, left it. Many, however, remained, and those of the poorer class of people, who either lived in small, crowded, filthy dwellings, or even without any, frequenting the grog-shops near the wharves, lodging under the market-house, or other places exposed to the damps and vapours of the night. In addition to these circumstances, many of them were intemperate. Among this class of people, which embraces nearly all those who arrived in town from the public works on Mobile bay, the fever was observed to be dreadfully mortal—almost all of them died. Of more than a hundred discharged at those works, who came to Mobile, it is believed that very few are alive. At certain places in town, there was a continual succession of these people arriving, and passing to the grave. Regardless, through intemperance, of all the usual cautions for the preservation of health—they were often crowded into rooms with the dying and the dead, till they became themselves the victims of their temerity. We cannot doubt that this class of people greatly increased and spread the disease. The old cloaths, bedding, and such like articles, belonging to them were, after their death, thrown into the streets, or back yards, and there suffered to remain to infect the air with their poisonous effluvia. The want of proper attention, nursing, and nourishment, to the sick (which could by no means be had) was a cause, ever to be lamented, of the great mortality attending the disease. Medical aid, also, was often neglected till the disease had made a mortal progress beyond the power of medicine. In many cases medical aid could not be obtained when desired. Several of the physicians themselves were sick, and the others unable to attend the numerous calls for their assistance—hence, many perished without medicine, or physician.