Lydia Rotch Dean letter to Charity Rotch, 7th mo 7th 1812

              B-241-11 
	  
	                                  Salem 7th mo  7th  1812
	My dear Sister
	               I am pleas d with an oppr of accepting the offer
	of  Obijah Purington to forward a letter for me to you by a direct
	medium from Philad whither he is about tomorrow- for I often
	feel as if I wish d to talk with you a great deal, but there seems
			of  conveyance	
	so much uncertainty^ attending this imperfect made that I hardly
	know how to undertake it- I don t mean that I have any thing very
	particular to say, but you seem to have gone so far off, so many
	mountains(literally only) rising between us & the name of your
	settlement so unknown that it sometimes damps the earnestness
	of the inclination wh would otherwise prompt a frequent
        endeavor for an
	^ interchange of thoughts, views & hopes.  I wrote to thee my dr
	in the 4th mo.  I don t mention it for any loss thou mayst have
	sustain d by non-arrival but that thou mayst know I have
	once thus manifested my affecte remembrance & equal interest
	in your  movements, to other days when more frequently an-
	nounc d-  Since that date we have spend a week with
	our frds in New Bedford on the way to yearly Meeting &
	on the return abt another, very pleasantly, except the
	annoyance wh arose fm the gloom of the times on acct of
	war etc-  I there had the pleasure of reading a letter
	recently recd fm thee, wh gave a pretty sure intimation of an
	improvement in they health, to be able to do any thing towards
	the care of such a family- do let us hear how you progress,
	& don t let any of them at Bedford tease brother Thomas abt
	writing frequently, but let them wait patiently till he can attend
	to it to forward one of his circumstantial accts- It cannot be
	expected that he can break off from the business of settling himself in