Thomas Rotch Letter to William Imlay

              [page 1]
			
[corresponds to page 1 of Thomas Rotch Letter to William Imlay]

			Pittsburgh  4th Mo 1811
		
William H. Imlay
 		
	Respected  Friend

			Thy favour of 9th ult was
	
handed me on the 8th Inst. on Our reaching Chillicothe
	
after an absence from that place of one month,in which
	
time we traveled between Three & four hundred miles which
	
gave us an opportunity not only to view a large extent of
	
Country, but also to form some judgement with respect to
	
its improvement, and the disadvantages attendant from its
	
remote situation from commercial intercouse, while its
	
present Inhabitants are mostly such as have shared in the
	
convenience, if not ehe luxuries common to the Cytisens of
	
the Atlantic states and whose habits are too strongly riveted
	
to admit of a sudden transicion without an abridgement of
	
too large a portion of their comfort, while an indulgence
	
under present disadvantages nearly subverts the inten
	
=tion that actuates distant removals, that of bettering
	
their circumstances.  These however severe, are evils that
	
will work its own cures for while self denial on the
	
one hand becomes familiar, the improvement in Arts
	
and Manufactures will on the other relieve the remaining