Jane Attwater, Bodenham, to Mary Steele, Broughton, [Tuesday] 14 February 1775.

  Your welcome Note my dearest Silvia claims my most grateful acknowledgments particularly for the kind construction you put on my supposed silence – I wrote last Tuesday was sennight.  My Bror carried it to Sarum & gave it to Mr Smith of Houghton. I suppose he must have forgot to deliver it to you – please to ask him if you have not yet got it – for it I long to receive a letter from ye dear partaker of my joys & sorrows. Let it be soon as I am very anxious for our dear afflicted Friends.  I hope our hond Friend Philander is quite restored.  Long may gracious Heaven preserve his valued life – our tenderest simpathy is due to our dear Theodosia.  Florio desires his affecte compts to her he often speaks of our dear Friend with peculiar concern says her continued distress claims the tenderest pity of all those that are acquainted with it wishes to see her with ye rest of our much loved Friends at Broughton & rejoice to hear Mrs Steele is better. Is her teeth well? Has she applied the remedy as I prescribed? If she has I hope it has proved effective.

   We heard from Bratton last week. Mr Whitaker has been very poorly but was yn much better. Have not heard from Bradford for sometime – wt is your papas opinion on ye Ministry’s &c present proceedings? as I much fear ye Event of these Deliberations – there are now Universal preparations making for war – woud you be surprized to hear your Friend is also become a warrior – Yesterday was ye first time of my beginning my Exercise. I used one of ye hostile weapons with Universal applause.  I have two instructors in ye art & am to proceed in a military manner.

   Now to explain the above – Please by ye way to remember I sleep & still abide at my Brors Rachel at my mamas. Last Saturday night or rather in ye morning about 2 oclock we was alarm’d with Rachels calls who told us there was some person breaking into ye house. We was much surprized. I determined to go over. Bror insisted on my not making such an attempt as he said it might be productive of bad consequences considering how hard I shou’d have taken it if I had been there myself & none came to my assistance. I again insisted on going but my Friends wd not permit me. Mary went soon. After she call’d, the villain or villains went away – in all probability if she had not disturbed ym they would have broke open ye house. The next morning there was a large hedge stake found down by ye sinkhole wt was their intent we know not but have reason to suppose yt they thought there was no one there & would have riffled the house without doing greater Mischief. For ye future I am to have some pistols in order to defend us.  Yesterday I began to learn to fire. I fired one & am to continue to exercise ’till practice has made it easy & not fo^r^madable.

   My dear Brors leg after wch you kindly enquire is much better Fidelia well as is ye dear little prattlers. Blessed be the Bounteous Donor of all our mercies – we write in affecte commendation to all our much lov’d Friends hope soon to hear how all are – I long to see my dear Silvia in print. Wn shall I be favour’d with it? I have lately been favor’d with ye productions of a Friend.  I will send you a copy of it & in your next beg your opinion on it.

     On the Birmingham Petition

And does ye vote for war ye Sons of Mars*

With all its Horrors & its bloody Scars?

Then we may judge your Hearts or Heads are good,

To fill your Pockets or your Hands with blood

Ye are of Vulcans brood to make a Shield

Fitter to blow & forge yn grace the Field

We know you’r men of Mettle by your words

You’d have a War to sell your Guns & swords;

You’r birds of prey, we know you by your Notes

You’d sell your Steel to cut your Brethrens throats

Indeed Americans may die thereby                          )

Whilst you my Friends may be advanc’d on high     )

In Hempen Cords not Bands of Amity                    )

Does some malignant Planet rule the Skies

To make such Passions in your Bosoms rise

Let Courtiers & Americans unite

For why should Brethren with each other fight?

But as the Great scarce fall by gun or sword

Make Axes too they’l sell upon my word

Altho the opulent dread & refuse ‘em

You’l find good subjects readily woud use ‘em

To loose a little blood may calm the Great

Compose our Difference & save ye State

But if the Body’s in so bad a case

Some rigo’ous Method must at last take place

The Surgeons final Remedy apply

An Amputation & they can but Die.

         *In reference to ye story of Mars & Vulcan – 

Please to favour me with a letter soon forgive my hasty scribble I fear I have not wrote inteligible adieu my dearest Silvia and believe me to be with unalterable sincerity your

                                                         Affecte Myrtilla

I shall if I have time in my next likewise send you a copy of Hannahs verses on Looking into a flower Garden where in my humble Opinion is several very pretty thoughts.

Bodenham Feby 14 1775  

This morning I had two little valentines who both pass’d the usual Salutations

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols.  (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 3, pp. 261-62 (annotated version); Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.B.2.(f.), Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. No postmark. Address: Miss Steele, Broughton, Hants.

The above letter marks the beginning of the serious illness of Mr. Steele ("Philander") that Mary Steele mentions in her spiritual autobiography as occurring at the same time as her uncle’s death (4 March 1775). References above include Jeffrey Whitaker, schoolmaster, who would soon die; Gay Thomas Attwater (‘Florio’), his wife, Mary (‘Fidelia’), and their four children at that time, John Gay, Sarah, Thomas, and William; Mary Steele’s poem, ‘To Miss Scott on reading “The Female Advocate’”, which appeared in the The Lady’s Magazine, December 1774; a petition signed by a large number of citizens of Birmingham on 27 January 1775 that was presented to the House of Commons for the purpose of promoting conciliation with the American colonies, the same position held by the Attwaters and Steeles and a large percentage of Baptists in the West Country; and either Hannah Wakeford (b. 1746), daughter of Joseph Wakeford from his first marriage and step-daughter to Mary Steele Wakeford; or Hannah Evans Norton (1746-1807), wife of Robert Norton of Bristol and daughter of Hugh Evans of Bristol, friends of the Steeles and known to many dissenting families in the West Country.