Jane Attwater, Bodenham, to Philip Whitaker, Bratton, [Friday], 5 May 1786.

Bodenham  May 5th 1786

My dear Nephew

   Your obligeing letter I this Eve’ning recd & thank you for ye contents am sorry I shd disappoint you Saturday but hope all is for ye best am glad to hear you are all blest with health I have ye pleasure to inform you of ye same good news concerning our Circle of Friends here & wish with you we may thankfully improve this with every other blessing we bountifully enjoy.—Hope poor Nelly will soon get well my love & best wishes to her & tell her she must not be low spirited but hope it will be for ye best.

   I cannot think but there is some fault in the management of our letters as we ought to have recd yours last Tuesday & did not ’till to day wch makes a material difference as it prevented my Brors writing it was not bro’t to Mr Hackets ’till to day as we sent several times in hopes of receiving one in order to send Mrs Steele[ii] notice wn she may send for her Cyder.

   You will with this receive a long Box & basket for me please to give it house room ’till you see yr humble Sert we talk of comeing next week in Brors chaise but then my Bror must ride on horse back wch makes me very uneasy as he have a little new horse & I fear he will fall with him wch causes great fear & dread if I had thought it had been quite convenient I woud have desired you to have sent your chaise horse in ye team & then my Bror coud have sent on in his room wch would have been a great ease of mind to us females & I should suppose have made no material difference to either – I wd much rather go in ye machine but my Bror wd not consent – the chaise horse being of late very frolicksome & its realy very unsafe to go with him with a young child[iii] & only women to drive him as my Bror intends riding on horseback –

   Accept our united love & best wishes to all your much loved circle I shall not now tire you with my prolixity as I hope if providence favors our Intentions to soon have ye pleasure of conversing with you in person adieu my dear cousin may the best of Blessings be yours

                     Wishes your sincere Friend & Affecte

                                 Aunt Attwater

Friday night 11 oclock The above contrivance is my own projecting if it is any ways inconvenient or disagreeable take no notice of it to any body & excuse my timidity & freedom

If nothing unforeseen prevent, we talk of coming ye first fine day we have sent our cloaths so we must soon follow it –

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed. Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 8, pp. 158-59 (fully annotated version); Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.A.8, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.  Address: Mr Philip Whitaker | Bratton | Wilts.  Attwater  refers to Philip Whitaker near the end of the letter as ‘cousin’, an appellation she uses often in reference to her nephews and nieces.  Other references above include Gay Thomas Attwater of Nunton; Mrs. Martha Steele, now a widow living at Broughton House with her stepdaughter, Mary Steele, and her two daughters, Anne and Martha; and Anna Attwater, Gay Thomas Attwater’s most recent child, born on 8 April 1784.