Jane Attwater, Nunton, to Elizabeth Horsey Saffery, Portsmouth, [Thursday], 12 November [1789].

My Dear Friend,

   Its so long since I had ye pleasure of addressing you in ye Epistolary way that I have realy forgotten wch is the debtor; – but as so good an opportunity offers & Inclination to converse with you prompts me to embrace it. – I hope I do not flatter myself dr I think a line or 2 will not be quite unacceptable to the valued Friend I have long known especialy as your good partner expressed a desire for me to write taking it then for granted you will excuse the liberty I take I proceed to engage in the loved Employ. –

   I rejoice to hear by Mr. Saffery of your & your Hond Friends welfare. Numerous indeed are the blessings for wch we have to be thankfull tho’ in ye past year it has pleased God to exercise us as a family with peculiar distress or most alarming fear yet hitherto mercy has been mingled with our cup of sorrow!  Hitherto my dear Bro.rs Life is spared & tho’ his recovery is not perfected yet he is restored beyond w.t we in the depth of sorrow ever expected – may this awful affliction be sanctified his valued Life spared if consistent with ye divine will for future usefulness – & whilst a recolection of past mercy excites gratitude to the beneficent donor  may it all excite a filial confidence in God for every future needful Blessing. –

   As a Church also we have been exercised with an affecting trial our dear Hon.d & truly worthy pastor whose pious earnest & affectionate Exhortations we were blest with we shall hear his voice no more his ardent Benevolent labors to do good are ended –  that steady zeal wch warmd his generous soul for the welfare of his fellow creatures must now be recollected as his peculiar characteristic.  Still may we imbibe his spirit of phylanthropy & his practice & precepts (so far as he followed his Beloved Master) be reduced into our Uniform walk of Life – the tear of gratitude & veneration will long bedew his memory & I trust his labors of love & sincerity amongst us will be productive of such Effects that shall be had in Everlasting rememberance. –

   It is a melancholly consideration to see the righteous taken away our world can but ill spare those who have the Interest of true Religion at heart. – But Blessed be God his allmighty power is still ye same to raise up more faithful ministers to preach the glorious Gospel – Tho’ we are cast down & mourn ye loss of our Beloved friend yet we are not destroy’d nor left destitute of Hope – I trust it will please God the great Head of ye church to overrule all for his glory & our ultimate Good  His word on wch he enables us to repose is fraught with a variety of never failing promises may they be verified to us & may we be such to whom ye promises are applicable – 

   Need I express the desire of my heart to my dear Mr Saffery concerning our present prospects? – to say nothing of it wd be manifesting a reservedness that is wholly inconsistent with my natural disposition of mind where I feel myself interested I cannot help being free with those I esteem  my friends & nothing more Interests me I hope in this world than my enjoying those means of grace wch I view necessary as a preparative for an Eternal State – of course it is of great consequence to my felicity who & what sort of minister we have at Sarum as I have no other prospect than attending there in futurity providence having (I believe) fixd my Habitation. – I hope it has been the Earnest desire of my soul in secret to be blest with a pastor after Gods own heart one of his sending who might by precept & practice lead us into all Truth be an humble Instrument to promote ye glory of God & ye good of Immortal souls. And now my friend permit me to speak for myself  so far as have seen & hd of Mr S.  I cannot but think him thus sent in answer to prayer & I trust the hearts of all will be Inclind to accept & obey what appears to me to be the Evident voice of a kind providence in our behalf – If it is for our mutual benefit I confess its what I should sincerely rejoice in as according to my present view of things it seems to me truely desirable & all yt I have talk’d to on this subject are unanimous in their approbation wch is a very pleasing & encouraging circumstance & remember my Friend you wd not come amongst strangers but to those who have long known & lov’d you.  Thus I have frankly spoken my mind I hope I may rely on your partiality as well as presence in complying with this request. – May you be inabled impartialy to consider of it & your path of duty made plain I love you – & may our wills be wholly directed by the will of God in this as well as in every other Important duty of Life. I am well aware that our Friends & nearest connections in life are but what God makes them to be to us therefore it is our wisdom as well as duty to ask all in submission to Him who is ye alone source of all good spiritual & temporal rules for our Happiness & ye Glory of God. –

   I should rejoice to receive a letter from you I hope wn Mr Saffery comes again you will accompany him & that we shall be favord with your company if I am so fortunate as to be at Nunton –

   We are thro’ divine goodness blessed with health & did my Bod.m friends know of writing they wd unite with me in commendations of Friendship & Affection to Mrs Saffery & each of her valued Friends –

   Wishing you much of the divine presence & blessing I am my much loved

                                                         Friends Affectionate & sincere petitioner

                                                                                 J Attwater

[In great] hast[e] I have written this as fast as [paper torn] having another letter to write to my sister

Nunton  Novr 12 Saturday Eve

Text: Saffery/Whitaker Papers, Acc. 142, I.A.1, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.  Address: Mrs Saffery | Portsmouth. No postmark. For a complete annotated version of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 8, pp. 162-63.  Several months after the death of Henry Philips, the Baptist congregation in Brown Street, Salisbury, where Attwater (soon to become Mrs Joseph Blatch) attended, searched for a new minister. John Saffery had just completed a preaching engagement for the church, and the church approached him with an offer to become their minister. In the above letter, Attwater is not writing on behalf of the congregation, but she was certainly not afraid to write directly to Saffery (with or without permission of the church) with her own recommendation. Saffery’s wife, Elizabeth Horsey (1762-1798), was already known to Attwater and the congregations at Salisbury and Broughton through her father, Joseph Horsey (1737-1802), pastor of the Particular Baptist congregation in Portsmouth and a relation by marriage to Rev. Philips. After her marriage in 1790, Jane Attwater will eventually remove to Bratton, her husband’s original home and the same village where her sister, Caroline Whitaker, lived Anne Andrews, younger sister of Maria Grace Saffery, will also live there after her marriage to Philip Whitaker in 1798; the following year, Maria Grace would become the second wife of John Saffery, replacing Elizabeth Saffery, the recipient of the above letter; in 1835, she too would retire to Bratton. The complete diary of Elizabeth Saffery can be found in Timothy Whelan, Nonconformist  Women Writers, 1720-1840, vol. 8, pp.  399-446; for selections from her diary, click here.