Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Joseph Blatch, Taunton, [Monday], 15 October 1804.

Bratton Octr 15th 1804

My ever dear Husband,

   Could my thoughts & good wishes have been personified they would have been your attendants as you journeyed from stage to stage Friday, & the next morning wn I arose & saw aurora gilding the East with her mild autumnal rays I anticipated your ride to Taunton accompanied with the Earnest wish that you might find our dear sister better then anxious fear suggested. Nor are my thoughts less with you now you are arrived in surrounding the Bed of Afflictn. Most anxiously do I wait for ye arrival of the first post hope nothing will make you omit writing to inform me particularly how dear Mrs Cox is & how your Father & self are after your long journey. May you be enabled to give us ye most pleasing Intelligence.

   We had Yesterday our Honest Friend Mr Hinton he came in the morning & returnd in ye Eve after preaching 2 good sermons He regretted your not being at Home – his morng text was in Provs viz “The Way of God is strength to the Upright” he spoke first of the character of ye upright – then in four particulars shewd how ye way &c may be said to be strength first in his dispensations of providence wch are sometimes afflictive either personally or relatively these tho not in themselves blessing yet God always overrules them for good to his people by shewing them the Evil of Sin weaning from the world & all creature comforts by sanctifying their souls & making them fit to enjoy his presence here & hereafter. In ye afternoon he preached from John fm those words of our Saviour “I pray for them” Many excellent things were said wch I wish to remember & to reduce into practice I think him much improved & so far from his pronunciation being bad it is quite decent tho; plain & truely comes from & goes to ye Heart. I know not when I have enjoy’d 2 sermons more. It reminded me of ye words of my Hond friend Mr Se wn he said “I want not to say fine things to please the fancy but to tell you such truths that will do your souls good when you come to die” – Mr Hinton beg’d his kind respects to you I regretted you was not at home to have participated of my pleasure as I know you wd have been much gratified. Sister Heads family was well Mr H told me Elizabeth drank tea at his house Saturday Eve & seemd quite as lively & well as usual.

   I hope you will prevail on our dear & Hond Father to return with you to Bratton & make some stay with us my affecte Duty await him & beg him to comply with this request. Now he is from home it will not seem so difficult as to come fm home again & you can write to sister Maria to free her from any anxiety & give any orders yr father wishes to have obey’d. I hope my Beloved Partner will be easy about our Business at Home as it shall be my concern to have nothing neglected in your absence – the pig killing I must defer ’till you return as I am not certain which you said was to be ye first victim.

   I need not say your absence seems already very very tedious to dear Anna & myself – but we should betray a most selfish disposition if we could not sacrifice our greatest Earthly comfort ardent prayer that you may be made useful to our dear sister that her valueable life may be long preserved for the comfort of her family. But if God the Alwise disposer of Events has otherwise determined may you be blest to sooth the bed of languishing – to point her views to that Glorious Redeemer who has said he prays for them who sensible of their need of a saviour seeks his favor his intercession how powerful! how prevalent! In him may we be all Interested & thro’ Him with exulting hope be enabled to rejoice & triumph adopting ye language of ye Apostle “O Death where is thy Sting O Grave where is thy victory? thanks be unto God who giveth us ye victory thro’ our Lord Jesus Christ.”

   Dear Cousin Annajane has been very ill in ye billious complaint since you left us is thro’ mercy now better may her Health be established & she long spard as a blessing to her fond anxious parent.

Tuesday 16 Yesterday I recd your wishd for letter I anxiously anticipated its arrival fondly hoping it would bring better tidings but I fear there is little hope of Mrs Coxs recovery yet nothing is impossible with God & may we not indulge the pleasing Expectation? that she may be restored?—but if Hope should be now past—do not my dear Mr B indulge a thought that this awful dispensation of providence is hard  no however painful to our feelings yet God does all things well – I know your confidence in allmighty wisdom & goodness is such that forbids murmuring I know your tenderest feelings will be greatly affected by ye Death of so near & dear a friend but I pray God to enable you & all nearly concern’d to bear the affecting stroke with fillial submission & Christian Fortitude may this with every similar stroke be sanctified to us all & tend to quicken us in a diligent preparation for our certain End. –

   A few more years at most & Death will arrest us all  happy for us if we can live as we shall wish we had lived when we come to die then the pale messenger will not be unwelcome having made Christ the foundation of our hope his Example & precepts our rule of conduct we shall with calm serenity aquit this busy stage of action in a well-grounded hope of a happy Immortality.

   If there is time for another letter to reach us before you return beg you to write  I am extreemly anxious abot you all  you said nothing of your own health be particular in your next I felt much concern yt you took no great coat with you  wish you to buy a spencer & have it made at Taunton as I fear your being laid up with a cold recollect my beloved friend how much you sufferd with ye rheumatism last winter be careful of yourself for oursakes if not for you own  for truely we may say in every pain of Body or mind yt you feel we most tenderly feel it too may the best of Blessings attend you & soon if consistent with ye divine will may you be return’d in safety how will this relieve our anxiety & rejoice our hearts accept & make acceptable our united love & best wishes & believe me “my dearest Earthly Friend” ever to be your faithful & truely affecte wife

                                                        [Jane Attwater] Blatch

Text: Attwater Papers, acc. 76, I.A.24, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford; the letter is a fair copy (on a loose folium) by Jane Attwater Blatch, inserted into her diary for 1804. 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. 178-80. Rev. J. Hinton was pastor of the Baptist church in nearby Beckington, just above Frome. The Steele reference above is either to William Steele III, whom Blatch in her youth heard preach often before his death in 1769, or his son, William Steele IV. “Maria” appears to be a sister of Joseph Blatch, in whose home Mr Blatch, Sr., has been living. Eventually he will come to live with the Blatches in Bratton.