Andrew Fuller, Kettering, to John Sutcliff, Olney, 10 August 1790.

Kettering Aug. 10. 90

D.r Bro.r

  Thank you for your kind enquiry after my health  I have been getting better for weeks, and am now I think as well as usual—M.r Wallis is better we hope—M.rs Baker & M.rs Gotch went to Bath last week—He has written since their arrival & says they each say they know he is better—His Physician proposed then, (Friday, 6th Ins.t) for him to [stay at] Bath a week longer, & then drink the waters a few days more—and then he said he should dismiss him, hoping that his complaints would gradually go off—Possibly he may be at Birm.m at the Ordination on his return but I cannot tell—have sent him word of it  I have an invitation—Shall be for trying to get there if I can—Shall be at Arnsby the following Sabath [sic]—I hope to see you at Birm.m

          M.r Bland of Soham is about being married to Miss Adam, daughter of the late independent minister there—She is an industrious, intelligent girl, and in a pretty business—keeps a shop of Grocery Drapery &c   We are all as usual—Write in love to Self Mr [?] 

                                                                      Yrs Affec.y    A Fuller

P.S. Am going thro’ the Psalms on L.ds day forenoon   last L.ds day expounded the 14.th in Course—preached afternoon f.m 2 Pet. 1. 12. We not only need to be established in the truths of the gospel, but to be constantly reminded 

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 50-51 (annotated version); also Eng. MS. 369, f. 50b, John Rylands University Library of Manchester.Fuller and Sutcliff were frequent correspondents for more than thirty years. Over 150 letters by Fuller to Sutcliff can be found in the BMS Archives at the Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, Oxford. See Ernest A. Payne, “Andrew Fuller as Letter Writer,” Baptist Quarterly 15 (1953-54): 290. Beebe Wallis (1735-92) was a deacon in the Kettering church; he died a few months before his home was the setting for the birth of the BMS. Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Gotch were also members of Fuller’s congregation in Kettering. Fuller attended the ordination of Samuel Pearce at Cannon Street in Birmingham in August 1790. Francis Bland was pastor of the Baptist meeting at Soham, where Fuller began his ministry. Miss Adam was the daughter of William Adam (1710-82), Independent minister at Soham.