Eliza Gregory, Gosport, to Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, [Friday], 20 August 1830.

Gosport Aug 20th 1830.

Ever dear Mrs Saffery,

   Time nor distance can never efface the remembrance of your kindness, nor destroy the ardent affection I feel, for you and yours. You will, I think be a little surprised to hear that I am again in the county of Southampton; I assure you it affords me a great addition to my stock of pleasurable feelings to think I am only thirty miles distant from you instead of between 80 and 90 the distance between Salisbury & Woolwich. I have gathered from Messrs Rhodes and George with the interest eagerness and anxiety, every scrap of intelligence of Salisbury. So many months have past away since I answered your kind letter to me, that I feared you were still in the uncomfortable state with regard to your temporal affairs in which you then were, and how did my heart rejoice when I heard your school was more promising, and that the school at Weymouth prospered greatly.

   I have been here nearly three weeks and have spent my time very agreeably in the society of my kind relatives. Anthony and Jane suit each other extremely well, and are as they should be, dotingly fond and affectionate. They are very pleasantly situated here, having a nice large garden, with plenty of fruit and vegetables and a profusion of flowers. The out side appearance of the house is mean; it is a strange old fashioned building, looking a little like a row of cottages, but inside it has every convenience and comfort. These are indeed very good quarters, many Colonels cannot boast of such, and my cousin is only a Captain.

   Altho’ I have been here some time I have seen very little of the surrounding country, as no one of the party is able to take such walks as I like, a walk to Stoke, and that on a rainy afternoon is the only one I have had. With that I was much pleased as it was both rural and retired. But there is nothing here like your neighbourhood; my Salisbury walks, I still reckon superior to all I ever had. Old Sarum, Clarendon Mount Gresafhall and Bemerton will ever live in my remembrance. However on the whole I am much pleased with this neighbourhood.  I have several times passed thro’ Portsmouth in my way to the island but never till yesterday, had I an opportunity of viewing the stability of the fortress: the works are indeed fine. I should like much to see all the drawbridges thrown up and every preparation made, as if to strengthen the place for a siege, without the reality, only just enough to shew the effect: it would be a noble sight and I think it would be well so long as war is necessary, for the soldiers occaionally, for the sake of practice to act as tho’ they were preparing for an attack. Mr Rhodes went with me yesterday to see the fort, and we stood a little while to watch the maneuvors of some of the solders. After we had observed them for some time he said he had seen quite enough of it. Unfortunately twas but a poor specimen; they seemed chiefly beginners, and went very ungracefully through the exercise. Mr Rhodes says, and I think truly, that military discipline is the most complete slavery. He says whatever he may do he’ll never enlist for a soldier. I do not however agree with him in thinking it worse than negro slavery. Even private soldiers are very properly and justly treated, if they do their duty, but they have indeed no will of their own; that is entirely subordinate.

   I often think of those verses of Conder’s beginning

“O that in unfetter’d union

Spirit could with spirit blend”;

in connexion with my affection for your family, but perhaps you will think me foolishly romantic on that account but I can only say that my attachment to the inhabitants of Castle Street to such as I feel for none save my own family.

   Our family as well as yours my dear Madam has indeed had its share of affliction during the past year. With stroke upon stroke has the Author of all good seen fit to chasten my beloved Father, the meekest of men and the most patient under suffering. I think I am not incorrect in asserting that he has had five successive attacks during the last twelve months. The last was at Brighton and happily both slight and of short duration. He is now recovered and as well as usual; I hope Brighton has been beneficial to him notwithstanding his illness. This day week I go home, when I trust I shall see a great improvement in the health & appearance of all my dear relatives. My sister though better is still and I fear ever will be a sufferer. Boswell’s health is extremely good, he recovered most wonderfully from a severe attack last spring of that malignant disorder the small pox. Charles is well, and we hope improving fast in his school business. As for me I am blessed with health and every comfort. Why then should one solitary affliction (my deafness), distress me and stir up a spirit of discontent in my mind? Ought I not to be thankful and look upon it rather as a blessing than otherwise? There is one circumstance of a painful nature dearest Mrs Saffery, which I cannot close my letter without mentioning. I heard a rumour, (O that it may prove but a rumour) that you imagined my dear Papa kept me from joining a dissenting church. How such a report spreads I cannot tell as I said nothing of the kind; suffice it to say that it is not true, it is all my own doing. He knows the unsettled wandering wayward state of my mind, and that I am yet far from what I ought to be, so inconsistent, so changeable. If such be really the impression in the minds of your family with regard to my ever dear Father, do pray, rectify it an set all to rights. I shall say no more on this subject but should like to know what you really think. I intend to write to your new daughter a few congratulatory lines; as I really rejoice in her happiness. Mr Rhodes has just been talking to me about Miss Salter, saying that he wishes her the sovereignty of one of the Greek Islands.

   Please to remember me very kindly to her, and tell her I often imagine I hear her singing the “Battle of the Angels” and the favorite songs and chants sung by the musical trio are frequently present to my mind – Mr George tells me your son Carey has a fortnights leave to visit his friends. Now it would be an admirable plan for you or some member of our family to send me a letter by him, on his return. Did this letter consist of only a few lines, say a sentence from each person, it would be welcome.

   Dear Mrs S. may every blessing attend you, says yours most sincerely,                                                                      Eliza Gregory

Text: Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, II.A.4.(d.), Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Address: Mrs Saffery | Castle Street | Salisbury | obliged by Rev W. Rhodes.  No postmark. For an annotated version of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 420-22. The poetic lines above are from Part I of Josiah Conder’s poem, “To the Memory of a Young Lady,” in his collection of poems, The Star in the East (London: Taylor and Hessey, 1824), 86. In his later years Gregory worshiped frequently among the Anglicans, though, as Eliza makes clear, her father was not opposed to her joining a dissenting congregation. Also mentioned above is Emily Saffery, wife of Edward Saffery. The “Battle of the Angels”  was a musical setting of a passage from Milton’s Paradise Lost by the popular composer Henry R. Bishop (1786-1855); the original score, for soprano and orchestra, was published in 1829.