Richard Ryland, London, to Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, [Thursday], 3 January 1811.

Sav. Gard. 3 Jan 1811

Dear Madam

   I enclose you BPBills for your own Amount £64.6.1 and the Allowances to my Daughters for two ensuing quarters £24.5.0 – I sho.d have been more happy if you w.d have given me a better Account of their Health, which I hope may now improve as the atmosphere seems settling into a more salutary temperature – I shall be glad to hear that they are better from themselves – and I wish that either of them may cultivate a Correspondence with Archer who is returned to College after a vacation of only 10 days & will write to them from thence – he has had his trials, having dislocated his arm by a fall & suffered much pain in consequence – and I fear still worse for Richard who having been put in Command of a very fine Vessell, a Russian frigate of 300 Tons Burthen off the North Cape 4 months ago – a very uncommon thing for one of his standing in the Navy at 20 years old – with orders to proceed to England, has either been lost in the late dreadful weather or at least put into some port in Norway, where he will have to winter, perhaps a prisoner himself. Mrs R.is extremely unwell & under the care of Dr Baillie, who is sadly drawn off from his general Business by an unavailing attendance at Winsor – the rest of us, I think God are much more favoured & have every thing to be thankful for. – I beg my best Respects to Mr Saffery & am dr Madam

                                             your mo. hum. Servt

                                                                     R Ryland

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 302-03 (annotated version); Saffery/Attwater Papers, acc. 142, II.D.5.a.(31.), Angus Library. Address: Mrs M G Saffery | Salisbury. Postmark: 3 January 1811.