Maria Grace and John Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, Sunday, [5 January 1823]. 

Salisbury  Lord’s day Eveng –

My dear Anne,       

   You have preferred almost the only claim to which my heart cannot dictate a negative when a visit is proposed that will at this period take me far or long from home.  Twenty miles, and eight or ten days are to be sure of no great accnt to a being who might be spared to any spot in the creation, but I feel how little I can take into Society to countenance an absence from home.  It is enough however that you are sick and a captive for me to become your guest.  I will endeavour to visit you this week, tho’ it cannot well be for two or three days to come.  I wish you wd write on the reception of this & tell me when Mr Whitaker will be here, that I may send it only at best, appoint the day.  Mr Saffery was expecting I believe to see him at Trowbridge in the course of this very week & I suppose he will add a line –  Adieu my early friend you retain your hold and I rejoice that the pilgrimage of life is leading to the land of eternal friendship.  The blessing that maketh rich be on you, and your’s in answer to many a prayer of

                                 Maria Grace Saffery

Postscript by John Saffery:

   There is a Coach from hence to London every afternoon ¼ before 4 oclock which reaches its destination about 6 or 7 the next morning   Inside 1 Guinea outside ½ a Guinea – & another in the Morning.  It used to go at 5 but now at 8 oclock & get to Town in about 11 hours sometimes in 10 hours. Neither breakfast or dinner on the road but gives you a ¼ of an hour to lunch.  It is a very safe & pleasant Coach I always, or always if possible travail by it  Inside 1.12..0  Outside 18/  Plenty of other Coaches from the West to London thro’ Salisbury – I see Maria has given you to expect a line from me & introduced Trowbridge but I can now say nothing about it. Of that matter I suppose we shall speak hereafter

                     J Saffery

Text: Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.3.(19.), Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.  Address: Mrs Whitaker | Bratton Farm near | Westbury. Postmark: Salisbury, 5 January 1823. For a complete annotated version of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 391-92.