Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Andrews Whitaker, Bratton, [Friday], 6 June [1800].

My dearest Anne

   I sit down in great confusion of mind to write to you & w.h is seldom ye case rather because I must send a line forward this Even:g  than from inclination to ye exercise. It is however purely a want of Intellectual strength & not of affetionate zeal in yr service yt my heart in this instance is not defective – but my head is indeed miserably so.  All this is by way of introduction to a bad letter, tho I need not trouble myself or you with a prefatory address when I recollect ye many proofs I have already given you of my skill in ye aforesaid compositions.  Since Monday I have experienced a return of bilious sickness w.h may I suppose be consequent on ye little bustle of yt day or rather night, in addition to w.h ye absence of my dr S– & a very large wash have contributed their unpleasant influence.  I think yt I am considerably better to day but have a disagreeable ache.  You know of Dr Rylands preaching here & will expect me to say something of ye Sermon – while I conceive yt it was not one of his superior discourses I confess myself much charm’d with its simplicity purity & usefulness.  It was not calculated to surprise to captivate or even greatly to affect (I mean ye passions) but it was instructive interesting & consolatory in what I shd think a very due proportion  I believe some of ye hearers expected & perhaps wish’d for a more elaborate & decorated harangue. The passage under his consideration contain’d yt very extensive promise “O keep thy mouth wide & I will fill it” – Yr letter is just bro’t me as yr Bror will not return before to morrow tea-time will endeavour to see Mr Moody & let you know ye result of my conference   I was talk:g with him on ye subject of his going to B– but ys last Even:g – I feel for him on a view of next week & suppose he will be little concern’d with any arrangement w.h took place prior to yt period I am not without some tho’ts of being present at his Ordination  yr old friend Mr Roberts preach’d for us twice on Sab. day   he has quite discarded his high Calvinism as we term it, but is ye same odd Creature he was when with you. I had some conversation with him however w.h was pleasing & tended to convince me yt he had ye Cause of X:t at heart. I heard Mr Page on Monday Eveng engage in prayer with very great satisfaction as to his person it has been ye Object of my admiration ever since. I saw & spoke to Mrs Ryland & yt was all – ye Dr & Ladies were taken to Mrs Longs & it was necessary for me to remain at home on Accnt of those we expected – many enquired kindly for you Mr Steadman especially. Mr Horsey of Wellington slept here Monday night. Mr Webb drank tea with us – but left Sarum immediately after – I had a few lines from yr dr Bro:r yesterday Morng  he says ye family at P. are as well as can be expected but of course greatly affected – he tells me yt they had a charming sermon on Tuesday Eveng from Mr Dore –

   I have been talking with Mr Moody @ yr perplexity & he as I that is quite satisfied with the alteration & will supply you with equal pleasure on ye 29th. I mention’d my Brors uneasiness at ye delay of his coming & assign’d ye reasons for it. Mr M wd wish him to be perfectly easy on yt accnt it not being ye slightest inconvenience.  I was pleased to hear you had Mr Grey with you lately & hope you will be better suited during ye vacation yn you were ready to imagine.  Yr veil or at least ye procuring of it threw me into a dilemma as I found Miss Davis cd not furnish you very agreeably at a moderate rate – ye only pretty muslin one she had was a guinea another at 19s was not at all to my taste for you  happily our good friend Mrs Long call’d on me in time to assist me in my perplexity & has been good-naturedly trotting @ in her comic stile to obtain one to my satisfaction & I hope we have succeeded to yrs.  Ye enclosed on acc:nt of its being a little soil’d was bot for 12s w.h we tho’t tolerably cheap & ye pattern pretty enough – I wish it may please my dr Anne – Mrs Silvester has disappointed me of yr Gown in consequence of having a quantity of mourn:g so yt I must send yt by ye Coach.  I don’t know whether there be anything else for me to relate, but I can hardly forbear smiling at ye catalogue before me, nor be persuaded yt you will regret ye haste with wh I subscribe myself

                                 yrs with greatest Affection                                                                                                 M. G. Saffery

Sarum June 6th

Friday noon

My dear S–  begged me to remember him very affectionately to you & our dr Bror.  We unite in every suitable remembrance to yr good family – adieu –

Text: Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 180, A.1.(d.), Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.  Address:  Mrs P. Whitaker. No postmark. For a more complete annotated version of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 180-82.

The Mr. Roberts mentioned above is most likely Thomas Roberts (1780-1841), who had just completed his studies at Bristol Academy. He eventually succeeded John Sharp as pastor of the Baptist congregation in the Pithay in Bristol in 1807 and remained there the rest of his life, moving the church to King Street in 1817.  He was an immensely popular preacher and a favorite of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. As J. G. Fuller writes, ‘On Mr. Robert’s settling in Bristol, it very soon appeared that he was quite adequate to the position to which he had been called. The congregation very quickly increased, until at length it was usual for the meetinghouse to be crowded to overflowing, every standing-place even being occupied. Neither did his preaching please the majority merely. As a striking instance in proof of the contrary, it may be mentioned that the late highly-gifted and accomplished Mr. Coleridge, being repeatedly a hearer, more than once expressed the high admiration which he felt, assuring a gentleman from whom we had the fact, that Mr. Roberts was the only extemporary preacher he had ever listened to with pleasure . . .’ See J. G Fuller, A Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Roberts, M.A. Pastor of the Baptist Church in King Street, Bristol: With an Enlarged History of the Church (London:  Houlston and Stoneman, 1842), pp. 27-28.

Henry Page (1781-1833) served as assistant pastor at Broadmead as well as secretary and tutor at Bristol Academy from 1802-1817. He was the son of John Page, Esq., a prominent member of the Broadmead church and sheriff of Bristol in 1795, the same year Henry was baptized and joined the church. After studying at Bristol Academy, Page took an M.A. at Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1800. He married Ann Selfe in 1802; they had three sons and seven daughters. After his departure from Bristol, Page served as minister of the Baptist church in Worcester until 1827, when he left for the Continent, leaving behind his wife and children. He died in France in 1833.  See C. Sidney Hall and Harry Mowvley, Tradition and Challenge: The Story of Broadmead Baptist Church, Bristol, from 1685 to 1991  (Bristol: Broadmead Baptist Church, 1991), pp. 43-44. References above are also to John Ryland, Jr., minister at Broadmead in Bristol and Principal of the Baptist Academy there, and his second wife, Francis Barrett Ryland (1761-1840). One of their daughters, Elizabeth (b. 1798), and most likely a second daughter, Mary (b. 1803), attended Maria Grace Saffery's school in Salisbury. The complete diary of Francis Barrett Ryland can be found in Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, vol. 8, pp. 

The Mr. Horsey of Wellington is Richard Horsey, a relation of Joseph Horsey (d. 1801), Baptist minister at Portsmouth for many years and John Saffery's former pastor and father-in-law. With the assistance of is nephew (who became his son-in-law) Thomas Horsey (1782-1865), a chemist by trade, they established a new Particular Baptist congregation in Silver Street, Taunton, in 1814, with Richard Horsey serving as the initial pastor (see ‘Memorial of the Late Thomas Horsey, Esq., of Taunton’, Baptist Magazine 58 [1866], pp. 174-9). Joseph Webb (1779-1814) was originally from Andover, Hampshire. He attended the Baptist church at Broughton, first under Josiah Lewis, then during the ministry of William Steadman. In 1793 Steadman married Webb’s sister. Webb was baptized in 1796 and became a member of the church at Broughton, and in April began to reside with Steadman as one of his pupils. He accompanied Steadman and John Saffery on their first itinerating tour of Cornwall in the summer of 1797, preaching his first sermon at that time. By the date of the above letter, Webb was nearing the end of his ministerial training at Bristol Academy. The next year (1801) he would begin his ministry to the Baptist congregation at Tiverton. In July 1804, due to poor health, Webb left Tiverton and returned to Bristol. In 1806 he removed to Birmingham and in 1807 began teaching students in his home. His health remained poor, however, and he never resumed preaching. See W. H. Rowe, “Memoir of the Rev. Joseph Webb,” Baptist Magazine 7 (1815): 221-231. The Mr. Dore mentiond above is either James Dore (1763/64-1825), Baptist minister at Maze Pond, Southwark, or his brother, William Dore, Baptist minister at Cirencester.