Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Philip Whitaker, Bratton, Tuesday, 8 October 1811.

Tuesday October 8th 1811

My dear Brother    

   Your letter by Mr Blatch has occasioned us some measure of surprise not so say consternation.  During the past week I had dispatched two parcels to Warminster for Bratton Farm, each containing a letter or something like one neither of these are acknowledged in your’s of yesterday. By the early Coach on Monday I sent the five yards of calico with a few lines written before I left my bed – in the hurry of the moment the pump was omitted, so it frequently happens about the most important articles, and persons, when trifles obtrude themselves.  On Friday Night however I dispatched the pump with another modicum of intelligence, but the pump is still inquired for, and you are still ignorant of my convalescent estate indeed my lameness which you know was the malady is much better tho’ my pedestrian exploits are still confined to the house in which I remain a captive except going once in a Chair to Brown street last Sab:  my nerves suffer from this circumstance and from the very great pressure of family concern.  But you may rely on the declaration that I have not wanted medical aid, and that rest seems likely to complete the cure, for wh I know you and my dear Anne are so anxious – I go up and down Stairs now with tolerable ease but I find it expedient to let my efforts be as few & as little protracted as possible – perhaps my dear S–  will visit Bratton next week but this is uncertain  he is exceedingly obliged by yr kind attention respecting the horse but in this instance he wil not require it  he leaves home on Sab. morng in a Gig with William Penny who will proceed to Bratton – S–, I had almost forgotten, Mr S., goes to Frome before his return; and preaches at Shrewton on Tuesday Night, so that it seems likely, he will make a call at Bratton but I do not think he has fixed his duties, or even his plan. He begs kindest love to his dear Relatives at B– Farm. 

   You will thank me when I say that I have chosen to address you because I had a gloomy article of intelligence in my letter to be communicated. Dunscombe of Broughton, is no more! he died from home in the neighborhood of Coate not an instantaneous but a very sudden death. Perhaps it was the death of the righteous! blessed be God, we are not asked to decide. Mr D– reached the place before he expired. I believe he retained his recollection during a very short interval after ye seizure. It will be only three weeks to morrow, since I breakfasted with them at Broughton, then his Mind seemed all vigour, his countenance, all health!

   Mrs A– gave me an added proof if indeed proof had been wanting of the unabated force of her sensibilities, alluding to your Aunt B’s recent illness and to her own ignorance of the attack till all danger was past, she exclaimed soon after my arrival with an almost romantic energy, and with out any preface “what a Precipice I have leaped in the dark!”  Ones heart inevitably partakes the sorrows of such a widow.  I have felt the shock very heavily to day. Mr Blatch begs me to say that he arrived in safety, that he is quite well, that he goes to Broughton to morrow & returns home on the Saturday, all this with the melancholy event I have just mentioned he trusts your kindness to communicate to Mrs B–  I received these instructions from Mr Saffery who saw him this morng.

   I remember some of your sarcastic observations on my letters and if my solicitous powers were not preoccupied I should tremble for the fate of this. I hope your spectacles will at least insure your knowledge of the matters of fact – at any rate there is nothing sublimely obscure in the remarks. My adventurous imagination has certainly not deceived you either in ye sentiment or style of this very dull epistle.  Your eyes may indeed complain of its length and yr taste revolt at its insipidity, but you have bad eyes and I have a heavy heart if neither of these will avail for my excuse you must accept all the compensation I can offer for your lack of amusement in the assurance, that I am very sincerely your Friend and very affectionately your Sister –

                                 Maria Grace Saffery

Dear Lucy begs her love, & I suppose the Ladies of the household wd send their several expressions of remembrance & good will.  Mine & Mr Saffery’s love to our dear Anne it is always impossible to say how much for me. I hope you will tell us in a few days that our prayers are answered in ye arrival of some lovely little personage. My heart says a Girl – adieu

Text: Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.A.15.(b.), Angus Library.Address: Mr Philip Whitaker, | Bratton farm. | To be left at the Red Lion, | Warminster, | Wilts.  Postmark: Salisbury 8 October 1811. For an annotated version of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 317-18.

The Baptist minister Thomas Dunscombe (1748-1811) married Mary Steele in January 1797; he died on 4 October 1811. Saffery’s uncertainty as to whether his death was "the death of the righteous" is odd, to say the least. However, her comment about visiting the Dunscombes at Broughton in September 1811 (she had also visited her at Brougton the previous September) demonstrates that a bond had developed between the two women poets, one nearing her end and the other still in full bloom and both representing the continued vibrancy of the Steele Circle, its baton soon to be passed from Steele to Saffery.  Other references above are to the death of Jane Blatch’s daughter, Annajane, in July 1809, and to Anne Whitaker's pregnancy, which would result in the birth of George Whitaker (1811-82), who eventually became the first Principal of Trinity College, University of Toronto.