Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to John Saffery, Jr., [Dalston], [c. 1840s].

   Why is it that I sigh and hesitate while I am addressing a few words to you my Son? Why do I think of you in deep and melancholy musings, such as belong to the solitary Spirit of the forsaken? – You can tell – And yet the ties of christian fellowship and natural affection seem to fall so loosely from your heart that perhaps you cannot know how closely, nay how pressingly, their broken links still cleave to mine.  But I forbear ... I sat down to bless you and to say, that mingled with many a sad yet tender impression of the present, many a sublime and solemn expectation of the future, your image glides through all the chambers of maternal meditation, and that prayers unregistered by the voice of men on the Ear of the Multitude are breathed from those still recesses for you, and yours. I mean your Jane, in whose recent sufferings I felt a severe though silent interest.

   Adieu beloved One. Your immaterial dwelling place is still in the bosom of your Mother, and she by the grace of God is sitting with you at the feet of Jesus learning to call no Man Master upon Earth.

                     M. G. Saffery.

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, p. 449 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, II.A.3.(c.), Angus Library. No address page.  John Saffery, a clerk in the Court of Bankruptcy, married Jane Hall (mentioned below in the letter)  and had eight children. At this time he lived at Lamb Farm, Dalston, a section of Hackney.