Maria Grace Andrews, Salisbury, to Anne Andrews, Portsmouth, [Friday], [23 June 1797]. 

… I must close now with begging every suitable remembrance to G. Papa & G. Mama Niece &c &c adieu my dearest Anna I am you may be sure reconciled to yr stay if it can afford you pleasure as advantage both by all means & let me know when you begin what effects are produced & so on.  Papa & Mama unite in love to you with my dr Hannah who I am sorry to say is in one of her desponding < >  I wish you wd write her a nice letter, for she gets so extremely dear to me yt my heart really aches sympathetically whenever she is low  you must remember Papa & Mama also to their dr Relatives in proper terms.  I just now bade you adieu I must do it once more in good earnest Good night my precious Creature ys is your Birthnight  you will learn by ye enclosed yt I have been thinking of you to day – I desire to be thankful for such a Subject of  meditation as I esteem it no small mercy yt as yr Friend, & Sister I am priviledged to implore yt every good & perfect gift wh can cause you to set up a joyful Ebenezer each returning year may be bestow’d upon you yes may smiling health glow with its accustom’d freshness on yr Cheek & grace with encreasing powers envigorate your Soul in answer to ye prayer of,

                     Yours most faithfully & tenderly

                                 Maria Grace Andrews

Saturday morng past one oclock

When does my niece intend to write her Aunt a charming long letter – Sister Scott has sent us Mr Scott’s Sermons

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, p. 147 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.4.a.(3.), Angus Library.  Address: Miss Andrews. No postmark. First part of letter is missing. Anne’s 23rd birthday was on Friday, 23 June 1797; Maria Grace’s letter was finished around 1 am on Saturday morning the 24th.  References as well to young Mary Shoveller.