Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, [c. first week of June 1800].

   Yesterday Morng I received my dear Sisters welcome letter at ye hand of Mr Williams. The contents of its are calculated to excite my thankfulness tho’ they do not wholly vanish my solicitude. Ye vicissitous state of your health occasions me a little world of anxiety, even now that my fears have been so recently dispell’d & I am still ready to complain of your indulgence to your little son I am assisted in this by ye frequent instructions of ye good women about me, most of whom advise weaning ye Boy – for ye establishment of yr health but I have no doubt of yr receiving ye best possible counsel without application to ye medieval Ladies at S–

   It seems as if I were to write to you on Thursday’s my dr S– left me at Noon to dine with yr Cousins at Nunton & it is very dull with us at home  Hannah is gone to Bed quite ill, & I have suffer’d some inconvenience myself from ye late foggy atmosphere in my breath &c – you now what ye Eveng or rather night air, to wh I am a good deal exposed, is in ys region. There is however very abundant cause for gratitude on my part yt my Indisposition has been so slight & insignificant.  Ye exercise of this principle alas! is far from bearing any degree of proportion with ye mercies yt lay claim to it. I am obliged by your descriptive acct of ye preachers: it is what I exceedingly enjoy from yr pen because I seem to have an accurate statement of my own sentiments admitting I shd hear them beforehand – We had ys week an unusually trying circumstance in ye preachg way – Saturday Night – we were inform’d by Mr Adams yt Mr Jay wd be at S– on Monday consequently it was agreed yt he shd preach our lecture on yt Eveng & publish’d at both Meetings for ye purpose. @ two hours before ye time Mr A– came posting to our house with a letter in stead of Mr Jay – whose Children had ye Measles, to excuse his coming  as it was not Mr A’s Night he positively refused preachg recommended in his appropriate way an old Sermon to Mr S– & departed, professing himself altogether incapable of taking his place  you will form some estimate of our feelings during Tea as Mr S– was examining volumes of old Sermons & rejecting them one after another at length to my great satisfaction he determined on studying a new passage for a purpose one hour yet remain’d, you know what we have often remark’d of his speakg at Conference &c ye observation was I think fully verified ys Eveng. The Congregation was evidently Mr Jays composed of religious & prophane of every denomination & pretty much crowded – my first sensations were rather unpleasant but ye assistance afforded my dr Husband soon dissipated my distress & excited some of an opposite kind. I did not intend to have taken up so much of my paper with this article of Intelligence. I find this will be quite a Newsmans sheet  I lament yt it will communicate an Event of ye painful kind. Perhaps instead it may have reach’d you already, but whether it have or not you will certainly be affected to learn yt Death has diminish’d ye number of ye little flock at Shrewton  our Friend Isaac Doggett is gone I trust to that Jesus he profess’d to love  Mr S– preach’d his funeral Sermon here on Lords day Eveng & at Shrewton on Tuesday.

   Mrs Green gave in a pleasing Experience @ 3 weeks since to ye church.  Now I speak of her I must introduce Miss Jane’s Bonnet tho’ I confess it seems very foreign to ye Subject preceding. Mr G. call’d just now to announce its arrival – a circumstance we were ready to despair of – perhaps I shall get it sent to morrow by Mr N–  I have been with Mrs Sylvester @ yr Gown am sorry ye fashions continue to be ungraceful at least in my estimation however you may depend on our doing ye best. I have also seen Mr Smith & procured 2 Cloths of ye kind you mention – he says he can rely on your veracity, but after so long a time it is not every body he cd thus venture with, as he had not of course any knowledge of ye Affair.  He begs his respects  yr Bror has called repeatedly at Collins’s @ Edwards Life yesterday they told us ye Book was out of print, they cannot obtain it themselves; Wilks is going to try  & will get Chambaud’s Exercises at ye same time.

   You have heard I dare say of ye new Copper Coins as I have lately seen one of ye prettiest new penny pieces yr Eyes ever beheld. If I were not to explain ys sentence you wd easily interpret it but ye truth convey’d is of a nature too interesting to be treated that enigmatically – in plain terms yn our dr Mrs Penny was put to bed with a very fine Boy a fortnight ago to morrow.  [letter incomplete]

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 179-80 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.4.c.(33.), Angus Library. No address page or postmark.

References above include Mr. Adams, the Independent minister at Scots Lane, Salisbury; Jonathan Edwards’s Account of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr. David Brainerd (Boston, 1749; Edinburgh, 1765, 1798); Benjamin Charles Collins was the successor to his father, Benjamin Collins (1715-85), who established Salisbury’s second newspaper, The Salisbury Journal, in 1736, making it one of the more prominent newspapers in the West Country during the eighteenth century; Thomas Penney (d. 1807).