Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, [c. May 1806].

Friday Eveng

Dearest Anna,

   Your Son is well tolerably good & very happy but this you will learn from his Aunt Jane, who by the way was yesterday mistaken for his Mother. I would write largely, but engagements press on me so continually yt I can hardly find time for eating & sleeping wh you know are after all our refinements for requisite to be totally dispensed with – I have been hearing dr Mr Steadman with usual satisfaction.  Mrs Horsey is now sitting by me & wd be remembered kindly.  I expect my dr S– home @ midnight it wd be impossible to describe the hurry of to day, but I hope you will  yr commissive executed it troubles me a little tho I cannot find ye Cap nor do I think I have seen it since you left us.  Yr muslin Gown is still waiting for the laces the Calico you had purchased at 2/3 was gone. What I send is 2/4 but it is a nice one – we are much pleased with yr pink dress – I suppose I shall have to write for yr son Alfred soon for he says you don’t write because of his negligence.  Good night my dear dear Sister with earnest & continual prayer for your prosperity both temporal & spiritual I am

                     Yrs intending indissoluble ties

                                 M G Saffery

Tuesday Night late

Alfreds love of course & mine &c fm Bror &c &c &c

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 215-16 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.4.c.(20.), Angus Library. Address: Mrs Philip Whitaker | favd by Miss Whitaker. No postmark. References above to William Steadman, who had just resigned the previous year to accept the pastorate of the Baptist church at Bradford, Yorkshire, and the presidency of the new Baptist Academy there (Northern Education Society); also most likely to Mrs. John Horsey of Crewkerne.