Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, [c. mid-June 1807].

   I wd gladly exchange the present mode of communication for the enjoyment of personal intercourse; but why should I trouble you with such a declaration when you cannot even imagine me so deficient in self-love as to suspect my good-will in this particular.

   To the difficulties you are already aware of others are added, not only Miss Mason left me on Wednesday Morng, but Miss Ryland came charged to me of course with innumerable anxieties  she begs love & appears in better health than I apprehended to suppose  you have heard from Milford Street of poor Thos Penny. My feelings on his aunt are severe indeed.  I have watched the progress of his disease with a solicitude not very easily expressed  when Dr Philip was so ill Mrs P & myself were struck with ye similarity of symptoms in ye two children – the treatment indeed was I conceive very dissimilar & the closing malady Alas! totally distinct. There was doubtless nervous fever in both instances what our good little Doctor is perhaps too apt to call no fever, tho Philips pulse & skin felt especially in the fever fit precluded all his hesitation. When he was applied to for Thos Phil was recovering  his opinion was expressed pretty nearly in the same form as when I questioned him @ our dr boy.  “It was the effect of the measles” & soon I sent to him, called on him, met him at Mr Penny’s still fearing, when I looked at the dr little Patient but encouraged by his remarks, ’till on Saturday last he declared his suspicions of water on the brain.  Dr Fowler was called in on Tuesday, but nothing cd then be done effectually or was I believe attempted more than to alleviate & to compose. The anguish of the Parents cannot be described you know it is impossible the child was living a few hours since I have not yet heard this Eveng poor little Mary sleeps here if Eliza has not recd the accnt I am sure you will be careful how it is conveyed – 

   @ 11 oclock, the child was living a short time when Mr Saffery called & ye dr Relatives much ye same as before. I am half afraid yt you will suppose I am discontented with Mr French in this affair.  My sentiments of him are unchanged only that in such a case one is ready to wish for very accurate investigation & bold practices but I have said quite enough on this melancholy subject let nothing escape you @ my regret.  I am ashamed almost of my own feelings.  I wish to experience the tenderness of compassion for distress from which I am so mercifully saved.

   My dr S. left me on Tuesday Morng to go to the openg of a place of worship in Hartly Row a place on the London Road 36 miles from London. Since that time he has visited Reading & Newbury.  He left Shaw this morng our dr Relatives there are pretty well  Harriet returns on Tuesday with 2 or 3 of the Children  Mr John Smith married Mrs S–  who preached at Hartly Row after < > Maze Pond!!!

   My dr little P. talks @ Bratton & still hopes he shall go with me during ye Holidays indeed I shd like him to enjoy a Summer’s tumble but hitherto I have been convinced that his attendant shd have the authority & patience of a mother tho’ perhaps his suffering & consequent weakness considered there has been no great cause of complaint.

   I enclose a letter of Shovellers because I have no time to transcribe.  It is so late that even my dr S– complains if I cannot go to you do pray act less on ye plan of Mahomed & ye mountain – love to Bror respects to Miss Glazier kisses to ye Children my father left S. early on Monday Morng –

   Adieu ma chere amie

         yrs ever tenderly

                                 M G Saffery

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 237-38 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.4.c.(32.), Angus Library. Address: Mrs P. Whitaker | Bratton Farm | nr Westbury | Wilts.  No postmark. References above include John Smith (1752-1807) who was the Baptist minister at Burford, Oxfordshire, from 1801 until his death in April 1807. He was active in his last few years in village preaching, establishing regular meetings at four places, one of which may have been Hartley Row; Maze Pond was a prominent Baptist congregation in Southwark, where several friends of  the Safferys attended.