Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, [c. December 1808-January 1809].

My very dear Friend, & Sister,

   I have promised you something like a detail of our affairs to night, which in fact, I think you are favoured with very sufficiently, for all the entertainment, such mere memoranda of so many “flat realities” are likely to afford you. But if you choose the circumstantials that pertain to us should be thus journalised for your inspection, I must e’er write, what I can hardly persuade myself you will be well employed to read, except indeed as you observe the mercies of God’s providence inscribed on the minute events, of every passing hour.  These have marked without an interval in their succession, all the occurrences wh have transpired since your departure. I mean now more ostensibly in the commonest acceptation of ye term Mercy for properly considered it would be strange to find any blank in the pages of a christian life where some mercy could not have been recorded –

   Tho’ it seems a sad deviation from that delicate Magnanimity, which takes self last into the account, (a decency which I have always admired, whether affected by Julius Caesar, or more honestly expressed in humbler instances).  I think I shall first answer your questions respecting myself, for this I have the modest excuse of supposing, that I am first on the list of inquiring in your heart.  To all your affecte solicitude I can be assured give an answer of peace.  I am indeed remarkably well, notwithstanding very great exertion by night especially with my baby son who sucks & thrives and “energizes” as Bridgetina wd term it to admiration he is what any one would call fine, and fat, and I think very lovely I know you will be ready to say remember at whose expense all this vigour, and beauty, must be maintained while you suckle, and then I am prepared to hear you ask questions @ my dining & supping &c &c  well I could answer all these to yr great satisfaction if I were to tell you in what proportion I provide for the claim of my dr little Pensioner.

   The whole nursery circle now affords me a charming exhibition of the divine goodness, in the easy cheek & sparkling eye of each prattling inhabitant.  Anne their superint[end]ant continues to please me – The School room wants pupils, but those I have are well & I think improving – Mason has no vicissitudes and what is far more I cannot wish her be anything but what she has been & still is to me – perhaps I cold scarcely say this so fully of any other Inmate, tho I am quite pleased that they should all interest and please me in their own way with their caprices as she does without them.  Two of the Females at least have great strength & excellence of character, and the other with all her vagaries will I trust receive impressions of the noblest kind – But the tenderest and sublimest relative concern, is yet unmentioned while I say nothing of my dear S–  who is I am thankful well except a common cold, and uncommon fatigue.  He has now a variety in his occupations at wh we all rejoice that of taking our dear Ryland for an airing almost every day.  I certainly think this interesting Saffery somewhat better tho’ his corporeal distresses are yet incalculably severe – I went yesterday to Bodenham and delivered yr message – yr dr Anna & her parents, I need not say how sincerely we feel for what they endure – they indeed appeal to our feelings like him who said “pity me O my friends for the hand of God hath touched me” – I am sure yr compassion will be excited when I inform you that I am now wearing mourng for a little relative of my dear husbands, you will remember how we admired the elder of the two little girls yt we saw at Portsea last summer at James Saffery’s. This dear child was I believe a good comfort to her parents who were deprived of her by means of a malignant sore throat @ three weeks since & are you may suppose in great heaviness from such a trial.

   It is < > tho’ I began writing early in the Eveng < > exceptions have been serious & as my letter < > apology I thought I would mention the < > and believe me

         Your’s ever tenderly

                     M G Saffery

< > unite in more affecte regards to our < >

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 280-82 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.4.c.(8.), Angus Library. Address: Mrs Philip Whitaker | Bratton Farm.  No postmark. This letter can be dated by the references to the birth of Maria Saffery's son, John, born in December 1808, and the mention of Annajane Blatch and her parents, Jane Attwater Blatch and Joseph Blatch, on a visit to Bodenham. The signs of Annajane’s decline were imminent by this date, and within a few months her final illness would commence. James Saffery was a relation of John Saffery, who was originally from Portsmouth.