Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, [Saturday], 13 August 1808.

Salisbury Aug: 13th 1808

   I need not assure my dear Anna, that ye pause in our correspondence is not an indication of lethargy in the powers of remembrance, or of suspended emotion in the heart, the busy interfering cares of ye busy meddling world prevent the expression of my friendship.  [I unhappily] proceed no further.  I had begun to hope for a sight [of you this] week when Mr Stapleton brought me your [letter which] notwithstanding the disappointment was thankfully perused.  I bless God that I am enabled to return you tidings of the same agreeable nature with those you have transmitted  we are all tolerably well except poor dr Ryland who is languishing under the discipline of Mercury.  This alas! appears to be the only medicine wh corrects ye dropsical tendency of her habit while it threatens her constitution with decay. My anxieties are very severe, but God is all sufficient.  My dr S– & myself spent the last Lord’s day at Shrewton our visit was design’d to “quench ye coals of growing Strife” in wh I trust we succeeded – I was to have written @ Fanny’s reform long since fixing the day for her to arrive at Westbury and requesting yt one of her fellow-servants might meet her there but a cold wh still follows her has occasioned her such a degree of relapse as rendered it probable she would return to Bratton worse than she left it.  Poor Soul! I believe she is anxious to get back in good condition. I have urged on her very strongly, a cheerful attention to her duty &c the propriety of wh she seems to feel very sensibly, attributing with tears of regret all her unhappiness to ye infirmities of her own temper.  For wh I do think ye wretchedness of her constitution affords her a large measure of excuse.  How shall I advise her to act? as from my own opinion? She is at present by no means so well as when my brother was with us, & you will observe I have carefuly kept out of her sight all the difficulty you have had during her absence.  There is no disaffection in ye Girl towards her place & her present delay originates merely in ye state of her health.  Let me have a line in a few days   Adieu ma chere Amie  we all < > but there is no competition  < >  

                                             Maria

Attached to the above letter is a letter from John Saffery to Philip Whitaker, dated 15 August.

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, p. 273 (annotated version); Reeves Collection, Box 14.4.(j.), Bodleian Library, Oxford. Address: Mrs Philip Whitaker | Bratton Farm | Oblig’ by| Mr Stapleton. No postmark. 

The above letter is the first mention of sixteen-year-old Joseph Stapleton of Colchester, just returned from Dublin and living alone with his mother at Ardleigh Hall after the deaths of his four sisters. At some point during the next three years he will live with the Whitakers at Bratton Farm, working with Philip Whitaker and learning how to become a gentleman farmer. Eventually, he will purchase land near Bradford where he and Lucy Ryland will raise their large family.