Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, [Friday], 14 December 1810.

   I read your letter with all the interest it tended to excite and have made the necessary communications I scarcely know in what way I can add to this small measure of service except by constant prayer for the divine direction, in which my sympathy for the parties both personally and relatively concerned will I trust be expressed. You ask my own opinion respecting Lucy’s state of feeling.  Unquestionably it is a very suffering one.  Tho’ the difficulties of decision are always great when one has to penetrate the reserve of our fair Friend.  She says litle, but looks wretchedly her constant appeal is “what more is it in my power to do?”  She far more deprecates his coming than his writing provided the letter is not conveyed by post. Depend on it he wants no advocate with her & yet I believe the most rigid delicacy will govern her conduct.  I feel the force of your remarks with regard to the management of the affair.  But the difficulties of friendship are not less than those of love in such a case. – May the meekness of wisdom guide us all![2]

   When I sat down to write, I felt like Julius Caesar determined to take up my own affair last.  Tho’ I do not in the least pretend to the grandeur of his motives mine was the selfish one of gratifying my own feelings by sparing yours any alarm from the sight of a Bulletin on opening your letter. I am indeed tolerably well considering my late malady and the subsequent indisposition of dear little Jane who is but just recovering from an attack of Typhus differing from mine in conforming with the propensities of her habit & without sore throat.  We have had fears about Sam but he appears to rally under the influence of medicine and is quite comfortable this morng  Philip was ill with Stomach complaint some days up but tho’ this occurred in the time of distress @ Jane we cd not imagine it to be illness of the same class.  He is now doing quite well  I mention all these particulars because of my dear Brors intended visit & dear Alfreds   let the arrangement be made with the most scrupulous regard to your own ideas of comfort and safety.  I suppose there is nothing to apprehend from his coming here but I know too well from experience what may be endured when our tenderness is at war with our judgment.   Ryland Lucy & Salter have all been nurses & I hope with impunity.  The former is suffering from atmospheric influence – I have just seen your letter to Lucy wh she will answer at large. I am rejoiced at the improvement of yr very interesting friend. I should not have delayed wishing till to day but for the circumstances of sorrow and anxiety wh I have mentioned.  I bless God it is better now, tho’ I need not tell you that writing and thinking are more than adequate exercises for the strength of body & mind – when the weather will allow a fuller use of the open air I shall hope to lose the languor and depression that interfere with the expression of ye friendship wh nevertheless maintains all its energy in the heart of yours with every combination of the past the present and the future

                                             Maria Grace Saffery

My dear is in tolerable health and would be very affectionately remembered

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 301-02 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.2.(4.), Angus Library. Address: (For) | Mrs Philip Whitaker | Bratton Farm | Tobe left at the | Red Lion | Warminster | Decr 14th 1810. Lucy Ryland's courtship with Joseph Stapleton of Colchester was in full bloom.