Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, [Wednesday], 6 June 1810.

Sarum   June 6th 1810

   I need not tell my beloved Anna that she is a personage of too much importance to admit of my journeying in the immediate prospect of her accouchement without regulating the affair of Bulletins the exact modes & places of communication I leave to my prime Minister who will add a line of direction  I only insist on, or rather request the dispatches.  I have also to propose the adjusting of dear Alfred’s journey from Salisbury who will get here only the Eveng before our return at ye utmost extent of our absence. His bed I have ordered with all the charges & I believe too, with all the safety your own tenderness wd require at our house where I shall meet him the next day & if you please retain him for a visitor till I proceed to Bratton on my own accnt I do not care how short the interval is between my first & second Journey so that you shall fix your own day. 

   If you can deny yourself the sight of Alfred a little longer it would be a great improvement to dr Philip and Mary’s holiday to have him for a guest till his Uncle went to Bratton wh I conjecture will take place some little time after my arrival there.  I sincerely hope for this.  I do not know if I have told you of dear S—y’s bad or rather bruised leg it is better but he is yet under the care of surgeon Ryland – who proposed herself after we had sent for her learned Bror Smith.  The confusion was owing to a fall at Penny’s Brewery wh I cannot describe to you.  The other part of the household except poor little Horsey are in pretty good ease this dear child is just recovering from the relapse I spake of & wh happily I cannot account for from exposure of any kind except an unwatchfulness  O the quantity of her food on the return of her appetite!  wh as might have been expected was considerably beyond its general limits I assure you I have many anxieties @ to morrow’s journey on her accnt  I appear very formidable when I look at her recovery after being down an hour or two in a chill carriage – a few days after you left she was able to run @ the room & cheerful enough to sing & play.  Since then she has I think been weaker than ever & more emaciated Smith still thinks there is no danger.

   I have no intelligence from Morice since Mr B’s return yr Aunt & Cousin Sarah were at Meeting on Lord’s day both lookg remarkably well – I must leave paper for S–  so that I hasten my adieu, & express, or rather breathe in silence, the wishes, that are not expressible because they are large, and tender, and ardent as the feelings you occupy in the heart of your Maria yet all I mean seems comprised in ye good conferred to the patriarch when she was blessed & made a blessing so be it with you & yours

                     Maria Grace Saffery

My dear S has been called to unexpected & preaching engagements ys Eveng he therefore bids me say that till to morrow week a letter wd find us at Mr Dyer’s Market Street Plymouth.  After this you had better direct to Wellington for ye three or four subsequent days

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 294-95 (annotated version); Reeves Collection, Box 14.4.(o.), Bodleian. Address: Mrs Philip Whitaker | Bratton near | Westbury.  Postmark: Salisbury, 6 June. "Poor little Horsey" is a reference to one of the children of the various Horsey families known to the Safferys. Other references above include the Baptist congregation in Morice Square, Plymouth, under the ministry of Isaiah Birt and John Dyer; and Mary Attwater and her daughter, Sarah, of Nunton.