Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, [Friday], 6 December 1811.

Salisbury Decr 6th 1811 –

   I am languishing for communications from Bratton which day after day I have hoped for thro’ the past week.  It is time however for me to write tho I have great reason to regret that an epistle from you does not lay the foundation of mine.  There is indeed a dearth of those agreeable novelties, which I even hasten to convey where alas I have more frequently of late transmitted the details of insipidity and the effusions of a gloomy and disquieted spirit – I will however give you the best tidings which the immediate circle affords dear S. the children Mason and the junior Ladies are all pretty well.  Salter Ryland & Lucy tolerably allowing for variations of weather &c &c I am better than I was a few days since when a very slight affection of my throat greatly added to the languor of which I have lately complain’d  I should look forward to the holidays which will occur ten or twelve days hence with greater pleasures if I could decide on a journey or rather on a visit to Bratton with tolerable care, or certainty, but during Mason’s absence & she goes to Town, my six children and Betsy Ryland will exceedingly occupy me besides this I have some nameless difficulties arising from my complicated interest in the hetrogeneous mass of Society around me.

   I began writing in the school room so that I greatly fear the essential grace of perspicuity will be wanting to my letter  I hope it will obtain one from Bratton Farm written under happier auspices & that without delay –  We had a line the other day from Mrs Dunscombe with very anxious inquiries for Mrs Blatch – is there any material change in the state of Mrs B’s health? – I want to hear more @ my baby nephew – pray supply me with news –

   Dear S–  Miss Attwater and Elizabeth went post to Lyme very comfortably, he left the Ladies behind with Mrs Head who is much better.  Maria Attwater is very considerably indisposed with her old complaints in the region of the chest – I have been doubling every time I began to write if I should mention the prevalence of scarlet fever in the neighborhood it is generally mild and I think the instances are less frequent.  But poor Short and his Wife have had very severe attacks she is recovering, but the crisis is not past with him  my anxieties have been very considerable  I am afraid my gratitude for exemption is not proportioned on this account as on every other I have cause to say, “enter not into judgment with thy Servant O Lord.”

   Perhaps I had better tell you that I content myself seeing Fowler and do not visit the Patients  dr S– imposes fewer restraints on himself, than he has been fit to lay on me in this matter.

   Adieu my sweet Friend my beloved Anna may every good be multiplied to you and your’s in answer to the ceaseless prayer of your’s most faithfully

                                                         Maria Grace Saffery

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, p. 321 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.2.(14.), Angus Library.  Address: Mrs Philip Whitaker | Bratton Farm | near Westbury | Wilts. No postmark. This letter brings together four of the major figures in the first, second, and third generations of the Steele Circle: Marianna Attwater Head, Jane Attwater Blatch, Mary Steele Dunscombe, and Maria Grace Saffery and her sister, Anne Whitaker - as well as other relations of the Attwater family.