Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, [Saturday], 12 January 1811.

Salisbury  Jany 12.  1811.

My Dear Nancy,

   Our good Bror Davis has just left me time to say things are likely to allow of my absence from home on Tuesday Morng.  The Children are much better and Lucy getting on, step after step!  The thaw has given Ryland a cold, & you know it never suits me the Servts are all pretty well poor Drewett, excepted, but her maladies are quite of the old stamp, & she is by no means worse then usual  I have heard twice from my dear S– both letters from London the last relieved me of an anxiety wh I mentioned to my Bror he left London @ 6 oclock on Thursday Eveng reached Birmingham I hope early yesterday Afternoon.  O that prayer for him may be abundantly answered.  Unite with me in praise my dearest Anne, for recent mercies and believe that when I number my sweetest occasions for gratitude I feel with peculiar force, that you are the friend, and Sister, of

                     Your’s with answering tenderness

                                 Maria Grace Saffery

Saturday Night

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, p. 303 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.2.(5.), Angus Library. Address: Salisbury, Janry 12 1811 | Mrs Philip Whitaker | Bratton Farm | near Westbury | Wilts.  Postmark: Salisbury, 12 January 1811. Mr. Davis was a member at Brown Street and of one of the church’s leading families; Sarah Drewett ws a servant in the Saffery home.