Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, [Friday], 25 January 1811.

My dearest Anna,

   Time is allowed me & this indeed seems all amid the various conversations of the eveng to say that we arrived safely @ three oclock the events & communications of the journey being precisely what you may imagine untold the detail may be spared.  I hope my heart gratefully acknowledged our freedom from adventure & alarm as when the divine superintendence was experienced in the moment of visible distress – I found dear Lucy better than expected her Sister and Salter tolerably all of them much agitated with Archer’s letter wh is certainly a master-piece in its way – being filled with tender reproachs for their relinguishing so readily the pleasures of a home such as Savage Gardens wd afford them!!!  little [name has been omitted] is slightly indisposed with cold & her dear boys are both of them looking very very delicately  they are however in a convalescent state.  Gregory has taken to the wool & remitted for it & there is cause of concern @ that.  Nott & Co. acknowledge the £50 without returning the draft wh by some mystery Mr Hicks in whose favour it was drawn has made use of a second time & obtained another fifty pounds of Mr Marsh.  This is a vexatious business, but Mr M. is doing what he can to set it right by an application to Mr Ransford as the matter was not explained till my return, it was well this was not delayed  Mr M. supposing it must be another bill due from Burditt unhappily wrote to him – but adieu my beloved Anne my heart warmly recognizes the scenes of Bratton Farm –  I am by all the ties the tenderest profesion of the most sacred friendship can imply

                     Your own

                                 Maria Grace Saffery

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 304-05 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.2.(6.), Angus Library. Address: Mrs Philip Whitaker | to be left at the Red Lion | Warminster. Postmark: Salisbury, 25 January.  Archer Ryland (b. 1792) was the youngest son of Richard and Harriet Ryland.