Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, Friday, 20 September 1811.

Friday  September 20th 1811

   My dearest Anna will not expect a line ’till I receive an answer to my late inquiries and some account of Eliza’s safe arrival but I have one or two very especial reasons for writing to night – one of them is to save you the torture of a mystery about me, that you will not perhaps find sufficiently explained by any other hand of all mischievous anxieties those which reach us in half whispers are I think most formidable to our repose–

   Yesterday then I met with a comparatively trifling accident which you will probably hear talked of at Bratton if I do not spare you the trouble of listening.  Dear S. and myself were proceeding from Whitchurch to Amesbury in our way to Shrewton about three oclock in the afternoon very comfortably and very cautiously when our faithless Steed in taking us down a very gentle descent dropped all at once as if he had been shot in his fall we instantly participated both Gentleman & Lady being decanted one on either side I am happy I trust thankful to say that the former personages escaped almost unhurt and tho’ the latter cannot plead equal exemption she contrived to partake a dinner with him at Sarum yn to go on to Shrewton & return after the preaching  to day I am very glad of the Sopha and so forth – but mere inconveniences of this sort make you know very little impression on the fortitude of yr Maria wh is feeble enough against some other attacks – Let us my dear love rejoice once more in preservation from visible danger.

   I thought I would say something to you about the comet – and the various hypotheses in this neighborhood but I am too weary to be sublime or even philosophical  I have also to assign another motive for writing just now at Whitchurch we saw good Father Coles who has broken a blood vessel and is quite laid aside from the ministry his general health however is rather improved by this alarming casualty and he seems likely to live a little longer in a state of blissful expectation in the most emphatic sense.  He mentioned to us Bailey’s money – & Mr S. would have paid his usual stipend on my Brother’s account immediately but on reflection thought he would ascertain the sum intended for him this year – he says yt last year it was four pounds – if Mr Whitaker will send a line with the requisite information by Monday’s post he will meet a friend from Whitchurch at the Minister’s meeting –

   I believe it is nearly past time I shall hope for a letter to morrow.  Adieu

                                 Maria Grace Saffery

Pray let dear S be instructed about the money for Father Coles in time.  I am charged with many serious remembrances.

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, p. 316 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.2.(12.), Angus Library. Address: Mrs Philip Whitaker | Bratton Farm | To be left at the Red Lion | Warminster.   Postmark:  Salisbury, 20 September 1811. The Great Comet of 1811 was first discovered on 25 March 1811, and remained visible to the naked eye for 260 days, a record that stood until the Hale-Bopp Comet of 1997.  The Comet was indeed a phenomenon for the year 1811, and as the above letter suggests, was a favorite topic of conversation and speculation. Charles Cole (1733-1813), the "good Father Coles" above, was  originally from Wellow, Somersetshire, and Bradford, Wiltshire; he served as the Baptist minister at Whitchurch, 1758-1813. He was widely known for his hymns, many of which appeared in his Three-Fold Alphabet of New Hymns (1789).