Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, Friday, [c. April 1812].

Salisbury  Friday Morng

Dearest Anna,

   I am aware that you will only expect a verbal account by your messenger, Smith, but as a letter fm Ardleigh Hall arrived the instant before I thought I would communicate a line of information.

   Stapleton has received the Bratton letter & speaks of the writer in his accustomed style – he seems to be in very tolerable health and spirits & comfortably circumstanced in his new abode knowing & perhaps feeling too the interest you take in this personage.  I am pleased to forward all agreeable particulars. Lucy begs kindest love & adds in John’s phraseology “Wants to see her!”  Three or four persons, & among these poor Sibree & his wife, have interrupted this feeble attempt at communication so that I must forbear. I am still downstairs sometimes “this is ye very best I can do”

         Yours in ye utmost confusion

                     Maria Grace Saffery

Our united regards to Ryland our dear Brother the Children

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, p. 329 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.4.c.(7.), Angus Library. Address: Mrs Whitaker | Bratton Farm. No postmark. Ardleigh Hall was the home of the Stapleton family, located about three miles from Colchester.