Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, Thursday, 17 December 1812.

Thursday Eveng 17 Decr 1812

Dearest Anna

   I am sorry to send another disagreeable Bulletin from Castle Street but since I wrote last we have added more than one to the Invalid List a Miss Major from Poole of whom perhaps you have heard as a pupil likely to cause me much anxiety as an only child out of eight was attacked @ a week since with sore throat and Typhus affection – and my poor Carey with one of his most violent attacks of ye constitutional malady – the former however went home with her Father and Mother yesterday completely convalescent and the latter seems likely to rally with less Brandy & soda &c than usual.  I should not however have written on this occasion had I not another Patient to mention in Mary Smith of Coulson, who is very ill with a disagreeable union of the low and inflammatory symptoms. Mr Smith thinks the result may be serious & when I asked him if his relatives shd be informed he was of opinion that such a measure should not be delayed – I will not tell you that I am anxious, that I am weary, that I am depressed – but this much mercy I am not sick – the little boy still coughs sadly you will not however wonder that I think of them just at this moment with less poignancy of distress than of their poor little Nurse.  I shall write to Coulson by this post yet I wish you to send a Messenger lest they should not get my letter  Lucy is very drooping but without any specific bodily illness – I believe she will write and soon I scarcely know how –

                     Yrs ever tenderly & faithfully

                                 M G Saffery

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, p. 340 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.2.(21.), Angus Library.  Address: Mrs Whitaker | Bratton Farm | near Westbury | Wiltshire | Salisbury. December 13th 1812. Postmark: Salisbury, 17 December 1812.