Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, to Anne Whitaker, Bratton, [Wednesday], 23 July 1817.

Salisbury  July 23d 1817

My dear Anne,

   You have recd ere this a line addressed to you from Exeter, expressive hasty as it was, of my state of feeling towards you and your litle girl, and now I have only to add my acquiescence in the arrangement communicated in your last.  I pray God that it may be for the advantage of both the children.  I will do all I can for my dear little niece, and I can trust my boy to the wisdom and goodness of his Preceptor of whom you know I think highly as a Man of God.  If dear Sam can omit the imitation of his Manner, I shall be content.

   I have experienced much of heavenly mercy and of human kindness during my absence from home and have tried what has long been considered a specific nervous disease but I am entering on my public & my private cares with an almost fainting heart, and feel daily in my little sphere of action,  “That all I do is in much weakness and with many tears.” I am comforted to day while thinkg to whom I can appeal and say, “Thou knowest my frame and rememberest that I am dust.” Indeed my dear Sister, the resting place of my Spirit is the bosom of the Mediator of him who is touched with the feeling of infirmities beyond the reach of all compassion but his own.

   I hoped to have seen you on my return but now Alfred’s visit will interfere  our love to him.  Cannot he drive you and his Sister hither in a few days.  I shall like to see him before he goes back to the great City.

   Little Jane came home just now I have heard nothing from Holcomb yet. Is Mary to come from thence? Avis Salter came with me on Saturday.  Our Salter staid behind a few days –

   Adieu my dear Anne.  You will see that I am in heaviness.  The sorrows of others have of late been pressing heavily upon me I went ill into Devonshire & it is by no means surprising that I have not recruited for a life of labours in three weeks  Mr Rowe the Pennys Mason’s indisposition have altogether weighed heavily on my spirit.  But I wd remember the years of the right Hand of the Most High.  Again adieu  Your’s still your’s

                                 M. G. Saffery

My dear will take this to Devizes and present his own remembrances.  He bids me apologize for having neglected to inquire @ the parcels.  He says he will do it –

Now begins a portion from John Saffery:

I had a most dismal letter from Penny on Sab. day – Literally they can get no employ, have no money & are in a Starvation & most desperate distress – I sent them £10 which I scraped together yesterday including £1 for you.  If you do not think it right to pay it I must although I have been obliged to do more very affectionately your’s

                     J Saffery

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed.,  Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 359-60 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.3.(6.), Angus Library. Address: To | Mrs P. Whitaker. No postmark. Quotations above from II Corinthians 2:4 and Psalm 103:14. References include Alfred, Anne Whitaker's oldest son, not yet eighteen; and Marianne Saffery, aged fifteen. William Rowe, the itinerant Baptist preacher and close friend of the Safferys, died on 15 April 1817.