John Shoveller, Portsmouth, to John Saffery, Bratton, [Sunday], 18 August 1799.

Portsea  Augst 18th 1799

My dear Brother

   I catch a moment or two off this Sacred day to write you a line just as the post is going to say that it was my fixed intention to have been with you on Yesterday in company with Mr Horsey & to have gone with you on your Brattonian expedition, but Mr H. thought proper to decline & as I could not get a Companion I concluded it would be best for the present to decline also & in the course of a few days we mean some of us to pay our respects to your amiable & lovely Bride – our prayer is that God may earnestly bless her to you & you to her & both to the Church of God where Providence has plac’d you.

   My dearest sends her kindest love to your dear Maria & our dear friend Mrs Whitaker & Mr– we have never had the pleasure of seeing her since she abandoned the name of Andrews – we shall always be exceedingly happy to see any of you in our quarter –

   On Tuesday I find Mr Kemp & Miss Rolfe mean also to join hands – our new married couple are pretty hearty – O if there had but been a spice of grace in that business, the Husband methinks would have been worth accepting, but as Father Medley used to say “we must let that pass”

   Wishing you the best presence & of course the best comforts – & remaining dear Brother

                     Yours very Affectionately

                                 J Shoveller

Text: Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.A.(21.), Angus Library. Address: Rev.d J. Saffery | Mr Whitakers | Bratton near Warminster | Wilts. Postmark: Portsmouth. For a complete annotated version of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, p. 167. 

Saffery's marriage to Maria Grace Andrews occurred two days after the date of the above letter. Samuel Medley (1738-99) was pastor of the Baptist congregation at Byrom Street, Liverpool, 1772-99, and a hymn writer.