Anne Steele, Ringwood, to Anne Cator Steele, Broughton, 1 June 1739.

Hon.d Mother

         My most sincere thanks are due for your kind Letter, which free’d me from an anxiety I have a good while labour’d under, for the health of my dear parents, a constant uneasiness attended me, which was heighten’d by an accident which happen’d last Wednesday, Mr Waters came hither in business to Mr Manfield he stay’d I think but a few minutes, we had company here & I foolishly forgot to ask him if he had heard from Broughton, you can’t imagine what torment & vexation it gave me, I have been particularly uneasy about you often fancying you were sick, I am very glad to hear you are in some measure recover’d, your perfect health my Dear Mother whith [sic] that of my Father & Bro:r is and I hope always shall be the subject of my constant wishes, I am sorry my way of expressing it shou’d give you any uneasiness for my health, which mercy I have enjoy’d since I have been here much better then usual, and I think the air agrees with me, we are treated with a vast deal of kindness and affection by Mr Manfield & his Wife & indeed by every body in general, but there is one circumstance which I cannot but call a misfortune, our time has been so much taken up that I have not yet had the pleasure of Mrs Manfields company free from visit[ors] and ceremony  I think hardly a day [illegible words] and Parson Hussey’s wife has been here above a week but goes away to morrow Mrs Manfield will by no means give me leave to appoint a time for going away but says they have horses enough and you must take no care about that only she desires my Brother will come and see us when he has leasure  I thank you for the cloaths which came very safe & dry and for the money which if I have an opportunity I believe I shall make use of there’s no buying any thing here but if Mr Manfield goes to London while we are here will be as good an opportunity as any, I am uncertain whether I shall want any more or not, but if my Brother comes I believe it wont be amiss if you please send me a little more, how much I can’t say, nor indeed am I sure I shall make use of this: when Mrs Manfield has seen this [sic] cloaths you have sent [I] shall consult her —I am sorry I can’t have the pleasure of Miss Jennys Company but hope she won’t be gone out of the country before we return  I can’t but be in some measure of Mrs Waters’s opinion about Mr Wheeler I like the Man at the other meeting much better Mr Miller is encumber’d with business and preaches but seldom we have yet heard him but once I wan’t to say a great deal to you but I intrude on Mrs Sharps time  the family are very well except Mr Manfield who has been ill of the rheumatism about a week who with Mrs Manfield desires their service to my Father & Mother  I am with duty to my Father & yr Self, I Love to Brother  Hond Mother

                                             Your ever dutifull & obedient Daughter

                                                                                             Anne Steele

Ringwood  June ye 1 1739

Sister has learnt to dance 9 weeks which with next week & the next after holidays and one weeks learning more, is to make up for the half quarter I let alone learning on the Spinnet he ask’d a crown a week which I think is very extravagant—

I hope I shall yet have the favour of a Letter from my Brother—Our Love to Cousin Betty Knight and service to any who are so kind to enquire after us,  Love to Fanny   I fancy’d this morning I was ill but your Letter prov’d a very good recipe for I am now very well & so is my Sister

Please to pardon nonsense and blotts I have not time to mend it

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 2 (ed. Julia B. Griffin), pp. 264-66 (edited version); STE 3/7/iv, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Address: To M.rs Anne Steele | at Broughton. 

Ringwood was the residence of John James Manfield, whose wife, the former Elizabeth Tezard, was the daughter of the former Elizabeth Froude, sister of Anne Steele’s deceased mother, Anne Froude. Hence, Mrs. Manfield and Anne were first cousins. This may have been her last opportunity to see her cousin, for she would die in 1740, after giving birth to a son, Richard. Mr. Manfield was a well-to-do lawyer; his son, James, attended Eton and Cambridge University, became King’s Counsel in 1772, MP for Cambridge 1779-84, and was knighted in 1804. The Manfields were most likely attendants at the Particular Baptist Church at Ringwood. Another probable member at that time was James Elcomb, who visited the Manfields often in the late 1730s, developing a romantic interest in Anne Steele. In May 1737, Elcomb drowned. Despite a long-lived legend, he was never Steele’s fiancé, as Joseph Ivimey contended in his History of the English Baptists (vol. 4, p. 312) and as many scholars have since repeated. Apparently, however, Elcomb and Steele were close enough as friends that his sudden death caused her some distress. A letter from Manfield to William Steele III, dated 25 May 1737, relates Elcomb’s death and suggests that breaking the news to Anne would require ‘prudence’, as Manfield does not know exactly ‘how far he may have prevailed on the [her] affections’ and hopes to lessen ‘any shock that may attend her hearing it in too sudden a manner.’ See STE 1/5/i; Broome, A Bruised Reed, pp 106-08; and J. R. Watson and N. Cho, ‘Anne Steele’s Drowned Fiancé,’ British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 28 (2005), pp. 117-21.

Other references above include Thomas Attwater of Bodenham; Mr. Wheeler, a minister not liked by either Anne Steele or her cousin, Anna, who was preaching in Ringwood (see Broome, A Bruised Reed, p. 107); and Mary Steele, Anne’s half-sister.