Anne Steele, Devizes, to Anne Cator Steele, Broughton, 4 September 1740.

Hon.d Mother

         ’Twas with a great deal of pleasure I heard by my Brothers Letter to my Sister (which she rec.d yesterday morning) that you are all well, and believing it wou’d not be unacceptable to you to hear from us, I beg leave to inform you that we have both enjoy’d a tolerable good share of health since we have been here, only this week I have been afflicted with a pain in my teeth occasion’d by a cold, am better this morning and hope it is almost over.—The town I think is pleasant and agreeable enough, though I for my part have as yet made very little acquaintance: but my Sister has 6 or 7 young Ladies some of ’em about her own size who learn to dance with her, they learn in the new Town Hall only Wen’sdays, morning and afternoon, which is almost the same with twice a week: She began yesterday was se’nnight and is to pay a shilling a week, but her Master says he had rather teach her as he does the rest by the quarter, the man comes from Marlborough his name I don’t know, her old master once taught here but has left off coming.—We have had the diversion of seeing the Camp w.ch is about a mile out of Town, and for some more news to make out my Letter they say Miss Filk’s is near marriage with Mr Shrapnel of Trowbridge, and I have been told that Miss Gay is going to have M.r Phipps. How true the latter is I don’t know.—beg leave to present my duty with my Sisters to my Father & your Self & Love to Brother desiring always to be  Hon.d Mother

                                 Your dutiful and obedient daughter

                                                         Anne Steele

Devizes Sep.tr 4th 1740

P.S. Cousin was under a great deal of concern for her Brothers misfortune w.ch she had heard of from her Mother and my Sister almost as much griev’d for poor Jacky Manfield – please to tell my Bro.r I hope for the same favour with my Sister of receiving a Letter from him before I write w.ch I expect next Tuesday –

                                                                     Molly’s Love & mine to Martha

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 2 (ed. Julia B. Griffin), pp. 266-67 (edited version); STE 3/7/vi, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Address: To M.rs Anne Steele | at Broughton | illegible word. 

Both Anne Steele and her sister Mary are visiting in the home of Clemence Collings, a granddaughter of the recently deceased Henry Steele. Elizabeth Gay would eventually marry Thomas Phipps, Esq., of Westbury Leigh, near Bratton, in 1743. John Manfield, son of John James Manfield of Ringwood, died in August 1740, aged four; his mother, the former Elizabeth Tezard (Anne Steele’s cousin) had died shortly before him (see Broome, A Bruised Reed, pp. 106, 107, 108).