Anne Steele, Ringwood, to Anne Cator Steele, Broughton, 30 December 1745.

Hon.d Mother,

         Though I have been no longer absent I long to hear from my dear friends & earnestly wish for a Letter from home to morrow: The knowledge of your tenderness for me & concern for my health makes me believe you want to hear from me I have been for the most part indifferent well except a frequent pain in my head and the disorder in my stomach has been a little troublesome at night as usual but yesterday I believe I took Cold and last night was very much out of order but am better to day & hope it will go off – I am treated in a very friendly obliging manner and have in some respects great reason to be sattisfy’d with my present situation but while I’m terrify’d with the apprehensions of an invasion ’tis not possible to be easy – if the danger approaches us I shall desire to be with my dear Parents & but wou’d trust in the Almighty in whose protection alone is safety and hope we shall still be the care of Divine Providence  I beg you will let me hear from you as often as you can while I am absent & doubt not but I have a share in your prayers – with presenting duty to my Father & your self and love to Bro.r   I am my dear Mother

                                                     Your dutiful & obedient Daughter

Ringwood  Dec.r 30th 1745

If Mary said anything of the cheeses I desire you wou’d not give your self the trouble of trying to send it M.r Manfield has now got some I can eat –

I have wrote very bad but hope you can read it

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 2 (ed. Julia B. Griffin), pp. 271-72 (edited version); STE 3/7/ix, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Address: To | M.rs Steele | [illegible word]. Mr. Manfield was not yet married to his second wife, Grace Fitch of Wimborne, Dorset, (a wealthy widow). Reference above to the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.