Anne Steele, Broughton, to Caroline Whitaker, [Bodenham], 13 April 1767.

Dear Madam,

         As the conveyance from Broughton to Bratton is somewhat uncertain, I deferr’d acknowledging the favour of your kind Letter ’till I heard of your arrival at Bodenham I am obliged to Miss Waters for the notice of it and am delighted with the pleasing expectation of seeing you & your little Boy at the time appointed.  I doubt we are not to expect Mr. Whitaker as you say nothing of it, but hope some of my Bodenham Friends will accompany you.—An agreeable hint in your Letter gives me great pleasure, I hope I am not mistaken in my conjecture, and that I shall have the satisfaction of personally congratulating you on an important addition to your happiness, & joining with you in adoring the great Author of all our comforts, the treasures of whose Bounty are inexhaustible and who is ever good to those that wait for him, to the Soul that seeketh him.—I wish you may have courage enough to attempt and be blest with success in a friendly office at your Brother’s in which I fail’d – a Sister may be a more prevalent pleader 

         Your three Families share in my sincere good wishes – Can borderers on Eternity who reflect seriously on the unsatisfying and fleeting nature of Earthly enjoyments forbear to extend their wishes for their friends to a State of future & supreme Felicity? And these wishes must necessarily include every thing which has a tendency to promote a meetness for that happy State.  Such, my Dear Cousin, for you & your Relatives are the wishes of your very affectionate Friend   

                                 A. Steele

Broughton April 13. 1767

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 2 (ed. Julia B. Griffin), pp. 326-27 (edited version); Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II A.17, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.  No address page. Caroline removed to Bratton, Wiltshire, after her marriage to Thomas Whitaker on 10 January 1765; her son, Philip, was born on 1 March 1766. Other families include that of her brother, Gay Thomas Attwater, at Bodenham, and the Attwaters at Bodenham, where Caroline’s parents and her younger sisters, Jane and Marianna, lived.  This was the last time Caroline would see her father, who died a few months after the above letter.