Mary Steele,  [Broughton,] to her half-sister, Martha Steele, [Abingdon], c. July 1791.

   And must I add my mite to the little treasury – such is my mental Poverty that I have nothing to send My Dear Martha but my anxious affectionate wishes for her welfare – I console myself for her Absence in the hope that they will be realized by it but I miss her greatly & never felt so much regret at parting before – As the Circle of Social endearment contracts it binds the closer – its influence is more strongly felt. I feel a Solicitude for You My Dear Sister to which my heart till now was a Stranger & tho’ it can in no degree supply the irreparable Loss you have sustained I know you will accept it kindly as flowing from the same source which has dictated many tender attentions I have lately received from my Dr Martha which tho’ unacknowledged have not been unfelt – but this theme is too tender to be dwelt on – suffer me only to say that the remembrance of what I owe to our Rever’d our Beloved our Happy Parent must forever strengthen the Ties of Tenderness I feel to her Children

 “May Gracious Heaven their every Step attend

And be their Guide, their Guardian, Father, Friend.

Thro’ Lifes dark Maze conduct their devious way

To Realms of Glory & unclouded Day”

Yes My Sister I trust it will be so. I am not destitute of Hope that “we shall all meet again” that “we shall all rejoice together” – There exists the same mercy for us as for the Beloved Relatives we have lost.  Let us never be weary in seeking it. Let us not imagine its invitations are not address’d to us, could we but realize the Existence of the Great Truths of Revelation, could we indeed believe that whosoever shall call on ye Lord shall be saved – saved tho’ conscious of ten thousand Sins & Follies – thro’ the mediation of one who is able to save to the uttermost those who come unto God by him – would it not blunt the keenest Edge of Grief would it not give a kind of permanence & reality even to Earthly Enjoyments by infusing a sense of Reconciliation with the Great Being who disposes of all our minute Concerns according to his Sovereign Good pleasure &  by his influence we may gradually hope to have those habits & these dispositions subdued which seem to forbid our trusting in his Mercy – the discipline may be long but let us remember it is necessary. – But you will think I am preaching I know not how it was, it was quite unintended when I began.  Excuse it I meant not instruction you know all these things – it was merely my own feelings that dictated it.

   I began this some Days ago – since which I have the pleasure of hearing your cough is better – I hope our Dear Nancys health is not worse than when you left us on the whole but her headach too frequently returns & the weather confines us within more than we wish. I am pleased to find you do not intend going to Aston.  It would hurt me I own for you to do it now on the terms Mr D & I are on there would be an impropriety in it. The only news I know of is some pleasing intelligence we received last night that Mrs Hopkins’s was safely put to Bed with a Son & that Dr Evans continues better. We expect Mr Mrs Cooper &c Friday Evening. I shall be glad when they are once settled there &c.

   I am glad you have seen the spinning Feast &c &c & greatly wish the amusement & attentions of her Friends may exhilarate my Dear Sisters Spirits & recall the Bloom of Health to her Cheek. I want to see her return as she did once before. 

   You will make my friendly & respectful remembrances to the whole Family particularly Mrs T & when you can spare time it will be a great gratification to me to receive a Letter as Nancy & Miss Nesbit both write & I must scrawl another Epistle.

   You will excuse my ending this – it is far from what I wish it but I am very languid & you will kindly accept it as it is meant as a small expression of that affection that is ever felt by Your Friend

               & Sister

                                 [no signature]

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols.  (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 3, pp. 332-34; STE 5/12/ii, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. No address page. This letter was written not long after the death of Mrs. Steele on 31 May 1791 and just prior to the death of Caleb Evans in August 1791. On 8 June 1791 William Steadman wrote in his diary, ‘The mortal remains of our dear friend Mrs. Steele were deposited in the grave this evening, about half-past five o’clock. Preached upon the mournful occasion from John xi. 11, and was carried through the service better than I expected. The meeting was quite crowded, and considerable numbers were obliged to stand without. Mrs. Steele was originally a member of the Church at Pershore, in Warwickshire, baptized by Dr. Ash, being descended from a highly respectable family in that neighbourhood. Upon her marriage with Mr. Steele, in 1768, she was dismissed to the church at Broughton, and has been a very useful and respectable member of it. Her deportment and behaviour in every relation she sustained, did honour to her profession. She was seized with a violent bilious attack at Bristol, about the 27th of September last, which turned after a while to the jaundice, and terminated in her death’. At the time of this letter, Mary Steele had witnessed the deaths of her natural parents, her stepmother, and both her aunts, leaving her the head of the Steele family at Broughton.  See Steadman, Memoir, pp. 54-55.

References above are from a poem by William Steele to Mary Steele, beginning ‘When sunk in Death, this heart no more shall’; Thomas Dunscombe, who had been a friend to Mary Steele for many years prior to the date of the above letter and who would eventually marry Mary Steele on 1 January 1797; and the Nesbits, a Baptist family from nearby Oxford, who were close friends of the Tomkinses.