William Steele, at Mr. Spence’s, Morley, to Anne Steele, Broughton, 7 August 1742.

My Dear Sister

         The tender Concern with which you bid me adieu & the Satisfaction which I am sure the knowledge of my Welfare will give you, makes me embrace with pleasure the opportunity I now have of acquainting you with it; being entirely at Leisure, without Company, in one of the most delightful places I have ever seen, & can scarcely forbear wishing you & Sis: Polly here to share with me in the soothing solitary pleasure I now enjoy.  Mr Pope’s Letters have agreeably entertain’d me all this morning in the Garden, which being a rising Ground adjoining to a fine Valley, enrich’d by a noble River, is by Nature (but little assisted) the finest Terrace you can imagine, from whence is a beautiful prospect of the Town of Lewes, on an Eminence at half a mile distance cross the Valley; an old ruin’d Castle on a high hill almost in the middle of the Town, which seems with its nodding walls to threaten the Inhabitants, & the lofty Mountains which surround the Country, give it a very Romantic Air; it is I think on the whole, tho’ not ye most extensive, yet one of the most charming Landscapes I have seen.—I wait here till Mr Spence the Owner of this delicious place returns from Tunbridge Wells whither he is gone with his Sister so that here are none but Servants   it is now after 12 o’clock & they are expected home to dinner so must quickly finish my Letter, but cannot forbear telling you that I never heard more excellencies attributed to a young Lady than to Miss Spence; in Beauty Virtue & discretion I am told she is unequall’d: A young Gentleman of an immense Estate makes his addresses to her but being somewhat lax in his morals is thought (tho’ vastly superiour in fortune) undeserving of her; shall suspend my judgment concerning this unequall’d Charmer ’till I have seen her, doubt not my Attention will be engag’d. If I stay here to morrow as I beleive I shall, expect an opportunity of seeing Miss More.—I am Dr Sister with duty to my Parents & love to Sis Polly 

                     Your sincerely affectionate Brother

                                             Wm Steele Jun.r

Morley 7th Aug: 1742

Address: To Miss Anne Steele.

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 2 (ed. Julia B. Griffin), pp. 270-71 (edited version); STE 3/8/v, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.

William Steele was staying at the estate of Robert Spence, who inherited one-eighth of the Houndean Manor, just outside Lewes, from his father, John Spence, after his death in 1713. John Spence had also purchased a second eighth of the manor and bequeathed it to his wife, Anne. The estate later passed to his daughters, Anne (d. 1737) and Elizabeth, and then to the heirs of his son, Robert. The widow Spence held court there in 1739; these courts were continued by her daughter Elizabeth and her sister, Ruth. See The Victoria History of the County of Sussex, vol. 7, ed. L. F. Salzman (London: University of London, Institute of Historical Research, 1940), pp. 35-36; John Broome, A Bruised Reed, p. 110.