William Steele, Broughton, to Mary Steele, Yeovil, [Wednesday] 11 July 1770.

Broughton July 11th 1770

My Dear Polly

   Your dutiful & affectionate Letter of the 7th Inst obliges me & did I know the wishes of your Heart in regard to your Stay at Yeovil or coming home, I wou’d immediately comply with it, but as you leave it a matter of doubt & refer to my Choice, I think to send J. Dewy with your Horse next Saturday & you may if it be agreeable to you stay with your Uncle 5 or 6 weeks longer, by which time I hope (thro’ Divine Assistance) your Mammas’s Hour of Difficulty may be over & I may be able to go to Yeovil, but if you had rather be at home at that time, tho’ I cannot go for you my self I can send for you in 3 or 4 Weeks time. We all long greatly to see you & if it be your Choice to be at home I hope your Uncle will not be against it, I desire you will let me know which of the times you determine upon. 

   Your Aunt and Miss Waters went to Bodenham Monday last, I think your Aunt is much better than when you left her, she is to return Friday. Mrs Waters Junr is very ill with a swelling in her Throat but as it is outwards they hope there is no danger. Your little sister grows apace, goes alone & begins to prattle, you would be delighted with her if you were here, she finds amusement for all the Family.

   If you go to Weymouth on Horse back with your Uncle you should have a Servant, I think Thomas will be of no use should you go to the beginning of the next week, you may (if uncle & you think well of it) take Jos. Dewy. I can spare him a few days without any inconveniency, if you do not have him with you he is to return Monday.

   In looking over your Letter again I observe what you say about going to Mr Scotts while your Uncle is at Exon, suppose you were to come thither when your Uncle sets out & stay a few days & then come in post Chaise to Shaftsbury & my Chaise meet you there to come home?  This to me appears the best Scheme, because the time of your Uncles absence & the three weeks before he goes will bring on the time I have before propos’d for your return, & indeed I should like to have it so tho’ you were to go to Yeovil again for two or three weeks in the Fall of the Year, but you will take this into Consideration & consult with your Uncle & let me know the results. – I have wrote such an incoherent scrawl that I fear you won’t understand it.

   Your Mo remembers you affectionately my Parental Blessing attends my Dear Girl whose I ever am in the dearest Ties of Nature

                                             Wm Steele

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols.  (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 3, pp. 212-13 (annotated version); STE 4/5/ix, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Postmark: Salisbury. Address: To / Miss Steele / at Mr Geo: Bullocks / Yeovil / Somerset.

References above includes Joseph Dewey, an employee of William Steele who joined the Baptist church at Broughton on 20 May 1738, but was excluded in 1776, a year before his death (Broughton Baptist Church Book, Angus Library, Oxford); Mary Steele Wakeford, Marianna Attwater, and Anne Steele; Anna Attwater (1710-1784) of Bodenham, second wife of Thomas Attwater (1691-1767) and mother of Marianna, Jane and Gay Thomas; and Mary Drewitt Attwater (1746-1812), who married Gay Thomas in 1762.