William Steele, Broughton, to Mary Steele, Bodenham, [Monday] 26 March 1770.

Broughton Mar. 26th 1770

My Dear Polly

   As you will be sollicitous to hear how your Aunt is, I with pleasure acquaint you that she is on the whole better, tho’ her pains sometimes return, the rest of us are thro’ Mercy well, except Mamma who has a Cough & is so so.  Nancy I think gets everyday more & more diverting & gains strength in her feet.

   You have made a great Gap in the House & we begin to want you at home to fill it up. S. Fay gave in his experience yesterday so Mr Evans will have three subjects for the Ordinance.

   We all join in Love &c to you all Omnium Gatherum & Am

                     My Dr your affectionate Far

                                 Wm Steele

 Your Buckets are sent with this

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols.  (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 3, p. 207 (annotated version); STE 4/5/ii, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. No postmark. Address: To / Miss Steele / at Mrs Atwater’s / at Bodenham.  Mary is once again visiting her cousins, Jane and Marianna Attwater, at Bodenham.  Marianna (‘Maria’) (1749?-1832) was at the height of her poetic production at this time, generating all her poetry between 1768 and 1770.  Other references above include Caleb Evans of Bristol, who on his visit to Broughton baptized baptized Samuel Fay, Mary Fay, and Richard Fox, all being admitted to the church on 1 April 1770 (Broughton Baptist Church Book, Angus Library, Oxford).