William Steele, Pershore, to Mary Steele, Broughton, [Saturday] 27 July 1771.

Pershore 27th July 1771

My Dear Polly

   Your affecting Letter of the 22d rec’d this Morning makes us very unhappy, we feel your distress tho’ at a great distance & truly sympathize with you, & long to be with you to be partakers of your Sorrow, Oh that a gracious Providence may turn it into joy by restoring your Aunt again to her health.  I trust God will be her Support in the midst of her Affliction & administer those consolations which he alone can give.  As you mention’d the sending a Messenger if she shou’d grow worse & none is arriv’d I derive hope from thence that she is better & that Monday Morning shall have another Letter with good tidings.  If nothing occurs in your next to make us alter our intention, we propose to set out from hence next Wensday for Bristol, stay there two days & hope thro’ the Care of Providence to be at home Saturday next in the Evening, Patty Ash is to go with us.

   Your Mamma joins me in the warmest Salutations that Love can dictate to every One as tho’ named & I am

                     My Dear Polly’s ever affectionate Far

                                             Wm Steele

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols.  (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 3, p. 222 (annotated version); STE 4/5/xvii, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Postmark: Evesham. Address: To / Miss Steele / at Broughton / near Stockbridge / Hants.  "Patty Ash" (sometimes referred to as "Betsy" by William Steele) is Elizabeth Ash (1752--1829), eldest daughter of John Ash, Baptist minister at Pershore. He was Mrs. Steele’s former pastor and brother-in-law; thus she was Mary Steele’s cousin by marriage. For more on Elizabeth Ash Hopkins, see her entry in the Biographical Index; for her letters, click here.