William Steele, Broughton, to Mary Steele, Bradford, [Wednesday] 27 January 1773.

Broughton Jan. 27th 1773

   My Dear Polly will be greatly pleas’d with the tidings that I have (thro’ the goodness of God) now to communicate to her, that we are in the enjoyment of our Health as well as every other blessing of social Life which Providence favours us with.  Your Aunt has had a good Night and we hope is on the whole better than you left her. Dear little Patty is quite recover’d & is as merry & saucy as ever, Nancy & she with laughing crying romping &c sometimes almost stun us.  Miss Scott’s Rheumatism is something better, she had a Letter last post from home which says Mr Scott dined with your Uncle last Friday & that he was return’d home in good health.

   We have not yet heard from you but hope Will [Will Morrant, an employee of Mr. Steele] will bring back a Letter by & by when he carries this to Stockbridge.  I hope you have had much pleasure in your jaunt to Bradford & that the Bride has by this time dried up her tears & is happy in her new Station.  We all join in the warmest tenders of Friendship to Mr & Mrs H & all your Circle, and hope you are all happy & pleas’d in your Hurly burly.  May the kind Hand of Providence bless & preserve my Dear Girl prays her affectionate Father

                                             Wm Steele

Let us hear from you often – pay Mr Head 8d for Mrs Bird –

Miss Scot wrote you last post I hope you rec’d it.

Nancy has been crying for fear I had sent away the Letter without sending her Love to Tissy, which she came in to desire her mama to ask me to do as I was gone out. Patty is now on my Knee and will scarce let me write I ask her if she sends her Love to Tissy she answers Aye.

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols.  (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 3, pp. 225-26 (annotated version); STE 4/5/xxii, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.  Postmark: Salisbury. Address: Miss Steele / at Mr George Head’s / Bradford / Wilts.

Mary Scott arrived at Broughton sometime in December 1772 and remained for several months, most likely bringing with her a draft of The Female Advocate, which Anne and William Steele helped correct. During her stay she suffered from frequent attacks of rheumatism. For much of her time there, Mary Steele was at assisting Marianna Attwater in the aftermath of her wedding to George Head on 21 January 1773. In Steele’s absence, Mary Scott attended to Anne Steele. Scott writes to her brother Samuel at Sheborne, 27 February 1773:  “The greatest part of my time is spent with Mrs. Ann Steele in her chamber, to which she has for many months been confined, where I have the pleasure of being a witness of the power of religion to support the mind under the most excruciating pains of body; she is quite submissive to the Divine will, and thankful to her friends for their kind, though, alas! fruitless attempts to mitigate her sufferings” (see ‘Memoir of Mr. John Edward Taylor’, Christian Reformer 11 (1844), p. 160).  Mary Steele remained at Bradford through the end of February; her lengthy stay caused Mr. Steele some concern, fearful that his daughter was slighting Mary Scott.