William Steele, Pershore, to Mary Steele, Yeovil, [Saturday] 17 September 1774.

   I experienced truly paternal pleasure on receiving My Dear Daughters Letter of the 7th Inst: from that flow of filial Love which manifests its self so clearly thro the whole of it, and a Letter I rec’d by the same days Post from Mr Rawlings acquainting me that your Aunt is much better & has had no fits for two or three days has greatly alleviated that anxiety of Mind I felt on leaving her in so distressing a Situation.  O that ye good hand of Providence may yet restore her to such a state of health as may make life in some measure comfortable to her.

   Our Friends here are exceeding kind & obliging to us, but my Mind like the Needle to its Pole begins to incline strongly homewards. I rejoice to hear the little Prattlers are well but I want their Company. Miss Soby inquir’d very kindly after you & seem’d disappointed that you were not with us, I don’t hear she is tending towards matrimony. We have been at Birlingham two days this Week at their Harvest Home & I think in the Land of Goshen for such immense Quantities of Beef Pudding pies &c I have scarce ever seen but not the least appearance of drinking to excess which usually attends those annual Feasts at many places.  I am very glad to hear Miss Scott’s poem has the applause of the Gentlemans Magazine but tis no more than her deserts & every person who has seen it (that knows of) admires it, I sent one of the books to Mr Sharp of Newport in the Isle of Wight in return for some pamphlets he sent me.  Mr Ash has sent to several houses for the Mag: but we cant find any one takes it in town.

   We hope providence concurring to go from hence to Bristol next Thursday, stay there till the Monday following & then go to Bradford where we intend to stop a day or two & then proceed by the Way of Bratton homewards & hope to see dear Circle at Broughton about Friday or Saturday. – I shall expect to find a Letter from you at Bristol if I have not one before I go.  We join in due Commendations to your Uncle &c.

   May those blessings which every good & virtuous mind esteems the best always always attend my Dear Girl is the ardent wish of her affectionate Father.

                                 Wm Steele

Pershore 17th Sep 1774

Text: Steele Collection, STE 4/5/xl, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Postmark: Evesham, 19 September. Address: Miss Steele / at Mr Geo: Bullock’s / Yeovil / Somerset. For an annotated text of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, vol. 3, p. 254. 

Mary Scott's The Female Advocate was reviewed in the Gentleman’s Magazine 44 (1774), pp.  375-77. Reviews also appeared in the Critical Review 38 (1774), pp. 218-20, and Monthly Review 51 (1774), pp. 387-90.  Other references are to John Ash, father of Elizabeth Ash and Baptist minister at Pershore; and William Sharp, Sr. if Newport. His son, William Sharp, Jr., became ‘President of a Society devoted to public freedom, at Newport, Isle of Wight’, according to the title page of his pamphlet, An Oration Delivered on the Secular Anniversary of the Revolution (London, 1789), printed and sold by two London Baptist booksellers: Martha Gurney and Joseph Johnson. The younger Sharp was also a member of the Revolution Society of London.