William Steele, Yeovil, to Mary Steele, Broughton, [Saturday] 4 November 1775.

Yeovil Nov. 4th 1775

   I have just rec’d my Dear Polly’s obliging Letter & desire to be thankful for the good tidings it communicates as well as for the agreeable answer I am enabled to make to it in informing you that thro’ the auspicious Care of a kind & beneficent Providence we were brot hither in safety & health yesterday in the evening. We had indeed a dismal Journey Tuesday & the Horses were so jaded that we were oblig’d to get a pair from Hindon to assist us from thence to Knoyle to which place we were 5 hours going from Sarum tho’ only 19 miles, the Horses gave out in going up a hill only 8 miles from Sarum & we were happy in meeting with a Farmer’s Waggon who help’d us up the hill with one of their horses.  We should have stay’d all Night at Hindon, but it being Fair time the Inn was full of Riot, so got assistance & went on & got to Mr Russes about 7 o’Clock where (as usual) we found a friend by reception, but neither Miss Mary nor Susan were at home, but Sarah came the next Morning. I had dirty riding about Sedghill but no rain to hurt.  We had a pleasant Journey hither yesterday.

   I am sorry Fd Reeves & his Friend came when I was from home, but if Bulpit has appointed another day for them I hope I shall be at home.

   M Winsor desires her kind Love to you & says she wrote to you last Saturday.  We join in affectionate Remembrances of every One dear to us at home & am My Dear

         ever your affect Far

                                 Wm Steele

I hope for another Letter soon

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols.  (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 3, pp. 268-69 (annotated version); STE 4/5/xlvi, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. No postmark or address page. 

The Froude sisters (Mary and Susan) were living with the Russes at East Knoyle; Sarah was now teaching at Mrs. Hayne’s school in Motcombe. There were Reeves living in Broughton and some were members of the Baptist church. A Nancy Reeves, either a servant to the Steeles or a friend and attendant at the Baptist church, appears in several letters in the Steele Collection. Members of the Reeves family were also prominent members of the Baptist meeting at Bratton, where Caroline Whitaker and her family worshiped. The Steeles were frequent visitors at the chapel there and had a long history with it. For more on the Reeves and the Bratton Baptist church, see Marjorie Reeves, Sheep Bell & Ploughshare: The Story of Two Village Families (Bradford-on-Avon, UK: Moonraker Press, 1978).