Anne Andrews Whitaker, Bratton, to John Saffery, Salisbury, [Wednesday], 4 July 1798.

Bratton  July 4th 1798

Dear Papa

   I anticipated with considerable pleasure the employment in which I am at present engaged and Mr Whitaker had proposed to do his part toward filling a long Sheet to send you whh we hoped to have done with relations which however insignificant in themselves would we were well assured have proved interesting and entertaining to the feelings of such a Friend as you. But alas! this like many other of the pleasing Schemes which occupy our attention in this changing World has been painfully disappointed, & I am reduced to the necessity of sending you something like an apology for a Letter.  A Cloud which has long been gathering in our Horizon has at length burst and for the present considerably damp’d our domestic felicity – poor Mr Head who has been in a state of decided Insanity ever since I have been at Bratton is at length brought by it to the borders of the Grave, perhaps ere this indeed beyond them, the distressing particulars I cannot enter upon.  We have been alternately agitated by hope & fear respecting him tho’ the latter has generally been prevalent till yesterday afternoon we recd tidings whh realized the worst of our apprehensions – dr Mr W–  was affected how greatly I must leave to a more convenient opportunity to describe. I will only say had you witness’d the scene you wd have felt much for me – we were in expectation of seeing Mr J Whitaker’s & Mr Stevens’s Family to Tea but I wrote to defer it – Mr W–  is gone this Morng with his Sister to Bradford – poor Jane Head who has been here these ten Days is still kept in ignorance as the only means of preventing her return home whh her Mother is very desirous may not be the case as her health & spirits were greatly impair’d by the attention she paid her unhappy Brother before she came hither – we are very much afraid of brother Thomas’s health being injur’d by the State of his Cousin whh affects him a good deal he has been but poorly but is again better.  Jane has had the Measles but is pretty well recover’d – thus you see wherever we go we meet with afflictions – dear Maria is still poorly – my own health is unusually good – It pains me to send this away without entering on more pleasing Topics but I fear delay lest you should experience a total disappointment – We shall anxiously wait the arrival of a letter from you & hope to return one more agreeable – we often think & speak of you & feel I trust a sweet satisfaction in remembering you when together at a Throne of grace, and thus committing you to the care of One who loves you far better than we do and who is able to do for you exceeding and abundantly above all that we can ask or think – Mr W– would unite with us in love & duty to you & the rest of the Family in respects & best wishes – That the Lord may greatly bless you & crown yr Labours with abundant success is the prayer of  

         Yr affectionate Child

                     Anne Whitaker

Pray  present most affecte respects to dr Br Steadman & his Wife – respects to Mr Franklin – would not have you say much to him respecting Mr Head till you hear farther from us –

Text: Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.A.7.(a.), Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.  No address page. For an annotated version of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 155-56.

George Head, around twenty years of age at the time of the above letter, was the son of Marianna Attwater Head of Bradford, Philip Whitaker’s aunt and sister to Jane Attwater Blatch (see Volume 4 for the poetry of Marianna Attwater). ‘Jane’ is his sister, Marianna Jane Head (d. 1857), who remained unmarried until late in life, when she became the second wife of the celebrated Independent minister at Bath, William Jay.  ‘Thomas’ is Philip Whitaker’s younger brother, Thomas (1776-1857), who also lived at Bratton.