Anne Whitaker, Bratton Farm, to Anna Jane Whitaker, Bristol, [c. late August-early September 1816].

   I believe I am engaged to write to my dear Sister by promise but I trust this is not the only inducement to employ an hour in this way but that the pleasure of testifying my affection for, and conversing a little with her are in themselves sufficient to influence me on this occasion various interruptions have delayed my waiting till this evening and now that I have taken the pen I am almost incapable of collecting my thoughts from the shifting scene with which I am surrounded and the various objects or subjects which are intruded on my attention indeed I have almost made up my mind to the idea of effecting little more during the vacation than supplying in the best manner I can the corporeal and intellectual necessities of my dear children, their claims are numerous, diversified and important; & I am sometimes exclaiming, “who is sufficient for these things? – at others I hope I am trusting on Him who is all sufficient and rejoicing that his strength is made perfect in the weakness of his believing people – this you my dear Jane well know will support and console under every difficulty and every pressure and this alone – “I can do all things, said the Apostle thro’ Christ strengthening me” and though our faith fall far short of Paul’s yet we can realize this sentiment, we have I trust been enabled to from some idea of the Divine all sufficiency and are persuaded that our gracious Lord is able to do both in us and for us exceeding and abundantly above all that we can ask or think – with such a conviction why do we at any time despond? – why are we dejected and distressed? – is it not because we are looking to ourselves and not unto the Lord; – contemplating our own strength which is perfect weakness rather than directing our hopes and expectations to that infinite fulness which is treasured up in the Redeemer.

   In the scenes of deep affliction which you have been and still are called to witness you must have had great need to recur to all those sources of consolation with which the religion of the Bible supplies us – nothing less than its sublime supports can be efficacious to relieve under calamities like those our afflicted friends are experiencing – O that God may sustain and comfort them, for he alone is able – may they be enabled to exercise unshaken confidence in the compassionate and faithful case of their covenant God and Father and remember that tho’ what he does, they know not now, that a time is coming when they shall look back on all the way in which the Lord hath led them and contemplate with equal complacency the rugged and perilous track they have watered with their tears, as on the smoother paths appointed them in their pilgrimage state and when the former will as much yea perhaps more than the latter excite their adorning gratitude – will you remember me very affectionately to them and assure them of my tender sympathy –

   Our dear Mother is tolerably well and no worse spirits than when you were here, and is reconciled to your absence by the hope of its proving ultimately advantageous to you besides that she considers that you are in the path of duty while endeavouring to afford comfort to your afflicted friends:  I should have much enjoyed being with you but the claims at home are at present of an imperious nature.  I cannot reconcile myself to leaving my dear Alfred in particular who is absent from me so large a part of the year – he is thro’ mercy in good health as are the rest of the family.  Your Brother sends kind love & unites with me in suitable regards to Mr & Mrs Hackett & others who may enquire for us  Mr & Mrs Page & Dr Ryland in particular –

   The Children send duty & love

   I shall be much obliged by your procuring me a < > of working Cotton or under & if you could also procure 3 yards of welsh flannel at about 3/5 pr yard I shd be much obliged – I am really ashamed to send such a scrawl, but would rather do this than be thought unmindful of my dear Jane who will I trust believe me to be ever her affecte friend & Sister

                     A Whitaker

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 352-54 (annotated version); Reeves Collection, Box 21.4.(f.), Bodleian. Address: Miss Whitaker |Mr Hackett’s | Rosemary Street | Bristol.  Postmark: Westbury.