Anne Whitaker, Bratton, to John Saffery, Salisbury, [Friday], 2 March 1821.

Bratton   March 2nd 1821

My dear Brother

   I should not so long have delayed answering your kind & welcome letter but have been for several days so much indisposed as to render me incapable of any exertion.  I was exceedingly thankfull for the relief which it afforded me although Alfred had given me a somewhat favourable representation very much in agreement with the opinion Dr Fowler has given of his case and which I trust the result will fully justify. –

   I hope & believe that this interdiction of preaching will prove beneficial both to body & mind allowing time for the growth of the latter as well as for the restoration of the former.

   Be assured my dear brother we deeply feel your varied perplexities and truly happy should we be if any means within our power could be effectual to their relief – we do feel consolation in believing that you & yours are under the superintending care of Him who is represented as sympathizing in every affliction of his children and laying nothing more on them than he enables them to bear. –

   You do not mention the particulars of the School but I fear the arrivals are not satisfactory from your silence on the subject – I have not forgotten what passed between us at our last meeting respecting it – I have already mentioned it to some friends and intend in the course of a week or two if I should be sufficiently recovered to attempt something farther I am not without hopes of success though it may not be to the extent I could wish.—I should like to have some printed terms if you have any as almost every one asks for them on such occasions.

   Your dear boys enjoy themselves very well and are as good as I can expect or desire and I do not think are troubled with my earnest longings for news from Mr Dear.

   Remember me very tenderly to my dear Maria and assure her that I am better and getting back to my old pitch.   Love to the dear Invalid from whom I shall be happy to hear whenever he may find the employment of his pen convenient to himself I shall hope to get a few lines early in the week from some member of the family.

   The boys have been writing but I believe their letters may as well remain for a private hand which I suppose will offer the latter end of next week. –

   Mr W–  and our family unite in best love to you and yours with my dear Brother’s

                     Affecte friend

                                 Anne Whitaker

Text: Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.A.7.(c), Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Address: Revd John Saffery | Castle Street | Salisbury.  Postmark: Warminster. For an annotated version of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 386-87.