Anne Whitaker, Holcombe, to Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, [Saturday], 24 July 1830.

Holcombe  July 24th 1830

My very dear Maria

   Before you receive this you will I imagine have learned from your nephew John the event of yesterday morning and will have participated in the heartfelt pleasure to which it gave birth – yesterday I wrote only to your brother for a night of distressing anxiety had disqualified me for the labours of the pen – and I am much better pleased to write to you a few hours later when I can report favourably of the first night – dear Anne obtained refreshing sleep and is altogether as well this morning as could be hoped and far better than I had expected for her sufferings were indeed great incomparably greater than any I had either witnessed or experienced in my own person – yet it was what is termed a safe and natural labour – poor dear creature – the pangs with which bore her appeared light to what I suffered in witnessing them not being in the room during the worst – or only for a very short time.

   We were very happy in our medical attendant Mr Bush what we should have done with a man on whom we could have less relied I cannot imagine – but we are trying now to forget the past any farther than as it may minister to the grateful enjoyment of the present – we have a fine little girl – a regular miniature of Mary Bisdee – and the mamma is well pleased with it notwithstanding her previous desire for a Son.

   Dear Jane was not I suppose in much expectation of an answer to her last letter – Anne’s situation and daily suspence not being favorable to epistolary undertakings. We were glad to hear so many comfortable things of you and yours and we earnestly wish and would devoutly pray that more of the pleasing and prosperous may through the tender mercy of God be blended in the scene of your coming days than in too many of the past. – Much of adversity in some form or other we my beloved Sister have been called to endure from our early days but He who appoints is infinite in wisdom and goodness and if it be but his good pleasure to give a sanctified use of his dispensations and the hope of a blessed immortality we may well say with the Christian poet,

         We welcome all thy sovereign will

         For all that will is love.

   To save the trouble of speculations on this subject I must inform you that our little girl is to be called Emma Whitaker at which you will not be surprised – Dear Anne had previously decided on the name of her earliest playfellow.

   I could not but feel much disappointed at not seeing you this summer but I do not mean to complain  I preferred hearing this to forcing you into some inconvenient arrangement for my gratification.  My health has been wretchedly bad though I think I have gained some strength in the last two months – which is more than I could well expect with the very frequent attacks of sickness and spasms with which I am visited < > hear from any quarter what disease occasioned the death of our good old friend Mr Marsh – I have not heard of any deaths previous to hearing of his removal to a better world.

   I have several other letters to write this morning must therefore only add dear Anne’s best love to her dear Aunt and cousin and that I am

                                             affectionately yours

                                                         Anne Whitaker

Please to let Mrs P. Attwater have the farther intelligence your letter contains of the lady upstairs and please to say I would have written according to promise but that my intention was anticipated by tidings reaching her by way of Bratton.

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 418-19 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 180, A.2.(e.), Angus Library. Address: Mrs Saffery | Castle Street | Salisbury.  Postmark: Bath, date illegible. Emma Green, first child of Anne Whitaker and Robert Green, was born on 24 July 1830. She was named for the child her mother, Anne Whitaker senior, lost in 1811, and as she writes below, her daughter’s ‘earliest playfellow’.  Reference also to Philip Doddridge's hymn, ‘My God, the Covenant of Thy Love’, from Hymns founded on Various Texts in the Holy Scriptures (Salop: J. Eddowes and J. Cotton, 1755), p. 18. Eliza Penny Attwater of Bodenham was the wife of Philemon Attwater.