Anne Whitaker, Bratton, to Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, Saturday, [late summer 1830].

Bratton Saturday Evening

My dear Maria

   The contents of the basket will fully apprise you of the event of last Thursday and I know your best wishes will attend dear Edward and his bride. They are gone to Dover in quest of that privacy which it is so difficult to obtain at frequented watering places.

   I could not let the basket go without a line but I am unable to write as I could wish tonight. Dear Joshua has been intirely confined since his return home and his illness has caused me much painful anxiety – he has been I trust really mending the last two or three days – his cough is less frequent and his strength considerably recruited – he has been often indisposed through the past summer and is so extremely susceptible of cold that no reasonable precautions seem sufficient for his safety. – I was much pleased to hear so good an account of your health and of the general aspect of affairs in your family – I should much like to see you if it was only for a few hours – Mrs Alfred is with me at present and I expect Anne in October – if I can find a few days between these two visits I shall try to reach Salisbury since if Mahomet cannot come to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mahomet.  I continue to hear good tidings from Holcombe of Anne and her baby, indeed far better than I could have anticipated – I have had an anxious summer but God has been better to me than my fears – and my health for the last four or five weeks has been ususually good.

   Pray excuse this wretched scrawl whh I really would not send it if I had time or opportunity to do better.  We all unite in affectionate remembrances to you and yours.

   I will only add the name of

                     Your friend & sister

                                 Anne Whitaker

The basket is Mrs Philemons

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 419-20 (annotated version); Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 180, A.2.(n.), Angus Library. Address: Mrs Saffery.  No postmark. Edward Saffery (1802-77) married Emily Ann Woolbert (d. 1846), sister of Catherine Woolbert, second wife of Edward's cousin, Alfred Whitaker. Eliza Attwater was the wife of Philemon Attwater of Nunton.