Anne Whitaker, Holcombe, to Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, [Friday], 7 March 1834.

My very dear Sister

   It is a long time since I have addressed you individually by letter the correspondence of our dear children in a great measure superseding the necessity – but the tidings I have to communicate of the safety of my dear Anne after her < > delivery of another daughter must first reach your eye and < > as I am assured they will your heart.

   The event at once dreaded and desired took place on Sunday morning a little before three o’clock but < > very trying but compared with the former occasions we have much cause for thankfulness. She has passed a languid quiet night and is altogether as well today as we can reasonably expect – the child is also promising.

   I arrived here with my old servant Mrs Keevil in quality of Nurse and Elizabeth on Monday afternoon and cannot feel sufficiently thankful to that kind care by which all has been conducted to so desirable an issue – we had not expected the stranger till the middle of the month but we arrived just in time and found every thing arranged by the very neat and methodical Marianna in the most perfect order.

   And now my dear Maria I would gladly converse with you but that among so many subjects of deep interest that I know not where to begin. I am reminded of my present circumstances of one to which I ought to advert – the acquisition of a little grandson who promises by Joshua’s description to be a very pretty and interesting person.

   Dear Samuel he too is under the watchful eye of our heavenly father – his, who controuls the stormy deep and says to the proud waves, “Peace be still.” He was much favoured in weather at the period of sailing, and he will I hope find his engagements, and the change of circumstances and climate connected with the conducive in various ways to his lasting benefit.  I should think the sea breezes would prove very invigorating to him – and I trust the heat of the climate may not prove injurious when subjected as the Islanders must be greatly counteracted by the refreshing gales from that world of waters by which it is surrounded.

   I am indulging the hope that your present literary engagement may prove a salutary diversion of thought from Subjects on which you will be prone to dwell with a too tender and solicitous interest – I need not say that we feel much interested in the success of your publication – I hope Philip is doing his best – perseverance is necessary in all undertakings and people cannot subscribe without the opportunity is afforded them – we have some additional names and hope soon to have many others.

   Will you be so good as to convey the Holcombe intelligence to Bodenham specifying that it is at my request for the little writing is now rather an onerous task to me. Dear Anne would send her most affectionate remembrances to you and her best wishes accompany them with my best love and suitable  regards to other friends – and accept for yourself my dear Sister the sincerest esteem of

                                             Your Anne Whitaker

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 425-26 (annotated version); Reeves Collection, Box 14.1.(p.), Bodleian.  Address: Mrs Saffery | Castle Street | Salisbury. Postmark: Westbury. Reference here is to the birth on 6 March 1834 of Anne Whitaker's granddaughter, Rosalie Anne Green. Samuel Saffery was sailing to the British-controlled island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, where he would remain for some time. Reference also to Maria Grace Saffery’s Poems on Sacred Subjects (1834), which she published through the aide of a large subscription effort. A collection of 27 letters from various friends and literary figures involved in obtaining subscriptions to Poems can be found in the Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, II.D.3.