Anne Whitaker, Bratton, to Alfred Whitaker, Salisbury, [Friday], 20 September 1805.

My very dear Boy

   I did not think to have permitted so much time to elapse without holding converse with you in this way; but you know that I have always a great many things to engage my time and attention and this has been peculiarly the case of late –

   My thoughts are often with you and they are frequently thoughts full of solicitude – hope and fear alternately occupy my Mind – the improvement of your moral dispositions and your advancement in knowledge I earnestly wish for and when I consider the extent of your natural capacity and the skill and attention of your instructors I am ready to anticipate a most agreeable and evident progress both in manners and information – but when I reflect on your prevailing errors: your natural indolence, your want of docility & a propensity too frequently discover’d to exchange one bad habit for another equally unpleasing, my fears are again excited – I know your faults, and I wish you to be acquainted with them – self-knowledge is the most important and useful of all knowledge to know ourselves, and to know God may in a certain sense be said to comprise all true Wisdom.

   Do you conceive the reason why I think so much of your faults and why I am so frequently reminding you of them? – it is because I love you so much – You hear how vigilantly our Government and our great Sea Officers watch over the movements of the French – with a design to prevent them from doing us any injury – So I watch over the predominant errors of your disposition – I consider them as the cruel and inveterate enemies of my beloved Child who will if not observed; if not guarded against, both devise and accomplish his ruin – is it not therefore the best proof I can give of my affection not only to watch over them and endeavor to counteract their influence but to teach you to do it for yourself – But there is still a higher duty to be perform’d and more effectual means to be used both by you and me – this is constant and fervent prayer to God, who alone can enable you to overcome the evil propensities of your nature and can implant in you dispositions truly good.  Be attentive my dear Alfred to this great duty and privilege – think of Dinah Dowdney who pray’d much when at your age – think of Catherine Haldane who pray’d so earnestly for a new Heart when not so old as you – and above all think of the encouragement given you by the gracious Savior when he says – Suffer little Children and forbid them not to come unto me –

   Well am I to expect to find my little Boy commenced Philosopher when I see him again; since I find he is engaged in reading Sturm’s Reflections – I would give your Author his proper appellation, but that I do not know to whh of the learned professions he belong’d or to what degree of dignity he had arrived in either of them – but do you continue to read the English History – I wish you to be well acquainted with it – there is scarcely any species of ignorance that will let a Man down more in Company than an ignorance of Geography & History particularly that of his own Country –

   You will I dare say like to hear a few particulars of things at Home – We are all tolerably well – Edward has been poorly but is much better – Joshua tho’ not so good a Boy as I could wish is considerably improved in reading & spelling.  I have also obtain’d the Eton Geography for him of which he now learns a short lesson daily. –Phillip is become a very pleasant little fellow – he is very chatty and more good-humor’d than when at Salisbury – he can repeat several little things with tolerable correctness – Your favorite Pompey is quite well and very much in favor with us – Blos– has six puppies which are thought very pretty three resembling herself & three as much like Pompey –

   Miss Alexander is with me at present – she sends love as do others of your acquaintance – and Fanny – Your dear Father unites with me in every tender sentiment and in most fervent wishes for your preservation from all evil and enjoyment of all needful and important good – Adieu my beloved Child may the God of all Grace bless you and in due time return you to the arms of      

                                 Your affecte Mother

                                             Anne Whitaker

I hope you behave very kindly to your Cousins – give my love to them

Bratton Farm

Septr 20th 1805

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 204-05 (annoated version); Reeves Collection, Box 21.4.f.(iii.), Bodleian. Address: Master Whitaker.

References above to Dinah Dowdney of Portsmouth who attended the ministry of Rev. John Griffin, Independent minister at Orange Street. She died at the age of nine. An account of her life and death was later published as an immensely popular moral tract for children, The Story of Dinah Dowdney, with editions continuing into the 1830s.  Catherine Haldane was the daughter of James Haldane (1768-1851), the Scottish evangelical leader (he became a Baptist in 1808) and friend of Thomas Scott of London. Catherine died at the age of six in 1802, an event that provoked her father to publish a brief memoir, Early Instruction Recommended, in a Narrative of Catherine Haldane, with an Address to Parents on the Importance of Religion, which Anne Whitaker obviously read in one of its numerous editions. Reflections on the Works of God in Nature was a title by the German writer and theologian, Christoph Christian Sturm (1740-86), the first English edition appearing in Edinburgh in 1788. The "Eton Geography" was a reference to Geographical Questions and Answers, with a Brief Chronology of ... England ... to which is prefixed a General Statement of the Powers of Europe ... for the Instruction of Young Minds (Eton: Printed by M. Pote and E. Williams, 1803).  During the first seven years of her marriage, Anne had engaged in teaching activities while giving birth in 1799, 1801, 1802, 1803 to four sons – Alfred, Joshua, Edward, and Philip – and, at the time of the above letter, pregnant with her first daughter, Emma.