1792 February (Anne)

Anne Andrews, Isleworth, to Maria Grace Andrews, Salisbury, undated [c. early February 1792].

Tuesday Afternoon

My dearest Love

I am limited to a few minutes in conversing with you & must therefore hasten to inform you of the safe return of my Father & also of my happy Ignorance of your danger till I heard it from him I say happy for even when prepared for the recital by the assurance of your safety it produced an agitation which it will be more easy for you to conceive then I describe but surely this is a sufficient proof of the weakness & degeneracy of our nature that at a time when every power every affection of the mind should have been absorb’d in adoring gratitude the puerile feelings of an earthy Heart prevail’d over every nobler impulse and caused praise and thanksgiving to falter on the tongue but I must say no more –

Mary has behaved very well and her company has been some relief to me She say I must give her love and duty to you and tell you she was very sorry to hear you tumbled over the Couch – M^rs Wynne &c beg compt^s of condolence and congratulation – Pray remember me suitably to all friends –

Adieu my beloved may you continue to find in God a present help at every time of need may you have a sweet experience of the truth of that promise

He guards thy life he keeps thy breath

Where thickest dangers come

Go and return secure from death

‘Till God commands thee Home.

Pray write soon & believe me

Your sincerely affec^te friend & Sister

A Andrews

I write almost in the dark

Text: Reeves Collection, Box 14.1.(i.), Bodleian Library, Oxford. Address: Miss Andrews | Exeter Street | Sarum. No postmark; for a complete annotated text of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 19-20.