1805 July 13

Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Annajane Blatch, Bratton, [Saturday], 13 July 1805.

  My Beloved Anna I am not willing to destroy these papers for your sake not that I think them worthy your or any ones perusal as it wd be a task too great to read ym thro’ but should there be any sentence in ye whole or similar circumstance wch may give you pleasure or profit in reading it, my End in saving them is answered.  I commit them into your care & keeping – there is great weakness discoverable forgive all defects & let no one see them but serious & affecte Friends who will not criticise but read with a simple desire to improve by the most simple means I was never fond of convening much nor had I opportunity being the most pt of my life bred up in retirement this was my faithful repository & my ever lov’d companion may you make much greater advancement in the christian Life & be far more Eminent for piety, then has been your unworthy but faithful sincere & truly affecte mother

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 8, p. 182; Attwater Papers, acc. 76, I.A.22, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.

Jane Attwater Blatch added the above note to the back cover of the 1791-95 portion of her diary (the ‘papers’ mentioned in the note), obviously intended for the eyes of her daughter at some later date.