Letter from Sarah Wesley to Mr. Thomas Marriott, 1823

by Sarah El-Hilo

Introduction

This letter was written from Sarah Wesley to a Mr. Thomas Marriott, who is addressed on the address panel but not in the letter itself. She addresses the letter to “Sir” and it is dated 1823. Wesley begins the letter by expressing her thanks to the recipient for having previously sent her a letter containing some document she had needed. She tells the recipient that she will send him another letter with some other information or document relevant to whatever they had been discussing involving her uncle and her mother. 

After expressing her thanks, she briefly shares that she has developed a blight on her eye which consequently makes it difficult for her to see, and moves on to introduce the recipient to her nephew, John W Wesley. She writes praisingly about her nephew and tries to garner some support from the recipient for him, and expresses her openness to a meeting between her family and him when he is available. The letter appears to be both business-oriented, as she appears to be networking for her nephew, as well as personal, given her shared insight into her personal health.

Description

There is no envelope, however, there was an address panel to Mr. Thomas Marriott. The letter is written on one side of the paper and appears to have been folded into a small rectangle. Wesley's handwriting throughout the letter is reasonably legible, and her sentences and words are well spaced out within the page, although it does become slightly more cramped towards the end of the letter where she signs off.

Notable Features

The most outstanding error is evident in Wesley’s use of interlinear notations in parts of her letter where she appears to have forgotten to write some words the first time. She does this in the fourth line of her letter when she tells the recipient she will forward an account of some incident to him. She corrects “I will send you the particulars of that whole disappointment from my dear mother's account of it”, to “I will send you the particulars of that whole disappointment from my dear mother's oral account of it”.

Wesley makes this same mistake and uses the same form of correction two lines later when she writes about the blight in her eye, correcting “Having caught a Blight” to “Having now caught a Blight”. Her forgetting to include these words the first time would indicate either a lack of focus or that Wesley was writing quickly, causing her to skip over a few words. Her decision to correct herself in this way, rather than be rewriting the entire letter or even paying closer attention while writing it the first time, indicates that her relationship with the recipient would be more personal and lacking the utmost formality of a new or purely transactional relationship as while this method of correction may not be impolite, it may have been considered unprofessional.

At the end of her letter, there is also a blotch of ink on the word “Brother” which appears messy.

Analysis 

The relationship between Wesley and him can be inferred to be more personal than simply business-oriented due to Wesley’s relationship with Mr. Marriott and how her writing is noted to be careless at some points in the letter.

The recipient, Mr. Marriot, also appears to be a friend to Wesley’s family, with more relation to the older generation as in trying to convince the recipient to support her nephew, she refers to him as one of the “friends of [her nephew’s] ancestors”. Upon further research, it has been found that the addressed Mr. Marriot (1786-1852) would have been the son of Mr. Thomas Marriott, who was a class leader at Wesley’s chapel (A Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland). Given that the letter is dated 1823, it can be definitively concluded that it was meant for the younger Mr. Thomas Marriott as the elder would have been deceased at the time.

It was likely that Welsey was thanking Mr. Marriott for some manuscript or document he had sent over as he was a collector of Wesley manuscripts (A Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland). His being a family friend explains her lack of utmost formality as seen in her somewhat careless writing and the personal information she includes in the letter.

Wesley appears to be attempting to persuade Mr. Marriott to help bolster her nephew's career as she praises him in her writing and writes that she is "persuaded [he] will use [his] interest in his favor". She also signs off on behalf of herself and her brother, Charles Wesley, which makes it appear that this letter attempts to extend their family's connections to aid her nephew.