Manuscript on paper, in a single hand, containing 43 religious reflections, descriptions of personal events, and original verses. Several entries concern the various misadventures of the author's husband in Bristol during the civil war period, who in 1643 was accused of being "the greatest Roundhead in all the parish, and that he kept open his shop upon all Holy dayes, and the like frivolous things." A number of entries give thanks to God for preserving her children; she writes, for example, "As I desire to bless god for his mercies to me in giveing me 2 sonns so for preserveing one of them, when it was in great danger of being overlaid by the sleepyheaded nurse which gave it suck," and elsewhere gives thanks to God for saving her child from drowning "when playing by a tubb of water at a neighbours house." The volume also contains essays on original sin and belief in God, and two religious poems, including one "Upon Death" which is signed, "1652. A year of great Mortality"; as well as a transcript of "The Lady Lyles Dying Speech," whose "Crime was for Entertaining a nonconformist Minister, which is since sworn to have been in the late Duke of Monmouths Army," followed by a list of the men on the petty jury which condemned her. At the end of the volume are 3 pages of birth and death dates of members of her family, and the manuscript is prefaced by a list of afflictions for which the author wishes to thank God, including the sickness of her body and the loss of two children.
