Sixty letters written by Mrs Maitland to Charlotte West, née Perry (1769–1860), dating from the last two decades of her life. Mrs Maitland had known Charlotte Perry as a child in their home village of Totteridge, Hertfordshire. After completing her education in France at a Benedictine convent, Miss Perry lived with her father, Sampson Perry, in London. In 1788 she eloped with Charles Augustus West, a page to George III, and they were married secretly at Gretna Green. A year later, the marriage was formalized at St Luke's Church, Chelsea. Charles became an army officer and served in Egypt and then Flanders at the time of the letters.

The Maitland letters provide an insight into the effects of the upheavals of the Revolutionary period on society, Maitland commenting on political and military events of the time, particularly when they affect her directly. She confesses to West her fears for the safety of her sons at war, struggling to square her strong belief in providence with her personal anxieties. There are glimpses also of the activities of Charlotte West's father, Sampson Perry (1747–1823). Perry was a sometime surgeon, author, military commander, and newspaper proprietor who at the time of these letters was attacking the government through his radical newspaper, The Argus, which led to his conviction for libel. In 1792 he fled to France, only to be imprisoned by the Revolutionary regime. In 1794 he returned to England in disguise, but was arrested and sent to Newgate, an incident noted by a disapproving Maitland, who held conservative political views, in a letter of 2 April 1795.

Maitland's letters chronicle family incidents, the illnesses of herself and her children, local events in Totteridge, her views on reading and music, her fears for a sons serving in the army, and the problems arising from living under the eye of a rather controlling husband. She refers to her spouse as 'The General', and sometimes to herself as the 'Abbess', and to her daughters as 'the Nuns', or 'Vesta' and 'Vitula'.