Benjamin Flower at Newgate to Eliza Gould, at Mr. Gurney’s, Keene’s Row, Walworth, 27 August 1799.

                                                         Newgate   Aug. 27. 1799

                                 Tuesday Afternoon—4 oclock

My Dear Eliza

   Since I had the pleasure of seeing you, I have had a most troublesome companion, a Cold, which renders me both stupid and low spirited.  How I came by it, I can not otherwise conjecture, than by my getting up in a fit of musing on Sunday evening with my windows open.  It prevents me however from employing my evening solitude in writing to you on the subject I intended.  I indeed have more occasion for a clear head when writing to you than to any one else.  Whether you have read much or little I neither know nor care, but I wish, with what you will call my superior knowledge of books, I had learned the art of expressing myself with half your ease and perspicuity.  But, if I am to credit your own account, you have not had the art to acquire for what is art in others is nature in you.

   But although I cannot write a long letter on a subject which requires a little recollection and arrangement, I cannot help sending you a line or two, to express the heartfelt gratification I received on Sunday last.  I can assure you I was fearful of entering on the subject of my past letters, and for that reason suffered more of the time than I wished, to be previously spent in conversation compar­atively indifferent.  What little passed between us afforded me inexpressible satisfaction.  You with the most obliging frankness set my heart at rest respecting one point on which I had been much agitated from my giving what I most happ­ily find was an erroneous interpretation to an expression or two in your letters, (I should say Notes) of last week, though I freely admit they did not necessarily admit such interpretation, but affection will, in a state of uncertainty have its jealousies.  This point my heart as I said before being at rest upon, I shall indeed hope to get over the others; they are indeed very trifling.  My fears almost wholly centre in myself, lest upon farther acquaintance when you thoroughly know me —But I will not anticipate any evil day, but will cherish the thought that it will never arrive.

   I would not presume to dictate to you on any part of your conduct, but as your mind appeared made up, as to the propriety of your writing to Mr Haskins, may I venture to sollicit  that no time may be lost in your so doing.  In one of your letters to your friend Miss G— [Gurney] you say—“My Father who has the nicest ideas of the true meaning of justice and honour always told me that Feltham had no claims on me.” I beg I may be understood as giving no opinion on this subject myself, because I cannot judge of the circumstances, but with your opinion of your fathers ideas, accurate I doubt not, can you be of a contrary Sentiment?  Whatever, after this business shall be fairly investigated, may be for your happiness—shall be accomplished.

   Mr K [Kirby] has been with me a considerable part of yesterday and to day, ass­isting me in my account books.  I had a wish to try whether your remark respecting his mind was correct; it really was not quite so.  You see I am not a flattering admirer.  I read him some of your letters.  He broke out in those terms which shewed he felt them.  After I had finished the long one, “Well, said I, if you are tired, I’ll read no more, though there are several others.” “Tired!  no indeed, let me hear all” was the reply!—I thought of the conclusion of that fine sermon which you and I enjoyed, of Lardner’s, in which he speaks of the “Robes of the christian in suffering circumstances becoming resplendent.”

   R— [Richard Flower] returns to Hertford this afternoon.  He is gone to dine at my Brothers [William Flower] in Cannon Street.

   Tho’ you looked better than I expected, I think you did not look quite so well as on your preceeding visit.  I hope you are completely restored.  I now feel my Confinement, and that Newgate is, what in general I have been hardly sensible of, indeed a prison; and I am at times, and especially on such a dull day as this, like Sterne’s Starling—“I can’t get out, I can’t get out!”

   You will not be long before you again exercise your christian charity as well as friendship—and next Sunday I hope can be as happy as the last—and indeed rather more so, as I rather wished one of our Company had been at divine service, where indeed I hinted he might be.  If I do not see you in a day or two I shall depend on a letter—and if you have not other letters to write I would entreat a long one.

                     With heartfelt sincerity

                                 I subscribe myself

                                       Your 

                                             B. Flower

P.S.  If some afternoon you will bring your friend Miss Gurney with you to Tea, I shall be happy to see her.

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Politics, Religion, and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould, 1794-1808 (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 2008), 

References above are to Elizabeth “Betsey” Gurney, Eliza's close friend; John Kirby, Flower’s jailor; Nathaniel Lardner (1684-1768), a Dissenting minister and writer who served the Presbyterian meeting in Poor Jewry Lane, Crutched Friars, London, 1729-1751; Richard Flower and William Flower, brothers of Benjamin.