Benjamin Flower at Cambridge to Miss Eliza Gurney at Walworth, Sunday, 10 November 1799.

                                                                                 Cambridge Nov. 10. 1799

My Dear Madam

   I sent you by a Friend a packet of My Dear Eliza’s Letters.  From the few lines which I transmitted with them you perceived the agitated state of my mind.  I have indeed been preparing myself for the worst, but blessed be God the Cloud that hung over my mind is breaking.  The letter I now hand affords a reasonable hope of the recovery of our Friend.  God grant it may be speedy and complete.  As I have to write to her by this Post I can only add that I am

                                 Yr sincere lovg & hume sert

                                             B Flower

Have the goodness to return this with the other letters.

   Wedy Morng   9 o’clock

  As I did not in consequence of an accidental delay of this letter receive it till past 3 o’clock yesterday (too late for the post here) I return it by Coach instead of post as that will make about a days difference in the time of your receiving it.

                                                         Eliza Gurney

I hope you will be able to read the letter that accompanies it but it is scrawled I almost doubt it.

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Politics, Religion, and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould, 1794-1808 (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 2008), pp. 189-90. This letter was written on the back of Eliza’s letter of 6 November, and was sent along with several other letters to Elizabeth Gurney. On Wednesday, 13 November, Miss Gurney returned this letter and the others, adding her note beneath Benjamin’s letter.