Benjamin Flower, Newgate, to Eliza Gould, care of J. Haskins, Esqr., Three Tuns, Bath, Saturday,  5 October 1799.

                                                     Newgate, Oct. 5.  1799

   If, my Dearest Eliza, I did not comply with the letter of your request in writing to you by the post of yesterday evening, it was because my heart had anticip­ated the spirit of it.  I wrote to you by one of the coaches of yesterday morning.  I can indeed answer for myself, that every thing which affords you pleasure will afford me delight.  To administer to your happiness, will be to administer to my own.  Whatever you wish me to do, shall always be done.

   But before I proceed let me for the last time, I hope, entreat you to have done with all apologies for your writing.  When I peruse, and re-peruse your last —When I behold you fatigued by your journey—having only one night’s rest before you to recover your “worn out strength”—your “hand trembling so that it will scarcely guide your pen”—after these expressions to read full half a page of apology from my Eliza, to her dearest, most intimate and most affectionate friend —for her writing meerly—for a letter I am compelled to add which shames his most correct letters—I will not say I am angry, because I never can be angry with anything you write, say, or do: but I am distressed that you should, in this most unnecessary manner, have added to your fatigue.  No—I will not do as you request me—“think favourably and partially” of you, if these words are meant to cover defects.  I will only think justly of you.  No expressions ever so penetrated my soul, as certain expressions in every note lately scrawled by the pen of an Invalid on her pillow.  When I intimated my wish of shortly receiving “long and well writt­en letters,” it was not, surely you could not so understand it, meant as a reproof, or as anything bordering on reproof, but meerly as an expression of my expectat­ion of your complete restoration, because I knew that when you were well in health, you could not do otherwise than write well.  Having said thus much, I am sure you will not put me to the pain of ever having again reading an apology for your writing.  I have indeed before set you an example.  My last I recollect was written (altho’ I had not your excuse) in a very blundering manner.  I made no apology for it.  I have indeed often wished, that when I was a boy I had been whipped out of my blunderings, but they were suffered to become habitual.  Your example will I hope correct me in some measure, altho’ I fear it will not cure me: but never oblige me again to write on the Subject.

   I have received no note from you to day, altho’ your letter gave me some reason to expect one; but perhaps you were too much hurried, to write on the renewal of your journey.  I shall be anxious for the letter you promise me on Monday Morning.  Do not attempt to hurry into Devonshire.  However long the weeks and days may prove to me, till you return, your health I have so much at heart, that I again entreat that may be your first concern; and if, upon the whole, you judge it best to prolong your stay at Bath, let no consideration prevent you from so doing.  I know you will not stay unnecessarily there, or even with your parents in Devonshire, and with this persuasion I rest contented.

   I wrote a note to Miss Gurney as you desired.

      I am not quite easy when I reflect on Feltham’s last impertinent letter.  It is too provoking to hear him talk of “forgiving you,” more especially if he is in the habit of so talking.  If I follow my own inclination, it will be to write him a short letter to inform him that if he dares, either to you or to any one else, to use such language in future, his conduct shall be exposed as it deserves, by a free circulation of his letters and yours—an exposure fully sufficient to ruin his character in the opinion of every feeling mind—of every real christian.  But I will do nothing of the kind ‘till I hear from you.  I will do nothing to give you the least uneasiness.

   I have read the Letters of Yorick & Eliza. They afford much matter for criticism.  Surely there was much criminality in Sterne’s sensibility, nor can I entirely acquit his correspondent: but what a letter is that written on her Birth day.  Every line is charming and perfect!  I am glad I did not read the letters three months since, for you must then have thought that what I have said to you and others respecting your letters, had been borrowed from Sterne.  I believe I have used the very same expressions: somebody has marked the paragraph with a pencil.  You cannot, recollect, return the compliment of your (christian) name sake, and talk of borrowing your style, sentiments &c. from me, as the greater part of my Eliza’s letters were written before I was her Correspondent.  You must not exercise this talent so much as you have done.   I am persuaded, however great the pleasure friends have received, your health has been injured.  You remind me, by your past employments, of what a pious old writer of the last Century somwhere observes; that—“When the Devil finds he cannot hinder the usefulness, or diminish the lustre of the Lord’s burning and shining lights—he lights them at both ends that they may burn out the faster!”

   The papers of to day inform me that—“Early yesterday morning, the house of Mesrs Hawes, Batley and Hawes, Cowlane, was broke open and robbed of various articles of plate.” This is the whole of the article.  I believe this is the residence of one of your quondam friends.                                                                             

 4  oclock.

   Miss Gurney is just gone to her Brother’s to dinner, after favouring me with her company for an hour.  She has given me some farther particulars of your late illness, which to me have been peculiarly interesting.  She desires her love.  When you do not write to Walworth, she desires you would mention it in your letters to me that I may inform her how you are.  I hope you have received my paper, altho’ as you did not mention it, I did not order Mr Haskin’s name on it.  There are a few lines on Love by Mr Gray, which perhaps you never saw before.  I took the liberty of exchanging the name in the original, the only liberty I took.  I thought of asking you to leave me the Crayon, but it is not a likeness, and it does not signify.  Had I been at liberty, I should have prevailed on you to sit for a miniature, if I could have depended on an Artist.  But after all—I have a portrait of you on my heart, the colours of which will never fade, but will brighten to eternity!  Your Image is there indelibly engraved—the proof impression will remain when time shall be no more!  Adieu—Adieu my Dearest Eliza, and believe me

    Your most sincere, grateful and affectionate

                                                         B Flower

P. S.  The parcel I sent yesterday morning was by one of the 4 oclock coaches from the Saracen’s head, Swan hill.  I have been particular, as I did not put Mr H—’s [Haskin’s] name on it.  I should have said I sent it to the Inn on Thursday night.  I shall write to you by Monday Night’s Post.  I suppose your next direction will be at Mrs Hayne’s Tiverton.  My letter will reach that place on Wednesday Morning.  Miss Gurney left the letter which I have directed for you by this evening’s Post.  Once more Adieu!  I am anxious for

                                                  Monday Morning

Text: Flower Correspondence, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth; for an annotated edition of this letter and the complete correspondence of Eliza Gould and Benjamin Flower, see Timothy Whelan, ed., Politics, Religion, and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould, 1794-1808 (Aberystywth: National Library of Wales, 2008), pp. 135-38. 

References above are to Benjamin Hawes and his establishment in Cowlane; also Eliza Gurney and her brother, John Gurney.