Benjamin Flower, Newgate, to Eliza Gould [at the Gurneys, Walworth], Sunday, 22 September 1799.

                                                         Newgate, Sep. 22d 1799

                                                                     Sunday Morng

   Your note which I received last night, with its favourable account, and its affectionate close, made me not only tranquil, but happy.  In health of body, I was not quite so well as on the former part of the day.  I had carelessly suffered my fire to go out, as I should have repeated my water gruel potion: but my mind was so well, that I retired to rest quite as I wished, and forgot any & every trifling inconvenience.   In the night, once or twice my cough was troublesome, or I should rather have said it kept me waking: but my reflections were of that     nat­ure, that I was not sorry for it.  Some of them will now find you.

   I reflected much on recent events, those of the past week in particular.  I examined the state of my heart in the most serious manner I was able.  What I had suffered on your account, when I was in painful suspense, whether I might not be required to resign you,—was fresh on my mind.  Whether I had not fresh cause to dwell on the admonitions of some of my friends, not to suffer my affections to be too deeply engaged, and my expectations to be too highly raised—What was the state of my heart towards my God, and how far I could with sincerity adopt language, I had often used, and often sung—these were the topics of my meditation in the “night watches.”

   Perhaps I might occasionally be partial to sentiments which the world call, and will have it, are romantic, but for which, I still suspect, I have not only reason but scripture on my side.  To allude to the latter only (for the present)—Do not the sacred writings allow of raised expectations—of refined happiness, in the marriage Union?  Are not these qualities which tend to produce that happiness spoken of with respect—such as the “good understanding, and the beautiful count­en­ance,” or as I would comment on, if not translate the words—the good or the excellent mind, beaming in the beautiful as the expressive countenance?  Where can domestic happiness be more beautifully represented, and recommended than by the wisest of men in Proverbs 5th Chap.  Verses 15-19. Can affection in the conjugal relat­ion be more energetically enforced than by St. Paul—“Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it—So ought men to love their wives, as their own bodies,—let every one of you in particular, so love his wife even as himself![”] Surely then affection in itself however strong, and more especially when it is founded on what is truly rational and praise worthy, can not be matter of blame, and I can not help wishing, that my sentiments were more prevalent than they are; I am persuaded the consequence would be beneficial to Society, both Sexes would seek for happiness where it was really to be found, and less in those objects which when possessed so generally produce disappointment, and ofttimes disgust.  But on the other hand there is I allow danger in not recollecting that every thing in this life is to the Christian, preparatory only to a future life, that no link of the chain must be considered as unconnected, that he must not suffer himself to rest on any object meerly earthly, or to dwell on any species of happiness that terminates in this life.   That it is not only his bounden duty, but his inestimable privilege to have that future state of existence continually in prospect; and that after all, whatever affords him rational pleasure, pleasure suited to an immortal mind, he must trace up to the great fountain of being, and happiness.  Yes, the Christian must in his serious moments, look thro’ and above every creature however dear to him, to the Creator.  A hint similar to this I dropped, I believe, in my letter of this day, sennight; I am persuaded, my Dearest Friend, you will not deem what I say, a needless repetition.  

   In certain of the ancient Systems of Philosophy, the Platonic in particular, there are some very fine Ideas, which I have been at times almost ready to think were inspired, and yet at other times I am scarcely able to determine if they are accurate.  What its great Author says on the nature of pure mind, the opinion that the minds of [men] abstractedly considered are immanations, or almost portions of the divine mind (but I cannot in the very superficial hints I am oblige[d] to drop express myself accurately) that as owing to their being united to, and enveloped  in a thick clothing of flesh and blood, they are insensible of their union with the deity, so when they are disencumbered of this thick clothing, their union will be complete—there is something so sublime and animating in this system (and it appears to me so analogous to what we find in the christian system) that it raises me from earth to heaven, and I strive to fill my Soul with the great Idea. But christianity affords us farther light on the subject, renders it less abstract, brings it more to common apprehensions, and places it in the most pleasing, the most transporting point of view.   For a general account of the Union between God and the Soul, read Acts, Chap 27—Verses 23-29. For a more particular account of the Union between God, Christ and Believers, read that astonishing prayer put up by Christ for his disciples just before his death.  John 17th, verses 21 & 22d in particular. I have only mentioned these out of many other passages that might be selected.  Let us endeavour more frequently to fix our minds on this important subject, and we shall find, that we may enjoy the creature, but must enjoy it in that way which a God of order, and who will preserve that order, has pointed out. 

   With such sentiments, and with eyes full fixed on heaven, how admirable the language and I had almost said how enviable the frame of mind of that excellent nonconformist divine of the last century—Mr Shaw.  In the time of the plague, he lost four of his children; his wife was ill of the same malady.  He was reduced to the painful necessity of burying his children with his own hands in his garden.  His frame of mind throughout such a trying dispensation, we perceive by a little book entitled—A Welcome to the Plague. I recollect a sentiment or two.  Speaking of his children, he exclaims as follows—“Dids’t thou oh my fond heart yearn over those innocents?  Wast thou enchanted with their faltering accents, their lispings, their broken rhetoric?  Did not thy soul dwell on incarnate sweetness, beauty and goodness?  Consider these were only streams from the ocean of felicity, and that all will be re-united and flow, and run to Eternity.”

   The transporting idea of a reunion with those we love in a future state, I can never give up.  I have once or twice in public dropped, the sentiment which I now give you.  “The time shall come” says our Saviour “when we shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God.” In this passage, there are three things implied as constituting part of the happiness of a future state—Rest—The usual posture of familiar converse—and—Acquaintance.  We lose the beauty of the passage by not attending to the peculiar circumstances of the people to whom the words were addressed.  Our Lord was speaking to the Jews, to those who venerated, who loved, who gloried in the illustrious characters alluded to; and it is probable, had they been asked for the names of three persons they would wish to know & converse with hereafter—the above would have been the names.  But let me, whatever pleasure I may promise myself from the company and the converse of the mighty dead of past ages—let me for the present—let me think of other names and persons.  The time will come when I shall sit down in the kingdom of God with that venerable parent—with that friend who was as my own soul—with that other half of my soul, with whom I am now sweetly communing!  Yes—I shall sit down with these in the kingdom of God, never to part more!  The union with these, the union with her, the union with my Saviour and my God, will be of that intimate that exalted nature that the heart of man cannot conceive!—but I will live, I will habitually rest my mind on the sentiment, it shall not rob me of but add to my present enjoyment; and it shall—whatever nature may feel, at the parting moment, it shall resign me, knowing that we separate for a moment only that we may be reunited again for ever.

   But I must not enlarge—I know not whether reading, as well as writing may not, my Dearest Friend, fatigue you.   To prevent weariness, or anything that may impede your recovering strength, you know I have constantly guarded you against, and should be very sorry to be in the least degree the occasion of myself.  Your mind will pursue the imperfect Ideas I have dropped, and I am sure in such a pursuit will not be weary.

   I have sent the letter from your father, and the letters between me and Mrs D— but I am really ashamed my letters should be exposed to your eyes and those of your friend, they are very incorrect, and what I wrote to Mrs D— had not that blundering appearance the copies present.

   Richardson from Hertford called last night.  He brought from my Brother to Mr Kirby some game.  I was provoked with Richardson for not having the wit to bring it first to me, as I would have seized part of it—it would have given me so much pleasure to have sent it with this.  Are cordials proper for you?  The two bottles now sent, contain what is good of the kind.  If you are not  all­owed to touch them, your nurse will accept of them.   Altho’ I doubt not you have every thing necessary, yet as I have had two hampers of excellent wine, sent in, during the past week, you and your friends must partake of it, as indeed I have much more than I can drink, and it is therefore nothing more than your drinking a glass or two with me. Old mother Bird, could only carry what I have now sent (2 quart & 2 pint Bottles) but I hope to morrow to find you a man with a larger quantity.  

   I trust you are still gaining strength, and that you have done with all alarming symptoms.  May heaven’s richest consolations fill your mind, and every blessing be our united portion that may tend to promote that felicity in this life which shall prepare us for, and be a foretaste of that eternal felicity in a future life—is the most fervent prayer of

                     My Dearest Eliza

                                 Your sincere & unalterably affectionate

                                             B. Flower

P.S.  I had two gentlemen to breakfast, which has obliged me to be later than I intended with my parcel.  If you have any note to finish, you may detain the Bearer: but mind what I have so often enjoined, about speaking, or writing.   I shall expect a note as usual by the 1st Post to morrow.

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. 120-24. 

Samuel Shaw (1635-96) lost his ministry at Long Whatton, Leicestershire, in 1661 due to his refusal to adhere to the restrictions imposed by the Act of Uniformity.  He worked as a schoolmaster in Leicestershire, teaching primarily nonconformist children the remainder of his life. Welcome to the Plague, which originally appeared in The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness (1666), was widely admired both by Anglicans and Dissenters.

Mrs. D— is Mrs. Dennys of Tiverton. Flower worked for her husband's firm in the late 1780s and early 1790s and lived in their home in Tiverton, the same home in which Eliza Gould would live c. 1792-93 as a governess for the Dennyses, though at that time she knew nothing of her predecessor in the home, Benjamin Flower.

Edward King Fordham (1750-1847) was a woolstapler and active political reformer from Royston. He was the brother-in-law of Richard Flower. He and his brothers John (dates unknown), George (1752-1840) and Elias (1762-1838) came from a well-established family of dissenters in Hertfordshire. Richard Flower married E. K. Fordham’s only sister, Elizabeth (1764-1846). In 1808, Fordham, his elder brother, John, and Richard Flower established the Royston Bank, under the business name of Fordham, Flower, & Co. E. K. Fordham’s nephew, John Edward Fordham (1799-1881), eventually took control of the bank; he married Harriet Gurney (1800-1874), a daughter of John and Maria Hawes Gurney (John Gurney was the elder brother of Eliza Gurney, Eliza Gould's close friend). George Fordham, assisted by E. K. Fordham and their younger brother, Elias (a lay Unitarian minister and farmer near Sandon), founded several Dissenting congregations in Hertfordshire in the late 1700s and early 1800s. By the 1790s, however, all three Fordhams had become Unit­arians. According to Alfred Kingston, Flower and E. K. Fordham of Royston corresponded during Flower’s stay at Newgate, with one letter surviving among Fordham’s descendants.  Kingston writes, “From this letter it is clear that Mr. Edward King Fordham and other members of the family were in sympathy with the cause for which Benjamin Flower’s bold and somewhat rash championship brought him to Newgate.  Among other indications of this the writer of the letter [Flower] mentions the excellent wines which Mrs. E. K. Fordham had sent him” (A History of Royston, Hertfordshire, with Biographical Notes of Royston Worthies, Portraits, Plans and Illustrations [London: E. Stock, 1906], 227). These may be the wines mentioned in the above letter. For more on the Fordhams, see the entry on E. K. Fordham in the Biographical Index.