Benjamin Flower at Cambridge to W[illiam]. Jeffries, the Bank, Bridgwater, Somerset, Tuesday, 21 February 1804.

Cambridge   Feb. 21. 1804

Dear Sir

   Will you have the goodness to inform me when you made the last payment for [the] Cambridge Intelligencer; and for when; and likewise the names of the persons from whom you are so kind as to collect for me their accounts.  I will then send a general statement. Altho’ I never mean to have any thing more to do with that troublesome, unprofitable employment—a Newspaper (for so it will prove, at least till the times considerably alter, to a man of independent principles) you will perceive by the annexed Title, that I have lately taken an opportunity of giving my sentiments on this unjust and unnecessary war.  The preface & notes contain about 50 pages.  The Discourse is an excellent one by a Gentleman in the Unitarian Connection; it would do honour to a man of any Denomination.  As it is an exception to the servile crowd which have lately appeared, I hope it will be encouraged by the Friends to Peace & Civil & Religious liberty.

   Altho’ I am still at Cambridge, I shall move whenever I can meet with a situation to suit me; I have been on the look out but have yet met with nothing suitable.  My Dear Mrs Flower last April presented me with a daughter, who is, not only in the opinion of her fond parents, but in that of every one who sees her one of the finest and most engaging children of her age ever seen.  Should anything bring you into these parts, shall be happy to see you.

                                             Yrs Respectfully

                                                         B Flower

P.S.  I lately published 2Edn (Price 1s/ the larger & 6d the smaller) of An Answer to the Inquiry Why are you a Christian, by Dr Clarke late of Boston; with a Note or two. —This little tract contains the substance of Volumes and is I think well deserving the Attention of those who may disbelieve or doubt the Truth of Christianity.  You will deduct the Postage of this when you balance accounts.

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. 288-89. This letter was written on the inside pages of an advertisement for Aspland’s Divine Judgments. Under the names of the printers, Flower has marked out “J. Marsom” and written “M. Gurney”; he also added: “The above may be had by the Country Booksellers from any of their London Corres­pondents.”  The Rev. John Marsom (1746-1833) was a General Baptist (Unitarian) bookseller at 187 Holborn Street, London.  Thomas Gurney, the father of Joseph and Martha, married a Martha Marsom in 1730, so the two families mentioned here may have been related.  John Marsom was a frequent preacher among the General Baptists of London, primarily the congregations at White’s Alley and Worship Street. He was also an original subscriber to the Unitarian Fund in 1806 (Second Report 33).  For more on Marsom, see Aspland, Memoir 47.

William Jeffries was a partner, along with two other men, in the Bridgwater Bank, which drew on Ladbrook, Rawlinson, and Co., Cornhill, London  (UBD 2.360).  Apparently, like several other individuals mentioned in the Flower Correspondence, he served as a local distributor of the Intelligencer.

Another reference above is to the American Unitarian minister, John Clarke (1755-98), who authored An Answer to the Question, Why are you a Christian? (Boston, 1795; London and Taunton, 1796).