Benjamin Flower at Cambridge to Eliza Flower “Senr” at Harlow, Tuesday, 19 February 1805.

Feb. 19.  1805  

Tuesday Morg 1/2 past 7

   My Dear Love; you scarcely deserve another letter.  Although I paid so little attention to your promise to write to Mrs Randall & Mrs Eaden that I thought it best saying nothing on the subject, yet I did hope you would have made up for yr first short note by sending me a good long letter; but although you spent the Sabb­ath at home; you could find time to converse with me for ten minutes only; and leaving the rest of your scrap to be finished the next day, when in your usual extremity of hurry, in writing, you informed me of a piece of news I was before ignorant of for you conclude your letter thus— The Fly is

                                                                     Ever yours.  &c

   I must however pay for my place on the outside of it to morrow as I rather suppose the Proprietors will hardly make me a present of it, and I assure you I have not purchased it.

   As I knew you expect to hear from me I am unwilling to disappoint you.

   After my return on Sunday Evening I went by appointment to spend the evening with Ebenr Foster, he was so pressing the day before with me to dine or sup with him that I thought it right to comply with his invitation.  Fred Nash, Turner & M. Foster were of the party; Mrs E. Foster is really an agreeable woman, & every body speaks well of her, altho’ at the expence of her mother as the comparison is sure to be made.  I have nearly finished my business & shall certainly return to morrow.  I have nothing particular to write.  Randalls both Mr and Mrs are but poorly.  Riley’s, Eadens &c as usual.  Miss Jenning’s execrating Clayton—Hall nearly recovered.  Mr W. Hollick & Mr C. Finch are gone to consult with Dr Arnold about his return to Cambridge.  The Cambridge folks in dudgeon with the London Baptists who with Dore at their head have discouraged any subscription in London. 400£ raised for Hall in Bristol.

   I shall attend to the messages in your Letter of Yesterday; and the next time I converse with you, I assure you I will not let you go after ten minutes Conversation altho’ I should be again assured that the Fly is ever mine.  Love to our Dear Girl who will see & taste that I do not forget her.  Altho’ to morrow is Fast Day I hope to make one of the best Dinners I ever did in my life & I trust my grateful sensations to my God will be much more acceptable than the effusions of formality & hypocrisy offered by the Murderers of the Day, in their prayers for succ­ess in this wicked war.

                                             Farewell Ever Yours

                                                         B Flower

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. 301-03 (a more annotated text than that which appears on this site). 

References above include William Eaden, who married Elizabeth Hart, the daughter of Joseph Hart, Flower’s former landlord, in 1793; Ebenezer Foster (1777-1852) was a prominent banker in Cambridge, the son of Richard Foster (d. 1790), also of Cambridge and a deacon at St. Andrew’s Street; Frederick John Nash, a veterinarian surgeon, relinquished his practice in Cambridge in January 1799 and moved to Bishop’s Stortford, where he married a Miss Woodham in September of that year.  The Nashes, from Cambridge and nearby Royston, were a prominent family in the Baptist church at St. Andrew’s Street and ardent political reformers. For more on the Nash family and their Dissenting connections, click here; Sarah Smith Finch (d. 1828) was the wife of Charles Finch, Esq. (1762-1830), a successful ironmonger, trustee of St. Andrew’s Street, and a significant contributor to the new chapel erected in 1836.  His daughter, Elizabeth, married Ebenezer Foster. His brother, William Finch, married Sarah Priestley, the only daughter of the Unitarian minister and scientist, Joseph Priestley; Edward Riley, music engraver and publisher in the Strand, London, was a close friend of John Randall, the well-known Cambridge professor of music; Thomas Arnold (1742-1816) was a physician in Leicester, best known for his asylum for the insane; Robert Hall suffered a mental breakdown in November 1804.  He was taken to Dr. Arnold’s Infirmary in Leicester and, after seven weeks of treatment, returned to Cambridge.  During his absence, Hall’s friends in Cambridge, Bristol, and London raised over £2100, of which £1000 was placed in an annuity of £100 per year for life; the rest was held in trust to go to the next of kin upon his death.  For more on Hall's madness, see Timothy Whelan,  “‘I am the Greatest of the Prophets’: A New Look at Robert Hall's Mental Breakdown, November 1804,” Baptist Quarterly 42 (2007), 114-126.