Eliza Gould at Stallenge Thorn, near Wellington, to John Feltham at Honiton, Devon, Sunday-Tuesday, 23-25 August 1795. 

The following letter details Eliza's shift in sentiments in regard to the doctrine of the Trinity away from her Particular Baptist roots and more toward the General Baptists and Unitarians, even though numerous Particular Baptist congregations in the 1780s and 1790s were composed of "mixed" hearers and members, some holding firm to the doctrine of the Trinity and others to Arianism and even Socinianism (although the latter was more rare).

Stallenge Thorn  

Sunday   Augst 23 1795

   I dont know whether I shall be able to write you, (according to your desire) a long letter but however I will attempt it—tho I am now the whole of my time necessarily confind to Mrs Quartleys bed room.  I have not left her more than a quarter of an hour at one time, since last Tuesday—she has been very ill—but is now thank God better, tho yet unable to sit up more than a few minutes to have her bed made.

   Her complaints are not consider’d to be of a dangerous nature; I believe a kind of pneumatic gout—& something of an inflammatory complaint, as her eyes have been greatly affected & one of her feet much swolen—she has had a very large blister applied to her back, her sides constantly rub’d with a lineament, & her feet with warm flannel impregnated with mustard; all those little offices, attending to her blister &c, have fallen to my lot, & I feel both from duty & inclin­ation, that I cannot do too much for her—I am sorry to hear so disagreeable an account of Mr Cooke—& I find I was not altogether wrong in my guess—& what will the poor child do? had I a home, & could be permitted to keep her, I would with the utmost cheerfulness do it,—nor suffer her to return to the society of those, who are I fear but ill calculated to further her improvement, in any desireable way.  She is a fine sprightly child, & has many good abilities.  I will tell you a singular circumstance respecting her which occurr’d when I was home last—going up stairs very slowly (as late as ten oclock) I thought I heard some one talking in my bedroom.  I drew near to the door to listen, for I then thought she was talking in her sleep—however I was mistaken, for she was expressing herself with great earnestness in these words—Pray Christ let me go to Heaven when I die—pray Christ do!—Pray Christ let me grow up a good girl, & keep me from sin, pray Christ do!—Pray Christ don’t send me to hell to be tormented with the Devil and his Angels—pray Christ don’t!—those were exactly her expressions & I believe whilst I stood there she repeated the same words exactly, 9 or ten times.  I return’d & told my mother, but she said that she expres’d herself in the same manner every night after she was in bed, & continu’d to do it, till falling asleep the sentences were unfinish’d & broken.  I had a great curiousity to know how she acquired those ideas, for in a child so young they are rather remarkable—accordingly the next day I interrogated her—she said with a deal of frankness, that she thought she was a naughty girl—for she knew I corrected her once for telling a falsehood—but the case was I believe partly this.  I gave them Watt’s catechism for children to learn, which they all used to repeat to me every Sunday there is an expression in it about the devil & his angels something similar to what Miss Cooke had repeated—she is a remarkably quick child, & much will depend on her being properly attended to.  I hope her father will immediately put her to school.  I wrote to him yesterday & desired he would send me an answer by return of post, directed here, & I likewise again requested he would remit to my mother by Haskins, in his next Journey to Southmolton; but you seem to give me very poor encouragement to expect any thing of the kind.  I have indeed read so many civilities from them, that I am sorry to be oblig’d to renew my request, untill to settle with me, might be attended with no inconvenience, for I have no idea but he will pay me some day or other & if I did not want the cash now, I would have left it to another period, when it might better have suited him.  He ought however to have ansrd my first letter, & whether he will this, remains to be determined, & in fact I have now my doubts about it.  It is very inconvenient to my mother to remain in Southmolton—& expensive to me.  The rent of the House I must of course pay on till Michs, because I gave a notice for quitting it last midsummer—the notice was given Lady day last—but I entered on another quarter, which will now soon expire, but I am the Housekeeper with only the income of the day school—so that the sooner I shut it up the better.  I have desired Mr C to say what time will be convenient for having home Miss Cooke, & beg’d he would inform me what mode he would have me adopt to convey her to Honiton.

   I am much obligd by your kind enquiry for my dear Mary—she is one of the greatest earthly comforts I have, & yet she is a trouble to me—her future life is confirm’d, tho I hope not in many respects, her principles.   I have endeavourd to cultivate her understanding (& she has naturally a very good one) to the utmost in my power—she is yet at Molton, but I wish her not to remain there long,  I shall try to get a place for her if I can as underteacher in a Boarding school.  I have a great inclination to talk with Mrs Symonds but this must be a future consideration, perhaps the next new connection I form might be an introduction to her.  She is very young, & I am sorry to be oblig’d to leave her at this early period of her life, to struggle with those difficulties to which she is a stranger—but the same was the case with her sister. Miss Raddon is very well  I lately scribbled a hasty letter to her—she has been for some time pas’d at Ilfracomb with her Cousn—when I am less hurried by being driven from one thing to anoth’r, & puzzled often to decide for the best—when Mary & I get comfortably settled & fix’d to something, I shall commence a regular correspondence with her, & I will make her my pupil.  I nev’r saw Grace write a letter on any occas­ion, nor do I believe she ever wrote 3 in her life.  How pleas’d I shall be to discover Mary’s opening abilities, to mark the gradual expansion of her intellectual powers, & above all, to be convinced by her future conduct & behaviour, that her heart is good—& if I may be allow’d to judge already, I think I have reason to hope it.

   She has a peculiar quickness of temper about her, which is her greatest foible, but this she will I trust have good sense enough to correct, & guard against—my father was so when younger, but now he is a Philosopher, & nothing irritates him nothing disturbs the serenity of his Soul, his perseverance is astonishing, & his strength of mind, equal to every difficulty & by having weather’d so many adverse storms, has learnt how (to use his own expression) to be calm in a Tempest. I could tell you some extraordinary efforts of his, that would almost exceed credibility.  My fathers feelings are sensible & accute, but for a number of years pas’d, I have not once seen him in a passion, he has an inexhaustible fund of original ideas—argument is his fort which whenever he enters on I think it must be with a determination to convince, or be himself convinced, because he never yields but on due conviction—my father to me often has started a subject, & maintain’d the weakest side of the Question, in order to induce me to argue the point with him, & because I should have an opportunity of getting the better of many weak, & contradictory remarks, he would purposely advance.

   I am writing to be sure at this rate, for want you will say of a better subject but what is uppermost you have first.  You wish to have a long letter—this is something like a narrative, & it best suits me now, as I have not leisure to think, & if I endeavor to arrange my Ideas, the chain is instantly broken, by Mrs Q- having occasion so frequently to talk to me, & by my getting up so many times to lend her assistance.  It is a great wonder I do not inadvertantly write you some part of our conversation, for I have been talking to her almost ever since I began this sheet.  I am oblig’d continually to say something or another to her, merely to keep her in spirits.  How is Mr Northcote—I should have been glad to have seen the letter you meant to have sent me of Mr H- if you had directed it to have been left in Tiverton my brother would have convey’d it to me.

   I am much oblig’d by the sight of those you have already favord me with.  Docr Bierkin writes English very well, & expresses himself with a degree of perspicuity unusual to foreigners, tho I conceive he must have been acquainted with the English language before he left Sweden, by the easy & elegant manner in which he cloathes his ideas. I did not know he was so rigid a Democrat.   Mr Haskins & him are not in the least personally alike, yet there appears to me much of the same turn of expression in both their countenances, something of the pensive & thoughtful.  There is a deal of character expres’d in Docr Bierkins face, which interests & attracts attention, by its peculiarity, but what turn of mind his countenance indicates, I am not physiogamist enough to determine—his features are strong, expressive & muscular.

   Miss Feltham appears by her Letter to be enjoying herself quite in her own way—if real happiness consisted in the enjoyment of an unceasing round of pleasure & amusement, she must indeed be really & truly happy; but other Ideas are mine—for having myself drank of a very unpalatable draught, I can affirm from experience that a trifling gratification, when my mind has been depres’d & sunk to the lowest ebb, has afforded me as sincere a pleasure, & been as highly satisfactory, as any added amusement can possibly be, to those, who are fortunate enough to be plac’d by providence out of the reach of calamity.  There is a sameness in all their pursuits—for they enjoy not that pleasure which is sweetly felt by those, who, having experienced the severe lashes of adversity, heighten by comparison every trivial addition to their Happiness.  You remark on your Sisters mild reproof & add it is unnatural to her & all Ladies you fear—the shot however does not reach me—I should be sorry at any time to reprove with acrimony.  I wish every friend of mine, to do by me, as I would by them, to reprove me when my conduct deserves it, & to season their rebukes with that gentleness & tenderness, which to an afflicted mind is peculiarly soothing and grateful—those only know the powerful & happy effects of kind attentions, who, (by being reduced to certain disagreeable extremities) have felt their efficacy.

(Monday)

   I could not finish my letter last night as I wish’d to do, & now it is too late in the day to send it to the post office, so that it will not meet you till Wednesday.

   Mrs Quartley is certainly much better   she is now spry & in very good spirits.  I have written the most part of this behind the curtains, & it is a wonder I have not given you the pedigree of many families, for on this subject our conversation yesterday turn’d, for she did not know that I was writing a letter, nor does she now, only that she sees me writing, & is very inquisitive to know whether I am writing for the press, & seem’d pretty confident it is for Mr Flower.

   You ask me whether I have read Anna St Ives. I have never seen it—I endeavoured to borrow the books at a circulating Library in Tiverton, but they were not to be had.  I will endeavour to get & read them the first opportunity—tho I have no great fondness for novels—I cannot recollect to have read but 3 these 4 years—Zeluco, Desmond, & The Romance of the Forest. Mr Stone who has been so long a prisoner, I have been told, wrote Desmond tho I fancy Miss H-M-Williams had the credit of being the Authoress, I believe his name is affix’d to the title page, but be the writers whoever it may I think it is one of the best things of the kind I ever perused   it is entirely a democratic publication but I suppose you have read it long ago for I believe it has been published 4 years.

   I have pass’d my time to very little good purpose, since I liv’d at Southmolton.  I have during that period, read nothing (comparatively speaking) or mix’d with any kind of society, from whence I could derive any mental informat­ion.  I feel that the powers & faculties of my mind are weaken’d, for want of proper exercise & had it not been for my pen & ink, I should have degenerated into that kind of listlessness & stupidity, from which I might not so easily have extricated myself—

“A Friend, a Book, the stealing Hours

Secure and mark them down for Wisdom”

but at Southmolton I had neither friends or books, & latterly no kind of society.  Whatever—my pen was my only friend & companion, & I made the best use I could of this.  I generally used to write from 8 to 10 oclock, sometimes till eleven & often later—now & then bore you & Miss Raddon with a long letter—perhaps write a full sheet for nobodys perusal but [my] own.  I committed to the flames more than forty sheets fill’d on every side—thus I relax’d my mind by writing, because I could avail myself of nothing better.  As I seldom ate any supper, drowsiness hardly ever prevented me from attending to what gradually became my favorite employ.  In a meditative moment an idea suggested itself, that of writing a short narrative of some part of my past life. My history commences at the most eventful period of it, about 5 years since, but whether I shall have resolution enough to proceed I do not know, & I now hope I shall not have the time as I wish for better employment.  By my living so recluse a life as I have latterly done, I am become as it were habituated to it, but I hope I do not cultivate a thirst of misanthropy.  I feel that I have acquired a kind of taciturnity which I endeavour to divest myself of—you think it strange no doubt, but during the whole of my time I pass’d at Southmolton last winter I had not (that I can recollect) 3 people of the Town that pas’d the threshold of my door, to sit a 1/4 of an hour with me, & I have not been up in Town for more than three months together.

   I am not constitutionally lowspirited, but I think to be so immured was enough to depress the stoutest, for besides this I had a variety of other causes to render me very unhappy, & for more reasons than one I was so—my family were too many for me, & they had no other—but however they are all in a fair way of doing well.  I have taken a deal of trouble in endeavouring to settle my fathers affairs, & besides this, have procured situations for 2 or 3 of my family, my sister Grace might (if she pleases) do very well, & if she will not I am not to be blamed. My eldest brother thro some interest I had, is in an eligible line, & my youngest I am now endeavouring to place with a Mr Tonkin, an attorney in Plymouth. I wrote a letter to him last week.  John has been writing in the office nearly a month, he is but 12 years old but a very fine boy—Mr T wishes to take him an apprentice, but I would by no means agree to have him bound for a longer time than 4 or 5 years, because at the expiration of that period, he might wish to be something more than a Hackney writer—he is not now capable of judging for himself, but at the age of 16 or 17 he will be better enabled to, & I thought it would be doing him an act of injustice, to tether him longer.  You mentioned (on a scrap which you sent me) a Situation, but did not say [illegible] the particulars you said I should be informed of, if you thought it eligible.  Circumstanced as I now am, any situation that is reputable must necessarily be eligible, be it wherever it may, I know I can be happy in it—I thought you would have been more explicit in your last, but now I recollect you did not mention it at all.

   Your Ideas and mine respecting the Trinity are strictly coincident—the blind zeal of those who stile themselves Orthodox writers & preachers, have ever been inimical to the promulgation of religious knowledge & I might add I think (without any breach of charity) of truth likewise—the tenor of the Athanasian Creed is altogether such a complex medley of rash inconsistencies, and in every respect so very incomprehensible, that I wonder our right reverend fathers in God have never attempted its abolition—but absurd and wholly incomprehensible as it is, it nevertheless is the fundamental support, & the ground work, whereon is built an immense superstructure, the church, against which the gates of Hell cannot prevail but the above cited passage according to any humble Idea refers to the Church of Christ & the members of which are those who worship him in Spirit & in Truth.  Independent of all external forms & ceremonies, creeds, superstitions, austerities, consecrations, & mitres, gowns, lawn-sleeves, &c.  Did you ever read Reynolds’s epitaph on bigotry, it is bound with Watts’s Lyric Poems. Athanasius was an uncharitable Bigot, & his creed is I think nearly on a par, in point of rationality, with the doctrines of infallibility, & transubstantiation, for they are equally absurd & inconsistent.  Religion is a personal thing, & in my opinion the first leading principle of Christianity is that of doing good—herein we honor God, & render unto him an acceptable Service.  Religion I am sure, to day is made the Stalking Horse of the self interested, the most profligate & abandoned, allured by the splendid emoluments annex’d to their profession; & not considering the great & important work in which they are engaged, doze out a useless Life in ease & Luxury—“with impure life, they appear only to honor God, whilst their mercenary hearts on Lucre bent make traffick of the Gospel”—God forbid I should in this respect speak generally, or judge uncharitably, there are many whom I know who are an ornament to their profession, & whose moral principles, & rectitude of character I venerate & esteem.  The leaven of priestcraft appears to have tinctured in some degree every class & sect of dissenters, that I know of, except the Quakers & Sandemanians—all fond of the loaves & fishes.  I am a great enemy to all church endowments,—wherever a society is form’d for the exercises of religion (be they of what Sect or party however they may) & the leading members of that Society unite in their choice & approbation of a minister, he ought I think to be supported by voluntary subscription, & then he will most likely be the choice of his people—& for this reason, and others, I am averse to a national establishment, as being productive of bad consequences in what manner it is so.   I have not now time sufficiently to enlarge on, nor can I by giving you my Ideas, communicate more on this subject than you are already convinced of—it is unscriptural & irrational (I think), in every point of view.  I am a dissenter, & half Quaker I think, in some of my Ideas—divest them of their singularities, & they are a People worthy to be imitated, tho I take for granted no mans opinion, the Scriptures I consider is our general rule of faith & practice, & on that I ground my belief.  Religion is as you very justly remark’d, plain & simple; a diversity of opinion & sentiment I believe was never more prevalent than now—& controv­ersy is enter’d on with that degree of warmth, as tho a mans salvation depended on his getting the better of an argument but it is the actions of a man that denominates him a Christian, it is that his life & conversation be correspondent with the Gospel—it is not “those that say Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven,” but whoso doeth the will of God.  Too many there are who consider religion to consist only—but I cannot write a word more—as Mrs Q wants me & I have written the whole of this letter at intervals—so what you will be able to make of it I dont know.    

                                                         yours &c in haste

                                                                     E Gould

How is Mr Northcote   tho I believe I enquir’d before.

Tuesday

   I dont know what you mean by “Old Perrys kitchen having the pasteboard,” please to tell me in your next—direct your next [as] usual Stallenge Thorn near Wellington or if you have an inclination to favor me with a sight of Mrs Hs letter you can send it by Haskins & enclose your next weeks if you do please to direct for me to be left at Mr Warrens Peter Street Tiverton   till calld for this is a house at which Haskins always stops & by diverting it to be left there he will recollect himself & not carry it on to Molton as I believe he did the last, because I did not receive it till after his return from thence.  I cannot recollect that I ever recd so long a letter as this in my life from you—tho you used sometimes to fill a sheet but [that] has not been the case latterly.  Miss Quartleys &c present their compts—I had a question or two I meant to have askd you but I have neither time or paper room—if you send me Mrs Hs letter perhaps I shall be able to send it up again by Haskins in his return the same week   he comes to Tiverton Monday, & returns there again Wednesday or Thursday.  If I do not send it then I will the following week, before which time I purpose going to Molton.  I hope you recd the letter last week by Haskins.

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. 16-25 (a more annotated text than that which appears on this site). 

At the time of the above letter, Miss Cooke was the only boarder in Eliza’s school. Eliza's younger sister, Mary, was also present, and another sister, as well as her brother, Thomas, are also mentioned above. Other references include to Isaac Watts (1674-1748) and his Catechism (first published in 1730), was widely used in England and America throughout the eighteenth century, as well as his Miscellaneous Thoughts, Prose and Verse, Natural, Moral, and Divine Subjects (1734; new edition, 1789) and Horæ Lyricae: Poems, chiefly of the Lyric Kind (1706), which went through sixteen English editions between 1706 and 1799.

Mrs. Symonds, Eliza’s former teacher, and her husband, Rev. Noah Delahay Symonds, had relocated from Bampton to Honiton by the mid-1780s, at which time Mrs. Symonds opened another school for girls, assisted now by a Miss Crisp. By 1796 she had moved to Taunton, for in that year a Mrs. Symmonds (most likely a variant spelling) subscribed to Habakkuk Crabb’s Sermons, printed by Flower in Cambridge (see Records f.203; UBD 3.390; Exeter Flying Post, 15 May 1783; 3 July 1788; 11 December 1788; and 19 December 1799; also Introduction, xxvi, xlvii); another reference here to John Gould’s bankruptcy; Miss Raddon was from Pilton, Devonshire; Peter Tonkin (d. 1826) was a prominent Plymouth lawyer and politician. Others mentioned could be either Thomas Warren, sergemaker, or William Warren, linendraper (UBD 4.620). In 1813 William Warren bought out Henry Dunsford, another linendraper in Tiverton (Exeter Flying Post, 1 April 1813); the Quartley’s, who married in 1749, had two daughters, Elizabeth (b. 1755) and Grace (b. 1764).  Elizabeth married in 1779, so the reference may be to Grace.  However, these could be other relations as well, possibly grandchildren.

Among Eliza Gould's reading at this time were novels, such as Anna St. Ives (1792), by Thomas Holcroft (1745-1813); Zeluco.  Various Views of Human Nature taken from Life and Manners, Foreign and Domestic (1789), by John Moore (1729-1802); Desmond, a Novel (1792), by Charlotte Turner Smith (1749-1806); The Romance of the Forest, interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry (1791), by Anne Radcliffe (1764-1823), author of the more widely known gothic romance, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). Other writers mentioned above include William Stone, a London merchant, Unitarian, and radical reformer, was accused by the Pitt administration in 1795 of collaborating with the French. He was acquitted and the following year Martha Gurney printed and sold The Trial of William Stone for High Treason at the Bar of the Court of King's Bench, on Thursday the twenty-eighth, and Friday the twenty-ninth of January, 1796, taken from the shorthand transcript by Joseph Gurney; Helen Maria Williams (1762-1827) published several poems in the 1780s while living in London, and later became known for her Letters written in France (1790-96). 

The Athanasian Creed, which played a prominent role in the Book of Common Prayer, was Trinitarian, and consequently not to Eliza’s liking.  Despite her upbringing among the Particular Baptists (a denomination whose theology was Calvinistic and Trinitarian), by the early 1790s Eliza had adopted an Arian position that rejected the co-equal status of Christ with God the Father. The Sandemanians originated in Scotland under the leadership of John Glas (1695-1773) and his son-in-law, Robert Sandeman (1718-71).  Among the group’s major tenets was the complete separation of church and state; a belief in a “reasoned faith,” as opposed to emotion or “religious affections”; and the re-instituting of certain New Testament practices, such as the love feast, feet washing, a limited community of goods, and church governance by bishops, elders, and teachers.  Eliza correctly notes that, like the Quakers, the Sandemanians rejected the common practice of ministerial emolument.

The Athanasian Creed, which played a prominent role in the Book of Common Prayer, was Trinitarian, and consequently at this time not to Eliza’s liking.  Despite her upbringing among the Particular Baptists (a denomination whose theology was Calvinistic and Trinitarian), by the early 1790s Eliza had adopted an Arian position that rejected the co-equal status of Christ with God the Father. Daniel Turner (1710-98), Baptist minister at Abingdon, like his friend Robert Robinson (1735-90), Baptist minister at Cambridge (and his friend, Mary Hays of Southwark), appears to have had some similar leanings away from the orthodox position as suggested in a letter dated 14 June 1782, in which he was recommending a possible position for George Dyer (already a committed Arian who had recently ministered at Oxford) with a Particular Baptist congregation at Watford. Turner writes,

I am sorry to hear such news of Mr Smith whom I know very well. I can’t think what has turn’d the Man’s head so far from the Truth except it is the puzzling nonsensical unscriptural Manner the Orthodox people too generally take in maintaining the Doctrines of the Deity of Christ upon the stupid Athanasian plan—The Language of Job is as different from that of the Scriptures as darkness from Light. Let us not attempt to explain what is inexplicable. Who by Searchg can find out the Almighty? The Bible says it is the Word of God; I therefore believe it: The Bible, the Bible.  

(Daniel Turner: Letters, MSS, and Poems, 1743-82, FPC/c.55, Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, Oxford)

The Sandemanians originated in Scotland under the leadership of John Glas (1695-1773) and his son-in-law, Robert Sandeman (1718-71).  Among the group’s major tenets was the complete separation of church and state; a belief in a “reasoned faith,” as opposed to emotion or “religious affections”; and the re-instituting of certain New Testament practices, such as the love feast, feet washing, a limited community of goods, and church governance by bishops, elders, and teachers.  Eliza correctly notes that, like the Quakers, the Sandemanians rejected the common practice of ministerial emolument.