Eliza Gould, Bath to Benjamin Flower, Mr. Kirby’s, Old Bailey, Newgate Prison, London, Monday, 7 October 1799.

My dearest Friend

   I still find my health & strength encrease daily—this is the first and the best piece of intelligence I can give you.   I now think I shall remain in Bath the principal part of the week as Mr Haskins has introduced me to some Ladies who are his intimate friends with whom I am much pleased & with whom I have a wish to be better acquainted.

   You see I have not yet dared to take a folio sheet in hand tho the first wish of my heart is to write you such a letter as I know you would like to receive from your Eliza but Dodbrook is the place for writing & shall make the most of my retirement.

   I will now as briefly as possible state to you the particulars at which I hinted yesterday respecting Feltham.  When Mr Haskins found I was coming to Bath he wrote immediately to Mr F— (which he otherwise would not have done) inform­ing him that he expected me & lest he (Feltham) should conceive that my comm­unication might have a tendency to lower him in the opinion of Mr Haskins the latter wrote to say that tho he should hope to receive from me a full account of the affair which he had in vain requested from him—yet that his opinion respecting his conduct had been long determined by his own observation—that he was sure that I had been treated with duplicity as well as himself and that the more he knew of him the more he was justified in refusing him his friendship.   I saw Felthams answer—it was very cool & laconic—I have already informed you that Mr H— promised Mr Feltham five hundred pounds as a token of his friendship & with a view to enable him to settle in life—four hundred pounds of the money has been already paid him fifty of which I have received.

   When Mr Haskins had paid him three hundred pounds he had some reason to doubt that his income would sustain a diminution that was quite unexpected & he informed Feltham that it would not be in his power to perform what had been his wish under other circumstances—however the affair (which lay between him and his guardians) took a favorable turn & he then told Feltham that he had in consequence the power of gratifying his wishes on that subject & forthwith paid him £100 more urging him in the strongest terms to settle by getting into some line of business—for this had been Haskins’s object from the first—but this money was it seems squandered & Mr Haskins’s eyes becoming gradually opened to the defects in his character he at length seriously told him what his Ideas were (& had for some time been) of his conduct & that as not considering him a proper object—& not feeling himself justified in supporting a man in idleness & extravagance he could not think of furnishing him with the remaining £100 but that Feltham might not think he was actuated by any motives of a mercenary nature he requested he would name some person to whom this £100 might be given & that if he Mr H- considered such a person as a deserving object the money should be immediately remitted to them.

   Mr Haskins named me to him as the most proper person stating that his ill conduct towards me gave me a most powerful claim & saying that there was not a person in the world whom he so much wish’d to serve.   [T]o this Feltham replied with great acrimony & that he by no means thought me a proper person—that he felt himself bound to make that remark as Mr H— had applied to him for his opinion but that Mr Haskins’s money was his own & he had a right to dispose of it as he pleased—that 25 or 30 pounds was all he wanted—His reply disgusted Mr H— & especially as it respected me—& I believe from that time Haskins determined not to consult him on the subject but at all events he resolved to dispose of the money in a way that appeared to the most likely to do good & to inform Feltham of the distribution he had made.

   “This £100 Miss Gould said Mr Haskins to me I have now by me, dispose of it I must, & I wish you would do me the favor to receive it[”]—I instantly proposed to discharge my obligation to Feltham  he said it was a pity to throw so much money into the hands of an idle & worthless man that might be employed to better purposes & that for his part he thought Felthams conduct had rendered all obligation void but that my happiness was a great consideration & that tho Mr Flower had so generously offered to discharge it yet there would not be so much propriety as doing it in another way—because in case of Mr Flowers discharging it—Feltham would triumph—but that now the victory would be mine—this was as nearly the substance of our conversation as I can give it you.

   The mode of doing it we next determined on & this day Mr Haskins will write (as my friend) to have a statement of the account—he gave me the £100 this morning—I refused the over plus for I owe Feltham no more than £70 & told him that he would find objects deserving of it but he would not be refused—I mentioned to him then that I could wish [to] dispose of a sum to my father.  He replied Miss Gould it is yours & you will dispose of it as you think proper—I have only to regret that Feltham preceeded you in my acquaintance.  I have often regretted it when I found how much he neglected you & what trials you had to encounter for that five hundred pounds I wish’d to have disposed of to a person entering into life as I thought he then was with a fair prospect of happiness—& I really hop’d to have seen him rise by the dint of his industry he had a something comfortable of his own to which 500[£] would have been a desirable addition.

   An intimate friend of Mr Haskins who resided in the Isle of Man left Bath this morning for America he also congratulated me on my escape I received yesterday the warm congratulations of Miss Jones’s who used to meet him at Mr Haskins when he lived in Bath—they all appear to be very well acquainted with me & before Mr Haskins introduced me to either Captn Campbell or Miss Jones’s he said they only want a personal acquaintance with you, they have been acquainted with the qualities of your mind long ago, & have felt an interest in your welfare.

   Mr Haskins informed me that Mr Felthams acquaintance in Bath consisted of people of the vilest characters & that he had often felt himself degraded by being in his company & that many of his friends had felt themselves hurt in consequence & he now is convinced that Feltham was at the Bottom of a great deal of mischief in families that he could name & had by his artifices fomented whatever discord had arisen between him & his wife.

   Mr Haskins will write to you I suppose in a post or two—the reason he gave me for discontinuing your paper was on account of the asperity with which some of the paragraphs were written—he was frightened by his own account at the dismal picture of the times   he is a timid tho a most benevolent character and would feel it less difficult to bear the evils which spring from a disorganised state of society than to hazard his quiet & peace of mind by opposing their effects—some paragraphs in your paper alarmed him & made him uncomfortable & in consequence he gave it up—he used to be a warm democrat but latterly his mind has taken a religious turn—I find him a man possessing real piety—he has recurd with a great deal of pleasure to information I gave him respecting your religious sentiments & has since told me he almost feard to ask whether you were a serious man.  You will not after what I have mentioned my dear friend feel yourself at a loss in what manner to address Mr Haskins. I have showed him several of your letters with which he is much pleased & I know a long letter from you would gratify him.

   The weather has been much against me   I have scarcely seen anything of Bath.   

   To morrow if it be fine Miss Jones, myself & Mr Haskins are to go in post chaise to Bristol to see three of his children—who are not yet gone to the Isle of Man—it has been rainy all day & all day I have been close prisoner.   I shall make you pay for my resolution in not first taking up a folio sheet—well I believe I must (tho against my inclination) with due deference to your commands lay down my pen for the present—my hand will I hope as I gain strength recover its steadiness & my head its recollection—I say nothing about my heart to Benjamin Flower.   

   Send this letter to Miss Gurney if you please by the next post & desire she will inform Harriet Hawes of its contents.  It will give her real pleasure. The penny post letter from Walworth was a line from Captn Campbell Mr Haskins’s friend enclosing a line from Mr Haskins to inform me that his friend Captn Campbell was coming from Town on Thursday & to recommend me to come with him—he called on Feltham & not knowing exactly how the matter stood between us he requested the favor of Feltham to take a walk with him to Walworth to deliver Mr Haskins’s note which of course he refused to do.

                     adieu my dearest friend

                                 & believe me with the truest

                                             affections your sincere

                                                         E.  Gould

direct to me as usual—I shall meet a very old friend from Honiton to night.   Mr Haskins is a man of the most refined sensibility   he was delighted with your lett­ers on the loss of poor Copland—his feelings harmonize with yours.  I was glad I had those letters with me—they showed him the colour of your mind which so nearly resembles his own.

Some of Eliza’s letter[s] are very exceptionable—indeed her character in private life was not a good one I am acquainted with a Gentn who knew her & despised her for conduct which he himself had authorised.

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. 143-47.

Haskins toured the Isle of Man in 1797 with Feltham and J. Edward Wright, who is most likely mentioned above. The Miss Joneses, Ann and Margaret, had both previously operated businesses in Bath: one had been a dealer in tea, coffee and chocolate in Abbey Yard, and the other a perfumer in Bennett Street (UBD 2.103).  At the time of Eliza’s visit, they were operating a boarding house at No. 3 Lower Walks, where Eliza stayed during her visit to Bath. The two sisters were friends of Haskins (who had previously lived at Bath). Before settling in Bath, they resided for a time in Bristol, where Ann Jones joined the Baptist congregation at Broadmead on 1 March 1791. According to a note added some time later by John Ryland, Jr. (the pastor from 1793 to 1825), Miss Jones was eventually dismissed to John Rippon’s congregation at Carter Lane in London, where she joined on 29 December 1799  (see “Lists of Members” fol. 51, Horsley-down and Carter Lane Church Book, 1719-1808, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London). She later moved her membership to the Baptist church at Little Wild Street, but by April 1801 she had returned to Bristol, where she rejoined the congregation at Broadmead, at which time she was received, along with her sister (then living in Bristol) and Sarah Cottle, Joseph Cottle’s mother (Broadmead Church Book, 1779–1817. MS., Bristol Record Office, Bd/M1/3,  ff. 217-18).  Flower may have had some knowledge of Ann Jones prior to Eliza’s visit to Bath, for Miss Jones was a subscriber to Flower’s edition of Habakkuk Crabb’s Sermons. He certainly knew her after her arrival in London, for the two appear together in a later letter of Flower to Eliza. Ann Jones was originally from Harlow.  A John Jones, a relation of Ann’s (possibly her brother) was for many years a schoolmaster in Harlow and member of the Baptist congregation at Fore Street.  He died in December 1848, aged 80, and was buried in the Baptist cemetery at Foster Street, the same place the Flowers are buried. The following entry appears in the Register of Burials at Foster Street Burial Ground, Harlow, Essex, 1812-74: “Ms Anne Jones formerly of Charing Cross London and late of Bath, was buried in her family vault in this burial Ground, July 8th 1823, aged 70 years, by Thomas Finch, Dissenting Minister” (n.p.).  The Flowers’s friendship with the Miss Joneses illustrates the tightly-knit structure of late eighteenth-century Dissenting culture. A Mr. Campbell operated a circul­ating library located in Burton Street in Bath (UBD 2.99).

This final addition to the letter, clearly in Eliza’s hand, is enigmatic. Most likely, she is playfully satirizing comments being passed around by Feltham and his brother-in-law, Benjamin Hawes, to many of her friends concerning her role in the dissolution of her engagement to Feltham, who, we can assume, is the “Gentn” mentioned in the note.