Eliza Gould at Mr. Gurney’s, Keene’s Row, Walworth, to Benjamin Flower at Newgate, care of Mr. Kirby, Old Bailey, Saturday, 7 September 1799.

My dear Friend

   I was not quite well enough yesterday to undertake a walk or I should have pass’d the morning with you, for I was not perfectly easy on your account, but hope you are better & I wish this note might arrive in time to request a line of information on the subject, which I think is not improbable, as an opportunity offers for my sending it immediately to Town.

   Yesterday I was engaged to drink tea with a friend, but my spirits were out of tune and a sympathetic affection between Body and Mind, operated so        powerfully, as to prevail on the Head to participate with the Heart & the invalid to retire to her pillow.

   Did our affections own no other dominion than that of reason I would this moment make your mind happy, and give rest to my own—I have promised to “endeavour to cultivate an affectionate regard to you,” I here repeat my promise—I will act towards you in the simplest manner, & from time to time unveil to you the true estate of my Heart—with the fullest, the most unrestrain’d confidence.

   You must give me credit till next week for a letter—I am ashamed when I consider how much I owe & how unable I am to repay you.

   Your representative the Cambridge Intelligencer is just arrived, but to morrow I hope to see you in propria personae—I am much better to day—a walk to morrow will mend me, & to find you well and in good spirits will render the cure complete.

   You will not receive this note in time to reply, as an interruption by company coming in has prevented me from sending in time—Adieu.

                                 your sincere

                                             Eliza Gould

Keene’s Row

Saturday—half pass’d twelve o’clock

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Politics, Religion, and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould, 1794-1808 (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 2008),  p. 102.