Eliza Flower at the Gurneys, Walworth, to Benjamin Flower at Cambridge, undated [postmarked Thursday, 16 July 1801].

My dear Benjamin,

   The weather being still against me I have not been able to see your mother or even to go to Town—rain has been pouring down in torrents the whole morning and it is thundering & lightening tremendously.  When I left Hertford I purposed returning hither as to morrow or Saturday but this will now be impossible & Mrs Gurney strongly urges me to stay till next week & more so since she found we had been painting our house—but what does my dearest Love say to such as arrangement?  a necessary & a natural question for Eliza to ask & she can only add that whatever is his wish on the subject she will gladly perform as her highest pleasure.  If you think it advisable that I stay here part of next week send me your commissions that I might execute them, in case I stay, I shall return to Hertford about this day sen’night, & you will go to Royston or farther perhaps on Sunday sennight from Fulbourne.  Hall has been lately in Town he came up on Monday afternoon, & returned on Friday, he passed most of the time with Phillips of Clapham.  Hall is about they say to reply to the Bishop of Rochester’s attack on itinerant preaching, & had part of the copy with him which Phillips has read. I have heard nothing of the sort at Cambridge.   I call’d last night on Mrs Revoult & saw a letter which she yesterday morning received from my mother  they are well.  I[t] seems to me an age since I parted from my dear Benjamin, & long very long will the time appear till I again return to him.  Mrs Gurney has said so much on the subject of newly painted houses that I am almost afraid it might have an unpleasant effect on you, perhaps it would have been better my love had you slept in Dalrymples room & Mary and Betty in the back room.  As a preventative of the unpleasant effect of paint, do pray take some strong brandy & water every night going to bed, & let me know whether you have suffered any inconvenience from the painting.

   A most awful circumstance has just happened my dear Benjm in the death of a Lady whom I knew, tho not as an intimate acquaintance, her name was Palmer. I have reason to think Mr Palmer was the Gentleman on whose acc­ount Miss Hensman met with so severe a disappointment.  Mr & Mrs Palmer were travelling down to Brighton in a single horse chaise, with Mr Hoppner the artist and his wife, they had stopped on the road to water the horses & give them a mouthful of Hay, & to do this, Mr Palmer had the bit taken out of the mouth of his Horse, & the bridle loosened.  Mr Hoppner having already suffered by a broken bone in consequence of the running away of his horse 2 or 3 years ago, cautioned them to take care & refused to have the bit taken out of the mouth of his—notwithstanding Mr Palmer had the precaution to stand by the Horse, whilst the ostler was feeding him he all of a sudden gave a spring, & ran off, & melancholy to tell, after running a considerable way, threw poor Mrs Palmer out of the chaise at the distance of seventeen yards, & on Mr Palmer’s coming up he found her a breathless corpse—what is very extraordinary is the presage which Mrs Palmer’s sister had of some unhappy accident, which would befal them in their journey to Brighton, & so strongly was her mind impressed with the Idea of it ending in the death of her sister, that she wrote from Dunstable entreating her in the strongest terms not to undertake the Journey, & another letter to the same purport arrived about an hour after their departure. On the preceding night the wife of the Gentleman who is Mr Palmers partner dreamed that the chaise had been overturned in the Journey going down a hill & that Mrs Palmer had been thrown out & killed on the spot—which dream the Lady communicated to her husband the next morning.  How awful a providence this & surely the recollection that we in innumerable instances have been exposed to the very same dangers should inspire us with sentiments of gratitude.  I shall write my dearest Love again on Saturday hope to be able to go to Hackney to morrow.

   Mary will go to Market on Saturday of course—the boys should have a rice pudding to make part of their dinner on Sunday.  I thank you my Ben for your most interesting & circumstantial letter—pray let the next be equally long I told you when I left home what would constitute my chief pleasure whilst absent & I have neither laid by in the bottom of my trunk your picture nor your letters the former occupies its intended destination & is the last object I view at night & the first which greets my eyes in the morning.  I have seen the plan of a microscope which is far superior to anything I have ever seen the price is [£]1..6.0 & I have been extravagant enough to order one—tho I have not yet laid out any money I fear what I have will not be enough to purchase some articles which I shall want & will trust you to send me some.  I know I have a ballance to pay Harr­iet—adieu my ever dear Benjamin.

                                             your faithful Eliza—

You will send me a paper—give my kind love to Mary Mrs Gurney Betsey & Harriet send their kind love to you & Mary  mind & give me some errands.

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. 239-41 (a more annotated text than that which appears on this site). 

References above include the Revd. James Phillips, who pastored Independent congregations at Barkway, Hertfordshire (1783-95), and at Haverfordwest (1795-1800) before removing to London, serving first as assistant pastor at Grafton Square, in Clapham, Surrey (1800-07), and later as pastor (1807-24); Mrs. Palmer was the wife of William Palmer, Esq., of Putney, Surrey, near London.  A notice of her death (which occurred on 7 July 1801) appeared in the Morning Chronicle, 15 July 1801; John Hoppner (1758-1810) entered the Royal Academy in 1775, where he received a gold medal for original painting in 1782.  He married that same year and settled in London, eventually becoming portrait painter to the Prince of Wales in 1789.  Between 1790 and 1810, Hoppner was one of the primary portrait painters for the royal family and aristocratic figures of London, including many Whig politicians.