Eliza Gould at the Gurneys, Walworth, to Benjamin Flower at Cambridge, undated [Friday, 17 July 1801].

My dear Benjamin

   I have just received your letter and inclosure & as Mr Conder is going to send a parcel to Cambridge I thought I might avail myself of the opportunity of writing as perhaps I shall not have another leisure moment to day.  You compliment me too highly my love respecting the kind treatment received from Brother Will pray let us allow him all the merit that is due.   I am now going to see your mother this morning  I breakfasted with Mrs Fysh at Camberwell & I shall return to Walworth at eight oclock.  Have taken my place in the Hertford coach for Saturday afternoon & shall hope to meet you my Dearest Love in perfect health & safety on Monday.

   I shall take my mornings walk for the purpose.  Mary should take care to attend to the poor woman last confined—she may send her some candle—as to the others she need only proportion their relief to their necessities which I believe which I should hope cannot now be very pressing at least I believe many of them have been assisted beyond the limits which our society allows & I think unless theirs should be a peculiarly distressing case she must not relieve any more till my return.  Your letter of Yesterday tended rather to depress me as I feared from the manner in which you wrote that you were not well—however you are quite recovered by your letter of to day and so am I.  Had I time I could say much on many subjects—but will save for conversation  my friends have almost persecuted me for not paying them a longer visit but if I had should more have persecuted myself.

   Give my kind love to Mary—do not write any sedition to morrow because I shall in that case not have to share with you to the full.  I have the credit with some of my town friend[s] of being your abettor—However pray take care of yourself.

   I have heard many a grave Lecture since I have been in Town on the subject of your paragraphs—adieu I am my dearest Benjamin.

                                 your affectionate

                                             Eliza Flower

I had forgotten that I was writing to you on a—Friday.

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. 245-46 (a more annotated text than that which appears on this site). 

References above include Thomas Conder (1746?-1831) of 30 Bucklersbury, London, who was the leading printer and seller of sermons by Independent ministers between 1790 and 1814; his son, Josiah Conder (1789-1855), was also a successful writer and periodical editor; Mary Fysh joined Maze Pond on 2 December 1796, coming from the Baptist congregation at Cirencester. Her husband was Boswell Beddome’s business partner in Fenchurch Street, London (see letter 12). She died on 7 March 1804  (Maze Pond 2.ff.18, 155, 255).  Mrs. Fysh was also a friend of Robert Hall and may have had connections with the Baptist congregation at St. Andrew’s Street (Gregory, Works 5.415-16).  A notice in the Intelligencer on 28 November 1801 informed the public that a “Mrs. Fysh, daughter of Mr. Christopher Fysh of Lyon, died on Thursday sennight at her brother’s house in Camberwell,” most likely the same house in which Eliza breakfasted with Mary Fysh.