Eliza Gould at the Gurneys, Walworth, to Benjamin Flower at Cambridge, Wednesday, undated [postmarked 22 December 1802].

My dear Benjamin

   I anticipated that you being obliged to wait for Tuesdays market would induce you to defer sending the eggs &c until to day.  I have waited so long for the postman who comes so very late that I have scarcely a quarter of an hour to write you in   however I have to communicate to my dear Benjamin what he will consider as better worth than twenty long letters—my health continues daily to improve & my cough which has been at times troublesome is now much better—it makes me very happy to find you are so well & to think that likewise the prospect of so soon meeting each other & I hope it will be very, very long before we part again for such a season  respecting the mode of returning home I will consult Mr Addington & let my dear Benjamin know what plan he would advise & I will inform him in my next.  I am very sorry to find that Mary has so often attacks I suppose of cold.  I am much mistaken or her constitution will suffer no inconsiderable injury—has she yet pattens or clogs I can I think answer for her in the negative has she a flannel waistcoat—No!—does she wear a flannel petticoat (perhaps)—No!—does she not often by walking out in the wet in them soled shoes get wet in the feet—Yes!—sometimes wear a handkerchief & sometimes go without—Yes!—such various & irregular modes of clothing herself must I am sure eventually injure her constitution.  I have suffered much & learnt much by the experience I have had tho I never like Mary practised the art of endeavouring to go without clothes.

   I am much gratified by your suggesting to me your benevolent wishes respecting our poor neighbours—the dinner used to be on our wedding day & in the whole men boys old Paytons wife & others made about 20 we used to have a round of Beef weighing not less than 20 pounds—with which I used to buy at the same price as the Beef.  Just enough to make 3 plumb & 3 plain puddings—the proper method of calculating for such a dinner as this is, pound of Beef for each person (before addressed)—as it wastes in the boiling.  I would have plenty of pudding as perhaps it is the only time in the year when the poor souls have any & flour is not now an expensive article.

   I could wish to be present on the Occasion which I could be if you fix it for old new years day—but whenever it is the beef should be bought on the preceding Saturday & I will send you a list of the names of persons to be invited.  I did not forget to reply on the subject in my last but not having room & knowing that next Saturday would be early enough to provide I thought I had better defer the mention altogether.

   If it be possible I love my dear Benjamin still more & more & every fresh evidence which I discover of the benevolence of his heart operates as if to link the chain of our affection—the sweet sensations which arise from the pleasure of doing good & contributing though in ever so small a degree to the happiness of others are doubly ours, because in those feelings we each participate.  Give my love to Mary & intreat her to pay some regard to her health for my sake.

   I wish she would give my love to Mrs Randall; request she will engage her nurse for me for April but that I should not like to give her more than Mrs Randall paid for the month she was with her—nor should I like to have her on any other terms—I thought it a little extraordinary that nurse should fix her price with Mrs Gardner at 2 Guineas & ask Mrs Randall three when she did not know she told me at the time.  She agreed with Mrs R— but she was to have vails—this according to her own account was an endeavour to impose on Mrs Randall or why ask her a higher price than she asked Mrs Gardner when she considered herself as circumstanced the same respecting both situations.  Nurse Terrington hinted to me of her expecting a sum of four or five Guineas where she did not take vails—a price I could not give in the country on any account I did not engage her but I was to see her again when I returned to Cambridge—however she should know my determination & I shall be much obliged if Mrs Randall will settle the matter for me—I read Sheridans speech in Hemmings paper & like some parts of it vastly the wit is brilliant.  Addingtons measures are very well thought of they [think] his system will be a very liberal one—I hope it will   anything to keep out the wicked Windhamites. 

                     Adieu my dear Ben

                                 yours ever

                                             E F

I am well informed that the Morning Post is purchased by Windhams Party you will judge of the truth of this account by the style of their remarks—I cannot judge not having seen them.

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. 268-70 (a more annotated text than that which appears on this site). 

References above are to Mrs. Gardner, wife of Isaac Gardner, Independent minister at Downing Street, Cambridge; Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), was both a statesman and a dramatist.  His reversal of his opposition to the war against France disappointed reformers like Eliza and Benjamin Flower, who still maintained their oppos­ition to the war, despite their dislike of Napoleon; The Morning Post was a leading London newspaper operated by Daniel Stuart (1766-1846).