Eliza Flower at the Creaks, 69 Cornhill, to Benjamin Flower, Printer, at Harlow, undated [late January 1805].

My dear Benjamin

   I arrived in Town in good health & spirits & tho it is now seven oclock I am almost entirely free from fatigue.   I hope you will receive the parcel by the Fly to morrow but taking for granted as you told me that the coach went from Bishopsgate street (or I should rather have said called there for parcels) I am prevented delivering my parcel tonight it goes from the George & blue Boar & Mr Creak will send his man to morrow morning early   should the fly have set off I will send by one of the other Coaches  you can have all the vols of Saurin & I have sent the first accompanied by a set of curious pamphlets which I have been at some trouble to procure they have been all published within a short time & I think will beguile a lonely House of an evening after our dear prattler is asleep.

   I have not read either of the pamphlets but will trust to the chapter of accidents for a sight of them they are all out of print & were so within 2 days of their publication  finding Conder was the publisher I wrote a note requesting if he had secured a set for himself he would lend them me  he sent his set requesting the return of them as soon as I had read them therefore you will not fail to send them by any parcel you might send to me.  I have numbered them according to order the unnumbered publication is a thing by the bye & attributed to John Clayton.  The subject furnishes conversation for every company in our circle & Clayton is execrated by all  you will smile at Mrs Rylands witticisms tho at the expense of your Sisters wig & you will be delighted with her letters to her children—but I will not anticipate the pleasure it must afford you to find the wholesome & seasonable correction given to the lordly priest  he has been made to bite the dust with a vengeance  you have put him into hot water but Mrs Ryland has completely pickled him.  Scan no 3 for your diversion before you regularly read the whole read the latter half of page 19 no 3 to page 22—(so much for our hopeful relatives).

   Our Cornhill friends gave me a most welcome greeting.  I hope soon to see you—pray my love let me hear from you often very often as nothing else will make absence tolerable.  I have been much with you & our dear girl all day & I shall not forget to commit you both to the care of a wise & good providence before I lay my head on my pillow.

   Mr B Flight has dined & taken tea here—he informs me that your mother is very ill & to day he met your Brother Willm who informed him that they did not expect her time would be long  he has promised to send to morrow to enquire how she is & to let me know—Sophy Creak is I understand engaged to Mr Hughes.  Mr Ryland means to prosecute Mr Clayton—he is a most respectable man a man whose name stands high in Society.  Mrs Ryland is the daughter of a Baronet & a most exemplary woman.  Mr R is partner with Mr Joseph Stonard.

   Pray my love keep the cellar door shut that Eliza might no[t] break her neck—dont set up late to read those interesting pamphlets.  Mrs Clayton has for some time neglected your mother hardly ever going to see her—Mrs Dawson is reprobated by every one & some of our friends go so far as to say that my Ben is the only member of the [family] good for any thing—adieu my love  kiss Eliza again & again for me—tell her dear Mamma has got a very nice doll for her & some pretty pictures—don’t give her many sweet things & pray tell Mary what I omitted to say, that I desire she will not shut the kitchen door of an evening lest after she is in bed Eliza should cry without being heard.

                                             yours ever

                                                         E Flower

I hope Mary burns a light in the night  let Mr Fulcher measure the bottle room above the chair guard & say in your next how much paper it will take & how much bordering  I mean to have it papered over the chimney & he will measure accordingly.

The following line, written in another hand, was added to the bottom of the back page.   The signature “SH” is possibly that of Sarah Hawes or one of the Miss Hensmans, sister to Mrs. Creak:

Be so obliging as to bring me an account what I owe you for Oakes bill.—S H

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. 297-99 (a more annotated text than that which appears on this site). 

References above include The George and Blue Boar Inn, operated by Ibberson and Co., which was located in Holborn and from which the mail coach set out daily for Harlow at 6 am (UBD 1.ii.487); The "Cornhill Friends" are the Creaks; Harriet Ryland was the daughter of Sir Archer Croft, Bart.  Her husband, Richard Ryland, Esq. (b. 1747), was a cornfactor in business with Joseph Stonard at 5 Great Tower Hill (Lowndes [1799]: 152). For a complete accounting of the Ryland-Clayton controversy and the ensuing pamphlet war alluded to above, click here; for the correspondence of Richard and Harriet Ryland and Maria Grace Saffery, see Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, vol. 5; for selected letters of Richard and Harriet, click here and here; Benjamin’s younger sister, Jane (later Dawson); Eliza’s sister, Mary, who had been living with the Flowers since 1801.