Eliza Flower at Whittlesford, near Cambridge, to Benjamin Flower at Harlow, undated [late June 1806].

My dear Love 

   You do not with more pleasure anticipate the return of to morrow than I do but one thing I do most earnestly request—that you will be at Whittlesford to a three oclock dinner pray contrive to do this for surely the difference of an hour or two in the time of your setting out cannot be attended with inconvenience I shall therefore expect you here by three & will walk a mile to meet you.  I am tolerably well in health but not easy at the account you give of yourself. 

   The Randalls all came here to day & bring Miss Dobson  they& indeed all our friends have treated us most kindly & indeed are ready to quarrel with me for making them so short a visit.  Mrs Blow sent over for me on Wednesday evening but would keep Miss D– to show her a few more of the Cambridge Lions.  She went to a concert the same evening she came with Mr Randall Musgrave & Menoch & altogether we have had a most pleasant visit & most of our friends express the most friendly regrets at losing us from Cambridge  they say the Benevolent Society has lost in us some of its best & most active friends tho they go on very well.  Mrs Bowman wanted me to sleep there Mrs Deighton has almost made me promise to spend a few days with her when I come again & wished me to have made a parley with her & some friends to have spent a day at Ely.  We have seen all the ridiculous flummery & mummery of the senate house seven doctors were made & 4 Noblemen took their degrees & 4 recited their prize odes.  We heard two anthems at the senate house on Sunday in which the London performers assisted & altogether we have had a very pleasant day. I had your last letter by the fly.

   I saw Mr Carver on Wednesday who told me he had seen your brother & sister & George Flower &Jane Clayton Dawson the day before at Melborne—what think you of this & what will the Highbury priest say did the young Lady come with her mother’s consent or without it.  If with the former how has she exerted resolution enough to get out of Claytonian trammels.

   Mansfield called at Mr Randalls & paid me & just as I was leaving Cambridge Wagstaffe sent me five pounds on account  tell our darlings how much mamma wishes to see them again & that she will not forget them   adieu    believe me my dear Love

                                 most affectionately Yours

                                             E Flower

Whittlesford   Friday morning

Seven oclock.  I am going to walk with this to Sawston.  Bring my Nankean pillows & dont forget the stool.

   Tell Sarah to get a Bullocks Heart of Holman for Sunday dinner & a lambs head & pluck for Monday but not cook the head unless she first parboil the whole that it might keep the better & let her kill a couple of fowls early on Monday morning.

   I wish she would scour my bedroom all over early on Monday morning & well brush the bed at the top & take off the dust with a wet cloth from the top of the wardrobe.

   Give my love to Betsey. I am glad she stays till Monday morning.

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. 319-21 (a more annotated text than that which appears on this site). 

At the time of the above letter, Eliza is visiting either William Hollick or James Blow, both of Whittlesford, during the Cambridge University Commencement Week in late June.  Other references above include John Dobson of St. John’s College, who was involved, along with several of Flower’s Cambridge friends, in the formation of a Free School in Cambridge in 1808; Peter (“Peet”) Musgrave, Cambridge woolen draper ; the wife of John Deighton, a prominent bookseller in Cambridge; the Senate House stands opposite Great St. Mary’s Church in Cambridge; and Richard Flower, his wife, Elizabeth, their son, George, and future wife, Jane Dawson (for more on George Flower and his settlement at Albion, Illinois, click here); Thomas Wagstaffe, operator of the Master of Arts Coffeehouse in Cambridge (UBD 2.494); and Elizabeth Gurney, who was helping Benjamin for a few days with the care of his two daughters during Eliza’s absence.