File NLW MS 13587F. - Benjamin Flower correspondence

A collection of one hundred and twenty-one letters, and thirteen further fragments, 1794-1808 (mainly 1799-1800), being mostly the correspondence of Benjamin Flower (1775-1829), political writer and Unitarian (DNB, vol. 19, p. 339) with Eliza Gould, whom he married in January 1800.
The collection is fullest for the period August to October 1799 (the period of Flower's imprisonment at Newgate for an alleged libel against Bishop Watson of Llandaff, whose political conduct he had censured in the Cambridge Intelligencer) when almost daily exchanges took place between himself and Miss Gould. For the years following their marriage in 1800 the correspondence is less complete and consists mainly of domestic trivia and concern for one another's health and welfare. In two lengthy letters, 1799, Flower provides a detailed account of his 'past life, ... present situation and ... future prospects' (nos 17, 19). There are regular references to the difficulties faced by Flower in writing 'paragraphs' for the Cambridge Intelligencer, and, after 1805, to the problems of running a printing business at Harlow. Accounts of contemporary political and literary life are interspersed with personal details, and there is some discussion of the war against France. The later letters also contain many references to their two daughters Eliza (born 1803) and Sarah (born 1805).