TC-EF [EFL], 9 May. MS: Duke. Hitherto unpbd. Eliza Fletcher, b. Dawson (1770–1858; DNB), resident of Grasmere, once prominent in Edinburgh whig circles, and widow of Archibald Fletcher (1746–1828), Scottish burgh reformer and whig advocate; see 6:319.

1. Mary, her youngest da., became the third wife, 1847, of Sir John Richardson (1787–1865; DNB), Arctic explorer, physician, and naturalist (see 16:131).

2. The Fletchers were staying for three weeks at Blackheath, where Mazzini, whom Eliza Fletcher had met in 1837, visited several times and spoke about the Italian cause. “When we told him how much we had liked Thomas Carlyle's letter about him at the time the opening of his letters was brought before Parliament, his face lighted up with pleasure, … ‘Yes, and you do not know why it was so good of Carlyle to write it, for we had before some differences of opinion which had led to some coolness between us, but when he saw I needed a friend he came to my support; that I call noble’” (Autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher, ed. Mary Richardson [Edinburgh, 1875] 257).