1821 was sentenced to an imprisonment of eight months in Exeter gaol. During his confinement he composed a volume entitled Prison Recreations: the philosophy of reason and revelation attempted, with a view to the restoration of the theory of the Bible on the ruins of infidelity. The discussion of religious topics was one of his chief pleasures, and the pages of his Exeter paper contained a lengthened controversy from three divines, named Cleeve, Dennis, and Carpenter, on the Trinitarian question, which Flindell 'closed at last in a somewhat perplexed manner,' and provoked from Colton the epigram printed in Archdeacon Wrangham's catalogue of his English library, p. 564, to the effect that the three parsons had proved 'not one incomprehensible but three,' and Flindell had shown 'not three incomprehensible but one.' His prison restraint impaired his health ; he wrote in January 1824 that he was breaking up fast, and his illness was aggravated by his indignation at the severe treatment which he had received, while others who had used equally strong language had escaped scot-free. Death After a protracted illness he died at Exeter on 11 July 1824, aged 57. His wife and a numerous family survived him; he had eight children in 1806, some of whom are mentioned in Boase's 'Collectanea Cornub.,' p. 251. Several letters by Flindell are in Jonathan Edwards Ryland's 'Kitto,' pp. 124–9, 155; Polwhele's 'Traditions and Recollections,' ii. 778–81; 'Reminiscences,' i. 125–6; and 'Biographical Sketches in Cornwall,' ii. 57. 'A man of strong understanding, though by no means polished or refined,' was Polwhele's estimate of Flindell's character. References 1767 births 1824 deaths People from Manaccan English newspaper editors English male journalists