Chandos LEIGH, 1st Baron Leigh (1791-1850)

Autograph Letter Signed ("Chandos Leigh") to "Sir" [identified within the text as Mr. Howe], regarding an unpaid bill for a second-hand carriage.

1 page 4to, Stoneleigh Abbey, 15 November 1824.

The poet Chandos Leigh was a school friend of Lord Byron, and also a cousin of Jane Austen.  The tone of this quite polite letter owes perhaps more to the style of the latter than the former.

"A letter from Mr. Wingfield I suppose your Solicitor reached me here two days since, I am quite unconscious that I owed you forty-five pounds, as I thought that the money for the second-hand carriage I purchased of you has been long since paid: I know not of any other Bills, nor have I heard of any; if however you can make out a Bill & send it here I will instantly pay it: if I am in your debt as according to Mr. Wingfield's account I am; unless indeed I owe money to any other Mr. Howe which I cannot at this moment recollect. Of course I rely on your honour."

Leigh was later appointed High Sheriff of Warwickshire and appears to have led a life as honest as this letter implies.  His cousin, Jane Austen, had visited the family home of Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire some years earlier.

There is a slight tear at the top left of the letter, and a rather unobtrusive tape repair to the verso of the letter.

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