Editor’s NoteEditor’s Note1936To John Lewis Mallet15 October 1807 (Aet 59)

B G H²

15th Oct. 1807

Sir

To John Lewis Mallet Esqr

Secretary to the Audit Office Somerset Place

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of yesterdays pg 446date desiring me to 'inform you as nearly as I can ascertain it, at what period the sum of £12,000 mentioned in my Letter No 2, and for which I gave a receipt to Mr White was issued for the purchase of Ld Salisburys premises; it being necessary' (you add) 'that the Commissioners should apply for a copy of the Warrant under which the money was issued, in order to ascertain whether this payment is subject to account or not.'

In answer to these commands, I am sorry to have to inform you that on that point it is not in my power to afford you of my own knowledge any direct information over and above what is contained in that letter. At the same time I am not under any apprehension of your experiencing any difficulty in the ascertaining the point through some more authentic channel. Mr White to whom I gave the receipt and by whom I suppose the money must have been received from the Treasury, is, perhaps not at hand to be consulted; otherwise it is to him you would, I suppose, have addressed yourself in preference to me, but for your unwillingness to give to any person unnecessary trouble. Mr White I understand is no longer in Office but perhaps his Clerks or some of them may be continued under the Gentleman by whom he has been succeeded. Mr Estcourt (as I believe I mentioned before,) as being the Agent of the Noble Vendor of the Estate, was the Gentleman into whose hands the money 1 suppose was paid. His apartment in the Stamp Office was under the same roof with yours: but he, I understand has for some time quitted it.

At the Treasury the transaction was more or less known to three out of the four Chief Clerks, viz. Mr Mitford, Mr Cotton and Mr Ramus,³ with all of whom I had more or less intercourse on the subject of the £12,000; Mr Cotton I remember more particularly. With the date which you have (I mean the date of the conveyance) I can not conceive that any one of those gentlemen, if applied to would find any the least difficulty in furnishing you with the information you desire—I mean a Copy of the Warrant, (I conclude a Treasury Warrant) under which the money was issued—I write this at a distance from town, and thereby at a distance from all my papers. But if I had them before me, I see no prospect of being able to add any material to what is above.

• I have the honour to be Sir etc
• Jeremy Bentham