SD1076. Samuel Moulton-Barrett (brother) to Hope Masterton Waddell
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 362 (in part).
[Jamaica]
Novr 16. 1839
Sir
My absence from the Estate has prevented me from before replying to your letter of the 9th Instt. Having received no express directions from my father on the subject, has prevented my hitherto having entered into any arrangement with you[.]
As you have now however pressed the subject upon me & appear anxious to be considered as tenant of the premises I will agree to your continuing as such provided you accede to the following terms viz. I will lease to you for the term of three years the Great house on Cornwall Estate and Garden attached together with seven acres of Guinea Grass land for the annual sum of Eighty pounds currency reserving to the Estate all descriptions of Timber & the right of Picking Pimento. I should also wish to insert a clause in the lease to the effect that the house & premise attached together with the garden & pasture land will be left at the expiration of the term in the same state in which you receive them. If you accede to these terms before the new lease is executed, I must be satisfied either personally or by my agent that none of the provisions of the old lease have been infringed. I mean with reference to that portion of the building which by the removal of the piazza I saw this morning you had left in an unfinished state. I may at the Same time mention that my father perfectly coincides with you in the view you have taken of living nominally rent free, though I trust you have sufficient recollection of my Uncles liberality to feel aware that in 1831 he gratuitously offered the house & premises individually to yourself & not to the society. I should not perhaps have alluded to this had not one portion of your letter given me some degree of annoyance[.]
Y. ob. svt.
S M Barrett
The Revd H M Waddell
Publication: None traced.
Source: File copy at Eton College Library.
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