316 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE 1776 



Now as you see the state of the case, and how simply I have 

 acted, pray recollect all you can concerning a £10 Guildford 

 bill, drawn /or, and backed hy Robert Godard, N° forgot. 

 Did I ever change such a bill with you ? or did I ever talk 

 before you concerning any disposal of said bill. To the 

 best of my knowledge I still took cash of you for all my 

 occasions, and payed for all my necessaries in cash. Could 

 I leave it behind in my drawers, or in any book ? All my 

 other concerns come right except this unfortunate bill : so 

 pray help me out. 



The old attorney at Petersfield told me that all the Holts 

 were dead, or gone from the town before his memory of 

 people : but a Mr. Holt, he says, who was agent to the Duke 

 of Bedford, came to him in 1729, and desired him to 

 dispose of a farm for him, which lay in the parish of 

 Hawkley. This farm, the Gent, told me, he did dispose 

 of for Mr. Holt. Moreover, he told me that the estate 

 called Nursted in the neighbourhood of Petersfield, value 

 about £300 per ann. was for generations in the possession 

 of the Holts ; and that he believes the Holts of Petersfield 

 sprang from the Holts of Nursted: that there is now in a 

 window in Petersfield the arms of the Holts in painted 

 glass brought from Nursted : that the last Holt of Nursted 

 was member for Petersfield many years in the reign of 

 King William : that he had only a daughter, who marryed 

 into Dorset: that afterwards the estate, Nursted, was sold 

 to Mr. Hugonen the Swiss, whose son possesses it still. 

 Mr. Etty has paid me your bill: but he expected to have 

 been charged for a parcel of yellow ocre, which was not in 

 said bill. The farm which I sold at Harting, Scot's,* is now 

 on sale again. I sold for £1,120 : and they ask £1,600 : but 

 they have built a new house on it. We are going to build 



* It was sold in 1761. No doubt this was one of the properties realised 

 to pay the younger children's portions after the death of John White 

 (Gilbert's father) in 1758. 



