Lord Byron having made Mr. Moore a present of his Memoirs, Mr. Moore offered them for sale to Messrs. Longman & Co., who however declined to purchase them; Mr. Moore then made me a similar offer, which I accepted; and in November 1821, a joint assignment of the Memoirs was made to me by Lord Byron and Mr. Moore, with all legal technicalities, in consideration of a sum of 2,000 guineas, which, on the execution of the agreement by Mr. Moore, I paid to him.  Mr. Moore also covenanted, in consideration of the said sum, to act as Editor of the Memoirs, and to supply an account of the subsequent events of Lord Byron’s life, etc.

Some months after the execution of this assignment, Mr. Moore requested me, as a great personal favour to himself and to Lord Byron, to enter into a second agreement, by which I should resign the absolute property which I had in the Memoirs, and give Mr. Moore and Lord Byron, or any of their friends, a power of redemption during the life of Lord Byron.  As the reason pressed upon me for this change was that their friends thought there were some things in the Memoirs that might be injurious to both, I did not hesitate to make this alteration at Mr. Moore’s request; and, accordingly, on the 6th day of May, 1822, a second deed was executed, stating that, “Whereas Lord Byron and Mr. Moore are now inclined to wish the said work not to be published, it is agreed that, if either of them shall, during the life of the said Lord Byron, repay the 2,000 guineas to Mr. Murray, the latter shall redeliver the Memoirs; but that, if the sum be not repaid during the lifetime of Lord Byron, Mr. Murray shall be at full liberty to print and publish the said Memoirs within Three Months [Footnote:  The words “within Three Months " were substituted for “immediately,” at Mr. Moore’s request—­and they appear in pencil, in his own handwriting, upon the original draft of the deed, which is still in existence.] after the death of the said Lord Byron.”  I need hardly call your particular attention to the words, carefully inserted twice over in this agreement, which limited its existence to the lifetime of Lord Byron; the reason of such limitation was obvious and natural—­namely that, although I consented to restore the work, while Lord Byron should be alive to direct the ulterior disposal of it, I would by no means consent to place it after his death at the disposal of any other person.

I must now observe that I had never been able to obtain possession of the original assignment, which was my sole lien on this property, although I had made repeated applications to Mr. Moore to put me into possession of the deed, which was stated to be in the hands of Lord Byron’s banker.  Feeling, I confess, in some degree alarmed at the withholding the deed, and dissatisfied at Mr. Moore’s inattention to my interests in this particular, I wrote urgently to him in March 1823, to procure me the deed, and at the same time expressed my wish that the second agreement should either be cancelled or at once executed.