Mr. John Elsee, at the period to which this narrative refers, was a gentleman residing on his own freehold estate, at Chigwell Row. He had been many years in business as a wholesale stationer, in Queen-hithe, in the premises now occupied by the Lord Mayor, and this part of the city became the market for paper by the exertions of Mr. Elsee. Having realized a considerable property, he retired from business, and having spent the earlier portion of his life in agricultural business, he purchased a freehold in the neighbourhood before mentioned, and became also the lessee of part of Havering Park farm. This farm, containing altogether about 1000 acres, was held under the crown, by a lease granted in the time of King William and Queen Mary, to John Hampden, and Thomas Lovell, at a nominal rent; it afterwards became the property of the Ladbrook family, and was divided into two farms, one being let by Ladbrook to a Mr. Thomas Hall, and the other to Mr. Elsee, whose lease expired in 1815, and he continued as _tenant at will_ to Miss Ladbrook, three of the family which had granted his lease having died during its continuance; and Miss Ladbrook told Mr. Elsee that she did not intend to apply for a new lease. Mr. Elsee, therefore sent in a memorial in the usual way, having been told at the office that Miss Ladbrook’s lease would expire at Lady-day, 1818, _but to such memorial Mr. Elsee never received any answer_; though _it had been the usual practise_, _for many years_, _on the part of the commissioners of woods and forests_, _and land revenues_, _to signify by printed papers_, _affixed in their public offices_, _and in other ways to make it publically known_, _that if no application was made __by the tenants holding under lease of the crown_, _two years before the expiration of their old leases_, _to renew their holding_, _the commissioners would consider themselves open to receive proposals from any other persons_, _to treat for a lease or leases of such premises_. In the summer of 1817, Mr. Edward Driver, the surveyor to the land revenue department, informed Mr. Elsee that he was not to pay any more rent to Miss Ladbrook’s executors, that her lease had expired at Lady-day _then last past_, and that in future the rent must be paid to the crown. From this Mr. Elsee conceived the hope of obtaining the lease himself, the more especially as Mr. William Masterman, _had been in a situation precisely similar_, _on the expiration of his landlord’s lease_, and the commissioners had granted him a new lease for 31 years, charging him for the interval between the expiration of the old lease, and the day of his entering upon the new one, _only the same rent which his former landlord had paid to the crown_.