The amount of Hunt's indebtedness to Shelley can be estimated only approximately. The first reference to a financial transaction between them after the "princely offer"[233] is to be found in Mary Shelley's letter of December 6, 1816, in which she wondered that Hunt had not acknowledged the "receipt of so large a sum." Professor Dowden thinks this may be an allusion to Shelley's response to an appeal for the poor of Spitalfields which had appeared in _The Examiner_ five days previously.[234] Shelley's offers to Hunt to borrow L100 from Byron[235] and to stand security for a loan from Charles Cowden Clarke,[236] and an attempt to borrow from Samuel Rogers[237] are not developed by any further facts, but it is necessary to take note of them in a general estimate. Before leaving England, Shelley arranged with Ollier for a loan of L100 for Hunt, a debt which was later liquidated by the sale of the _Literary Pocket Book_.[238] At some time before leaving England, Shelley also gave Hunt in one year L1,400[239] for the liquidation of his debts, which money was, Medwin says, borrowed from Horace Smith.[240] Unfortunately for Shelley, the sum was insufficient to extricate Hunt from his difficulties. Miss Mitford gives the amount as L1,500, instead of L1,400, and adds that Shelley's furniture and bedding were swept off to pay Hunt's creditors;[241] the inaccuracy of the first statement and the lack of any evidence to support the second, lead one to doubt the story. But it is true that Shelley's income at the time was only L1,000. Even when so far away as Italy, Hunt's money troubles weighed heavily upon Shelley in a continual regret that he could not set him entirely free from his creditors;[242] he feared that the incredible exertions Hunt was making on _The Indicator_ and on _The Examiner_, and the privations that he endured, would undermine his health.[243] When Hunt finally decided to go to Italy, Shelley assumed, as a matter of course, the chief responsibility of providing the means.