Page:Calcutta, Past and Present.djvu/138

 It is this advertisement to which Hastings alluded in one of his letters to his wife, who had preceded him to England, when he said, "I have actually advertised the sale of it in three lots, the old house and garden forming one, the new house and outhouses the second, and the paddock the third. I have parted with all my mares, except four which have colts."

The three parcels of land described in the advertisement formed one unbroken block, and the three lots were identified in the columns of the Englishman as follows:—

"When Warren Hastings' landed property at Alipore was sold in 1785 in three lots, the purchasers of the first two lots were Messrs. Turner and Jackson respectively: the third lot, the paddock, was purchased by a Mr. Honeycomb, an attorney of the Supreme Court. Some fifty years later 'the paddock' was acquired by D. W. H. Speede, the founder of the well-known arrow-root works, and he changed the name from the paddock to 'the Penn,' an obvious synonym, and so confused what was an unmistakable record of the old time. At the time of the transfer of the paddock to Honeycomb, the title-deeds were accompanied by a letter referring to the original grant of the land to Hastings. This letter was forwarded some years ago to the India Office by the present occupier of the property, through