He had pawned all his personal property, his books and his surgical implements, and was still in debt.

He had begged assistance from many of the leading statesmen of the hour without success.

How did he contrive to exist between June 1780 and the early months of 1781?
The problem might never have been solved for us had it not been for the accidental publication, four years after the Biography appeared, of a second letter from Crabbe to Burke.

In 1838, Sir Henry Bunbury, in an appendix to the _Memoir and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer_ (Speaker of the House of Commons, and Shakspearian editor), printed a collection of miscellaneous letters from distinguished men in the possession of the Bunbury family.

Among these is a letter of Crabbe to Burke, undated save as to the month, which is given as June 26th.