From Professor Eric Robinson’s Introduction to Clare’s unfinished novel ‘The Memoirs of Uncle Barnaby’:
Mrs Lettys is the follower of a ranter preacher Robin Snip, who ends up in prison for stealing the local parson's shirts. For this incident Clare was probably informed by a passage in the Stamford newspaper for 16 August 1816:
'A clergyman in the west, who had unfortunately quarrelled with his parishioners, had lately the misfortune to have a shirt stole from the hedge where it hung to dry, and he posted handbills offering a reward for the discovery of the offender.
Next morning the following lines were found written at the foot of the copy stuck against the church door:
Some thief has stolen the parsons' shirt,
To skin nought could be nearer:
The parish would give five hundred pounds,
To him that steals the wearer!
Still available from me of course:
http://arboureditions1.blogspot.com/p/the-memoirs-of-uncle-barnaby.html
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