With address leaf with postmark and seal, addressed, "London October Second 1809 / To / The Revd. Dr. Pett / Oxford / Geo. Canning.
Archdeacon Phineas Pett was George Canning's tutor at Oxford.
Informing him that he is well and sending him some letters in an accompanying packet intended to justifying his conduct in his duel with Lord Castlereagh: " I send you therefore in an accompanying packet the letters which passed between Ld C & me, a short statement of the course of the transaction which preceded them. I trust them to your discretion to contradict misrepresentation ... I hope to satisfy you 1st. that I could not help fighting -tho' with the seals in my hand - which I admit was a great scandal. 2d. that I was fighting anybody's duel but my own 3d. that I tried to do my country some service & that nothing but the poor old Duke's [i.e. the Duke of Portland] dilatoriness & dawdling converted that good into evil."