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 £100 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 £100 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 £1,400[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 £1,500, instead of £1,400, 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 £1,000. 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.
As early as 1818, when Shelley and Byron met in Venice, the matter of the journal was discussed between them and broached to Hunt. December 22, 1818, Shelley wrote him that Byron wished him to come to Italy and that, if money considerations prevented, Byron would lend him £400 or £500. He added that Hunt should not feel uncomfortable in accepting the offer, as it was frankly made, and that his society would give Byron pleasure and service.[244] Hunt does not seem to have seriously considered the proposition, for there are few references to it in his correspondence of this year. On the renewal of the plan in 1821, Shelley would never have called on Byron for assistance for Hunt if he himself could have provided otherwise, for his opinion of Byron had changed in the meantime.[245] January 25, 1822, Shelley sent £150 for the expenses of the voyage, "within 30 or 40 pounds of what I have contrived to scrape together";[246] and again on February 23, £250,[247] borrowed with security from Byron. Yet Shelley's own exchequer at the time was so low that Mary Shelley wrote in the spring: "We are drearily behindhand with money at present. Hunt and our furniture has swallowed up more than our savings."[248] On April 10 Shelley stated that he was trying to finish _Charles the First_ in order that he might earn £100 for Hunt.