Many years afterwards (1783) Lord Verney filed a bill in Chancery claiming from Edmund Burke a sum of L6000, which he alleged that he had lent at the instigation of William Burke, to assist in completing the purchase of Beaconsfield.

Burke's sworn answer denied all knowledge of the transaction, and the plaintiff did not get the relief for which he had prayed.
In a letter to Shackleton (May 1, 1768), Burke gave the following account of what he had done:--"I have made a push," he says, "with all I could collect of my own, and the aid of my friends, to cast a little root in this country.

I have purchased a house, with an estate of about six hundred acres of land, in Buckinghamshire, twenty-four miles from London.

It is a place exceedingly pleasant; and I propose, God willing, to become a farmer in good earnest.

You, who are classical, will not be displeased to know that it was formerly the seat of Waller, the poet, whose house, or part of it, makes at present the farmhouse within an hundred yards of me." The details of the actual purchase of Beaconsfield have been made tolerably clear.