In S&S, Robert Dashwood is astonished to learn that Colonel Brandon had not sold the right of next presentation to the living he presents to Edward Ferrars. Robert tells Elinor that next presentation to a £200 p.a. living could have been sold for up £1,400 while the prior incumbent was alive, but that it could not be sold at all once the incumbent died and the living became vacant. Now RD is written as a man who knows everything about how to wring money out of an estate (and nothing about anything else), and JA certainly understood the subject pretty well given her family background, so I assume RD knows what he's talking about here. This raises several questions

1. Why did the death of the incumbent matter? If the right of presentation was the patron's property, why wasn't it freely transferable at any time? Was there a legal or merely a social constraint on a patron selling the presentation to an open living for cash?

2. How was the right of next presentation valued? RD is using a 14% discount rate (7 years purchase), which is a good deal higher than the 5% rate (20 years purchase) at which landed estates were capitalized.

3. Was there a regular market in next presentations, as there was in Parliamentary rotten boroughs?

4. How was the sale and purchase of next presentations perceived by members of the upper classes less mercenary than RD? Was this a respectable way to acquire patronage on behalf of a younger son or a nephew?

Information on these points is humbly requested, and I have entire confidence that collective learning of this body will provide it.

Jack.