You're cookin' on gas today, Jazzgirl. What diet are you on?
Incidentally, you were technically correct when you said I should have said "led debtors" rather than "lead debtors". I have looked at several reference books, all of which say that the past participle of lead (pronounced as in Leeds) is led.
However (there must be an however!) "lead" and "led" seem to me to be both in common usage. I will carefully watch the reports of sports matches in future when they say "Liverpool led / lead at half time.