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ALS. Regarding his family, his scientific interests and writings, the Finnish botanist Per Kalm, Carolus Linnaeus, and Benjamin Franklin.

Robert E. Lee was a Virginia-born career military officer, Confederate general in the U.S. Civil War, and president of what is now Washington and Lee University. Family and military correspondence of Robert E. Lee (1807-1870), Confederate general-in-chief; and of his descendants; and a few letters of Francis Lightfoot Lee, Richard Henry Lee, Henry Lee, and Mary Ann Randolph (Custis) Lee. The letters deal with many phases of Robert E. Lee's life from his marriage in 1832 until his death, including family and personal affairs, especially in his letters to a cousin, Mrs. Anna M. Fitzhugh; settlement of the Custis estate; and improvements at the family house in Arlington, Virginia. Included also is one volume of 295 telegram dispatches sent by Robert E. Lee from the field to Jefferson Davis and the Confederate War Department; two scrapbooks memorializing Robert E. Lee; a small notebook in Robert E. Lee's hand, 1857-1860, containing amounts of meat purchased for the Arlington household; and a letterpress book of Robert E. Lee III, a lawyer of Washington, D.C.

ALS. Moffatt asks to be reimbursed for personal expenditures in the acquisition of medical supplies.

Papers relate to Schomberg's petition and appeal to become a member of the Royal College of Physicians. Schomberg was summoned by the President and Censors of the College, to be examined for a license. He declined to do so and his practice was interdicted. Schomberg then commissioned Sir George Lee to test the legality of this decision.

5 letters (ALS). Askew writes to Richard Mead and to his father, Dr. Adam Askew, about his travels, including visits to the library at Wolfenbuttel, and the Herculaneum. He discusses his classical studies, commenting on the work of various classicists including Richard Dawes, Richard Bentley, John Mill, and Johann Jacob Reiske.

Mead writes to Anthony Askew, during period of Askew's medical studies in Leyden and his tour of the Continent, on classical studies. Papers also include a document of a legal transaction between Mead and a Mr. Gore.

Merchant and British Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Business and personal correspondence of the Backhouse family, principally of John Backhouse. Material for the 18th and early 19th centuries reflects the family's mercantile operations, including efforts to collect pre-Revolutionary debts in America. Other papers relate to Backhouse's career as Commissioner and Receiver General of the Excise Office and Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, his service as private secretary to George Canning, his service with the diplomatic corps, his art collection, and his mercantile associates in Amsterdam and Hamburg. Other subjects include the Board of Control under Canning, and the British consulates at Canton and Amoy. Family correspondence contains numerous references to the Foreign Office and to relations with Circassia, France, Greece, Russia, Turkey, and the United States. Letters and diaries of Backhouse's son, George, and his wife include references to the slave trade and describe their life in Havana while he was commissary judge there. There are also thirteen Cabinet circulars (1835-1837) from the British Foreign Office and marked for return to either Backhouse or Strangways. These abstracts of intelligence were based on confidential reports received from the British ambassadors in Paris, Berlin, Lisbon, Madrid, Constantinople, and Petersburg, and relate chiefly to French, Russian, and Spanish politics.

Merchant, from Petersburg, Va. Business records and some personal correspondence of four generations of the Cuningham family, including Robert Cuningham; Alexander Cuningham, and his brother, Richard M. Cuningham; the latter's son, John Wilson Cuningham; and grandson, John Somerville Cuningham, all merchants and planters. The early papers center around Alexander and Richard's success as commission merchants for cotton and tobacco in Petersburg, Va., and the firm's planting interests in Person County, N.C. The collection also contains a few family letters, including some from Alexander Jr. while a student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and from another son at Leasburg Academy, Caswell County, N.C. The papers of John Somerville Cuningham concern his work as a field agent for the Bureau of Crop Estimates, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, local politics, and family matters.

Virginia lawyer and writer; ambassador to Italy from 1913-1919. The Thomas Nelson Page Papers span the years 1739-1927. Personal and professional correspondence, legal and business papers, writings, diplomatic dispatches, clippings and other items (chiefly 1885-1920) relate to Page's legal and literary career; his activities as a lyceum lecturer; his marriages and family relations; and his interest in civic affairs, plantation life, social reform and race relations in the United States, particularly during and after Reconstruction; American politics and diplomacy, especially during World War I; and European travel. Many of his papers directly relate to his term as ambassador to Italy during World War I, from 1913 to 1919.