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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.

Autograph document, signed. Certifies receipt of one pound ten shilling from Mr. John Reynall.

This assembled collection of 47 documents, largely manuscript letters, covers nearly the entire span of British rule in India and is arranged in rough chronological order. The collection includes governmental reports, personal correspondence, and a printed map. Most of the documents are quite short though there are a few longer pieces and collections including a plan for opium sales, a series of reports on Indo-American trade, and a long letter on army discipline prior to the Vellore Revolution.

Scottish merchant and Tory, of Hale's Ford (Franklin Co.), Va. Letters, papers, and mercantile records belonging to John Hook of the mercantile firm of Bowker Preston, Hook's son-in-law, and Smithson H. Davis at Goose Creek, Bedford Co., Va.; and of a similar firm of Asa, Smithson H., and Alexander G. Holland and John D. Booth at Hale's Ford and Germantown, both in Franklin Co., the Holland family apparently being connected with the Hook family by marriage. John Hook's papers consist of daybooks, ledgers, letter books, and memoranda of his mercantile firm and its branch stores, as well as plantation and land records of his extensive holdings and genealogical materials. There is also information concerning sequestration proceedings brought against him by David Ross, a former business partner. The records span the last quarter of the eighteenth century and document the American colonial and post-revolutionary trade system. Records of Bowker Preston and Smithson Davis concern the operation of their mercantile firms, 1813-1830, and include information on goods purchased in Philadelphia, New York City, and Richmond and Lynchburg, Va., and on the tobacco trade in Virginia, especially the effects of the panic of 1819. Records of the Holland family consist of merchants' correspondence, ledgers, account books, and daybooks.

Holograph, signed. Deed of land purchase. Witnessed by Benjamin Hide, Jr., and Daniel Lothrup.