A collection of manuscripts, replete with details which rebuild the picture of foreign commerce in the 1840s and 1850s, has recently been given to The Business Historical Society by Mr. Gordon Dexter, whose father, an officer in most of the companies whose papers make up the collection, preserved the records which have so fully come down to us. It is chiefly composed of the cheques, bills, accounts, contracts and correspondence of William Appleton and Company, and the successor of that firm, Samuel Hooper and Company, merchant shipowners of the type described in the previous article.