A collection of approximately 1,000 detailing the business activities of D.G. & W.B. Bacon, one of the largest shipping firms in Boston, between 1861 and 1866. Letters to the firm, chiefly from commission merchants, describing market condition, their business activities, politics, and weather, in East Indian and Chinese ports. The letters in this collection were years ago glued into a letter book. Many still remain pasted together, which prohibits us from arranging them in perfect chronological order. However, each letter has been read, described, and indexed, and the calendar is available to the researcher. It appears that most of the correspondents were Commission Merchants of a sort, and it was their practice to write a fortnightly letter covering the status or condition of their particular commodity markets. Other than goods, they touched on Freights (Tonnage) and the Exchange (Money Market of Sterling.) Many of their letters mentioned the reason for the current conditions; such as the local weather, the holiday activities, the political situation, both locally and in the States. We were in the period of our Civil War, and of political eruptions in China. Also, the old law of supply and demand had considerable influence on the status of both the import and export business.