Two manuscripts, 24 and 25 Dec. 1821, consist of a business letter of W[illia]m S. Bennett, Charleston, to Messrs. Paul Rapelye & Co., care of Alex[an]d[e]r McGregor, Liverpool, and an enclosed prices current newspaper article clipped from The Courier. "Business is now dull owing to the Holydays,"Bennett writes. "It is the general opinion that Cotton will be lower in this market although the factors and planters are holding back in hopes of a rise in the English markets."

Emphasizing, as he notes that Jacob Rapelye had done in an earlier communication, the importance of having "Goods out early for a spring market,"Bennett advises that there was "no further information of the Rice shipped to New Orleans, except that the Brig Leopard had arrived."He expected the remittance to be in sugars: "I have no doubt we will do well with them that article being now high in our market."