He had inquired from his friends in the Lancashire cotton trade about the export of goods used in the trade, which had increased considerably in recent years, and about the increase in ivory from Brazil, in order to discover the amount of goods purchased together with enslaved people so that an estimate of the Spanish and Portuguese trade might be made. He sends letters from J.A. Turner, a Manchester cotton merchant, and Arthur Lewis, an ivory importer of London, answering his questions and written in Apr and May, as well as one from Ernest d'Huviller of Nantes, who was about to leave for Senegal in a French steamship.