Autograph Letter Signed. Addressed to Stewart V. Jones in New York City. Dated 18th Oct., 1785 at Albany, N.Y.

One page on the first page of a single sheet which had been folded to form 4 pages. Recipient's name and address on third page (as now folded). Pages 2 and 4 blank. "Gentlemen, Capt. Peter Dox has inform'd me that Tinker is arrived from Charles Town and that you have received the Returns for my wench, if the information is correct I must beg you to pay the net proceeds to Capt. John Waters the bearer hereof. Pray have you not yet had any account of Capt. Dean or have the Elgerenes pick'd him up. I shall be glad to be inform'd whether you still mean that he shall go to India this Fall if he returns safe from his present voyage . I am Gentlemen, Your most Hble Servt, Teunis F. Van Vechten." This letter came to us from another dealer along with a clipped description from yet another unknown dealer's catalog asserting that Dean and a small crew (7 men and two boys) did indeed sail to China (not India) in late 1785 or early 1786 in his sixty foot sloop (the "Experiment"), returning to New York 18 months later in the summer of 1787 with a cargo that profited Dean, his partner Teunis Van Vechten of Albany and a group of investors from New York City. The printed description goes on to assert that it was only the second round-trip voyage to China made by a U. S. merchant ship. We have not independently verified that statement.…