RC (DLC); 2 p.; endorsed by TJ: “Walker. (of Petersbg. Virga.).” This note, dated “Hotel de Chaulnes. Wednesday 16th 1788.” is not recorded in SJL Index; since Wednesday fell on the 16th of the month in January, April, and July of 1788, it could have been written only on those three dates; it has been arbitrarily assigned to the first date.

On the firm of Donald & Burton of London, who were engaged in the tobacco trade, see Donald to TJ, 12 Nov. 1787. Dr. Robert Walker, of Petersburg, Va., studied in Philadelphia under Dr. William Shippen and was graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1787; he died in 1816 (W. B. Blanton, Medicine in Virginia in the Eighteenth Century, Richmond, 1931, p. 44, 83, 87; see W. S. Smith to TJ, 15 Oct. 1787 and 9 Jan. 1788, note).