Letter 1069

Dale writes on behalf of Mrs Ray. He requests that Sloane ask Mr Bateman how much he would pay for Ray’s books. Dale also asks if Sloane knows anyone else who might be interested in them. Bateman wants to pay £80, while Mrs Ray wants £100. Samuel Dale was an apothecary, botanist, and physician who contributed several articles to the Philosophical Transactions. He was John Ray’s executor and good friend, and from Dale’s letters to Sloane we learn many details of Ray’s final moments (G. S. Boulger, Dale, Samuel (bap. 1659, d. 1739), rev. Juanita Burnby, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7016, accessed 5 July 2013]).