Letter 1630

Dale informs Sloane that his debtor, Mr Erew, has convinced his creditors to accept a new proposal regarding payment. He assures Sloane that Mr Englishe will tell him exactly what this means. Dale asks how Mr Ray’s seeds are progressing, as he has not heard anything since he was last in London. 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]).