Within this correspondence, the two largest files are for the London banking firm of William Henry Cole (4,222 items) and the Smyrna opium merchant Alexander Sidi (1,231 items). The majority of the foreign correspondence consists of folders with fewer than twenty-five items. However, many of these folders contain detailed orders that shed light on the foreign drug business, and on the nature of drug retailing in South and Central America. Many of the orders contained in letters from South and Central America are very detailed for everything needed to stock a drugstore.