| Summary: | The book contains six letters and a postscript McRae sent while serving as a financial agent for the Confederate government in Europe; also included are copies of relevant correspondence from James Williams to McRae, as well as a few accounting records and receipts. The correspondence deals with efforts to recruit Polish emigrants to the Confederate States; the plan was organized by a self-appointed group of men known as the "Committee." The men proved to be disreputable and unorganized, however, and did not succeed: "I very much fear that they will fail altogether. In fact, Smolinski informs me that they cannot agree among themselves, and they now earnestly entreat me to take the whole affair in my own hands - to employ whom I please, and to assign to each one a specific duty. This I, of course, declined to do. I told him that they had taken upon themselves the task, and that they must settle among themselves how that task could be accomplished - that, while we would provide for the emigration of masses of men who were ready and willing to go in a body, yet it constituted no part of the intention of those with whom they had communicated in the Confederate States, to employ agents to recruit from among the Poles." The location of the original letters documented in this book is unknown.
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