This bulging collection of cloth samples assembled by an English textile manufacturer allowed colonial merchants to choose combinations of colors, designs, textures, weights, and fibers (such as wool, cotton, or linen) that they believed their customers would purchase. The book depicts the bewildering and somewhat intoxicating range of choices available to British North American consumers. NWHCM: 1966.658 Despatch book by Ives and Basely, 1792, from the collections of Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service.