Nearly all of the letters in this collection were written by Joshua Coit to his brother Daniel Lathrop Coit, a merchant at Norwich, Connecticut. The letters contain little information about personal activities. For the most part, they concern congressional activities, including current measures which would affect Daniel Coit's mercantile interests. Coit's letters describe United States relations with England and events surrounding Jays Treaty, and trade relations with France in anticipation of French spoliation claims, and the X, Y, Z, Affair. While most of his letters comment on international relations, others discuss congressional actions in domestic affairs, notably the Yazoo Land Company claims in 1795. There is also a group of five family letters written between 1784-1854. Two of them are by Ann B. Coit, widow of Joshua Coit, and contain the legacy she left her children.