Six volumes of journals written by Francis Tomes, describing three Atlantic Ocean round-trip crossings (between Liverpool and New York) and one seven-month overland business trip in the United States from October 1837 to May 1838. His business in importing British manufacturing goods had him traveling frequently, and he made over fifty trips across the Atlantic in his long business career. Tomes's trip throughout the United States in 1837-1838 was made to collect bad debts, and he traveled through most of the major cities of the United States at the time, including New York City, Albany, Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati, Nashville, Louisville, St. Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, New Orleans, Mobile, Tuscaloosa, Selma, Montgomery, Pensacola, Macon, Athens, Augusta, and Charleston.

While most of Francis Tomes's journal entries are about the local geography and the process of traveling, he also commented frequently on the politics and social issues of the day, including the institution of slavery and the rough life of the pioneers in the then-furthest Western cities of the United States. Tomes traveled by steamship, stagecoach, and occasionally by rail and horseback.