mptation and closed with the proposals made to me, with the
additional obligation that I was to pay off the 10,000_l._ due to the
firm I have mentioned during the approaching season, and to give them
good bills in exchange for the accommodation paper held by them. No
sooner was this arrangement completed than I set about preparations for
opening my Paris house. I refused to send any more goods to my old
partner, and ordered him to wind up the business by the following May.
I moreover resolved to having nothing more to do with accommodation
bills, tore out all the leaves in my private letter book referring to
these documents--a very fatal error, as I afterwards found--and exerted
myself to pay off the claims of those of my creditors who knew my
position. So well did I succeed, that by the end of April I had reduced
the 10,000_l._ claim to rather less than 5000_l._, or rather to
4000_l._, taking into account the 1000_l._ conceded by the firm
previously mentioned. But before this I had began to suspect that my
friends did not mean to adhere to the arrangement I had entered into
with them, one part of which was, that they were to retire and return
me the accommodation bills, on getting good paper in their place. I had
at this time placed good bills in their hands to the extent of
3500_l._, but they refused to give up those they were intended to
replace until they arrived at maturity.

I began to fear that they would now compel me to stop payment just when
they supposed I should be in possession of fresh funds for my Paris
partnership, and at a time when (with the bills in their possession,
which ought, according to agreement, to have been in mine) they could
rank on my estate for about 7000_l._, when with less than 4000_l._ I
could have settled the account. This, by the way, is what they
ultimately did, and had my estate yielded the respectable dividend they
expected, instead of losing even the 1000_l._ they promised to concede
to me, they would have been gainers to that amount by the operation.

My transactions with this firm were in the position I have described
when I started for the Continent with the view of opening my Paris
business, and of winding up my previous unlucky partnership. This was
the most successful journey I ever made. I visited Bremen, Hamburg, the
interior of Germany, crossed through Switzerland to Lyons, where I
appointed to meet my French traveller; visited with him all the large
towns in France, an