nting himself in and with his
business and servants, by which he makes it very difficult for them to
deceive him, and much easier to him to discover it if he suspects them.
But if the tradesman lives abroad, keeps at his country-house or
lodgings, and leaves his business thus in the hands of his servants,
committing his affairs to them, as is often the case; if they prove
thieves, negligent, careless, and idle, what is the consequence?--he is
insensibly wronged, his substance wasted, his business neglected; and
how shall a tradesman thrive under such circumstances? Nay, how is it
possible he should avoid ruin and destruction?--I mean, as to his
business; for, in short, every such servant has his hand in his master's
pocket, and may use him as he pleases.

Again, if they are not thieves, yet if they are idle and negligent, it
is, in some cases, the same thing; and I wish it were well recommended
to all such servants as call themselves honest, that it is as criminal
to neglect their master's business as to rob him; and he is as really a
thief who robs him of his time, as he that robs him of his money.

I know, as servants are now, this is a principle they will not allow,
neither does one servant in fifty act by it; but if the master be
absent, the servant is at his heels--that is to say, is as soon out of
doors as his master, and having none but his conscience to answer to, he
makes shift to compound with himself, like a bankrupt with his creditor,
to pay half the debt--that is to say, half the time to his master, and
half to himself, and think it good pay too.

The point of conscience, indeed, seems to be out of the question now,
between master and servant; and as few masters concern themselves with
the souls, nay, scarce with the morals of their servants, either to
instruct them, or inform them of their duty either to God or man, much
less to restrain them by force, or correct them, as was anciently
practised, so, few servants concern themselves in a conscientious
discharge of their duty to their masters--so that the great law of
subordination is destroyed, and the relative duties on both sides are
neglected; all which, as I take it, is owing to the exorbitant sums of
money which are now given with servants to the masters, as the present
or condition of their apprenticeship, which, as it is extravagant in
itself, so it gives the servant a kind of a different figure in the
family, places him above the ordinary class of