ing the
account of goods bought since.

The executors finding the mistake, and how it happened, endeavour to
convince him of it; but it is all one-he wants no convincing, for he
knows at bottom how it is; but being a little of a knave himself, or if
you please, not a little, he tells them he cannot enter into the
accounts so far back--Mr G. always told him he kept his books very
exactly, and he trusted to him; and as he has his receipt in full, and
it is so long ago, he can say nothing to it.

From hence they come to quarrel, and the executors threaten him with
going to law; but he bids them defiance, and insists upon his receipt in
full; and besides that, it is perhaps six years ago, and so he tells
them he will plead the statute of limitations upon them; and then adds,
that he does not do it avoid a just debt, but to avoid being imposed
upon, he not understanding books so well as Mr G. pretended to do; and
having balanced accounts so long ago with him, he stands by the balance,
and has nothing to say to their mistakes, not he. So that, in short, not
finding any remedy, they are forced to sit down by the loss; and perhaps
in the course of twenty years' trade, Mr G. might lose a great many such
parcels in the whole; and had much better have kept a ledger; or if he
did not know how to keep a ledger himself, had better have hired a
book-keeper to have come once a-week, or once a-month, to have posted
his day-book for him.

The like misfortune attends the not balancing his cash, a thing which
such book-keepers as Mr G. do not think worth their trouble; nor do they
understand the benefit of it. The particulars, indeed, of this article
are tedious, and would be too long for a chapter; but certainly they
that know any thing of the use of keeping an exact cash-book, know that,
without it, a tradesman can never be thoroughly satisfied either of his
own not committing mistakes, or of any people cheating him, I mean
servants, or sons, or whoever is the first about him.

What I call balancing his cash-book, is, first, the casting up daily, or
weekly, or monthly, his receipts and payments, and then seeing what
money is left in hand, or, as the usual expression of the tradesman is,
what money is in cash; secondly, the examining his money, telling it
over, and seeing how much he has in his chest or bags, and then seeing
if it agrees with the balance of his book, that what is, and what should
be, correspond.

And here let me giv