d should
have been, entered, and so the loss may be the other way? It is true, in
telling money there may have been a mistake, and he that received a sum
of money may have received twenty shillings too much, or five pounds too
much--and such a mistake I have known to be made in the paying and
receiving of money--and a man's cash has been more perplexed, and his
mind more distracted about it, than the five pounds have been worth,
because he could not find it out, till some accident has discovered
it;[33] and the reason is, because not knowing which way it could come
there, he could not know but some omission might be made to his loss
another way, as in the case above mentioned.

I knew, indeed, a strong waterman, who drove a very considerable trade,
but, being an illiterate tradesman, never balanced his cash-book for
many years, nor scarce posted his other books, and, indeed, hardly
understood how to do it; but knowing his trade was exceedingly
profitable, and keeping his money all himself, he was easy, and grew
rich apace, in spite of the most unjustifiable, and, indeed, the most
intolerable, negligence; but lest this should be pleaded as an exception
to my general rule, and to invalidate the argument, give me leave to
add, that, though this man grew rich in spite of indolence, and a
neglect of his book, yet, when he died, two things appeared, which no
tradesman in his wits would desire should be said of him.

I. The servants falling out, and maliciously accusing one another, had,
as it appeared by the affidavits of several of them, wronged him of
several considerable sums of money, which they received, and never
brought into the books; and others, of sums which they brought into the
books, but never brought into the cash; and others, of sums which they
took ready money in the shop, and never set down, either the goods in
the day-book, or the money into the cash-book; and it was thought,
though he was so rich as not to feel it, that is, not to his hurt, yet
that he lost three or four hundred pounds a-year in that manner, for the
two or three last years of his life; but his widow and son, who came
after him, having the discovery made to them, took better measures
afterwards.

II. He never did, or could know, what he was worth, for the accounts in
his books were never made up; nor when he came to die, could his
executors make up any man's account, so as to be able to prove the
particulars, and make a just demand of the