choly. 'What signify the accounts to me?' says
he; 'I can see nothing in the books but debts that 1 cannot pay, and
debtors that will never pay; I can see nothing there but how I have
trusted my estate away like a fool, and how I am to be ruined for my
easiness, and being a sot:' and this makes him throw them away, and
hardly post things enough to make up when folks call to pay; or if he
does post such accounts as he has money to receive from, that's all, and
the rest lie at random, till, as I say, the assignees come to reproach
him with his negligence.

Whereas, in truth, the man understood his books well enough, but had no
heart to look in them, no courage to balance them, because of the
afflicting prospect of them.

But let me here advise tradesmen to keep a perfect acquaintance with
their books, though things are bad and discouraging; it keeps them in
full knowledge of what they are doing, and how they really stand; and it
brings them sometimes to the just reflections on their circumstances
which they ought to make; so to stop in time, as I hinted before, and
not let things run too far before they are surprised and torn to pieces
by violence.

And, at the worst, even a declining tradesman should not let his books
be neglected; if his creditors find them punctually kept to the last, it
will be a credit to him, and they would see he was a man fit for
business; and I have known when that very thing has recommended a
tradesman so much to his creditors, that after the ruin of his fortunes,
some or other of them have taken him into business, as into partnership,
or into employment, only because they knew him to be qualified for
business, and for keeping books in particular.

But if we should admonish the tradesman to an exact and regular care of
his books, even in his declining fortunes, much more should it be his
care in his beginning, and before any disaster has befallen him. I doubt
not, that many a tradesman has miscarried by the mistakes and neglect of
his books; for the losses that men suffer on that account are not easily
set down; but I recommend it to a tradesman to take exact care of his
books, as I would to every man to take care of his diet and temperate
living, in order to their health; for though, according to some, we
cannot, by all our care and caution, lengthen out life, but that every
one must and shall live their appointed time,[34] yet, by temperance and
regular conduct, we may make that life more