taken in a partner at all. This withdrawing the stock has sometimes been
very dangerous to a partner; nay, has many times been the overthrow and
undoing of him and of the family that is left.

He that takes a partner into his trade on this account--namely, for the
support of his stock, to enjoy the assistance of so much cash to carry
on the trade, ought seriously to consider what he shall be able to do
when the partner, breaking off the partnership, shall carry all his
stock, and the improvement of it too, with him: perhaps the tradesman's
stock is not much increased, perhaps not at all; nay, perhaps the stock
is lessened, instead of being increased, and they have rather gone
backward than forward. What shall the tradesman do in such a case? And
how shall he bear the breach in his stock which that separation would
make?

Thus he is either tied down to the partner, or the partner is pinned
down to him, for he cannot separate without a breach. It is a sad truth
to many a partner, that when the partnership comes to be finished and
expired, the man would let his partner go, but the other cannot go
without tearing him all to pieces whom he leaves behind him; and yet the
partner being loose, idle, and extravagant, in a word, will ruin both if
he stays.

This is the danger of partnership in some of the best circumstances of
it; but how hazardous and how fatal is it in other cases! And how many
an honest and industrious tradesman has been prevailed with to take in a
partner to ease himself in the weight of the business, or on several
other accounts, some perhaps reasonable and prudent enough, but has
found himself immediately involved in a sea of trouble, is brought into
innumerable difficulties, concealed debts, and unknown incumbrances,