I am not going to set down rules here for book-keeping, or to teach the
tradesman how to do it, but I am showing the necessity and usefulness of
doing it at all. That tradesman who keeps no books, may depend upon it
he will ere long keep no trade, unless he resolves also to give no
credit. He that gives no trust, and takes no trust, either by wholesale
or by retail, and keeps his cash all himself, may indeed go on without
keeping any books at all; and has nothing to do, when he would know his
estate, but to cast up his shop and his cash, and see how much they
amount to, and that is his whole and neat estate; for as he owes
nothing, so nobody is in debt to him, and all his estate is in his shop;
but I suppose the tradesman that trades wholly thus, is not yet born, or
if there ever were any such, they are all dead.

A tradesman's books, like a Christian's conscience, should always be
kept clean and clear; and he that is not careful of both will give but a
sad account of himself either to God or man. It is true, that a great
many tradesmen, and especially shopkeepers, understand but little of
book-keeping; but it is as true that they all understand something of
it, or else they will make but poor work of shopkeeping.

I knew a tradesman that could not write, and yet he supplied the defect
with so many ingenious knacks of his own, to secure the account of what
people owed him, and was so exact doing it, and then took such care to
have but very short accounts with any body, that he brought up his
method to be every way an equivalent to writing; and, as I often told
him, with half the study and application that those things cost him, he
might have learned to write, and keep books too. He made notches upon
sticks for all the middling sums, and scored with chalk for lesser
things. He had drawers for every particular customer's name, which his