to be very cautious in the adventure, for,
indeed, it is an adventure--that he be not brought in time to relax his
diligence, by having a partner, even contrary to his first intention;
for laziness is a subtle insinuating thing, and it is a sore temptation
to a man of ease and indolence to see his work done for him, and less
need of him in the business than used to be, and yet the business to go
on well too; and this danger is dormant, and lies unseen, till after
several years it rises, as it were, out of its ambuscade, and surprises
the tradesman, letting him see by his loss what his neglect has cost
him.

2. But there are other dangers in partnership, and those not a few; for
you may not only be remiss and negligent, remitting the weight of the
business upon him, and depending upon him for its being carried on, by
which he makes himself master, and brings you to be forgot in the
business; but he may be crafty too, and designing in all this, and when
he has thus brought you to be as it were _nobody_, he shall make himself
be all _somebody_ in the trade, and in that particular he by degrees
gets the capital interest, as well as stock in the trade, while the true
original of the shop, who laid the foundation of the whole business,
brought a trade to the shop, or brought commissions to the house, and
whose the business more particularly is, is secretly supplanted, and
with the concurrence of his own negligence--for without that it cannot
be--is, as it were, laid aside, and at last quite thrust out.

Thus, whether honest or dishonest, the tradesman is circumvented, and
the partnership is made fatal to him; for it was all owing to the
partnership the tradesman was diligent before, understood his business,
and kept close to it, gave up his time to it, and by employing himself,
prevented the indolence which he finds breaking insensibly upon him
afterwards, by being made easy, as they call it, in the assistance of a
partner.

3. But there are abundance of other cases which make a partnership
dangerous; for if it be so where the partner is honest and diligent, and
where he works into the heart of the business by his industry and
application, or by his craft and insinuation, what may it not be if he
proves idle and extravagant; and if, instead of working him out, he may
be said to play him out of the business, that is to say, prove wild,
expensive, and run himself and his partner out by his extravagance?

There are but too m