abate the
fire of his colleague, and might not only know how to fight, but know
when to fight, that is to say, when to avoid fighting; and the want of
this lost them many a victory, and the great battle of Cannae in
particular, in which 80,000 Romans were killed in one day.

To compare small things with great, I may say it is just so in the
affair of trade. You should always join a sober grave head, weighed to
business, and acquainted with trade, to the young trader, who having
been young in the work will the easier give up his judgment to the
other, and who is governed with the solid experience of the other; and
so you join their ways together, the rash and the sedate, the grave and
the giddy.

Again, if you must go into partnership, be sure, if possible, you take
nobody into partnership but such as whose circumstances in trade you are
fully acquainted with. Such there are frequently to be had among
relations and neighbours, and such, if possible, should be the man that
is taken into partnership, that the hazard of unsound circumstances may
be avoided. A man may else be taken into partnership who may be really
bankrupt even before you take him; and such things have been done, to
the ruin of many an honest tradesman.

If possible, let your partner be a beginner, that his stock may be
reasonably supposed to be free and unentangled; and let him be one that
you know personally, and his circumstances, and did know even before you
had any thoughts of engaging together.

All these cautions are with a supposition that the partner must be had;
but I must still give it as my opinion, in the case of such tradesmen as
I have all along directed myself to, that if possible they should go on
single-handed in trade; and I close it with this brief note, respecting
the qualifications of a partner, as above, that, next to no partner,
such a partner is best.

CHAPTER XVII

OF HONESTY IN DEALING, AND LYING

There is some difference between an honest man and an honest tradesman;
and though the distinction is very nice, yet, I must say, it is to be
supported. Trade cannot make a knave of an honest man, for there is a
specific difference between honesty and knavery which can never be
altered by trade or any other thing; nor can that integrity of mind
which describes and is peculiar to a man of honesty be ever abated to a
tradesman; the rectitude of his soul must be the same, and he must not
only intend or mean honestly and j