25 bales of cotton per Amelia, the net proceeds of which, $2,506 18, we have passed to your debit in account-current, having found the same correct.

Enclosed in your second, we received bill of lading of B. and D. 1 to 100-one hundred casks of Ancona skins, shipped by the James, captain Green, which we have insured according to your orders for $1,500, at 11 per cent. On the arrival of these goods, we shall effect the best possible sale of them for your account.

By your last, we received instructions to purchase 200 bear-skins, first quality, and herein we transmit you bill of lading of the same, together with the invoice, amounting to $1,506, with which we have debited you in account-current. You will observe that we have insured these goods for $1,550, at per cent, by the Rover, captain Cooper, which vessel will leave our port for your's in the beginning of next week. We remain, Gentlemen,

Your very ob't serv'ts,

BALDWIN & DAVIS.

An examination into the contents of this letter, will exhibit the following summary of transactions:Acceptance of drafts remitted to Roberts & Co. Account-sales received of goods consigned to them for sale.

Charging their account with the net proceeds of the same.

Receipt of bill of lading of goods consigned for sale for their account.

Purchase of bear-skins for their account.
Insurance, invoice and bill of lading of the same.
Charging their account with the amount of invoice.

In order to show how, for want of arrangement, these transactions may be described in a way to produce confusion only, let us imagine the following letter to have been the one written, instead of the other.

Gentlemen,

sort.

We have received your three letters of the 20th, 12th and 16th of May, and observe in one of them, that you wish us to buy 200 bear-skins of the best This has since been done, and we have shipped them on board the Rover, captain Cooper. In another, we observe that Prevost & Co. have accepted our drafts for $1,000, which we remitted you, and now we wait upon you with the bill of lading of the bear-skins; and also beg to inform you that the account-sales you sent us of our 25 bales of cotton by the Amelia is quite right. Accordingly, we have debited you with $1,506 for the skins. We have also insured the hundred casks of skins consigned to us by you for $1,500. The premium is 1 per cent. The amount of the account-sales is $2,506 18. The amount of the invoice is $1,506. We insured the bear-skins for $1,550, at 2 per cent; and we have charged your account-current with the amount of the invoice and the account-sales. We received in one of the said letters the bill of lading of the Ancona skins, and we have insured them for $1,500, at 11

per cent, and when we get the goods, we will sell them for you as well as we can, observing, at the same time, that they are mark'd B. and D. 1 to 100. We are, &c. &c.

Let not any one imagine that such a letter is too confused and absurd to have been ever actually written. The author has seen much worse specimens than this in the counting-houses of persons of no mean eminence in the commercial world. With them, however, every detail of business was, as a matter of course, equally confused. If their books ever balanced at all, they were made to balance. If business papers were ever put away in (miscalled) order, they were so disorganized, that hours were consumed in finding, what a minute ought to have produced. All this is a natural consequence of the want of that precision of detail, which, to a man of business, is absolutely necessary for it may be assumed as a postulate capable of logical demonstration, that unless the mechanism of trade be arrangement, whether in a Journal, a Cash Book, or a letter, the individual engaged in it will never obtain for himself a clear view of any series of transactions, nor be able to communicate it to others.

In all well regulated counting-houses the greatest order and exactitude pervades every department of the business. Not only letters, but invoices, accountsales, bills, receipts, &c. are indorsed, filed and arranged in such a manner that any paper which may be wanted can be found in a moment. All documents appertaining to the transactions of the current

year are accessible at once. When the year terminates, they are collected into separate parcels and deposited in a box, on which the year itself, as 1837, is painted. By this means each years' papers are kept distinct, all confusion is avoided, and a bill of parcels, invoice, letter, or in fact any mercantile document, can be immediately produced after any lapse of time. Unless this uninterrupted regularity were systematically maintained, the business could not go for the accumulation of papers in a mercantile establishment is so great, that they would completely bewilder all concerned were they not thus arranged as soon as received. The wheels would otherwise be clogged.

on,

The bearer of these few lines is Mr. Edward Watson, of the firm of Watson & Brothers.

In introducing to your acquaintance the nephew of our esteemed friend, Mr. Bryce Watson, of Pittsburg, so old a connection of your house as well as our own, we feel it to be quite superfluous to claim for him that friendly reception which we know awaits him at your hands.