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AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF this sketch, I stated, and with the most perfect truth, that one of the chief inducements to undertake it, was the hope that persons in involved and depressing circumstances might, when ready to sink under the pressure, he encouraged to persevere, by the display of the various difficulties and embarrassments that for so long a period oppressed and brought me to the verge of bankruptcy, and which nothing but the most untiring efforts and indefatigable industry and economy could have enabled me to wade through. I must confess that they were brought on me by my own folly—a folly which is too prevalent in all countries, and in an especial degree in this. I mean, overtrading—a rock on which hundreds are annually shipwrecked, who, by moderation in business, and not grasping at riches too eagerly, so as to realize the fable of the dog and the shadow, might rise not only to ease and comfort, but to independent fortunes. Should this effect be produced, as I hope it will sometimes, I shall be amply rewarded for my labors. It is a maxim fully proved by almost uniform experience, that for one person in this country who is ruined by doing too little business, there are three, perhaps five, ruined by doing too much.
I proceed to display the great error of which I was guilty, and for which I paid heavy penalties. I printed and published above twice as many books as were necessary for the extent of my business; and, in consequence, incurred oppressive debts to banks—was laid under contribution for interest to them, and to usurers, which not only swallowed up my profits, but kept me in a constant state of penury. I was, in many cases, shaved so close by the latter class, that they almost skinned me alive.
To this cause, my difficulties were nearly altogether owing. I did a large and profitable business, almost immediately from the time I opened a bookstore. I had many kind friends, who recommended me to numerous and valuable customers, so that I soon took my stand among the first booksellers in the country, in point of extent of business. But the course I pursued, as stated above, that is, publishing beyond the demand of my business, and creating a stock above twice the amount that was necessary to carry it on, which lay dead in my warehouse, kept me in a constant state of embarrassment.
I have owed for months together from three to six thousand dollars, borrowed from day to day, and sometimes in the morning to be paid at one o'clock the same day, to meet checks issued the preceding day. The horrors of this situation can scarcely be conceived by any person who has not experienced them. I have walked, lame as I was, from nine or ten o'clock in the morning, till two or half-past two, trying to borrow money, and often been obliged to solicit loans from persons for whom I entertained no esteem, and to whom nothing but sheer necessity could induce me to apply, and who, by their uncourteous manner of lending, destroyed all claim to gratitude. Often at two o'clock in the day, after my pilgrimage of four or five hours, I was one hundred and fifty, two hundred, or three hundred dollars short, and knew not where to procure it, when some fortunate circumstance at the last moment, saved me from protest. Let those disposed to despond in difficulty, think of this course of life, pursued for years, and brace themselves up to meet the storm, however fierce it rages. During this whole period, I scarcely ever disappointed a lender. When I had money to pay in bank, and to lenders, I always attended first to the latter, and took my chance for paying the bank. This punctuality saved me from ruin. My friends were never afraid to lend me, as they were always sure of re-payment in due season.
My fatuitous course of conduct, for which it is difficult to account but on the principle of monomania, produced the most destructive consequences. Borrowing, as I have stated, largely from banks, I was obliged to apply to my friends for endorsements, and had, of necessity, to reciprocate this dangerous kindness. Several of the endorsers failed, whereby, in about twelve or fourteen years, I lost between thirty and forty thousand dollars. But for this miserable infatuation, which crippled and impoverished me, and put me in the power of usurers, I might have retired from business ten years earlier than I did.
Among the abominations of this hideous business of endorsation, it is not the least, that when the endorsee becomes embarrassed, the endorser is harassed by almost daily applications to aid him in making his payments; and, finally, when he is on the verge of ruin, the endorser has the appalling alternative, of being obliged, by his failure, to take up his notes at once, or to increase his endorsations. In the hope that the endorsee may be enabled to wade through, he lends his name again and again; and thus, a responsibility, which, at this critical period, is, perhaps, only three or four thousand dollars, becomes by repeated additions, six, eight, or ten thousand dollars—and finally a crash takes place, which too often involves both endorser and endorsee in one wide-spread ruin. Let me, then, urge on the reader, who is not already sunk in this devouring vortex—would to Heaven, I could say it in a voice of thunder! Shun, as you would shun temporal perdition, the rocks and quicksands of endorsation.
In one of those cases of failure, I was brought to the verge of stoppage. The amount for which I was endorser, in addition to the amount of the reciprocated endorsements, was so large, that I was completely stunned, and my hopes of escape prostrated. For forty-eight hours, I gave myself up for lost; and, had any of the lent notes fallen due then, I should inevitably have stopped payment, and had my property sacrificed for a half, or a third, or a fourth of its value, and in all probability felt the consequences during the remainder of my life. At the end of that period, arousing myself from the state of stupefaction by which my energies had been palsied, and gathering courage, from the sheer necessity of the case, I made out a fair schedule of my affairs, which I exhibited to a kind friend (Mr. Edward Carrell) who, on a careful and rigorous scrutiny, cheered me with the assurance that I was too much dejected—that my affairs were incomparably better than I had supposed—and offered me his aid for a handsome sum, referring me to another friend (James Vanuxem, one of the most estimable of men), who followed his example. From that hour, till the time I retired from business, I had not so much trouble, anxiety, or difficulty, with my affairs, including the payment of the large amount of my endorsation, as I had in five months before his failure, with those of the endorsee.
Of the other numerous evils of this vile system, I shall mention but one. The facility it affords of raising money, leads to a laxity in the collection of debts, and to a lavish expenditure of money—to extravagance in dress, furniture, parties, &c. This is truly the Pandora's box of this country, and has produced more ruin than any other cause whatever—perhaps than all other causes combined.
Sterne, when about to write a dissertation on imprisonment, took at first a wide range, and was about discussing it on a large scale; but finding that plan not likely to bring the matter home to the "business and bosoms" of his readers, he took the case of an individual in a dungeon, which made the picture incomparably more strong and striking. I shall follow his example, and, after having given a general statement of the distress produced by overtrading and endorsation, I now present a single circumstance, to render the horrors of my situation more plain and palpable to the reader.
One Christmas eve, about thirty-five years since, I had to pay a brokered note for one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars, and, in the morning, placed in the hands of the broker, a note for the same amount, as a renewal. I sent to him, from time to time, for an answer, but received none till half-past two, when he demanded one and a half per cent. per month, besides his commission of a quarter per cent. With this extravagant demand I was obliged to comply, or suffer my note to be protested. The dreadful anxiety of the day made an impression on my mind, not to be forgotten, if I were to live to ninety years of age.
Had I limited my printing and publication within proper bounds, instead of having my substance eaten up by interest and brokerage, I might have paid for paper and printing in cash, and had handsome discounts, particularly on the former. But, by my folly, I was, to use a homely, but very significant phrase, "burning the candle at both ends."
I printed a large edition of Guthrie's Geography, in 4to,** two thousand five hundred copies, at twelve dollars each, with a folio atlas, containing forty or fifty maps, which, though at present of an ordinary character, was regarded as respectable at that early stage of the arts in this country.
[[** 4to. A term of the printing art, also written as "quarto," describing either (1) the size of the book (approximately nine inches high by 12 inches wide), or (2) the method of folding the individual 'signatures' (the large sheets of paper on which the pages of the book are printed) before binding the book. A signature folded in 4to is folded in half twice at right angles to form four leaves (eight pages printed front and back).]]
This leads me to state a circumstance of fraudulent conduct, of the well-known James T. Callender. He had engaged to devote his whole time to the revision and correction of the foreign part of the Geography, in which his services, by the way, were of very little value, and I had agreed to pay him the full amount of salary he demanded. But he clandestinely engaged to report the debates of Congress, for A. Brown, publisher of the Philadelphia Gazette, for twelve dollars per week. This went on for several weeks wholly unknown to me, as I did not visit Congress Hall pending this engagement. The Geography was, in consequence of his attention to the debates, very much neglected, to my very great injury; which I ascribed to his dissipated habits. One day, a member of Congress came into my store, and told me, that my man, Callender, as he called him, slept a large portion of his time in Congress hall, instead of taking down the debates. I was thunderstruck at this base conduct, and, to satisfy myself, went to Congress Hall, where I saw him with his head on the desk, and apparently in a profound sleep. When I next saw him, and reproached him with it, he made some lame apology, which I forget, but was obliged to admit, as I had no remedy. The American part of the Geography was furnished by Dr. Morse, at a certain price per page.
I published a large edition (three thousand copies), of Goldsmiths Animated Nature, in four octavo volumes, at ten dollars, with nearly double the number of plates of the London edition, having made use of the chief part of the plates of a London edition of Buffon's Natural History. My edition of Goldsmith was far superior to the London one, of which the printing and the plates, particularly the latter, were of a very inferior order.
M. Carey
Philadelphia, January 31, 1834
