TO THE READER.
THE author of the following Treatise would request the favour, that his intentions in producing this small, but, he trusts, useful piece, may be candidly imputed to his own real motives, viz. an endeavour of being useful to a large proportion of his Brethren in Trade, and not to an ostentatious show of exhibiting either his own abilities or education. Sensible of his deficiency in both, he humbly solicits, that the indulgent reader will have the goodness to take an opportunity of announcing any inaccuracies or mistakes herein apparent to his conception, which shall in due time be taken into consideration, rectified, and the favour gratefully acknowledged. Had this been the production of what is denominated a scholar, or man of education, much room might have been found for exhibiting flowers of rhetoric and learned philosophical explanations. So much, indeed, a display of these talents might have been exercised, as to render the book of more extensive magnitude, but at the same time, obscure and unintelligible to the very class for whose instruction and information it is principally intended. Wrote by a tradesman, for the particular behoof of tradesmen, all technical terms are therefore carefully avoided; or, where such do necessarily occur, an illustration generally succeeds. That this book may prove useful, will much depend upon the serious attention and strict observance of the matter therein laid down. The importance of its contents will more readily be discovered by those who have travelled a little in the path already, and have espied the darkness and dangers of the road. That great light may be thrown upon the subject, is the earnest wish and sincere desire of