“I adopted the plan of keeping an accurate account of merchandise bought and sold each day, with the profit, as far as practicable.  This plan was pursued for a number of years, and I never found my merchandise fall short in taking an account of stock, which I did as often at least as once in each year.  I was thus enabled to form an opinion of my actual state as a business man.  I adopted also the rule always to have property, after my second year’s business, to represent forty per cent, at least more than I owed—­that is, never to be in debt more than two and a half times my capital.  This caution saved me from ever getting embarrassed.  If it were more generally adopted, we should see fewer failures in business.  Excessive credit is the rock on which so many business men are broken.”

Mr. Lawrence was very successful from the first.  His profits during his first year were fifteen hundred dollars, and over four thousand during the second.  In seven years he made over fifty thousand dollars.  He paid the closest attention to his business, and nothing could draw him from it in working hours.  After these were over he would take his pleasure.  His aim was to keep every thing in the most complete state possible.  During the first seven years of his business he never allowed a bill against him to stand unsettled over the Sabbath.  If he made a purchase of goods on Saturday, and they were delivered to him that day, he always examined and settled the bill by note, or by crediting it, and leaving it clear, so that there should be no unfinished business to go over to the next week, and make trouble for his clerks in case he should not be at his post.  “Thus,” said he, “I always kept my business before me, instead of allowing it to drive me.”

The first years of Mr. Lawrence’s mercantile experience covered the darkest period of the history of the Republic.  They were marked by the embargo, the crippling of our commerce by the hostility of England and France, and the second war with Great Britain, in all of which there was much to dis-hearten a beginner, even if he escaped positive loss.  Nothing was certain.  The events of a single hour might undo the labor of years, and baffle the best laid plans.  Yet he persevered, and went steadily on to fortune.  He was remarkable for his keen foresight, as well as for his prudence, and was always on the alert to profit by the fluctuations of the market.  Yet he abominated speculation.  He averred that speculation made men desperate and unfit for legitimate business, and that it led them, when under excitement, to the commission of acts against which their cooler judgment would have warned them.  The fair profits of legitimate business were, in his opinion, sure to reward any honest and capable man.  His aim was to elevate commerce, and not to degrade it.  He introduced into Boston the system of double-entry in book-keeping, in advance of any other city merchant.  He was prompt and faithful in the performance of every contract, and required a similar course toward himself from all indebted to him, as long as they were able to do so.  When they became unfortunate, he was kind and generous, ready to compromise upon the most liberal terms, or to give them their own time for payment; and it is recorded of him that he never dealt harshly with a debtor who had failed in business.