For fifteen or eighteen months I gave myself no
concern about matters of business, trusting to Mr. Blackwell to keep
things right, according to his pledge.
Mr. Townsend had another business besides my book concern, the china and
earthenware business, and about eighteen months after my business was
placed in his hands, he went into Scotland to dispose of a quantity of
his surplus stock. He had only been gone a few days before word came
that he was dead. It then came out that Mr. Blackwell had allowed him to
run up a debt of nearly seven hundred pounds for printing. It also came
out that Mr. Townsend was insolvent. He had been in difficulties for
years, and he had used the money he had received for my books to prevent
his creditors from making him a bankrupt. His journey to Scotland was
his last shift, and failing in that, he had taken opiates, it was said,
to such an extent, as to cause death. The dreadful revelations that were
laid before me shocked and troubled me beyond measure, and I knew not
what to do. Mr. Blackwell, through whose neglect or unfaithfulness the
debt had been incurred, exhorted me not to be alarmed, assuring me that
he should never trouble me for the money. So I set to work to gather up
the fragments of my property, and re-organize the business.
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