Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/198

188 ADVICE TO A YOUNG TRADESMAN.

WRITTEN ANNO 1748.

TO MY FRIEND A. B.

At you have deſired it of me, I write the following hints, which have been of ſervice to me, and may, if obſerved, be ſo to you.

EMEMBER that time is money. He that can earn ten ſhillings a day by his labour, and goes abroad, or ſits idle one half of that day, though he ſpends but ſixpence during his diverſion or idleneſs, ought not to reckon that the only expence; he has really ſpent, or rather thrown away, five ſhillings beſides. Remember that credit is money. If a man lets his money lie in my hands after it is due, he gives me the intereſt, or ſo much as I can make of it during that time. This amounts to a conſiderable ſum where a man has good and large credit, and makes good uſe of it. Remember that money is of a prolific generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and ſo on. Five ſhillings turned is ſix; turned again, it is ſeven and three-pence; and ſo on till it becomes an hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, ſo that the profits riſe quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding ſow, deſtroys all her offspring to the thouſandth generation. He that murders a crown, deſtroys all that it might have produced, even ſcores of pounds.