Letter from Eliakim Littell to Unknown recipient

Boston 21 Sept. 1848. Dear Mark - I have this morning rec'd yr. Alter of 19th. It will be a happy thing for you when you give up your store. I need not say more on the subject, as I have before given you my advice. Perhaps your experience may be worth as much as it has cost you. Suppose you were clear of all trouble of debt, and not obliged to pay for the living age 'till yr. subscribers shall pay you - what do you think you could do in the way of getting new subscribers? And would you be willing to make that your business? getting the subscribers, delivering the { ?}, collecting the money - & binding as many Vols. as possible. I ask these questions, because I think I can now make an arrangement to take upon myself the burden of waiting till the subscribers pay. And if your answers are satisfactory, I will go to work. Possibly I will visit Phila'a for that purpose.

Are your accounts in such a state that you can make out an exact list of all that is due by you - & all that is due to you? In respect especially to your subscribers to the Living [life ?] - can you pay up to what number each of them has paid? I can devise a mode of keeping the future accounts, by which they will be like clock work, and with very little trouble to you. - And with taking great pains to be correct & methodical - & using industry, & economy, you will find yourself by the beginning of 1850 abundantly provided for. I have credited you $3 rec'd. by me from Mrs. Jane Kingman. You did not answer my inquiry about this - & I have had another letter, & wrote another answer, to Mr. Kingman. - Your clerk did not answer it either - but this I do not wonder at. When a man is away, his business is not often attended to. Please now to answer that inquiry about Mrs Kingman's money & acct. For the present I postpone the matter about the copperplates of the Western Navigator - which however I must attend to in time to preserve them. You say "the $30" - as if you had told me before, which you did not. I am sorry for all the trouble you have had in yr business - but it was intended to teach you to distrust yourself - and if you are willing to begin a new career, and to go slow at first, in order to stand safely, you will have better times, than ever before. Your friend E. Littell