I should consider my history incomplete, unless I went back for many years to speak of the treatment which I received from a certain man. I shall not mention his name, and my object in relating these circumstances, is to illustrate a principle there is in man, and to caution the young men to be careful when they get to be older and are carrying on business, not to do too much for one individual. If you do, in nine cases out of ten, he will hate and injure you in the end. This has been my experience. Many years ago, I hired two men from a neighboring town to work for me. It was about the time that I invented the Bronze Looking-Glass Clock, which was, at that time, decidedly the best kind made. After a while these two men contrived a plan to get up a company, go into another town, and manufacture the same kind of clock. This company was formed about six months before I found it out, and much of their time was spent in making small tools and clock-parts to take with them. This was done when they were at work for me on wages. They induced as many of my men as they could to go with them, and took some of them into company. When they had finished some clocks, they went round to my customers and under-sold me to get the trade. This is the first chapter. When I invented the thirty-hour brass clock in 1838, one of these men had returned to Bristol again, and was out of business; but he had some money which he had made out of my former improvements. I had lost a great deal of money in the great panic of 1837. After I had started a little in making this new clock, he proposed to put in some money and become interested with me, and as I was in want of funds to carry on the business, I told him that if he would put in three thousand dollars, he should have a share of the profits. I went on with him one year, but got sick of it and bought him out. I had to pay six thousand dollars to get rid of him. He took this money, went to a neighboring town, bought an old wood clock factory, fitted it up for making the same clock that I had just got well introduced, and induced several of my workmen to go with him, some of whom he took in company with him. As soon as I had the clock business well a going in England, he sent over two men to sell the same patterns. He has kept this up ever since, and has made a great deal of money.