Yet it was not many men in his position who would have taken for a motto to be painted on the doors of his carriage the plain English words which express the principle on which his business had been made to bear such wonderful results. "But," he remarks, "as the first king of Bohemia kept his country shoes by him to remind him from whence he was taken, I have put a motto on the doors of my carriage constantly to remind me to what I am indebted for my prosperity, viz., "SMALL PROFITS DO GREAT THINGS." The Lackington family had been farmers in the parish of Langford, near Wellington, in Somersetshire. They were members of the Society of Friends, and held a respectable position in the locality. For some cause, not fully explained in the memoirs, James Lackington's father was apprenticed to a shoemaker at Wellington. He made an imprudent marriage, and for a time forfeited his father's approval and favor; but when the good-wife proved herself to be a very worthy and industrious woman, the old man relented and set his son up in business. This, however, was of no advantage to him; in fact, it proved his ruin. He might have remained a steady and hard-working man, bringing up his children honorably, if he had remained a journeyman. The position of a master presented temptations that were too much for his weak disposition. Lackington's own words will best describe his unhappy circumstances in youth and the character of his father. "I was born at Wellington, in Somersetshire, on the 31st of August (old style), 1746. My father, George Lackington, was a journeyman shoemaker, who had incurred the displeasure of my grandfather for marrying my mother, whose maiden name was Joan Trott.... About the year 1750, my father having several children, and my mother proving an excellent wife, my grandfather's resentment had nearly subsided, so that he supplied him with money to open shop for himself. But that which was intended to be of very great service to him and his family eventually proved extremely unfortunate to himself and them; for as soon as he found he was more at ease in his circumstances he contracted a fatal habit of drinking, and of course his business was neglected; that after several fruitless attempts of my grandfather to keep him in trade, he was, partly by a very large family, but more by his habitual drunkenness, reduced to his old state of a journeyman shoemaker. Yet so infatuated was he with the love of liquor, that the endearing ties of husband and father could not restrain him: by which baneful habit himself and family were involved in the extremest poverty; so that neither myself, my brothers, nor sisters, are indebted to a father scarcely for anything that can endear his memory, or cause us to reflect on him with pleasure."