My son: Inclosed you will find Mr. Toland’s receipt to Mr. Brown for the chest and tools laid in for you by your friend Mr. Hart, and Mr. Brown’s receipt for a check for $62.03 drew by me in his favor, being in full for that bill. You will find the chest (from the price charged, a nice piece of furniture for the parlour) not well suited to a negro’s workshop; and the tools very fine, such I suppose as cabinet-makers use. Be this as it may, bought wit is the best—when not bought too dear; and I could not permit either your feelings or character to suffer for the amount of the bill; but I think that it will henceforth admonish you to purchase your own tools for the farm and not entrust it to an agent. Remember my advice, my son: Never purchase any useless article. Those that are needed for your comfort or that of your dear little family purchase always as far as you have the means; and be always certain, if you wish to die independent, to keep your wants within your means; always, when you have the money, paying for them when bought. I have said before and now repeat: The world is not to be trusted. Many think you rich, and many you will find under false pretensions of friendship would involve you if they can, strip you of your last shilling and afterwards laugh at your folly and distress. In the ensuing years there must have been many times when Andrew Jackson, junior, looked back on the sage advice embraced in that letter and wished that he had indeed learned a lesson from the injudicious purchase of the tool-chest suited for a parlor and the tools such as cabinet makers use. He had plenty of “bought wit” in the years to come; and most of it was, indeed, “bought too dear.” Andrew also caused the old man considerable worry at this time by having purchased a slave in Maryland before returning to the Hermitage, paying only a part of the purchase price in cash and leaving a balance due. He neglected to say anything to Jackson about the unpaid balance, and he learned of it only when the Maryland slavetrader dunned him for the money. This annoyed and embarrassed Jackson, but his chief concern was evidently not the money involved; he was worried about Andrew’s careless business habits. “Why will you not, my dear Andrew,” he wrote him, “attend to my admonition about money matters?” And, further, “My son, at all times and on all occasions state to your father things just as they are.”