His publishing business was pushed with wonderful energy, and for those days on a grand scale. He has stated that for many years he was involved in such financial difficulties and embarrassments that he was “oppressed and brought to the verge of bankruptcy,” which “nothing but the most untiring efforts and indefatigable industry and energy could have enabled me to wade through.” These difficulties were brought about, he says, by his own folly in over-trading. A few figures in regard to his publications will give an idea how these difficulties arose. For instance, he printed 2,500 copies of _Guthrie’s Geography_, 4to, with a folio atlas of 40 or 50 maps, price, $12; 3,000 _Goldsmith’s Animated Nature_, 4 volumes, 8vo, illustrated with a large number of plates, price $10. In 1801 he published 3,000 copies of a 4to edition of the Bible, with additional references, for which he paid an editor $1,000. This book was prepared by the collation of eighteen different editions of the Bible, in which the most extraordinary number of discrepancies were detected. Soon after the publication of this edition, the success of which was very great, he embarked in the preparation of a standing edition of the 4to Bible. Stereotyping had not been invented, and for this volume he purchased the entire type which was kept permanently standing. About this time he purchased, for $7,000, a school Bible, and also a large house in Market Street, in which he lived for many years. In 1802 he was elected by the Senate of Pennsylvania a director in the Bank of Pennsylvania, which added greatly to his financial resources. In 1801, induced by the advantages to literature which had resulted from the fairs of Frankfort and Leipsic, he formed the project of establishing a literary fair in this country, to meet alternately at New York and Philadelphia. He accordingly issued a circular dated December, 1801, inviting all publishers and booksellers to meet in New York on the 1st of June, 1802, for the purpose of buying, selling and exchanging their publications. He wrote out a constitution, which was adopted, and a society formed with Hugh Gaine, the oldest bookseller in the United States, as president. The plan worked well for a year or two, but it was found that country booksellers published inferior editions of popular works, with which, by means of exchanges, they flooded the country. It was therefore abandoned.