The memoir of William Cripps covers two periods of business activity. The first dated from 1819, when he sailed to New York to begin his career as an agent for the export of Nottingham lace, and ended with his first retirement in 1845. The second began in 1859, when through the roguery of a business associate he found himself a ruined man and, with the aid of the many friends of his youth in New York and Boston, he was successful in founding the Standard Fire Insurance Company of which he remained president until his second retirement in 1879. He then returned to England and in 1882 wrote the memoir here published.