had thoughts of setting up a stationer's shop, and hoped 'to fall into the printing of books,' including some he himself designed to write, 'particularly one of the modern advancement of mathematical sciences, and an account of the best authors of that kind'. He did not, however, succeed in carrying the plan into effect. With the failure of his arguments against the issue of tin farthings his office ceased, and he was glad subsequently to accept a small post as accountant to the Royal Fishery Company. He had refused in March 1669 a situation offered to him in Ireland by the surveyor-general, Sir James Shaen, and about the same time married one of two daughters of William Austen, head cook to Charles II. As his family increased his means of subsistence became more and more precarious. He undertook accountancy work, spending less time on learned correspondence. Several of his writings testify to his acquaintance with the course of trade and interest in public matters. He published in 1680 A Plea for the bringing in of Irish Cattel, and keeping out Fish caught by Foreigners, together with an humble Address to the Honourable members of parliament of the counties of Cornwall and Devon, about the Advancement of Tin, Fishery, and divers Manufactures; and in 1682 a little treatise entitled Salt and Fishery, in which he dwelt upon the several modes of preparing salt in England and abroad, the catching of fish, the salting and cooking of fish and meat, besides offering proposals for the relief of the salt-workers. Collins died, 10 November 1683, at his lodging on Garlick Hill, London, of asthma and consumption, and was buried in the parish church of St. James. Works An enlarged edition of his Doctrine of Decimal Arithmetick, the preparation of which had engaged his attention during about a year before his death, appeared in 1685. It had originally been printed in 1664 on a quarter of a sheet for portability in a letter-case. His Arithmetic in whole Numbers and Fractions, both Vulgar and Decimal, with Tables for the Forbearance and Rebate of Money, &c., was published by Thomas Plant in 1688. Collins was elected a fellow of the Royal Society 24 October 1667, and on 11 November of that year communicated an exposition of a theorem by the Jesuit Jacques de Billy. He contributed further An Account concerning the Resolution of Equations in Numbers,