may, by any of the consequences of his commerce, come to be any way concerned with.

Especially it is his business to acquaint himself with the terms and trading style, as I call it, of those trades which he buys of. As to those he sells to, supposing he sells to those who sell again, it is their business to understand him, not his to understand them; and if he finds they do not understand him, he will not fail to make their ignorance be his advantage, unless he is honester and more conscientious in his dealings than too many of the tradesmen of this age seem to be.

CHAP. IV.

Of the tradesman acquainting himself with all business in general: with some brief cautions against projectors.

A TRADESMAN ought so far to acquaint himself with business in general, that he should not be at a loss to turn his hand to this or that trade, as occasion presents, whether in or out of the way of his ordinary dealing, as we have often seen done in London, and other places, with good success.

By this advice, I do not mean that he should learn every trade, or enter into the mystery of every employment; that cannot well be; but only that he should have a true notion of business in general, and how and in what manner it is carried on; that he should know where every manufacture is made, and how bought at first hand; which are the proper markets, and what the particular kinds of goods to exchange at those markets; the manner

how every manufacture is managed, and the method of their sale.

Neither can it be expected that he should have equal judgment in the choice of all kinds of goods, though in a great many he may however have some judgment. But there is a general understanding in trade, which every tradesman both may and ought to arrive at; and this perfectly qualifies him to engage in any new undertaking, and to embark with other persons better qualified than himself, in any new trade which he was not in before; in which, though he may not have a particular knowledge and judgment in the goods they are to deal in, or to make; yet having the benefit of the knowledge his new partner is master of, and being himself apt to take in all additional lights, he soon becomes experienced; and the knowledge of all the other parts of business qualifies him to be a good partner. For example; A. B. was bred a dry-salter, and he goes in partner with C. D., a scarlet-dyer, called a bow-dyer, at Wandsworth.

As a salter, A. B. has had experience enough in the materials for dyeing, as well scarlets as all other colours; and understands very well the buying of cochineal, indigo, galls, sumach, logwood, fustick, madder, and the like; so that he does his part very well. So C. D. is an experienced scarlet-dyer; and now doubling their stock, they fall into a larger work, and they dye bays and stuffs, and other goods, into differing colours, as occasion requires: this brings them to an equality in the business; and by hiring good experienced servants, they go on very well together.

The like happens often when a tradesman turns his hand from one trade to another; and when he embarks, either in partnership or out of it, in any new business, it is supposed he seldom changes

hands in such a manner without some such suitable person to join with, or that he has some experienced head workman to direct him, which, if that workman proves honest, is as well as a partner. On the other hand, his own application and indefatigable industry supplies the want of judgment. Thus I have known several tradesmen turn their hands from one business to another, and very often with good success. For example; I have seen a confectioner turn a sugar-baker; another, a distiller; an apothecary turn chemist; and not a few turn physicians.

Moreover, a tradesman who is capable of making a general judgment of things, is fenced against bubbles and projects, and against those fatal people called projectors, who are indeed amongst tradesmen as birds of prey are among the innocent fowls; tradesmen cannot be too well armed, nor too much cautioned against those sort of people; they are constantly surrounded with them, and are as much in jeopardy from them as a man is when in a crowd of pickpockets.

In order to direct the tradesman how to furnish himself with a needful stock of trading knowledge, first, I shall propose to him to converse with tradesmen chiefly. He that will be a complete tradesman should principally confine himself within his own sphere; never was the Gazette so full of bankruptcies as since our shopkeepers have so much engaged in parties, formed into clubs to hear news and study politics. The known story of the upholster is very instructive, who, in his abundant concern for the public, run himself out of his business into a jail ; and even when he was in prison could not sleep for the concern he had for the liberties of his dear country; the man was a good patriot, but a bad shopkeeper; indeed, he should rather have shut up his shop, and got a commission in the army, and

then he had served his country in the way of his inclination.

A tradesman may, on occasion, keep company with gentlemen, as well as other people; nor is a trading man, if he is a man of sense, unsuitable or unprofitable for a gentleman to converse with, as occasion requires ; and you will often find that not private gentlemen only, but even ministers of state, are not ashamed to acknowledge that a tradesman is sometimes qualified to inform them in the most difficult and intricate, as well as the most urgent, affairs of government; and this is the less to be wondered at in a nation like this, whose principal glory and advantage is derived from mercantile pursuits and a diffusive commerce. Sir Charles Duncomb, a goldsmith; sir Henry Furnese, at first a retail hosier; sir Josiah Child, originally a very mean tradesman; the elder Mr. Craggs, postmastergeneral, a still meaner; the late Mr. Lownds, bred a scrivener; and several others, too many to name, are instances of men called out of a lower sphere for their eminent usefulness and capacities; making good the words of the wise man, Seest thou a man diligent in business? he shall stand before princes, he shall not stand before mean men.

Let not, then, a tradesman himself disdain to accompany with persons of his own class; for in such company the topics of conversation will generally be trade; there he will see how other men go on, and there learn how to go on himself; there he will hear all the trading news; there learn how to buy and there get oftentimes opportunities to sell; there he will hear of all the disasters in trade, who breaks, and why; what brought such and such a man to misfortunes; who goes backward, and therefore to be avoided; who forward, and therefore to be courted; and the various ways by which men go

down in the world, as well as the arts and management by which others from nothing rise to wealth and estates.

Here he hears of one ruined by too much trade, and of another starved for want of trade; from all which observations he may learn something useful to himself, and fit to guide his own measures by, that he may not fall into the same mischiefs under which he sees others sink, and that he may take the advantage of that prudence by which he sees others rise.

All these things will naturally occur to him in his conversing among his fellow-tradesmen; a settled little society of trading people, who understand business, and are carrying on trade in the same manner with himself, no matter whether they are of the very same trades or no, and perhaps better not; such a society shall, if due observations are made from it, teach the tradesman more than his apprenticeship; for there he learnt the operation, here he learns the progression; his apprenticeship is his grammarschool, this is his university; behind his master's counter, or in his warehouse, he learnt the first rudiments of trade, but here he learns the trading sciences; here he comes to learn the secrets, speak the language, understand the meaning of everything of which before he only learnt the beginning; the apprenticeship inducts him, and leads him as the nurse the child, this finishes him; there he learnt the beginning of trade, here he sees it in its full extent; in a word, there he learnt to trade, here he is made a complete tradesman.

Even from your silly empty tradesmen many things may be learnt in trade; for though it is not absolutely necessary that every tradesman should be a philosopher, yet every tradesman, in his way, knows something that even a philosopher may learn from.