With your kind permission, I shall speak to-night on what this age requires from the mercantile profession, or rather, since nothing is justly required which is not due, what the mercantile profession owes to this age. I would show the principle by which we are to be guided in making the account current between the mercantile profession and Humanity, and, might I so aspire, hold up the Looking-Glass of the Good Merchant. And since example is better than precept, and deeds are more than words, I shall exhibit the career of a remarkable man, whose simple life, beginning as apprentice to a linen-draper, and never getting beyond a clerkship, shows what may be accomplished by faithful, humble labor, and reveals precisely those qualities which in this age are needed to crown the character of the Good Merchant.
"I hold every man a debtor to his profession," was a saying of Lord Bacon, repeated by his contemporary and rival, Lord Coke. But this does not tell the whole truth. It restricts within the narrow circle of a profession obligations which are broad and universal as humanity. Rather should it be said that every man owes a debt to mankind. In determining the debt of the merchant, we must first appreciate his actual position in the social system.
At the dawn of modern times trade was unknown. There was nothing then like a policy of insurance, a bank, a bill of exchange, or even a promissory note. The very term "chattels," so comprehensive in its present application, yet, when considered in its derivation from the mediæval Latin catalla, cattle, reveals the narrow inventory of personal property in those days, when "two hundred sheep" were paid by a pious Countess of Anjou for a coveted volume of Homilies. The places of honor and power were then occupied by men who had distinguished themselves by the sword, and were known under the various names of Knight, Baron, Count, or—highest of all—Duke, Dux, leader in war.
Under these influences the feudal system was organized, with its hierarchy of ranks, in mutual relations of dependence and protection; and society for a while rested in its shadow. The steel-clad chiefs who enjoyed power had a corresponding responsibility, while the mingled gallantry and gentleness of chivalry often controlled the iron hand. It was the dukes who led the forces; it was the counts or earls who placed themselves at the head of their respective counties; it was the knights who went forth to do battle with danger, in whatever form, whether from robbers or wild beasts. It was the barons of Runnymede—there was no merchant there—who extorted from King John that Magna Charta which laid the corner-stone of English and American liberty.
Meanwhile trade made its humble beginnings. But for a long time the merchant was of a despised caste, only next above the slave who was sold as a chattel. If a Jew, he was often compelled, under direful torture, to surrender his gains; if a foreigner, he earned toleration by inordinate contribution to the public revenue; if a native, he was treated as caitiff too mean for society, and only good enough to be taxed. In the time of Chaucer he had so far come up, that he was admitted to the promiscuous company, ranging from knight to miller, who undertook the merry pilgrimage from the Tabard Inn to Canterbury; but the gentle poet satirically exposes his selfish talk:—
"His resons spake he ful solempnely,
Souning alway the encrese of his winning:
He wold the see were kept for any thing