But take a young tradesman as setting up with the ordinary stock, that is to say, a negative character, namely, that he has done nothing to hurt his character, nothing to prejudice his behaviour, and to give people a suspicion of him: what, then, is the first principle on which to build a tradesman's reputation? and what is it he is to do?
The answer is short. Two things raise credit in trade, and, I may say, they are the only things required; there are some necessary addenda, but these are the fundamentals.
1. Industry. 2. Honesty.
I have dwelt upon the first; the last I have but a few words to say to, but they will be very significant; indeed, that head requires no comment, no explanations or enlargements: nothing can support credit, be it public or private, but honesty; a punctual dealing, a general probity in every transaction. He that once breaks through his honesty, violates his credit—once denominate a man a knave, and you need not forbid any man to trust him.
Even in the public it appears to be the same thing. Let any man view the public credit in its present flourishing circumstances, and compare it with the latter end of the years of King Charles II. after the Exchequer had been shut up, parliamentary appropriations misapplied, and, in a word, the public faith broken; who would lend? Seven or eight per cent, was given for anticipations in King William's time, though no new fraud had been offered, only because the old debts were unpaid; and how hard was it to get any one to lend money at all!
But, after by a long series of just and punctual dealing, the Parliament making good all the deficient funds, and paying even those debts for which no provision was made, and the like, how is the credit restored, the public faith made sacred again, and how money flows into the Exchequer without calling for, and that at three or four per cent. interest, even from foreign countries as well as from our own people! They that have credit can never want money; and this credit is to be raised by no other method, whether by private tradesmen, or public bodies of men, by nations and governments, but by a general probity and an honest punctual dealing.
The reason of this case is as plain as the assertion; the cause is in itself; no man lends his money but with an expectation of receiving it again with the interest. If the borrower pays it punctually without hesitations and defalcations, without difficulties, and, above all, without compulsion, what is the consequence?—he is called an honest man, he has the reputation of a punctual fair dealer. And what then?—why, then, he may borrow again whenever he will, he may take up money and goods, or anything, upon his bare words, or note; when another man must give bondsmen, or mainprize, that is, a pawn or pledge for security, and hardly be trusted to neither. This is credit.
It is not the quality of the person would give credit to his dealing; not kings, princes, emperors, it is all one; nay, a private shopkeeper shall borrow money much easier than a prince, if the credit of the tradesman has the reputation of being an honest man. Not the crown itself can give credit to the head that wears it, if once he that wears it comes but to mortgage his honour in the matter of payment of money.
Who would have lent King Charles II. fifty pounds on the credit of his word or bond, after the shutting up the Exchequer? The royal word was made a jest of, and the character of the king was esteemed a fluttering trifle, which no man would venture upon, much less venture his money upon.
In King William's time the case was much the same at first; though the king had not broken his credit then with any man, yet how did they break their faith with the whole world, by the deficiency of the funds, the giving high and ruinous interest to men almost as greedy as vultures, the causing the government to pay great and extravagant rates for what they bought, and great premiums for what they borrowed—these were the injuries to the public for want of credit; nor was it in the power of the whole nation to remedy it; on the contrary, they made it still grow worse and worse, till, as above, the parliament recovered it. And how was it done? Not but by the same method a private person must do the same, namely, by doing justly, and fairly, and honestly, by every body.