The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.)

by Daniel Defoe

I. The fortunate tradesman, called upon by his poor unfortunate neighbour, who is his debtor, and is become insolvent, to have compassion on him, and to compound with him for part of his debt, and accept his offer in discharge of the whole.

II. The unfortunate tradesman become insolvent and bankrupt himself, and applying himself to his creditor to accept of a composition, in discharge of his debt.

I must confess, a tradesman, let his circumstances be what they will, has the most reason to consider the disasters of the unfortunate, and be compassionate to them under their pressures and disasters, of any other men; because they know not—no, not the most prosperous of them—what may be their own fate in the world. There is a Scripture proverb, if I may call it so, very necessary to a tradesman in this case, 'Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.'

N.B. It is not said, let him that standeth take heed, but him that thinketh he standeth. Men in trade can but think they stand; and there are so many incidents in a tradesman's circumstances, that sometimes when he thinks himself most secure of standing, he is in most danger of falling.

If, then, the contingent nature of trade renders every man liable to disaster that is engaged in it, it seems strange that tradesmen should be outrageous and unmerciful to one another when they fall; and yet so it is, that no creditor is so furious upon an unhappy insolvent tradesman, as a brother-tradesman of his own class, and who is at least liable to the same disaster, in the common event of his business.

Nay, I have lived to see—such is the uncertainty of human affairs, and especially in trade—the furious and outrageous creditor become bankrupt himself in a few years, or perhaps months after, and begging the same mercy of others, which he but just before denied to his not more unfortunate fellow-tradesman, and making the same exclamations at the cruelty and hard-heartedness of his creditors in refusing to comply with him, when, at the same time, his own heart must reproach him with his former conduct; how inexorable he was to all the entreaties and tears of his miserable neighbour and his distressed family, who begged his compassion with the lowest submission, who employed friends to solicit and entreat for them, laying forth their misery in the most lively expressions, and using all the arguments which the most moving distress could dictate, but in vain.

The tradesman is certainly wrong in this, as compassion to the miserable is a debt of charity due from all mankind to their fellow-creatures; and though the purse-proud tradesman may be able to say he is above the fear of being in the like circumstances, as some may be, yet, even then, he might reflect that perhaps there was a time when he was not so, and he ought to pay that debt of charity, in acknowledgement of the mercy that has set him above the danger.

And yet, speaking in the ordinary language of men who are subject to vicissitudes of fortune, where is the man that is sure he shall meet with no shock? And how have we seen men, who have to-day been immensely rich, be to-morrow, as it were, reduced to nothing! What examples were made in this city of such precipitations within the memory of some living, when the Exchequer shutting up ruined the great bankers of Lombard Street.[^[23]] To what fell Sir Robert Viner—the great Alderman Backwell—the three brothers of the name of Forth, of whom King Charles II. made that severe pun, that 'Three-fourths of the city were broke?'

To what have we seen men of prodigious bulk in trade reduced—as Sir Thomas Cook, Sir Basil Firebrass, Sheppard, Coggs, and innumerable bankers, money-scriveners, and merchants, who thought themselves as secure against the shocks of trade, as any men in the world could be? Not to instance our late South Sea directors, and others, reduced by the terrible fate of bubbles, whose names I omit because they yet live, though sinking still under the oppression of their fortunes, and whose weight I would be far from endeavouring to make heavier.

Why, then, should any tradesman, presuming on his own security, and of his being out of the reach of disaster, harden his heart against the miseries and distresses of a fellow-tradesman, who sinks, as it were, by his side, and refuse to accept his offer of composition; at least, if he cannot object against the integrity of his representations, and cannot charge him with fraud and deceit, breaking with a wicked design to cheat and delude his creditors, and to get money by a pretended breach? I say, why should any tradesman harden his heart in such a case, and not, with a generous pity, comply with a reasonable and fair proposal, while it is to be had?