In a short time, Reuben not only supplied with goods to a great extent the merchants on the Borders, but throughout the three kingdoms; and he also exported extensively to other countries, and even to some where the importation of British goods was prohibited.
"A fig for their tariffs," he was wont to say, snapping his fingers; "the profit will cover the risk. The principle of trade is like the principle of steam—there is no restraining it. Neither kings, emperors, congresses, nor laws, are a match for it. They canna cage it up like a bird. They might as well say to the waves of the sea, 'hitherto shalt thou come and no farther,' as to the spirit of trade—'stop!'"
In these speculations however, Reuben frequently experienced the common fate of the smuggler; and the goods which he sent into countries where they were prohibited were seized. He was of too ardent a temperament to be merely the purchaser and vender of other men's manufactures, and eventually he erected a cotton-mill of his own, a few miles out of Manchester.
And here it will, perhaps, be more acceptable to the reader, that I detail the remainder of Reuben's narrative in his own words, as he related it to an old schoolfellow in his native town, after an absence from it of more than thirty years. It was delivered with his unchanged Scottish accent, and with many Scottish phrases and modes of expression, which a residence of more than three times ten years in England had not destroyed:—
I was now (said he, alluding to the erection of the mill), at what I had always considered as the very pinnacle of my ambition—the proprietor of a cotton-mill, and of one, too, that had cost me several thousands in completing it. I had no manner of doubt, but that it would turn out the master-speculation of my existence; for, bless ye, at that period, to have a mill was to have a mine. A spinning-jenny was worth its weight in rubies. There was Arkwright, made a fortune like a nobleman's in a jiffy; and Robert Peel, greatly to his credit from being a weaver lad, I may say, in less than no time, made a fortune that could have bought up half the gentry in the country. Indeed, wealth just poured in upon the millowners; and, I must confess, they werna bad times for the like o' me, that bought their calicoes, and got them dressed and printed to sell them out, as you may judge from my having been able to erect a mill of my own before I had been many years in business. But, I must confess, that the mill ran between me and my wits. All the time it was building, I was out and in frae the town to see how the workmen were getting on, wet or dry; and, I dare to say, that if I dreamed about it once during the twelve months it was in hands, I dreamed about it a thousand times. Many a time Priscilla has said to me—
"Reuben, I doubt ye are thinking owre meikle about that mill, and really it's no richt—it is sinfu. I fear it is aneugh to mak the concern no prosper."
"My dear," I used to say, "do ye consider what an immense speculation it is?—it is like death or life to me; and, if I dinna think o't, and look after the workmen to see how they are gettin on wi' it, who, do ye suppose, would? There is naething like a man lookin after his own concerns; and, where there is sae meikle at stake, it is impossible but to think o't."
But, sir, I looked after the progress of the mill, and my thoughts were taken up concerning it, to the neglect of my more immediate business. After commencing in the wholesale line, I found it impossible to abide by my original rule of—no credit; and, during my frequent absence from my warehouse, my salesman had admitted the names of men into my books of whom I knew nothing, but whom I afterwards learned were not to be trusted. Their payments were not forthcoming in the proper season; and, in looking after them, I put off insuring the mill at the time I intended. Delay, sir, is a curse to a person in business; it is as dangerous as the blandishments of a harlot to the young—and so I found it. On the very night that the machinery and everything was completed, I allowed the spinners and others that I had engaged, to have a supper and dance in it wi' their wives and sweethearts. I keepit them company for an hour mysel, and very merry they were. But, after charging them all to keep sober and harmonious one with another, and to see that they locked the doors behind them when they broke up, and to leave everything right, I wished them good-night; and they drank my health, and gave me three cheers as I left them. I got into my gig, and drove home to Manchester. But I dinna think I had been three hours in bed, when Priscilla gied me a dunch with her elbow, and, says she—
"Waken, Reuben! waken!—there's an unco knocking at the street-door."
"Hoot! it will be some drunk body passing," says I, and turned round on my side to compose myself to sleep again.