public blow to their credit, they are brought to a stop or breach by mere constraint, like a man fighting to the last gasp, who is knocked down unawares and laid on the ground, and then his resistance is at an end. Indeed a tradesman, pushing on with irresistible misfortunes, is but fighting with the world to the last drop, and with such unequal odds, that, like the soldier surrounded with enemies, he must be killed: so the debtor must sink; it cannot be prevented.

It is true also the man that thus struggles to the last brings upon himself a universal reproach, and a censure that is not only unavoidable but just, which is worse; but when a man breaks in time, he may hold up his face to his creditors, and tell them that he could have gone on a considerable while longer, but that he should have had less left to pay them with, and that he has chosen to stop while he may be able to give them so considerable a sum as may convince them of his integrity.

We have a great clamour among us of the cruelty of creditors. It is indeed very popular, goes a great way with some people, but let them tell us whenever creditors were cruel where the debtor came thus to them with fifteen shillings in the pound in his offer? Perhaps when the debtor has run to the utmost, and there appears to be little or nothing left, he has been used roughly; and it is enough to provoke a creditor indeed to be offered a shilling or half-a-crown in the pound for a large debt, when, had the debtor been honest, and broke in time, he might have received perhaps two-thirds of the debt, and the debtor been in better condition too.

Break then in time, young tradesman. If you see you are going down, and that the hazard of going on is doubtful, you will certainly be received by your creditors with compassion, and with a

generous treatment; and whatever happens you will be able to begin the world again with the title of an honest man; even the same creditors will embark with you again, and be forward to give you credit as before.

In the next place, what shall we say to the peace and satisfaction of mind in breaking, which the tradesman will always have when he acts the honest part, breaks betimes, compared to that guilt and chagrin of the mind occasioned by a running on, as I said, to the last gasp, when they have little to pay? Indeed, as the tradesman can expect no quarter from his creditors, so he will have no quiet in himself.

I might instance here the miserable, anxious, perplexed life which the poor tradesman lives under before he breaks; the distresses and extremities of his declining state; how harassed and tormented for money; what shifts he is driven to for supporting himself; how many little, mean, not to say wicked things, will even a conscientious tradesman stoop to in his distress to deliver himself, even such things as his soul would abhor at another time, and for which he goes perhaps with a wounded conscience all his life after.

By giving up early, all this, which is the most dreadful part of the whole, would be prevented. I have heard many an honest, unfortunate man confess this, and repent, even with tears, that they had not learned to despair in trade some years sooner than they did, by which they had avoided falling into many foul and foolish actions, which they afterwards had been driven to by the extremity of their affairs.

CHAP. VIII.

Of the ordinary occasions of the ruin of tradesmen. How requisite it is for the tradesman to choose a situation proper for his business: that his shop be filled with a useful sortment of goods; and that he have an invincible stock of patience to bear with the impertinence of every kind of customer. An humorous letter from a mercer, on the trouble given him by ladies, who intend not to buy.

HAVING thus given advice to tradesmen on their falling into difficulties, and finding they are run behindhand, to break in time, it is but just I should give them some needful directions, to avoid, if possible, breaking at all.

In order to this, I will briefly inquire what are ordinarily the original causes of a tradesmen's ruin in business; some of which are as follow:

1. Some, especially retailers, ruin themselves by fixing their shops in such places as are improper for their business. In most towns, but particularly in the city of London, there are places, as it were, appropriated to particular trades, and where the trades which are placed there succeed very well, but would do very ill anywhere else; as, the orangemerchants and wet-salters about Billingsgate and in Thames-street; the costermongers at the Three Cranes; the wholesale cheesemongers in Thamesstreet; the mercers and drapers in Cheapside, Ludgate-street, Cornhill, Roundcourt, Coventgarden, Gracechurch-street, &c.

What would a bookseller make of his business at Billingsgate, or a mercer in Tower-street, or near the Custom-house; a draper in Thames-street, or about Queenhithe? Many trades have their peculiar streets, and proper places for the sale of their goods, where people expect to find such shops; and consequently, when they want such goods, they go thither for them; as the booksellers in St. Paul's churchyard, about the Exchange, the Temple, and the Strand, &c. the mercers on both sides Ludgate, in Roundcourt, Gracechurch and Lombard-streets; the coachmakers in Long-acre, Queen-street, and Bishopsgate-street, and such like.

For a tradesman to open his shop in a place unresorted to, or in a place where his trade is not agreeable, and where it is not expected, it is no wonder if he has no business. What retail trade would a milliner have among the fishmongers' shops on Fish-street-hill, or a toyman about Queenhithe ? When a shop is ill-chosen, the tradesman starves; he is out of the way, and business will not follow him that runs away from it. Suppose a shipchandler should set up in Holborn, or a blockmaker in Whitecross-street, an anchorsmith at Moorgate, or a coachmaker in Rotherhithe, and the like?

It is true, we have seen a kind of fate attend the very streets and rows where such trades have been gathered together; and a street famous for this or that particular trade some years ago, shall, in a few years after, be quite forsaken; as Paternoster-row for mercers, St. Paul's churchyard for woollen-drapers; now we see hardly any of those trades left in those places.

I mention it for this reason, and this makes it to my purpose in an extraordinary manner, that whenever the principal shopkeepers of any trade remove

from such a street, or settled place, where that particular trade used to be, the rest soon follow ; knowing, that if the same of the trade is not there, the customers will not resort thither, and that a tradesman's business is to follow wherever the trade leads. For a mercer to set up now in Paternosterrow, or a woollen-draper in St. Paul's churchyard; the one among the sempstresses, and the other among the chairmakers, it would be the same thing as for a country shopkeeper in a town not to set up in or near the market-place.

The place therefore is to be prudently chosen by the retailer, when he first begins his trade, that he may put himself in the way of business; and then, with God's blessing and his own care, he may expect his share of trade with his neighbours.

2. He must take an especial care to have his shop not so much crowded with a large bulk of goods, as with a well-sorted and well-chosen quantity, proper for his business, and to give credit to his beginning. In order to this, his buying-part requires not only a good judgment in the wares he is to deal in, but a perfect government in that judgment, by his understanding to suit and sort his quantities and proportions, as well to his shop, as to the particular place where his shop is situate. For example; a certain trade is not only proper for such or such a part of the town, but a particular sortment of goods, even in the same way, suits one part of the town, or one town, and not another; as he that sets up in the Strand, or near the Exchange, is likely to sell more rich silks, more fine hollands, more fine broad-cloths, more fine toys and trinkets, than one of the same trade setting up in the skirts of the town, or at Ratcliffe, or Wapping, or Rotherhithe; and he that sets up in the capital city of a county, than he that is placed in a private market