Merchant Adventurers

“ The expansion of their business brought them into conflict with the Hanseatic League, whose decline, as far as its hold upon England was concerned, was thenceforward inevitable. The Merchant Adventurers proved unsparing enemies, never letting slip any chance of discrediting their rivals, and instigating the Government to annoy them whenever opportunity offered. ”

“ The Merchant Adventurers—who were organized (but not incorporated) chiefly through the activity of Thomas Weston, a merchant of London, to “finance” the Pilgrim undertaking—were bound, as part of their engagement, to provide the necessary shipping,’ etc., for the voyage. The “joint-stock or partnership,” as it was called in the agreement of the Adventurers and Planters, was an equal partnership between but two parties, the Adventurers, as a body, being one of the co-partners; the Planter colonists, as a body, the other. ”

“ The sphere of trade of this body of exporting merchants extended along the coasts of France, the Netherlands, and Germany, opposite England, and some distance into the interior. [Footnote: Ibid,, xxvi.] It is true that the Merchants Adventurers had many mediaeval features which assimilated them more to the old merchant and craft guilds than to the more modern type of chartered commercial companies which were about to come into existence. They had, like the craft guilds, a system of apprenticeship and different degrees of advancement in their membership. ”

“ Again, the merchant is not content with sitting at home and wishing, but he first hires a vessel, then selects sailors and rowers, then takes up money on interest, and is inquisitive about a market and the price of merchandise. ”

“ My notion of a Merchant is that of a Bold Spirit who embarks on his own venture in his own ship, and is his own supercargo, [5] and has good store of guns and Bold Spirits like himself on board, and sails to and fro on the High Seas whithersoever he pleases. ”

“ ADVENTURE SALES
Adventure Transactions.—Before the day of easy transportation and communication between markets, adventure or venture undertakings were quite common. The inherent willingness of men to take a chance, and the desire to speculate, often led to the fitting out of cargoes of merchandise for sale in distant ports and the equipping of trading expeditions into unknown regions. Many dangers had to be met, the hazards and risks being great. Success attended many adventurers, and many also met with failure. Even today this method of seeking a market has its allurements. ”

“ The male or female adventurers, launching with their bag of letters for all their merchandise on the social sea, understand well the potent value, beyond bills of exchange, of the sheets they bear. They may have taken them as an equivalent for some service they have rendered, in discharge of some actual or apparent obligation in the great market limited to no quarter of our towns and no description of articles, but running through every section of human life. ”

“ Those brutes of keepers who beat you told me that at the first touch of the lash you gave a terrible jump the length of your chain. But, you see, friend Bull, if I offer you to the purchasers with the dangerous account which you give, I shall find few customers. An honest merchant should not boast his merchandise too much, no more should he underestimate it. ”

“ In this case, the shopkeeper is sometimes a merchant adventurer, whether he will or not, and some of his business runs into sea-adventures, as in the salt trade at Sheffield, in Northumberland, and Durham, and again at Limington ”

“ I acknowledge his were the more suited to the end of a merchant’s life: who, when he is abroad upon adventures, is wise to stick to that, as the best thing for him, which he is likely to get the most money by. ”

“ The ship tarried with him some days, till he should be certified what he would do, [2] and he said, ‘I will enquire of the merchants what this merchandise profiteth and in what country it lacketh and how much is the gain thereon.’ [So he questioned them and] they directed him to a far country, where his dirhem should profit a hundredfold. ”

“ There are various grades of merchants. They might be classed and symbolized according as they use a basket, a wheelbarrow, a cart, a stall, a booth, a shop, a warehouse, counting-room, or bank. Still all are the same thing—men who live by buying and selling. A ship is only a large basket, a warehouse, a costly stall. Your peddler is a small merchant going round from house to house with his basket to mediate between persons; your merchant only a great peddler sending round from land to land with his ships to mediate between nations. ”

“ They fell upon us and wounded and slew all who opposed them; then, having captured the ship and her contents, carried us to an island, where they sold us at the meanest price. Now I was bought by a wealthy man who, taking me to his house, gave me meat and drink and clothing and treated me in the friendliest manner; so I was heartened and I rested a little. One day he asked me, “Dost thou know any art or craft?” and I answered him, “O my lord, I am a merchant and know nothing but trade and traffic.” ”

“ That sum they paid down at once, and thanked him and blessed him for it into the bargain.
"Now, when the merchant got out to sea, he fell a-thinking how much the lad had made out of the penny he had sent out with him.
"'Yes, yes, some of the money he shall have,' said the merchant to himself; 'but not all. Me it is that he has to thank for the cat I bought; and, besides, every man is nearest to his own self.'
"But as soon as ever the merchant thought this, such a storm and gale arose that every one thought the ship must founder. ”

“ I never became just a merchant, Nell—at least, not the sort of merchant that merchants would call a merchant.”
“Oh, then, there's some hope for you yet, Dick. We may be friends still.”
“Friends? Well, I should say so! What did I work for, do you think, through all these years? What did I lay up a store of guineas for—guineas and Spanish doubloons and pieces of eight for——”
“And you have made a fortune, Dick? Think of that! Ah, I fear that you must have been a regular merchant after all; only regular merchants make fortunes in these days.” ”

“ And hence trade has become Trade, and each trader is involved in the comfort, success, and prosperity of many others. A single commercial transaction to-day involves the lives of hundreds of thousands, competes for their toil and life-blood, carries the decision of their destiny.
A great merchant is the real Kris Kringle. He stands at the centre of exchange, distributes from the tropics and the arctic zones. ”

“ And so I beam around my place, and wear a smile that splits my face, and gather in the shining dime—trade's getting better all the time!"
Though days be dark and trade be tough, it's always well to make a bluff, to face the world with cheerful eye, as though the goose were hanging high. No merchant ever made a friend by dire complainings without end. And people never seek a store to hear a grouchy merchant roar; they'll patronize the wiser gent who doesn't air his discontent. ”

“ The streets, where the best shops are located, are a busy sight, indeed, especially during tourists’ season, when crowds of visitors are eagerly selecting souvenirs for home-friends. These tradesmen consider a buyer, who does not bargain for his purchase, a brainless creature to be despised. In fact, one must offer the merchant just about one quarter of the price asked first if he wishes to win esteem and admiration from the native. ”

“ I became a wholesale dealer in every thing, from barrels of gunpowder down to pickled herrings; in the civic acceptation of the word I was a merchant, amongst the vulgar I am called a dry-salter. I accumulated wealth; with my fortune my family also grew, and one male Scropps, and four female ditto, grace my board at least once in every week. ”

“ No, sir. I'll give that much, every day of the week, to get the attention of a large dealer. Twenty-four dollars are made in a minute and a half by a traveling man when he gets to doing business with a first-class merchant. ”

“ But you have no reason for dealing with them for the purpose of getting the money, because you say you get money from the merchants if you ask it?-Yes; but if a gentleman comes and asks me for a shawl, he has nothing to give me except the money, and I get it all in money then.
1808. Would you rather do with a gentleman or lady in that way than with a merchant?-It is only sometimes that they can take a shawl in that way; but the merchant always takes them. ”

“ All the tricks of trade are known and resorted to at such a gathering. The merchant begins by demanding a price ridiculously above the amount for which he is willing eventually to sell,—a true and never wanting characteristic of Oriental trade. ”

“ Should another ship happen to arrive in that harbour, the profit abates at least one half; but should three arrive, or even four successively, the goods then are, so to speak, thrown at the head of the buyer: so that in this case a merchant has often great difficulty to recover his very expenses of fitting out. ”

“ In command of these small passenger-carrying ocean-going steamers are to be found some of the very best of our merchant skippers, whose worth and merit are so great that their reward strikes one as most shockingly inadequate. ”

“ At that there were groans and oaths from the crew, and looks of bewilderment among those who had fetched the clothes; but the innkeeper said all would be well, and that they had but to send for a merchant in the next street who made it his trade to advance money to ship-broken men. ”

“ Now the merchant their father lay asleep in the ship, and the crying of the boys troubled him; so he rose to call out to them [and silence them] and let the purse [with the thousand dinars therein] fall among the bales of merchandise. He sought for it and finding it not, buffeted his head and seized upon the boys, saying, ‘None took the purse but you. ”

“ Then I bought a leather wallet and put the money in, and traded again lower down the street with another ring. And then again at good prices—for competition was close among these goldsmiths, and none liked me to sell the beautiful things I showed them one by one to their rivals—I sold two more.
“Surely! surely! good youth,” questioned one merchant to me, “these trinkets were made for some master Abbot’s thumb, or some blessed saint.” ”

“ In building fit vessels, the trade in which they are to be employed must be considered.
To embrace to the utmost advantage these various [Pg 119] essential qualities in a merchant-vessel, the trade in which she is to be employed requires to be considered with her mercantile capabilities in relation to cost and speed. ”

“ Here, likewise—the germ of the wrinkle-browed, grizzly-bearded, careworn merchant—we have the smart young clerk, who gets the taste of traffic as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sends adventures in his master’s ships, when he had better be sailing mimic boats upon a mill-pond. ”

“ A merchant who has some capital need not stir from his desk to become wealthy. He telegraphs to an agent telling him to buy a hundred tons of tea; he freights a ship, and in a few weeks, in three months if it is a sailing ship, the vessel brings him his cargo. ”

“ He was getting down to the hard pan argument that the merchant, under all circumstances, should do his business where he thought he could do it to best advantage to himself.
"The merchant would not start to picking out a line himself, so my friend laid on a table a line of goods and was, as a final struggle, trying to persuade the merchant to buy that selection, a good thing to do. It is often as easy to sell a merchant a whole line of goods as one item. ”

“ There's a game I remember playing when I was a youngster, that is not too wise for you, but ought to have more solidity in it than the last, as it is all about lead. It is called the 'Lead-Merchant.' One tries in every mode to dispose of his lead to the company, asking question after question, to which you must answer without introducing the words lead, I, yes, or no. He tries to trip you in every way, and as soon as you say one of the forbidden words, you are out of the game. Would you like to try it?"
"Very much, uncle. Will you be the lead-merchant?" ”

“ There was a certain merchant who had two children, a boy and a girl; they were both young, and could not walk. And two richly-laden ships of his sailed forth to sea with all his property on board, and just as he was expecting to win much money by them, news came that they had gone to the bottom, and now instead of being a rich man he was a poor one, and had nothing left but one field outside the town. ”

“ A merchantman is the craft he inclines to—at least, to make a beginning with—especially one that trades from port to port, visiting many lands; for, in truth, his leaning toward a sea life has much to do with a desire to see the world and its wonders. ”

“ Quoth she to him, “Who art thou, O man?” and quoth he, “I am a stranger, a merchant.” “Beware of the townsfolk,” said she, “for they are cheats, rascals, robbers who love nothing more than imposing on the foreigner that they may get the better of him and devour his substance. Indeed I give thee good counsel.” Then she left him and on the morrow there met him one of the citizens who saluted him and asked him, “O my lord, whence comest thou?” Answered the merchant, “From such a place.” “And what merchandise hast thou brought with thee?” ”