Merchants

“ The merchants, therefore, who came from other countries were now reduced to the necessity of either directly bartering their commodities for the produce of the kingdom, or, if they sold them for money in the first instance, of investing the proceeds in other goods before they could be permitted to return home. ”

“ As there are several degrees of people employed in trade below these, such as workmen, labourers, and servants, so there is a degree of traders above them, which we call merchants; where it is needful to observe, that in other countries, and even in the north of Britain and Ireland, as the handicraftsmen and artists are called tradesmen, so the shopkeepers whom we here call tradesmen, are all called merchants; nay, even the very pedlars are called travelling merchants. ”

“ Most wholesale merchants are content to confine themselves to one branch of trade: lumber, iron, wool, leather, grain, etc. Most of these merchants, moreover, rely further on specialists to help them with certain parts of their business. They depend constantly on the banker, the speculator, the broker, the forwarder, the warehouseman, the commission merchant, and agents of many different kinds. It is impossible, in this book, to do more than suggest the complex commercial organization which has grown up in the course of the century. ”

“ There are certain Merchants which deal onely upon all advantages in th' Exchange, and neither export nor import wares into the Kingdom, which hath caused some men to affirm, that the money which such mere Exchangers bring in or carry out of the Realm is not comprehended in the ballance of our forraign trade ”

“ Sir, as much a cit as you take me for, I know the town and the world; and give me leave to say, that we merchants are a species of gentry that have grown into the world this last century, and are as honourable, and almost as useful, as you landed folks, that have always thought yourselves so much above us; for your trading, forsooth, is extended no farther than a load of hay or a fat ox. ”

“ Said he, “O King of the age, this be no merchant’s fashion; for a merchant keepeth a piece of linen by him for years and selleth it not but at a profit. How should a merchant have generosity such as this generosity, and whence should he get the like of these monies and jewels, of which but a slight matter is found with the Kings? So how should loads thereof be found with merchants? Needs must there be a cause for this; but, an thou wilt hearken to me, I will make the truth of the case manifest to thee.” Answered the King, “O Wazir, I will do thy bidding.” ”

“ For my own part, who have much conversed with those folks who call themselves merchants, I do not remember to have met with a more ignorant and wrong thinking race of people in the very first rudiments of trade; which, however, was not so much owing to their want of capacity, as to the crazy constitution of this kingdom; where pedlars are better qualified to thrive, than the wisest merchants. ”

“ Then the young gentlemen would go, and where they saw the houses of the richest merchants, there would they extend their chain, and order the houses to be pulled down. Then the merchants who were the proprietors of the ground, would offer them money, some a hundred and some fifty, and some ten dollars. ”

“ Their merchants, whose enterprise was proverbial, were familiar with some of the ingenious expedients that, in our day, among civilized nations, so facilitate and simplify important business transactions. ”

“ See how many persons gain a livelihood by this business—brokers, artificers, sailors, thousands of [Pg 482] families, and at last the merchants, whose profits amount, at least, to six hundred thousand ducats.... This is the produce of your garden; do you wish to destroy it? Surely not; but we must defend it against all attacks; seeing that you are the only people to whom the land and the sea are equally open; you are the channel through which all riches flow; the whole universe is interested in your prosperity; all the gold and silver in the world come into your hands. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In fact, the Company of Merchant Adventurers came to comprehend the whole body of English merchants trading to the Low Countries and Germany, a body which, in the latter part of the reign of James, is stated to have amounted to about 4000 individuals. ”

“ We draw such fine distinctions between the wholesale and retail traders that our cotton-spinners, calico-makers, and general merchants seem to think that they belong to a totally different sphere, from which they look down on the lady who has had sufficient brains, capital, and courage to open a shop. ”

“ Of the great merchants who laid the foundations of our English commerce we often know little more than their names, the offices they held, with a meagre catalogue of their most philanthropic labours and their wills. ”

“ And if we do but look back a little, to a few Generations past, we may soon find what high Advantages have accrued to His Majesty in His Customs; and to the Kingdom in general, by the Cloathing-trade, being lively managed by the Merchants, and what worthy and noble Companies of Merchants, have been Associated and Incorporated ”

“ There remain the merchants and shopkeepers. Of these, though they make but a small part of the whole nation, the number is considerable, too great indeed for the business they are employed in; for the consumption of goods in every country has its limits; the faculties of the people, that is, their ability to buy and pay, being equal only to a certain quantity of merchandize. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We want the merchants to remember that, while we have thus striven to protect those masses of the people whom we represent and whose ADVOCATE we are, we have also advanced enormously, although without premeditation, the fortune and quick success of every capable and legitimate merchant. ”

“ As bills of exchange and insurance were not known in the commerce of the ancients, the business of merchants was not so intricate and complex as to require such a variety of books and accounts as is necessary in that of the moderns. ”

“ The merchants who have the responsibility of the import trade at the different marts also must satisfy themselves that they get good things, and all the traders must obey the State merchant in these particulars. ”

“ We commend the expressed wish of an English merchant, publicly expressed, in a public place, where merchants most do congregate, to consideration of those who differ from us in opinion, and we merely place the fact on record without further comment.”—Monetary Gazette, June 14th. ”

“ The product of that city, now
Far distant lands consume;
The Indian wears around his brow
The white webs of her loom.
Her vessels sweep from East to West;
Her merchants are like kings;
While wonders in her walls attest
The power that commerce brings. ”

“ Whether the whole capital employed in such a round-about trade belong to one merchant or to three, can make no difference with regard to the country, though it may with regard to the particular merchants. ”

“ That an Act may be made that merchants shall employ their goods continually in the traffic of merchandise, and not in the purchasing of lands; and that craftsmen, also, shall continually use their crafts in cities and towns, and not leave the same and take farms in the country ”

“ In all which places we receive either money, bills of exchange, or commodities that suit for remittance to Britain ; which, together with all the profits on the industry of our merchants and mariners, arising in those circuitous voyages, and the freights made by their ships, center finally in Britain, to discharge the ballance, and pay for British manufactures continually used in the province, or sold to foreigners by our traders. ”

“ The great trades, which minister to the first necessities of human life, occupy of course the largest space, the bakers, the cloth-makers, the smiths, carpenters, and wood- [pg 266] merchants, trades often grouped together, the shoemakers and fullers and carders of wool. ”

“ It cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of this whole mercantile system; not the consumers, we may believe, whose interest has been entirely neglected; but the producers, whose interest has been so carefully attended to; and among this latter class, our merchants and manufacturers have been by far the principal architects. In the mercantile regulations which have been taken notice of in this chapter, the interest of our manufacturers has been most peculiarly attended to; ”

“ Hovering about are the buyers for the great Hindu merchants, agents of far-off princes and [230] Europeans, all watching sharply for great finds and ready to enter into the combat of wits which marks an oriental trading. ”

“ The body of merchants who carry on the American commerce is well known to be composed of so great a proportion of individuals who are either British subjects, or trading on British capital, or enjoying the profits of British consignments, that the mercantile opinion here might not be an American opinion ”

“ This especially respects those people, who deal in heavy goods, as wholesale grocers, salters, brasiers, iron-merchants, wine-merchants, and the like; but does not exclude the dealers in woollen manufactures, and especially in mercery goods of all sorts, the dealers in which generally manage their business in this manner. ”

“ We now suppose the arrival of traders, all in one interest, with instruments of luxury and refinement, at a port in a country of great simplicity of manners, abundantly provided by nature with great advantages for commerce, and peopled by a nation capable of adopting a taste for superfluities.
The first thing the merchants do, is to expose their goods, and point out the advantages of many things, either agreeable or useful to mankind in general, such as wines, spirits, instruments of agriculture, arms, and ammunition for hunting, nets for fishing, manufactures for clothing, and the like. ”

“ This chapter shows how, at this time, trade was taking equality with gentry. “Yea, the merchantman thinketh not himself well-bred unless he be called one of the worshipful sort of merchants, of whom the handicraftsman hath taken example ”

“ Brokers are continually there attending, being informed in the quality of the Merchandises stored, and likewise to what Merchants they appertaine: by meanes of these men, and according as the goods come to their hands, they devise to have them exchaunged, trucked, vented, and such other kinds of dispatches, answerable to the mens minds, and worth of the Commodities. ”

“ Oldfashioned merchants complained bitterly that a class of men who, thirty years before, had confined themselves to their proper functions, and had made a fair profit by embossing silver bowls and chargers, by setting jewels for fine ladies, and by selling pistoles and dollars to gentlemen setting out for the Continent, had become the treasurers, and were fast becoming the masters, of the whole City. ”

“ It will be necessary, therefore, not only to produce a sufficient supply, but such articles, both in quantity and in kind, as may be required to remunerate those who conduct the imports. There will be needed then more husbandmen, and other artificers, in our city. There will be needed also other persons who will undertake the conveyance of the imports and the exports, and these persons are called merchants. ”

“ But merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. ”

“ The merchants -- or rather far seeing ones -- are learning that they must either take the initiative in this direction, or else leave the field open to some outsider, who may be looking for just such an opportunity and so ripe an opening. ”

“ And when the merchants saw him coming, they began to whisper to each other, and one of them came forth to meet him, and called him by name, and said to him, ‘What hast thou to sell?’
‘I will sell thee my soul,’ he answered. ‘I pray thee buy it of me, for I am weary of it. Of what use is my soul to me? I cannot see it. I may not touch it. I do not know it.’
But the merchants mocked at him, and said, ‘Of what use is a man’s soul to us? It is not worth a clipped piece of silver. Sell us thy body for a slave, and we will clothe thee in sea-purple, and put a ring upon thy finger, and make thee the minion of the great Queen. But talk not of the soul, for to us it is nought, nor has it any value for our service.’
And the young Fisherman said to himself: ”

“ Thus did I for some time, till I had laid up great store of excellent nuts, besides a large sum of money, the price of those I had sold. I became thus at my ease and bought all I saw and had a mind to and passed my time pleasantly, till one day, as I stood on the beach, a great ship cast anchor before the city and landed a company of merchants, who proceeded to sell and buy and trade for cocoa-nuts and other commodities. Then I went to my friend and told him of the coming of the ship and how I had a mind to return to my own country; and he said, “It is thine to decide.” ”

“ Many of the merchants now possess this kind of property, which has fallen into their hands, either in payment of debts or by purchase; and these men have no prejudices to conquer respecting any particular plan of operations. ”