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death. If the law of England were as severe, what the fate of many of the bankrupt citizens of London must have been, every one may judge.

The great consumption of private fortunes is owing chiefly to those expenses which are constant, and run on, day after day, the whole year round. People do not seem to attend sufficiently to the consequences of the expense of one dish, or one bottle of wine more than cnough in their daily economy. Yet the saving of three or four shillings a-day, will amount to sixty or eighty pounds in a year; which sum, saved up yearly for thirty years, the ordinary time a man carries on business, would amount to near five thousand pounds, reckoning interest; and still more, if you suppose it laid out in an advantageous trade.

If any young gentleman of fortune imagines the largeness of his income sufficient to render frugality and economy useless, a little experience will show him to his cost, that no error can be greater. The charge of maintaining a number of servants, who are to be supported not only in necessaries, but in all the waste and destruction they please to make; the expense of coachmen, footmen, horses and hounds, a town-house and country-seat, is enormous. But if to these there be added the charge of a mistress, that alone will surmount all the rest; and the expense of a steward will exceed all the others put together: For, as none of the other dependants upon a great man have it in their power to do more than run away with a little of his cash, or the provisions of his house from time to time, they cannot utterly ruin him without his own knowledge: But the steward, having the receiving and paying of all, in his own hands, may very easily, in a short time, if his accounts are not looked into, appropriate to himself the bulk of the estate, and ruin his master before he has any suspicion of his affairs being out of order.

It seems to me very unaccountable, that men of fortune should think it necessary to go to the utmost stretch of their incomes, and generally beyond them; when they must find, that a crowd of servants and dependants is but a disturbance to happiness, which requires peace and tranquility, and flies from noise and ostentation. Is it necessary for popularity? By no means. Half the Half the money laid

out for the service of the public, or in judicious charities, would procure a gentleman the real esteem and affection of his neighbours; whereas, the greatest expense laid out upon those bloodsuckers, which generally feed upon the great, does but expose him to their contempt, who laugh in their sleeve to find they can so grossly gull him out of his money.

The employing a number of working people in improv ing barren grounds, in laying out plantations, in raising buildings for a continual increase of tenants upon a thriving estate, with the acquisition of new inhabitants, the encouragement of manufactures, and providing for the poor; these are the arts that will gain a country gentleman more popularity, than keeping open house the whole year round.

Let me advise young people to be particularly cautious of new schemes or projects. There is not one of a hundred that ever succeeds at all; nor one of many hundreds that brings their inventors any thing but disappointment and ruin. The reason is pretty plain. It requires a great expense to set any new scheme on foot. The bulk of mankind are prejudiced against novelties, and consequently are apt to oppose them. them. The generality of people are likewise jealous of every scheme that may any way affect their interest; and many from pure envy, take a pleasure in opposing and depreciating every new proposal. The contriver himself is greatly at a loss, being obliged to try various methods to bring his designs to bear, and to lay out a certain expense for an uncertain profit. So that we observe, accordingly, whoever projects any thing new in science, in mechanics, or in trade, seldom does more than open the way for others to profit by his ingenuity.

What shall be said upon the subject of pleasures and diversions in an age, in which all ranks, sexes, and ages, run to excess in this respect? And yet to make the amusements of life, the business of life, is absurd in any rational being who has ever heard of a judgment to come, and who is not absolutely certain (which I believe hardly any one will pretend) that he never shall be called to give an account of the use he has made of his time. But if there be any absurdity greater than another, it is, that a man of business should set up for a man of taste and plea

sures: Yet we see the public diversions of this great city crowded and supported chiefly by the citizens. We see those whose business is in town, outvying one another in the elegancy of their country-houses; plays, balls, operas, music-gardens, concerts, resorted to by the lowest mechanics the consequences of which extravagances are bankruptcies innumerable :-not to mention frauds, robberies, forgeries, and so forth. It is no easy matter to support a family in the most frugal way; but when to the ordinary conveniences of life, the above extravagances are to be added, there is no end of it; and the covetousness of a spendthrift is incomparably more mischievous than that of a miser. The latter will, at worst, only grind the face of the poor, and take the advantage of all that are less cunning than himself; but the former will not stick at forgery, robbery, or murder.

At the same time, that it is hardly possible to say too much against the inordinate pursuit of diversions, which even defeats its own end, becoming, through excess, a burden and fatigue, instead of a relaxation; after all, I say, that may be urged against this reigning folly of our times, I know no just reason why a man of business should deny himself the moderate use of such innocent amusements as his fortune or leisure will allow; his fortune, in a consistency with supporting his family, and contributing to the relief of the indigent, and his leisure, in a consistency with the thorough knowledge of the state of his own affairs, and doing offices of kindness to those about him. Some of the most innocent amusements I know, are reading, viz. history, lives, geography, and natural philosophy, with a very little choice poetry: the conversation of a few agreeable friends, and drawing, where there is a genius for it. To these may be added, riding on horseback once or twice in a week, where it can be done conveniently.

Music is never safely indulged, where there is too great a desire to excel in it; for that generally draws people into an expense of time and money, above what the accomplishment, carried to the greatest length, is worth. As for cards, and all other ways of gaming, they are the Fuin of rational conversation, the bane of society, and the curse of the nation.

SECTION IV.

Of Over-trading. Of Integrity, prudentially considered. Of Credulity. Of prudent Conduct in case of a reverse of Fortune. Of the different Characters of

Men, and how to apply them.

THERE is one error in the conduct of the industrious part of mankind, whose effects prove as fatal to their fortunes as those of some of the first vices, though it is generally the most active and the ablest men who run into it: I mean over-trading. Profusion itself is not more dangerous; nor does idleness bring more people to ruin, than launching out into trade beyond their abilities. The exuberant credit given in trade, though it is sometimes of advantage, especially to people whose capitals are small, is yet perhaps, upon the whole, more detrimental that a general diffidence would be. For a young trader to take the utmost credit he can have, is only running the utmost risk he can run. And if he would consider, that as others trust him to a great extent, he must lay his account with trusting those he deals with to a great value likewise; and that consequently, he must run a great many hazards of his own payments falling short, and that the failure or disappointment of two or three considerable sums at the same time, may disable him from making his payments regularly, which is utter ruin to his credit; if, I say, a young trader were to consider in this manner the consequence of things, he would not think the offer of large credit so much a favour, as a snare; especially if he likewise reflected, that whoever offers him large credit, and for a long time, without sufficient security, will think he has a right to charge a very considerable profit upon the commodities he sells him; and consequently the advantage he can gain by them, must be too inconsiderable to make up for the risk he must run. The trader who gives and takes large credit, especially if he has large concerns in foreign parts, and is not possessed of a very considerable fortune, must be liable to such hazards, and such terror and anxiety, that I should think a very moderate profit arising from trading safely, and within a reasonable compass, much the most eligible. I know but one sort

of trade in which large credit might be safely taken, viz. where one could quickly make sales of large quantities of goods for ready money; and in such a trade, to take credit when one might buy to greater advantage for ready money, would be very absurd.

There is no subject which men of business ought to have oftener in their view, than the precariousness of human affairs. In order to the success of any scheme, it is necessary that every material circumstance take place; as, in order to the right going of a watch or clock, it is necessary that every one of the wheels be in order. To succeed in trade, it is necessary that a man be possessed of a large capital; that he be well qualified; (which alone comprehends a great many particulars,) that his integrity be unsuspected; that he have no enemies to blast his credit; that foreign and home markets keep nearly according to his expectations; that those he deals with, and credits to any great extent, be both as honest and sufficient as he believes them to be; that his funds never fail him when he depends on them; and that, in short, every thing turn out to his expectation. But surely it must require a very great degree of that sanguine temper, so common in youth, to make a man persuade himself that there is no manner of hazard of his finding himself deceived, or disappointed in some one, among so many particulars. Yet we commonly see instances of bankruptcies, where a trader shall have gone to the extent of perhaps ten times the value of his capital; and by means of large credit, and raising money with one hand, to pay with the other, has supported himself upon the effects of other people, till at length, some one or other of his last shifts failing him, down he sinks with his own weight, and brings hundreds to ruin with him.

Upon the head of over trading, and hastening to be rich, I cannot help making a remark on the conduct of many traders of large capitals, who, for the sake of adding to a heap, already too great, monopolize the market, or trade for a profit which they know dealers of smaller fortunes cannot possibly live by. If such men really think, that their raising themselves thus on the ruin of others is justifiable, and that riches got in this manner are fairly gained, they must either have neglected properly inform

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