The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) by Daniel Defoe

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What could the woman say to so reasonable a discourse, if she was a
woman of any sense, but to reply, she would do any thing that lay in her
to assist him, and if her way of living was too great for him to
support, she would lessen it as he should direct, or as much as he
thought was reasonable?--and thus, going hand in hand, she and he
together abating what reason required, they might bring their expenses
within the compass of their gettings, and be able to go on again
comfortably.

But now, when the man, finding his expenses greater than his income, and
yet, when he looks into those expenses, finds that his wife is frugal
too, and industrious, and applies diligently to the managing her family,
and bringing up her children, spends nothing idly, saves every thing
that can be saved; that instead of keeping too many servants, is a
servant to every body herself; and that, in short, when he makes the
strictest examination, finds she lays out nothing but what is absolutely
necessary, what now must this man do? He is ruined inevitably--for all
his expense is necessary; there is no retrenching, no abating any thing.

This, I say, is the worst case of the two indeed; and this man, though
he may say he is undone by marrying, yet cannot blame the woman, and say
he is undone by his wife. This is the very case I am speaking of; the
man should not have married so soon; he should have staid till he had,
by pushing on his trade, and living close in his expense, increased his
stock, and been what we call beforehand in the world; and had he done
thus, he had not been undone by marrying.

It is a little hard to say it, but in this respect it is very true,
there is many a young tradesman ruined by marrying a good wife--in
which, pray take notice that I observe my own just distinction: I do
not say they are ruined or undone by a good wife, or by their wives
being good, but by their marrying--their unseasonable, early, and hasty
marrying--before they had cast up the cost of one, or the income of the
other--before they had inquired into the necessary charge of a wife and
a family, or seen the profits of their business, whether it would
maintain them or no; and whether, as above, they could pay the charges,
the increasing necessary charge, of a large and growing family. How to
persuade young men to consider this in time, and beware and avoid the
mischief of it, that is a question by itself.

Let no man, then, when he is brought to distress by this early rashness,
turn short upon his wife, and reproach her with being the cause of his
ruin, unless, at the same time, he can charge her with extravagant
living, needless expense, squandering away his money, spending it in
trifles and toys, and running him out till the shop could not maintain
the kitchen, much less the parlour; nor even then, unless he had given
her timely notice of it, and warned her that he was not able to maintain
so large a family, or so great an expense, and that, therefore, she
would do well to consider of it, and manage with a straiter hand, and
the like. If, indeed, he had done so, and she had not complied with him,
then she had been guilty, and without excuse too; but as the woman
cannot judge of his affairs, and he sees and bears a share in the
riotous way of their living, and does not either show his dislike of it,
or let her know, by some means or other, that he cannot support it, the
woman cannot be charged with being his ruin--no, though her way of
extravagant expensive living were really the cause of it. I met with a
short dialogue, the other day, between a tradesman and his wife, upon
such a subject as this, some part of which may be instructing in the
case before us.

The tradesman was very melancholy for two or three days, and had
appeared all that time to be pensive and sad, and his wife, with all her
arts, entreaties, anger, and tears, could not get it out of him; only
now and then she heard him fetch a deep sigh, and at another time say,
he wished he was dead, and the like expressions. At last, she began the
discourse with him in a respectful, obliging manner, but with the utmost
importunity to get it out of him, thus:--

_Wife_.--My dear, what is the matter with you?

_Husb._--Nothing.

_Wife_.--Nay, don't put me off with an answer that signifies nothing;
tell me what is the matter, for I am sure something extraordinary is the
case--tell me, I say, do tell me. [_Then she kisses him._]

_Husb._--Prithee, don't trouble me.

_Wife_.--I will know what is the matter

_Husb._--I tell you nothing is the matter--what should be the matter?

_Wife_.--Come, my dear, I must not be put off so; I am sure, if it be
any thing ill, I must have my share of it; and why should I not be
worthy to know it, whatever it is, before it comes upon me.

_Husb._--Poor woman! [_He kisses her_.]

_Wife_.--Well, but let me know what it is; come, don't distract yourself
alone; let me bear a share of your grief, as well as I have shared in
your joy.

_Husb._--My dear, let me alone, you trouble me now, indeed.

_[Still he keeps her off_.]

_Wife_.--Then you will not trust your wife with knowing what touches you
so sensibly?

_Husb._--I tell you, it is nothing, it is a trifle, it is not worth
talking of.

_Wife_.--Don't put me off with such stuff as that; I tell you, it is not
for nothing that you have been so concerned, and that so long too; I
have seen it plain enough; why, you have drooped upon it for this
fortnight past, and above.

_Husb._--Ay, this twelvemonth, and more.

_Wife_.--Very well, and yet it is nothing.

_Husb._--It is nothing that you can help me in.

_Wife_.--Well, but how do you know that? Let me see, and judge whether I
can, or no.

_Husb._--I tell you, you cannot.

_Wife_.--Sure it is some terrible thing then. Why must not I know it?
What! are you going to break? Come, tell me the worst of it.

_Husb._--Break! no, no, I hope not--Break! no, I'll never break.

_Wife_.--As good as you have broke; don't presume; no man in trade can
say he won't break.

_Husb._--Yes, yes; I can say I won't break.

_Wife_.--I am glad to hear it; I hope you have a knack, then, beyond
other tradesmen.

_Husb._--No, I have not neither; any man may say so as well as I; and no
man need break, if he will act the part of an honest man.

_Wife_.--How is that, pray?

_Husb._--Why, give up all faithfully to his creditors, as soon as he
finds there is a deficiency in his stock, and yet that there is enough
left to pay them.

_Wife_.--Well, I don't understand those things, but I desire you would
tell me what it is troubles you now; and if it be any thing of that
kind, yet I think you should let me know it.

_Husb._--Why should I trouble you with it?

_Wife_.--It would be very unkind to let me know nothing till it comes
and swallows you up and me too, all on a sudden; I must know it, then;
pray tell it me now.

_Husb._--Why, then, I will tell you; indeed, I am not going to break,
and I hope I am in no danger of it, at least not yet.

_Wife_.--I thank you, my dear, for that; but still, though it is some
satisfaction to me to be assured of so much, yet I find there is
something in it; and your way of speaking is ambiguous and doubtful. I
entreat you, be plain and free with me. What is at the bottom of
it?--why won't you tell me?--what have I done, that I am not to be
trusted with a thing that so nearly concerns me?

_Husb._--I have told you, my dear; pray be easy; I am not going to
break, I tell you.

_Wife_.--Well, but let us talk a little more seriously of it; you are
not going to break, that is, not just now, not yet, you said; but, my
dear, if it is then not just at hand, but may happen, or is in view at
some distance, may not some steps be taken to prevent it for the
present, and to save us from it at last too.

_Husb._--What steps could you think of, if that were the case?

_Wife_.--Indeed it is not much that is in a wife's power, but I am ready
to do what lies in me, and what becomes me; and first, pray let us live
lower. Do you think I would live as I do, if I thought your income would
not bear it? No, indeed.

_Husb._--You have touched me in the most sensible part, my dear; you
have found out what has been my grief; you need make no further
inquiries.

_Wife_.--Was that your grief?--and would you never be so kind to your
wife as to let her know it?

_Husb._--How could I mention so unkind a thing to you?

_Wife_.--Would it not have been more unkind to have let things run on to
destruction, and left your wife to the reproach of the world, as having
ruined you by her expensive living?

_Husb._--That's true, my dear; and it may be I might have spoke to you
at last, but I could not do it now; it looks so cruel and so hard to
lower your figure, and make you look little in the eyes of the world,
for you know they judge all by outsides, that I could not bear it.

_Wife_.--It would be a great deal more cruel to let me run on, and be
really an instrument to ruin, my husband, when, God knows, I thought I
was within the compass of your gettings, and that a great way; and you
know you always prompted me to go fine, to treat handsomely, to keep
more servants, and every thing of that kind. Could I doubt but that you
could afford it very well?

_Husb._--That's true, but I see it is otherwise now; and though I cannot
help it, I could not mention it to you, nor, for ought I know, should I
ever have done it.

_Wife_.--Why! you said just now you should have done it.

_Husb._--Ay, at last, perhaps, I might, when things had been past
recovery.

_Wife_.--That is to say, when you were ruined and undone, and could not
show your head, I should know it; or when a statute of bankrupt had come
out, and the creditors had come and turned us out of doors, then I
should have known it--that would have been a barbarous sort of kindness.

_Husb._--What could I do? I could not help it.

_Wife_.--Just so our old acquaintance G--W--did; his poor wife knew not
one word of it, nor so much as suspected it, but thought him in as
flourishing circumstances as ever; till on a sudden he was arrested in
an action for a great sum, so great that he could not find bail, and the
next day an execution on another action was served in the house, and
swept away the very bed from under her; and the poor lady, that brought
him L3000 portion, was turned into the street with five small children
to take care of.

_Husb._--Her case was very sad, indeed.

_Wife_.--But was not he a barbarous wretch to her, to let her know
nothing of her circumstances? She was at the ball but the day before, in
her velvet suit, and with her jewels on, and they reproach her with it
every day.

_Husb._--She did go too fine, indeed.

_Wife_.--Do you think she would have done so, if she had known any thing
of his circumstances?

_Husb._--It may be not.

_Wife_.--No, no; she is a lady of too much sense, to allow us to suggest
it.

_Husb._--And why did he not let her have some notice of it?

_Wife_.--Why, he makes the same dull excuse you speak of; he could not
bear to speak to her of it, and it looked so unkind to do any thing to
straiten her, he could not do it, it would break his heart, and the
like; and now he has broke her heart.

_Husb._--I know it is hard to break in upon one's wife in such a manner,
where there is any true kindness and affection; but--

_Wife_.--But! but what? Were there really a true kindness and affection,
as is the pretence, it would be quite otherwise; he would not break his
own heart, forsooth, but chose rather to break his wife's heart! he
could not be so cruel to tell her of it, and therefore left her to be
cruelly and villanously insulted, as she was, by the bailiffs and
creditors. Was that his kindness to her?

_Husb._--Well, my dear, I have not brought you to that, I hope.

_Wife_.--No, my dear, and I hope you will not; however, you shall not say
I will not do every thing I can to prevent it; and, if it lies on my
side, you are safe.

_Husb._--What will you do to prevent it? Come, let's see, what can you
do?

_Wife_.--Why, first, I keep five maids, you see, and a footman; I shall
immediately give three of my maids warning, and the fellow also, and
save you that part of the expense.

_Husb._--How can you do that?--you can't do your business.

_Wife_.--Yes, yes, there's nobody knows what they can do till they are
tried; two maids may do all my house-business, and I'll look after my
children myself; and if I live to see them grown a little bigger, I'll
make them help one another, and keep but one maid; I hope that will be
one step towards helping it.

_Husb_.--And what will all your friends and acquaintance, and the world,
say to it?

_Wife_.--Not half so much as they would to see you break, and the world
believe it be by my high living, keeping a house full of servants, and
do nothing myself.

_Husb_.--They will say I am going to break upon your doing thus, and
that's the way to make it so.

_Wife_.--I had rather a hundred should say you were going to break, than
one could say you were really broke already.

_Husb_.--But it is dangerous to have it talked of, I say.

_Wife_.--No, no; they will say we are taking effectual ways to prevent
breaking.

_Husb_.--But it will put a slur upon yourself too. I cannot bear any
mortifications upon you, any more than I can upon myself.

_Wife_.--Don't tell me of mortifications; it would be a worse
mortification, a thousand times over, to have you ruined, and have your
creditors insult me with being the occasion of it.

_Husb_.--It is very kind in you, my dear, and I must always acknowledge
it; but, however, I would not have you straiten yourself too much
neither.

_Wife_.--Nay, this will not be so much a mortification as the natural
consequence of other things; for, in order to abate the expense of our
living, I resolve to keep less company. I assure you I will lay down all
the state of living, as well as the expense of it; and, first, I will
keep no visiting days; secondly, I'll drop the greatest part of the
acquaintance I have; thirdly, I will lay down our treats and
entertainments, and the like needless occasions of expense, and then I
shall have no occasion for so many maids.

_Husb_.--But this, my dear, I say, will make as much noise almost, as if
I were actually broke.

_Wife_.--No, no; leave that part to me.

_Husb_.--But you may tell me how you will manage it then.

_Wife_.--Why, I'll go into the country.

_Husb_.--That will but bring them after you, as it used to do.

_Wife_.--But I'll put off our usual lodgings at Hampstead, and give out
that I am gone to spend the summer in Bedfordshire, at my aunt's, where
every body knows I used to go sometimes; they can't come after me
thither.

_Husb_.--But when you return, they will all visit you.

_Wife_.--Yes, and I will make no return to all those I have a mind to
drop, and there's an end of all their acquaintance at once.

_Husb_.--And what must I do?

_Wife_.--Nay, my dear, it is not for me to direct that part; you know
how to cure the evil which you sensibly feel the mischief of. If I do my
part, I don't doubt you know how to do yours.

_Husb_.--Yes, I know, but it is hard, very hard.

_Wife_.--Nay, I hope it is no harder for you than it is for your wife.

_Husb_.--That is true, indeed, but I'll see.

_Wife_.--The question to me is not whether it is hard, but whether it is
necessary.

_Husb_.--Nay, it is necessary, that is certain.

_Wife_.--Then I hope it is as necessary to you as to your wife.

_Husb_.--I know not where to begin.

_Wife_.--Why, you keep two horses and a groom, you keep rich high
company, and you sit long at the Fleece every evening. I need say no
more; you know where to begin well enough.

_Husb_.--It is very hard; I have not your spirit, my dear.

_Wife_.--I hope you are not more ashamed to retrench, than you would be
to have your name in the Gazette.

_Husb_.--It is sad work to come down hill thus.

_Wife_.--It would be worse to fall down at one blow from the top; better
slide gently and voluntarily down the smooth part, than to be pushed
down the precipice, and be dashed all in pieces.

There was more of this dialogue, but I give the part which I think most
to the present purpose; and as I strive to shorten the doctrine, so I
will abridge the application also; the substance of the case lies in a
few particulars, thus:--

I. The man was melancholy, and oppressed with the thoughts of his
declining circumstances, and yet had not any thought of letting his wife
know it, whose way of living was high and expensive, and more than he
could support; but though it must have ended in ruin, he would rather
let it have gone on till she was surprised in it, than to tell her the
danger that was before her.

His wife very well argues the injustice and unkindness of such usage,
and how hard it was to a wife, who, being of necessity to suffer in the
fall, ought certainly to have the most early notice of it--that, if
possible, she might prevent it, or, at least, that she might not be
overwhelmed with the suddenness and the terror of it.

II. Upon discovering it to his wife, or rather her drawing the
discovery from him by her importunity, she immediately, and most
readily and cheerfully, enters into measures to retrench her expenses,
and, as far as she was able, to prevent the blow, which was otherwise
apparent and unavoidable.

Hence it is apparent, that the expensive living of most tradesmen in
their families, is for want of a serious acquainting their wives with
their circumstances, and acquainting them also in time; for there are
very few ladies so unreasonable, who, if their husbands seriously
informed them how things stood with them, and that they could not
support their way of living, would not willingly come into measures to
prevent their own destruction.

III. That it is in vain, as well as unequal, for a tradesman to preach
frugality to his wife, and to bring his wife to a retrenching of her
expenses, and not at the same time to retrench his own; seeing that
keeping horses and high company is every way as great and expensive, and
as necessary to be abated, as any of the family extravagances, let them
be which they will.

All this relates to the duty of a tradesman in preventing his family
expenses being ruinous to his business; but the true method to prevent
all this, and never to let it come so far, is still, as I said before,
not to marry too soon; not to marry, till by a frugal industrious
management of his trade in the beginning, he has laid a foundation for
maintaining a wife, and bringing up a family, and has made an essay by
which he knows what he can and cannot do, and also before he has laid up
and increased his stock, that he may not cripple his fortune at first,
and be ruined before he has begun to thrive.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] [Defoe's views on the subject of the too early marrying of young
tradesmen, are in every particular sound. Though there are instances of
premature marriages followed by no evil result, but rather the contrary,
there can be no doubt, that the only prudent course is to wait till a
settlement in life, and a regular income, have been secured. A young
man, anxious for other reasons to marry, is sometimes heard to express
his conviction that he might live more cheaply married than single.
There could be no assertion more inconsistent with all common
experience. Even if no positively ruinous consequences arise from an
over-early marriage, it almost always occasions much hardship. It
saddens a period of life which nature has designed to be peculiarly
cheerful. The whole life of such a man becomes like a year in which
there has been no May or June. The grave cares of matrimony do not
appear to be naturally suitable to the human character, till the man has
approached his thirtieth, and the woman her twenty-fourth year.]

CHAPTER XII

OF THE TRADESMAN'S LEAVING HIS BUSINESS TO SERVANTS

It is the ordinary excuse of the gentlemen tradesmen of our times, that
they have good servants, and that therefore they take more liberty to be
out of their business, than they would otherwise do. 'Oh!' says the
shopkeeper, 'I have an apprentice--it is an estate to have such a
servant. I am as safe in him as if I had my eye upon the business from
morning till night; let me be where I will, I am always satisfied he is
at home; if I am at the tavern, I am sure he is in the counting-house,
or behind the counter; he is never out of his post.

'And then for my other servants, the younger apprentices,' says he, 'it
is all one as if I were there myself--they would be idle it may be, but
he won't let them, I assure you; they must stick close to it, or he will
make them do it; he tells them, boys do not come apprentices to play,
but to work; not to sit idle, and be doing nothing, but to mind their
master's business, that they may learn how to do their own.'

'Very well; and you think, Sir, this young man being so much in the
shop, and so diligent and faithful, is an estate to you, and so indeed
it is; but are your customers as well pleased with this man, too, as you
are? or are they as well pleased with him, as they would be, if you were
there yourself?'

'Yes, they are,' says the shopkeeper; 'nay, abundance of the customers
take him for the master of the shop, and don't know any other; and he is
so very obliging, and pleases so well, giving content to every body,
that, if I am at any other part of the shop, and see him serving a
customer, I never interrupt them, unless sometimes (he is so modest) he
will call me, and turning to the ladies say, "There's my master, Madam;
if you think he will abate you any thing, I'll call him;" and sometimes
they will look a little surprised, and say, "Is that your master?
indeed, we thought you had been the master of the shop yourself."'

'Well,' said I, 'and you think yourself very happy in all this, don't
you? Pray, how long has this young gentleman to serve? how long is it
before his time will be out?' 'Oh, he has almost a year and a half to
serve,' says the shopkeeper. 'I hope, then,' said I, 'you will take care
to have him knocked on the head, as soon as his time is out.' 'God
forbid,' says the honest man; 'what do you mean by that?' 'Mean!' said
I, 'why, if you don't, he will certainly knock your trade on the head,
as soon as the year and a half comes to be up. Either you must dispose
of him, as I say, or take care that he does not set up near you, no, not
in the same street; if you do, your customers will all run thither. When
they miss him in the shop, they will presently inquire for him; and as,
you say, they generally take him for the master, they will ask whether
the gentleman is removed that kept the shop before.'

All my shopkeeper could say, was, that he had got a salve for that sore,
and that was, that when Timothy was out of his time, he resolved to take
him in partner.

'A very good thing, indeed! so you must take Timothy into half the trade
when he is out of his time, for fear he should run away with
three-quarters of it, when he sets up for himself. But had not the
master much better have been Timothy himself?--then he had been sure
never to have the customers take Timothy for the master; and when he
went away, and set up perhaps at next door, leave the shop, and run
after him.'

It is certain, a good servant, a faithful, industrious, obliging
servant, is a blessing to a tradesman, and, as he said, is an estate to
his master; but the master, by laying the stress of his business upon
him, divests himself of all the advantages of such a servant, and turns
the blessing into a blast; for by giving up the shop as it were to him,
and indulging himself in being abroad, and absent from his business, the
apprentice gets the mastery of the business, the fame of the shop
depends upon him, and when he sets up, certainly follows him. Such a
servant would, with the master's attendance too, be very helpful, and
yet not be dangerous; such a servant is well, when he is visibly an
assistant to the master, but is ruinous when he is taken for the master.
There is a great deal of difference between a servant's being the stay
of his master, and his being the stay of his trade: when he is the
first, the master is served by him; and when he is gone, he breeds up
another to follow his steps; but when he is the last, he carries the
trade with him, and does his master infinitely more hurt than good.

A good tradesman has a great deal of trouble with a bad servant, but
must take heed that he is not wounded by a good one--the extravagant
idle vagrant servant hurts himself, but the diligent servant endangers
his master. The greater reputation the servant gets in his business, the
more care the master has upon him, lest he gets within him, and worms
him out of his business.

The only way to prevent this, and yet not injure a diligent servant, is
that the master be as diligent as the servant; that the master be as
much at the shop as the man. He that will keep in his business, need
never fear keeping his business, let his servant be as diligent as he
will. It is a hard thing that a tradesman should have the blessing of a
good servant, and make it a curse to him, by his appearing less capable
than his man.

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