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

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But this is a subject would launch me out beyond the bounds of a
chapter, and make a book by itself. I return to the case particularly in
hand--promises of payment of money. Men in trade, I say, are under this
unhappy necessity, they are forced to make them, and they are forced to
break them; the violent pressing and dunning, and perhaps threatening
too, of the creditor, when the poor shopkeeper cannot comply with his
demand, forces him to promise; in short, the importunate creditor will
not be otherwise put off, and the poor shopkeeper, almost worried, and
perhaps a little terrified too, and afraid of him, is glad to do and say
any thing to pacify him, and this extorts a promise, which, when the
time comes, he is no more able to perform than he was before, and this
multiplies promises, and consequently breaches, so much of which are to
be placed to the accounts of force, that I must acknowledge, though the
debtor is to blame, the creditor is too far concerned in the crime of it
to be excused, and it were to be wished some other method could be found
out to prevent the evil, and that tradesmen would resolve with more
courage to resist the importunities of the creditor, be the consequence
what it would, rather than break in upon their morals, and load their
consciences with the reproaches of it for all their lives after.

I remember I knew a tradesman, who, labouring long under the ordinary
difficulties of men embarrassed in trade, and past the possibility of
getting out, and being at last obliged to stop and call his people
together, told me, that after he was broke, though it was a terrible
thing to him at first too, as it is to most tradesmen, yet he thought
himself in a new world, when he was at a full stop, and had no more the
terror upon him of bills coming for payment, and creditors knocking at
his door to dun him, and he without money to pay. He was no more obliged
to stand in his shop, and be bullied and ruffled by his creditors, nay,
by their apprentices and boys, and sometimes by porters and footmen, to
whom he was forced to give good words, and sometimes strain his
patience to the utmost limits: he was now no more obliged to make
promises, which he knew he could not perform, and break promises as fast
as he made them, and so lie continually both to God and man; and, he
added, the ease of his mind which he felt upon that occasion was so
great, that it balanced all the grief he was in at the general disaster
of his affairs; and, farther, that even in the lowest of his
circumstances which followed, he would not go back to live as he had
done, in the exquisite torture of want of money to pay his bills and his
duns.

Nor was it any satisfaction to him to say, that it was owing to the like
breach of promise in the shopkeepers, and gentlemen, and people whom he
dealt with, who owed him money, and who made no conscience of promising
and disappointing him, and thereby drove him to the necessity of
breaking his own promises; for this did not satisfy his mind in the
breaches of his word, though they really drove him to the necessity of
it: but that which lay heaviest upon him was the violence and clamour of
creditors, who would not be satisfied without such promises, even when
he knew, or at least believed, he should not be able to perform.

Nay, such was the importunity of one of his merchants, that when he came
for money, and he was obliged to put him off, and to set him another
day, the merchant would not be satisfied, unless he would swear that he
would pay him on that day without fail. 'And what said you to him?' said
I. 'Say to him!' said he, 'I looked him full in the face, and sat me
down without speaking a word, being filled with rage and indignation at
him; but after a little while he insisted again, and asked me what
answer I would make him, at which I smiled, and asked him, if he were in
earnest? He grew angry then, and asked me if I laughed at him, and if I
thought to laugh him out of his money? I then asked him, if he really
did expect I should swear that I would pay him the next week, as I
proposed to promise? He told me, yes, he did, and I should swear it, or
pay him before he went out of my warehouse.

I wondered, indeed, at the discourse, and at the folly of the merchant,
who, I understood afterwards, was a foreigner; and though I thought he
had been in jest at first, when he assured me he was not, I was curious
to hear the issue, which at first he was loth to go on with, because he
knew it would bring about all the rest; but I pressed him to know--so he
told me that the merchant carried it to such a height as put him into a
furious passion, and, knowing he must break some time or other, he was
resolved to put an end to his being insulted in that manner; so at last
he rose up in a rage, told the merchant, that as no honest man could
take such an oath, unless he had the money by him to pay it, so no
honest man could ask such a thing of him; and that, since he must have
an answer, his answer was, he would not swear such an oath for him, nor
any man living, and if he would not be satisfied without it, he might do
his worst--and so turned from him; and knowing the man was a
considerable creditor, and might do him a mischief, he resolved to shut
up that very night, and did so, carrying all his valuable goods with him
into the Mint, and the next day he heard that his angry creditor waylaid
him the same afternoon to arrest him, but he was too quick for him; and,
as he said, though it almost broke his heart to shut up his shop, yet
that being delivered from the insulting temper of his creditor, and the
perpetual perplexities of want of money to pay people when they dunned
him, and, above all, from the necessity of making solemn promises for
trifling sums, and then breaking them again, was to him like a load
taken off his back when he was weary, and could stand under it no
longer; it was a terror to him, he said, to be continually lying,
breaking faith with all mankind, and making promises which he could not
perform.

This necessarily brings me to observe here, and it is a little for the
ease of the tradesman's mind in such severe cases, that there is a
distinction to be made in this case between wilful premeditated lying,
and the necessity men may be driven to by their disappointments, and
other accidents of their circumstances, to break such promises, as they
had made with an honest intention of performing them.

He that breaks a promise, however solemnly made, may be an honest man,
but he that makes a promise with a design to break it, or with no
resolution of performing it, cannot be so: nay, to carry it farther, he
that makes a promise, and does not do his endeavour to perform it, or to
put himself into a condition to perform it, cannot be an honest man. A
promise once made supposes the person willing to perform it, if it were
in his power, and has a binding influence upon the person who made it,
so far as his power extends, or that he can within the reach of any
reasonable ability perform the conditions; but if it is not in his power
to perform it, as in this affair of payment of money is often the case,
the man cannot be condemned as dishonest, unless it can be made appear,
either

1. That when he made the promise, he knew he should not be able to
perform it; or,

2. That he resolved when he made the promise not to perform it, though
he should be in a condition to do it. And in both these cases the
morality of promising cannot be justified, any more than the immorality
of not performing it.

But, on the other hand, the person promising, honestly intending when he
made the appointment to perform it if possible, and endeavouring
faithfully to be able, but being rendered unable by the disappointment
of those on whose promises he depended for the performance of his own; I
cannot say that such a tradesman can be charged with lying, or with any
immorality in promising, for the breach was not properly his own, but
the people's on whom he depended; and this is justified from what I said
before, namely, that every promise of that kind supposes the possibility
of such a disappointment, even in the very nature of its making; for, if
the man were not under a moral incapacity of payment, he would not
promise at all, but pay at the time he promised. His promising, then,
implies that he has only something future to depend upon, to capacitate
him for the payment; that is to say, the appointments of payment by
other tradesmen, who owe him (that promises) the money, or the daily
supply from the ordinary course of his trade, suppose him a retailer in
a shop, and the like; all which circumstances are subject to
contingencies and disappointments, and are known to be so by the person
to whom the promise is made; and it is with all those contingencies and
possibilities of disappointment, that he takes or accepts the
tradesman's promise, and forbears him, in hopes that he will be able to
perform, knowing, that unless he receives money as above, he cannot.

I must, however, acknowledge, that it is a very mortifying thing to a
tradesman, whether we suppose him to be one that values his credit in
trade, or his principle as to honest dealing, to be obliged to break his
word; and therefore, where men are not too much under the hatches to the
creditor, and they can possibly avoid it, a tradesman should not make
his promises of payment so positive, but rather conditional, and thereby
avoid both the immorality and the discredit of breaking his word; nor
will any tradesman, I hope, harden himself in a careless forwardness to
promise, without endeavouring or intending to perform, from any thing
said in this chapter; for be the excuse for it as good as it will, as to
the point of strict honesty, he can have but small regard to his own
peace of mind, or to his own credit in trade, who will not avoid it as
much as possible.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] [The practice of haggling about prices is now very properly
abandoned by all respectable dealers in goods, greatly to the comfort of
both sellers and buyers.]

[27] [It was a fashion of trade in Defoe's time, and down to a somewhat
later period, to thrust the phrase 'God willing' into almost every
promise or announcement, the purport of which might possibly be thwarted
by death or any other accident. The phrase, in particular, appeared at
the beginning of all letters in which a merchant announced his design of
visiting retail dealers in the provinces; as, 'God willing, I shall have
the honour of waiting on you on the 15th proximo:' hence English
_riders_, or commercial travellers, came to be known in Scotland by the
nickname of God-willings.' This pious phraseology seems now to be
banished from all mercantile affairs, except the shipping of goods.]

[28] [Notwithstanding all this ingenious reasoning, we cannot help
thinking that it would be better if conditional promises were made in
conditional language. It is not necessarily to be understood in all
cases that a direct unreserved promise means something conditional, so
that there is a liability to being much deceived and grievously
disappointed by all such promises. A sound morality certainly demands
that the tradesman should use the practices described in the text as
rarely, and with as much reluctance, as possible, and that, like other
men, he should make his words, as nearly as may be, the echo of his
thoughts.]

CHAPTER XVIII

OF THE CUSTOMARY FRAUDS OF TRADE, WHICH HONEST MEN ALLOW THEMSELVES TO
PRACTISE, AND PRETEND TO JUSTIFY

As there are trading lies which honest men tell, so there are frauds in
trade, which tradesmen daily practise, and which, notwithstanding, they
think are consistent with their being honest men.

It is certainly true, that few things in nature are simply unlawful and
dishonest, but that all crime is made so by the addition and concurrence
of circumstances; and of these I am now to speak: and the first I take
notice of, is that of taking and repassing, or putting off, counterfeit
or false money.

It must be confessed, that calling in the old money in the time of the
late King William was an act particularly glorious to that reign, and in
nothing more than this, that it delivered trade from a terrible load,
and tradesmen from a vast accumulated weight of daily crime. There was
scarce a shopkeeper that had not a considerable quantity or bag full of
false and unpassable money; not an apprentice that kept his master's
cash, but had an annual loss, which they sometimes were unable to
support, and sometimes their parents and friends were called upon for
the deficiency.

The consequence was, that every raw youth or unskilful body, that was
sent to receive money, was put upon by the cunning tradesmen, and all
the bad money they had was tendered in payment among the good, that by
ignorance or oversight some might possibly be made to pass; and as these
took it, so they were not wanting again in all the artifice and sleight
of hand they were masters of, to put it off again; so that, in short,
people were made bites and cheats to one another in all their business;
and if you went but to buy a pair of gloves, or stockings, or any
trifle, at a shop, you went with bad money in one hand, and good money
in the other, proffering first the bad coin, to get it off, if possible,
and then the good, to make up the deficiency, if the other was rejected.

Thus, people were daily upon the catch to cheat and surprise one
another, if they could; and, in short, paid no good money for anything,
if they could help it. And how did we triumph, if meeting with some poor
raw servant, or ignorant woman, behind a counter, we got off a
counterfeit half-crown, or a brass shilling, and brought away their
goods (which were worth the said half-crown or shilling, if it had been
good) for a half-crown that was perhaps not worth sixpence, or for a
shilling not worth a penny: as if this were not all one with picking the
shopkeeper's pocket, or robbing his house!

The excuse ordinarily given for this practice was this--namely, that it
came to us for good; we took it, and it only went as it came; we did not
make it, and the like; as if, because we had been basely cheated by A,
we were to be allowed to cheat B; or that because C had robbed our
house, that therefore we might go and rob D.

And yet this was constantly practised at that time over the whole
nation, and by some of the honestest tradesmen among us, if not by all
of them.

When the old money was, as I have said, called in, this cheating trade
was put to an end, and the morals of the nation in some measure
restored--for, in short, before that, it was almost impossible for a
tradesman to be an honest man; but now we begin to fall into it again,
and we see the current coin of the kingdom strangely crowded with
counterfeit money again, both gold and silver; and especially we have
found a great deal of counterfeit foreign money, as particularly
Portugal and Spanish gold, such as moydores and Spanish pistoles, which,
when we have the misfortune to be put upon with them, the fraud runs
high, and dips deep into our pockets, the first being twenty-seven
shillings, and the latter seventeen shillings. It is true, the latter
being payable only by weight, we are not often troubled with them; but
the former going all by tale, great quantities of them have been put off
among us. I find, also, there is a great increase of late of counterfeit
money of our own coin, especially of shillings, and the quantity
increasing, so that, in a few years more, if the wicked artists are not
detected, the grievance may be in proportion as great as it was
formerly, and perhaps harder to be redressed, because the coin is not
likely to be any more called in, as the old smooth money was.

What, then, must be done? And how must we prevent the mischief to
conscience and principle which lay so heavy upon the whole nation
before? The question is short, and the answer would be as short, and to
the purpose, if people would but submit to the little loss that would
fall upon them at first, by which they would lessen the weight of it as
they go on, as it would never increase to such a formidable height as it
was at before, nor would it fall so much upon the poor as it did then.

First, I must lay it down as a stated rule or maxim, in the moral part
of the question--that to put off counterfeit base money for good money,
knowing it to be counterfeit, is dishonest and knavish.

Nor will it take off from the crime of it, or lessen the dishonesty, to
say, 'I took it for good and current money, and it goes as it comes;'
for, as before, my having been cheated does not authorise me to cheat
any other person, so neither was it a just or honest thing in that
person who put the bad money upon me, if they knew it to be bad; and if
it were not honest in them, how can it be so in me? If, then, it came by
knavery, it should not go by knavery--that would be, indeed, to say, it
goes as it comes, in a literal sense; that is to say, it came by
injustice, and I shall make it go so: but that will not do in matters of
right and wrong.

The laws of our country, also, are directly against the practice; the
law condemns the coin as illegal--that is to say, it is not current
money, or, as the lawyers style it, it is not lawful money of England.
Now, every bargain or agreement in trade, is in the common and just
acceptation, and the language of trade, made for such a price or rate,
in the current money of England; and though you may not express it in
words at length, it is so understood, as much as if it were set down in
writing. If I cheapen any thing at a shop, suppose it the least toy or
trifle, I ask them, 'What must you have for it?' The shopkeeper
answers--so much; suppose it were a shilling, what is the English but
this--one shilling of lawful money of England? And I agree to give that
shilling; but instead of it give them a counterfeit piece of lead or
tin, washed over, to make it look like a shilling. Do I pay them what I
bargained for? Do I give them one shilling of lawful money of England?
Do I not put a cheat upon them, and act against justice and mutual
agreement?

To say I took this for the lawful money of England, will not add at all,
except it be to the fraud; for my being deceived does not at all make it
be lawful money: so that, in a word, there can be nothing in that part
but increasing the criminal part, and adding one knave more to the
number of knaves which the nation was encumbered with before.

The case to me is very clear, namely, that neither by law, justice, nor
conscience, can the tradesman put off his bad money after he has taken
it, if he once knows it to be false and counterfeit money. That it is
against the law is evident, because it is not good and lawful money of
England; it cannot be honest, because you do not pay in the coin you
agreed for, or perform the bargain you made, or pay in the coin expected
of you; and it is not just, because you do not give a valuable
consideration for the goods you buy, but really take a tradesman's goods
away, and return dross and dirt to him in the room of it.

The medium I have to propose in the room of this, is, that every man who
takes a counterfeit piece of money, and knows it to be such, should
immediately destroy it--that is to say, destroy it as money, cut it in
pieces; or, as I have seen some honest tradesmen do, nail it up against
a post, so that it should go no farther. It is true, this is sinking so
much upon himself, and supporting the credit of the current coin at his
own expense, and he loses the whole piece, and this tradesmen are loth
to do: but my answer is very clear, that thus they ought to do, and that
sundry public reasons, and several public benefits, would follow to the
public, in some of which he might have his share of benefit hereafter,
and if he had not, yet he ought to do it.

First, by doing thus, he puts a stop to the fraud--that piece of money
is no more made the instrument to deceive others, which otherwise it
might do; and though it is true that the loss is only to the last man,
that is to say, in the ordinary currency of the money, yet the breach
upon conscience and principle is to every owner through whose hands that
piece of money has fraudulently passed, that is to say, who have passed
it away for good, knowing it to be counterfeit; so that it is a piece of
good service to the public to take away the occasion and instrument of
so much knavery and deceit.

Secondly, he prevents a worse fraud, which is, the buying and selling
such counterfeit money. This was a very wicked, but open trade, in
former days, and may in time come to be so again: fellows went about the
streets, crying '_Brass money, broken or whole;'_ that is to say, they
would give good money for bad. It was at first pretended that they were
obliged to cut it in pieces, and if you insisted upon it, they would cut
it in pieces before your face; but they as often got it without that
ceremony, and so made what wicked shifts they could to get it off again,
and many times did put it off for current money, after they had bought
it for a trifle.

Thirdly, by this fraud, perhaps, the same piece of money might, several
years after, come into your hands again, after you had sold it for a
trifle, and so you might lose by the same shilling two or three times
over, and the like of other people; but if men were obliged to demolish
all the counterfeit money they take, and let it go no farther, they they
would be sure the fraud could go no farther, nor would the quantity be
ever great at a time; for whatever quantity the false coiners should at
any time make, it would gradually lessen and sink away, and not a mass
of false and counterfeit coin appear together, as was formerly the case,
and which lost the nation a vast sum of money to call in.

It has been the opinion of some, that a penalty should be inflicted upon
those who offered any counterfeit money in payment; but besides that,
there is already a statute against uttering false money, knowing it to
be such. If any other or farther law should be made, either to enforce
the statute, or to have new penalties added, they would still fall into
the same difficulties as in the act.

1. That innocent men would suffer, seeing many tradesmen may take a
piece of counterfeit money in tale with other money, and really and
_bona fide_ not know it, and so may offer it again as innocently as they
at first took it ignorantly; and to bring such into trouble for every
false shilling which they might offer to pay away without knowing it,
would be to make the law be merely vexatious and tormenting to those
against whom it was not intended, and at the same time not to meddle
with the subtle crafty offender whom it was intended to punish, and who
is really guilty.

2. Such an act would be difficultly executed, because it would still be
difficult to know who did knowingly utter false money, and who did not;
which is the difficulty, indeed, in the present law--so that, upon the
whole, such a law would no way answer the end, nor effectually discover
the offender, much less suppress the practice. But I am not upon
projects and schemes--it is not the business of this undertaking.

But a general act, obliging all tradesmen to suppress counterfeit money,
by refusing to put it off again, after they knew it to be counterfeit,
and a general consent of tradesmen to do so; this would be the best way
to put a stop to the practice, the morality of which is so justly called
in question, and the ill consequences of which to trade are so very well
known; nor will any thing but a universal consent of tradesmen, in the
honest suppressing of counterfeit money, ever bring it to pass. In the
meantime, as to the dishonesty of the practice, however popular it is
grown at this time, I think it is out of question; it can have nothing
but custom to plead for it, which is so far from an argument, that I
think the plea is criminal in itself, and really adds to its being a
grievance, and calls loudly for a speedy redress.

Another trading fraud, which, among many others of the like nature, I
think worth speaking of, is the various arts made use of by tradesmen to
set off their goods to the eye of the ignorant buyer.

I bring this in here, because I really think it is something of kin to
putting off counterfeit money; every false gloss put upon our woollen
manufactures, by hot-pressing, folding, dressing, tucking, packing,
bleaching, &c, what are they but washing over a brass shilling to make
it pass for sterling? Every false light, every artificial side-window,
sky-light, and trunk-light we see made to show the fine Hollands, lawns,
cambrics, &c. to advantage, and to deceive the buyer--what is it but a
counterfeit coin to cheat the tradesman's customers?--an _ignis fatuus_
to impose upon fools and ignorant people, and make their goods look
finer than they are?

But where in trade is there any business entirely free from these
frauds? and how shall we speak of them, when we see them so universally
made use of? Either they are honest, or they are not. If they are not,
why do we, I say, universally make use of them?--if they are honest, why
so much art and so much application to manage them, and to make goods
appear fairer and finer to the eye than they really are?--which, in its
own nature, is evidently a design to cheat, and that in itself is
criminal, and can be no other.

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