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

D >> Daniel Defoe >> The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.)




This I mention for the caution of those ladies who stoop to marry men of
business, and yet despise the business they are maintained by; that
marry the tradesman, but scorn the trade. If madam thinks fit to stoop
to the man, she ought never to think herself above owning his
employment; and as she may upon occasion of his death be left to value
herself upon it, and to have at least her fortune and her children's to
gather up out of it, she ought not to profess herself so unacquainted
with it as not to be able to look into it when necessity obliges her.

It is a terrible disaster to any woman to be so far above her own
circumstances, that she should not qualify herself to make the best of
things that are left her, or to preserve herself from being cheated, and
being imposed upon. In former times, tradesmen's widows valued
themselves upon the shop and trade, or the warehouse and trade, that
were left them; and at least, if they did not carry on the trade in
their own names, they would keep it up till they put it off to
advantage; and often I have known a widow get from L300 to L500 for the
good-will, as it is called, of the shop and trade, if she did not think
fit to carry on the trade; if she did, the case turned the other way,
namely, that if the widow did not put off the shop, the shop would put
off the widow; and I may venture to say, that where there is one widow
that keeps on the trade now, after a husband's decease, there were ten,
if not twenty, that did it then.

But now the ladies are above it, and disdain it so much, that they
choose rather to go without the prospect of a second marriage, in virtue
of the trade, than to stoop to the mechanic low step of carrying on a
trade; and they have their reward, for they do go without it; and
whereas they might in former times match infinitely to their advantage
by that method, now they throw themselves away, and the trade too.[36]

But this is not the case which I particularly aim at in this chapter. If
the women will act weakly and foolishly, and throw away the advantages
that he puts into their hands, be that to them, and it is their business
to take care of that; but I would have them have the opportunity put
into their hands, and that they may make the best of it if they please;
if they will not, the fault is their own. But to this end, I say, I
would have every tradesman make his wife so much acquainted with his
trade, and so much mistress of the managing part of it, that she might
be able to carry it on if she pleased, in case of his death; if she does
not please, that is another case; or if she will not acquaint herself
with it, that also is another case, and she must let it alone; but he
should put it into her power, or give her the offer of it.

First, he should do it for her own sake, namely, as before, that she may
make her advantage of it, either for disposing herself and the shop
together, as is said above, or for the more readily disposing the goods,
and getting in the debts, without dishonouring herself, as I have
observed, and marrying her 'prentice boy, in order to take care of the
effects--that is to say, ruining herself to prevent her being ruined.

Secondly, he should do it for his children's sake, if he has any, that
if the wife have any knowledge of the business, and has a son to breed
up to it, though he be not yet of age to take it up, she may keep the
trade for him, and introduce him into it, that so he may take the
trouble off her hands, and she may have the satisfaction of preserving
the father's trade for the benefit of his son, though left too young to
enter upon it at first.

Thus I have known many a widow that would have thought it otherwise
below her, has engaged herself in her husbands's business, and carried
it on, purely to bring her eldest son up to it, and has preserved it for
him, and which has been an estate to him, whereas otherwise it must have
been lost, and he would have had the world to seek for a new business.

This is a thing which every honest affectionate mother would, or at
least should, be so willing to do for a son, that she, I think, who
would not, ought not to marry a tradesman at all; but if she would think
herself above so important a trust for her own children, she should
likewise think herself above having children by a tradesman, and marry
somebody whose children she would act the mother for.

But every widow is not so unnatural, and I am willing to suppose the
tradesman I am writing to shall be better married, and, therefore, I
give over speaking to the woman's side, and I will suppose the
tradesman's wife not to be above her quality, and willing to be made
acquainted with her husband's affairs, as well as to be helpful to him,
if she can, as to be in a condition to be helpful to herself and her
family, if she comes to have occasion. But, then, the difficulty often
lies on the other side the question, and the tradesman cares not to lay
open his business to, or acquaint his wife with it; and many
circumstances of the tradesman draw him into this snare; for I must call
it a snare both to him and to her.

I. The tradesman is foolishly vain of making his wife a gentlewoman,
and, forsooth, he will have her sit above in the parlour, and receive
visits, and drink tea, and entertain her neighbours, or take a coach and
go abroad; but as to the business, she shall not stoop to touch it; he
has apprentices and journeymen, and there is no need of it.

II. Some trades, indeed, are not proper for the women to meddle in, or
custom has made it so, that it would be ridiculous for the women to
appear in their shops; that is, such as linen and woollen drapers,
mercers, booksellers, goldsmiths, and all sorts of dealers by
commission, and the like--custom, I say, has made these trades so
effectually shut out the women, that, what with custom, and the women's
generally thinking it below them, we never, or rarely, see any women in
those shops or warehouses.

III. Or if the trade is proper, and the wife willing, the husband
declines it, and shuts her out--and this is the thing I complain of as
an unjustice upon the woman. But our tradesmen, forsooth, think it an
undervaluing to them and to their business to have their wives seen in
their shops--that is to say, that, because other trades do not admit
them, therefore they will not have their trades or shops thought less
masculine or less considerable than others, and they will not have their
wives be seen in their shops.

IV. But there are two sorts of husbands more who decline acquainting
their wives with their business; and those are, (1.) Those who are
unkind, haughty, and imperious, who will not trust their wives, because
they will not make them useful, that they may not value themselves upon
it, and make themselves, as it were, equal to their husbands. A weak,
foolish, and absurd suggestion! as if the wife were at all exalted by
it, which, indeed, is just the contrary, for the woman is rather humbled
and made a servant by it: or, (2.) The other sort are those who are
afraid their wives should be let into the grand secret of all--namely,
to know that they are bankrupt, and undone, and worth nothing.

All these considerations are foolish or fraudulent, and in every one of
them the husband is in the wrong--nay, they all argue very strongly for
the wife's being, in a due degree, let into the knowledge of their
business; but the last, indeed, especially that she may be put into a
posture to save him from ruin, if it be possible, or to carry on some
business without him, if he is forced to fail, and fly; as many have
been, when the creditors have encouraged the wife to carry on a trade
for the support of her family and children, when he perhaps may never
show his head again.

But let the man's case be what it will, I think he can never call it a
hard shift to let his wife into an acquaintance with his business, if
she desires it, and is fit for it; and especially in case of mortality,
that she may not be left helpless and friendless with her children when
her husband is gone, and when, perhaps, her circumstances may require
it.

I am not for a man setting his wife at the head of his business, and
placing himself under her like a journeyman, like a certain
china-seller, not far from the East India House, who, if any customers
came into the shop that made a mean, sorry figure, would leave them to
her husband to manage and attend them; but if they looked like quality,
and people of fashion, would come up to her husband, when he was showing
them his goods, putting him by with a 'Hold your tongue, Tom, and let me
talk.' I say, it is not this kind, or part, that I would have the
tradesman's wife let into, but such, and so much, of the trade only as
may be proper for her, not ridiculous, in the eye of the world, and may
make her assisting and helpful, not governing to him, and, which is the
main thing I am at, such as should qualify her to keep up the business
for herself and children, if her husband should be taken away, and she
be left destitute in the world, as many are.

Thus much, I think, it is hard a wife should not know, and no honest
tradesman ought to refuse it; and above all, it is a great pity the
wives of tradesmen, who so often are reduced to great inconvenience for
want of it, should so far withstand their own felicity, as to refuse to
be thus made acquainted with their business, by which weak and foolish
pride they expose themselves, as I have observed, to the misfortune of
throwing the business away, when they may come to want it, and when the
keeping it up might be the restoring of their family, and providing for
their children.

For, not to compliment tradesmen too much, their wives are not all
ladies, nor are their children all born to be gentlemen. Trade, on the
contrary, is subject to contingencies; some begin poor, and end rich;
others, and those very many, begin rich, and end poor: and there are
innumerable circumstances which may attend a tradesman's family, which
may make it absolutely necessary to preserve the trade for his children,
if possible; the doing which may keep them from misery, and raise them
all in the world, and the want of it, on the other hand, sinks and
suppresses them. For example:--

A tradesman has begun the world about six or seven years; he has, by his
industry and good understanding in business, just got into a flourishing
trade, by which he clears five or six hundred pounds a-year; and if it
should please God to spare his life for twenty years or more, he would
certainly be a rich man, and get a good estate; but on a sudden, and in
the middle of all his prosperity, he is snatched away by a sudden fit
of sickness, and his widow is left in a desolate despairing condition,
having five children, and big with another; but the eldest of these is
not above six years old, and, though he is a boy, yet he is utterly
incapable to be concerned in the business; so the trade which (had his
father lived to bring him up in his shop or warehouse) would have been
an estate to him, is like to be lost, and perhaps go all away to the
eldest apprentice, who, however, wants two years of his time. Now, what
is to be done for this unhappy family?

'Done!' says the widow; 'why, I will never let the trade fall so, that
should be the making of my son, and in the meantime be the maintenance
of all my children.'

'Why, what can you do, child?' says her father, or other friends; 'you
know nothing of it. Mr ---- did not acquaint you with his business.'

'That is true,' says the widow; 'he did not, because I was a fool, and
did not care to look much into it, and that was my fault. Mr ---- did not
press me to it, because he was afraid I might think he intended to put
me upon it; but he often used to say, that if he should drop off before
his boys were fit to come into the shop, it would be a sad loss to
them--that the trade would make gentlemen of a couple of them, and it
would be great pity it should go away from them.'

'But what does that signify now, child?' adds the father; 'you see it is
so; and how can it be helped?'

'Why,' says the widow, 'I used to ask him if he thought I could carry it
on for them, if such a thing should happen?'

'And what answer did he make?' says the father.

'He shook his head,' replied the widow, 'and answered, "Yes, I might, if
I had good servants, and if I would look a little into it beforehand."'

'Why,' says the father, 'he talked as if he had foreseen his end.'

'I think he did foresee it,' says she, 'for he was often talking thus.'

'And why did you not take the hint then,' says her father, 'and acquaint
yourself a little with things, that you might have been prepared for
such an unhappy circumstance, whatever might happen?'

'Why, so I did,' says the widow, 'and have done for above two years
past; he used to show me his letters, and his books, and I know where he
bought every thing; and I know a little of goods too, when they are
good, and when bad, and the prices; also I know all the country-people
he dealt with, and have seen most of them, and talked with them. Mr----
used to bring them up to dinner sometimes, and he would prompt my being
acquainted with them, and would sometimes talk of his business with them
at table, on purpose that I might hear it; and I know a little how to
sell, too, for I have stood by him sometimes, and seen the customers and
him chaffer with one another.'

'And did your husband like that you did so?' says the father.

'Yes,' says she, 'he loved to see me do it, and often told me he did so;
and told me, that if he were dead, he believed I might carry on the
trade as well as he.'

'But he did not believe so, I doubt,' says the father.

'I do not know as to that, but I sold goods several times to some
customers, when he has been out of the way.'

'And was he pleased with it when he came home? Did you do it to his
mind?'

'Nay, I have served a customer sometimes when he has been in the
warehouse, and he would go away to his counting-house on purpose, and
say, "I'll leave you and my wife to make the bargain," and I have
pleased the customer and him too.'

'Well,' says the father, 'do you think you could carry on the trade?'

'I believe I could, if I had but an honest fellow of a journeyman for a
year or two to write in the books, and go abroad among customers.'

'Well, you have two apprentices; one of them begins to understand things
very much, and seems to be a diligent lad.'

'He comes forward, indeed, and will be very useful, if he does not grow
too forward, upon a supposition that I shall want him too much: but it
will be necessary to have a man to be above him for a while.'

'Well,' says the father, 'we will see to get you such a one.'

In short, they got her a man to assist to keep the books, go to
Exchange, and do the business abroad, and the widow carried on the
business with great application and success, till her eldest son grew
up, and was first taken into the shop as an apprentice to his mother;
the eldest apprentice served her faithfully, and was her journeyman four
years after his time was out; then she took him in partner to one-fourth
of the trade, and when her son came of age, she gave the apprentice one
of her daughters, and enlarged his share to a third, gave her own son
another third, and kept a third for herself to support the family.

Thus the whole trade was preserved, and the son and son-in-law grew rich
in it, and the widow, who grew as skilful in the business as her husband
was before her, advanced the fortunes of all the rest of her children
very considerably.

This was an example of the husband's making the wife (but a little)
acquainted with his business; and if this had not been the case, the
trade had been lost, and the family left just to divide what the father
left; which, as they were seven of them, mother and all, would not have
been considerable enough to have raised them above just the degree of
having bread to eat, and none to spare.

I hardly need give any examples where tradesmen die, leaving nourishing
businesses, and good trades, but leaving their wives ignorant and
destitute, neither understanding their business, nor knowing how to
learn, having been too proud to stoop to it when they had husbands, and
not courage or heart to do it when they have none. The town is so full
of such as these, that this book can scarce fall into the hands of any
readers but who will be able to name them among their own acquaintance.

These indolent, lofty ladies have generally the mortification to see
their husbands' trades catched up by apprentices or journeymen in the
shop, or by other shopkeepers in the neighbourhood, and of the same
business, that might have enriched them, and descended to their
children; to see their bread carried away by strangers, and other
families flourishing on the spoils of their fortunes.

And this brings me to speak of those ladies, who, though they do,
perhaps, for want of better offers, stoop to wed a trade, as we call it,
and take up with a mechanic; yet all the while they are the tradesmen's
wives, they endeavour to preserve the distinction of their fancied
character; carry themselves as if they thought they were still above
their station, and that, though they were unhappily yoked with a
tradesman, they would still keep up the dignity of their birth, and be
called gentlewomen; and in order to this, would behave like such all the
way, whatever rank they were levelled with by the misfortune of their
circumstances.

This is a very unhappy, and, indeed, a most unseasonable kind of pride;
and if I might presume to add a word here by way of caution to such
ladies, it should be to consider, before they marry tradesmen, the great
disadvantages they lay themselves under, in submitting to be a
tradesman's wife, but not putting themselves in a condition to take the
benefit, as well as the inconvenience of it; for while they are above
the circumstances of the tradesman's wife, they are deprived of all the
remedy against the miseries of a tradesman's widow; and if the man dies,
and leaves them little or nothing but the trade to carry on and maintain
them, they, being unacquainted with that, are undone.

A lady that stoops to marry a tradesman, should consider the usage of
England among the gentry and persons of distinction, where the case is
thus: if a lady, who has a title of honour, suppose it be a countess, or
if she were a duchess, it is all one--if, I say, she stoop to marry a
private gentleman, she ceases to rank for the future as a countess, or
duchess, but must be content to be, for the time to come, what her
husband can entitle her to, and no other; and, excepting the courtesy of
the people calling her my Lady Duchess, or the Countess, she is no more
than plain Mrs such a one, meaning the name of her husband, and no
other.

Thus, if a baronet's widow marry a tradesman in London, she is no more
my lady, but plain Mrs----, the draper's wife, &c. The application of
the thing is thus: if the lady think fit to marry a mechanic, say a
glover, or a cutler, or whatever it is, she should remember she is a
glover's wife from that time, and no more; and to keep up her dignity,
when fortune has levelled her circumstances, is but a piece of
unseasonable pageantry, and will do her no service at all. The thing she
is to inquire is, what she must do if Mr----, the glover, or cutler,
should die? whether she can carry on the trade afterwards, or whether
she can live without it? If she find she cannot live without it, it is
her prudence to consider in time, and so to acquaint herself with the
trade, that she may be able to do it when she comes to it.

I do confess, there is nothing more ridiculous than the double pride of
the ladies of this age, with respect to marrying what they call below
their birth. Some ladies of good families, though but of mean fortune,
are so stiff upon the point of honour, that they refuse to marry
tradesmen, nay, even merchants, though vastly above them in wealth and
fortune, only because they are tradesmen, or, as they are pleased to
call them, though improperly, mechanics; and though perhaps they have
not above L500 or L1000 to their portion, scorn the man for his rank,
who does but turn round, and has his choice of wives, perhaps, with two,
or three, or four thousand pounds, before their faces.

The gentlemen of quality, we see, act upon quite another foot, and, I
may say, with much more judgment, seeing nothing is more frequent than
when any noble family are loaded with titles and honour rather than
fortune, they come down into the city, and choose wives among the
merchants' and tradesmen's daughters to raise their families; and I am
mistaken, if at this time we have not several duchesses, countesses, and
ladies of rank, who are the daughters of citizens and tradesmen, as the
Duchess of Bedford, of A----e, of Wharton, and others; the Countess of
Exeter, of Onslow, and many more, too many to name, where it is thought
no dishonour at all for those persons to have matched into rich
families, though not ennobled; and we have seen many trading families
lay the foundation of nobility by their wealth and opulence--as Mr
Child, for example, afterwards Sir Josiah Child, whose posterity by his
two daughters are now Dukes of Beaufort and of Bedford, and his grandson
Lord Viscount Castlemain, and yet he himself began a tradesman, and in
circumstances very mean.

But this stiffness of the ladies, in refusing to marry tradesmen, though
it is weak in itself, is not near so weak as the folly of those who
first do stoop to marry thus, and yet think to maintain the dignity of
their birth in spite of the meanness of their fortune, and so, carrying
themselves above that station in which Providence has placed them,
disable themselves from receiving the benefit which their condition
offers them, upon any subsequent changes of their life.

This extraordinary stiffness, I have known, has brought many a
well-bred gentlewoman to misery and the utmost distress, whereas, had
they been able to have stooped to the subsequent circumstances of life,
which Providence also thought fit to make their lot, they might have
lived comfortably and plentifully all their days.

It is certainly every lady's prudence to bring her spirit down to her
condition; and if she thinks fit, or it is any how her lot to marry a
tradesman, which many ladies of good families have found it for their
advantage to do--I say, if it be her lot, she should take care she does
not make that a curse to her, which would be her blessing, by despising
her own condition, and putting herself into a posture not to enjoy it.

In all this, I am to be understood to mean that unhappy temper, which I
find so much among the tradesman's wives at this time, of being above
taking any notice of their husband's affairs, as if nothing were before
them but a constant settled state of prosperity, and it were impossible
for them to taste any other fortune; whereas, that very hour they embark
with a tradesman, they ought to remember that they are entering a state
of life full of accidents and hazards, and that innumerable families, in
as good circumstances as theirs, fall every day into disasters and
misfortunes, and that a tradesman's condition is liable to more
casualties than any other life whatever.

How many widows of tradesmen, nay, and wives of broken and ruined
tradesmen, do we daily see recover themselves and their shattered
families, when the man has been either snatched away by death, or
demolished by misfortunes, and has been forced to fly to the East or
West Indies, and forsake his family in search of bread?

Women, when once they give themselves leave to stoop to their own
circumstances, and think fit to rouse up themselves to their own relief,
are not so helpless and shiftless creatures as some would make them
appear in the world; and we see whole families in trade frequently
recovered by their industry: but, then, they are such women as can stoop
to it, and can lay aside the particular pride of their first years; and
who, without looking back to what they have been, can be content to look
into what Providence has brought them to be, and what they must
infallibly be, if they do not vigorously apply to the affairs which
offer, and fall into the business which their husbands leave them the
introduction to, and do not level their minds to their condition. It
may, indeed, be hard to do this at first, but necessity is a spur to
industry, and will make things easy where they seem difficult; and this
necessity will humble the minds of those whom nothing else could make to
stoop; and where it does not, it is a defect of the understanding, as
well as of prudence, and must reflect upon the senses as well as the
morals of the person.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] [Most of the wives of tradesmen above a certain rather humble
condition would now smile at the idea of their being expected to attend
their husbands' shops, in order to form an intimate acquaintance with
their affairs. Doubtless, however, in the days of Defoe, when the
capitals of tradesmen were less, when provision for widows by insurance
upon lives was not practised, and when the comparative simplicity of the
modes of conducting business admitted it, a female in that situation
would only be exercising a prudent caution, and doing nothing in the
least inconsistent with the delicacy of her sex, in obeying the rules
laid down in the text.]

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