The Complete English Tradesman

The Complete English Tradesman by Daniel Defoe

The Complete English Tradesman opens with Daniel Defoe addressing the young man entering trade, beginning with the apprentice nearing the end of his term. Defoe insists the apprentice must, in his final years, acquire genuine judgment in the wares he will deal in, learn to buy shrewdly, become acquainted with his master's customers and correspondents, and master the keeping of books — skills he warns are rarely recovered if neglected during apprenticeship. He illustrates the danger of poor judgment in goods with his own experience buying brandy abroad, where a merchant, knowing him inexperienced, attempted to substitute corrupted casks for the ones he had inspected, a fraud he avoided only by insisting on retasting before purchase. Defoe then turns to the tradesman's correspondence, arguing that letters of business should be plain, direct, and free of affectation or bombast, contrasting a young tradesman's absurdly flowery letter with a clear, businesslike one that wins a merchant's confidence. He gives examples of vague, ambiguous trading letters that leave orders open to misinterpretation, and sets against them a model exchange between a warehouseman and a clothier at Devizes, where precise orders and prompt, honest replies produce mutual trust and steady dealing. He allows that every trade has its own technical "language" or terms of art — citing brewers' and brickmakers' secret use of "spanish," gardeners' and horse-dealers' jargon, and regional trading terms — which a tradesman should learn both to avoid being cheated and to deal knowledgeably with specialists, while never using such terms to confuse a correspondent who would not understand them. He advises tradesmen to associate chiefly with other tradesmen rather than with gentlemen or politics, arguing that such company teaches the "progression" of trade beyond what apprenticeship taught, citing examples of tradesmen ruined or enriched observed within such circles. He stresses that trade demands full diligence and attendance, warning against negligent shopkeepers who leave shops to careless servants, and insists a shop must be "driven" constantly like a mill. He addresses the balance of time between necessities of nature, religious duty, and business, cautioning against letting excessive or ill-timed devotion (or its opposite, dissipation) crowd out trade, with anecdotes of tradesmen ruined by misplaced piety or vice alike. Defoe next warns extensively against over-trading — trading beyond one's stock or extending too much credit — explaining how imbalance between credit taken and credit given destroys tradesmen, with reference to losses during the late war when creditors of the public suffered from delayed government payments. He counsels prudent tradesmen to keep modest stock rather than overfull warehouses, and to guard credit as carefully as capital. He then treats bankruptcy, contrasting the older, harsher consequences of failure with the more lenient contemporary commission-of-bankrupt law, arguing this leniency does not excuse carelessness. He urges any tradesman who sees his stock genuinely exhausted to break "in time" — informing creditors honestly while still solvent enough to offer a fair settlement — rather than struggling on dishonestly until nothing remains, distinguishing the honest unfortunate debtor from the culpable one who delays too long. Turning to causes of failure, Defoe discusses poor shop location, badly sorted stock, and the necessity of enduring customers' rudeness and caprice with unfailing patience, illustrated by an extended dialogue of two ladies testing a mercer's temper by feigned rudeness, who ultimately reward his civility with a large purchase. He then addresses dangerous "innocent" diversions — hunting, riding, fashionable company — arguing that even lawful pleasures become ruinous when they draw a tradesman from his shop, and condemns the era's fashion for gentlemanly dress and idle apprentices among tradesmen. He examines expensive living broadly: costly housekeeping, servants, dress, and keeping company above one's station, attributing much modern tradesmen's ruin to rising prices, taxation, and imitation of the gentry's extravagance. Finally, Defoe discusses early or ill-considered marriage as a hazard to young tradesmen, condemning apprentices who marry secretly and drain resources before establishing themselves, and cautioning against marrying too soon after setting up, before stock and trade can support a family's expense. He closes this portion with an extended dialogue between a troubled tradesman and his wife, in which she, once informed honestly of his declining circumstances, proposes retrenching their servants, entertainments, and expenses rather than let him conceal his difficulties until ruin overtakes them, which Defoe offers as a model of how husband and wife together might avert disaster through frankness and mutual economy.

By Daniel Defoe · First published 1735 · Genre: Non-fiction, Guidebook, Historical · 25 chapters · 140,092 words

First lines

The first part of a trader's beginning is ordinarily when he is very young, I mean, when he goes as an apprentice, and the notions of trade are scarcely got into his head; for boys go apprentices while they are but boys; to talk to them in their first three or four years signifies nothing; they are rather then to be taught submission to families, and subjection to their masters, and dutiful attendance in their shops or warehouses; and this is not our present business.

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tradesman · commerce · economics · business · entrepreneurship · manual skills · craftsmanship · self-sufficiency · work ethic · social class · 18th century · British literature

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