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

[Stock is in this book invariably used for what we express by the term capital .]

[Cicero is here given by mistake for Seneca, who thus suffered death by order of the tyrant Nero.]

[This misuse of the term merchant continues to exist in Scotland to the present day.]

[Individuals dealt with.]

[It would be hard to doubt that Defore was sincere in this pleading of the rights of the apprentice; but its morality is certainly far from clear. The master may have gained customers with difficulty, by the exercise of much ingenuity, patience, and industry, or through some peculiar merit of his own. Indeed, it is always to be presumed that a tradesman's customers are attached to him from some of these causes. Of course, it would be hard if his apprentices, instead of collecting customers for themselves by the same means, seduced away those of his master. The true and direct object of an apprenticeship is to acquire a trade, not to acquire customers.]

[The practice of trade now sanctions courteous expressions of this kind.]

[ Sammel is a term of art the brickmakers use for those bricks which are not well burnt, and which generally look of a pale red colour, and as fair as the other, but are soft.]

[The story of the political upholsterer forms the subject of several amusing papers by Addison in the Tatler .]

[To stand in the presence of a prince is the highest mark of honour in the east, as to sit is with us.]

[The keeping of a half empty shop will not suit the necessities of trade in modern times. Instead of following the advice of Defoe, therefore, the young tradesman is recommended to keep a sufficient stock of every kind of goods in which he professes to deal. A shopkeeper can hardly commit a greater blunder than allow himself to be out of any article of his trade. One of his chief duties ought to consist in keeping up a fresh stock of every article which there is a chance of being sought for, and, while avoiding the imprudence of keeping too large a stock of goods – which comes nearest to Defoe's meaning – it is certain that, by having on hand an abundant choice, the shop gains a name, and has the best chance of securing a concourse of customers.]

[The war of the Spanish succession, concluded by the treaty of Utrecht, 1713.]

[Whitefriars, in the neighbourhood of the Temple, London. This and the Mint were sanctuaries for debtors.]

Paternoster Row has long been the chief seat of the bookselling and publishing trade in London; and there are now some splendid shops of mercers or haberdashers in St Paul's Churchyard, also in Ludgate hill adjoining.