s yet come
out of trade, like an old invalid soldier out of the wars, maimed,
bruised, sick, reduced, and fitter for an hospital than a shop--such
miserable havoc has launching out into projects and remote undertakings
made among tradesmen.

But the safe tradesman is he, that avoiding all such remote excursions,
keeps close within the verge of his own affairs, minds his shop or
warehouse, and confining himself to what belongs to him there, goes on
in the road of his business without launching into unknown oceans; and
content with the gain of his own trade, is neither led by ambition or
avarice, and neither covets to be greater nor richer by such uncertain
and hazardous attempts.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] [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.]

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

CHAPTER VII

OF THE TRADESMAN IN DISTRESS, AND BECOMING BANKRUPT

In former times it was a dismal and calamitous thing for a tradesman to
break. Where it befell a family, it put all into confusion and
distraction; the man, in the utmost terror, fright, and distress, ran
away with what goods he could get off, as if the house were on fire, to
get into the Friars[14] or the Mint; the family fled, one one way, and
one another, like people in desperation; the wife to her father and
mother, if she had any, and the children, some to one relation, some to
another. A statute (so they vulgarly call a commission of bankrupt) came
and swept away all, and oftentimes consumed it too, and left little or
nothing, either to pay the creditors or relieve the bankrupt. This made
the bankrupt desperate, and made him fly to those places of shelter with
his goods, where, hardened by the cruelty of the cre