meet
with no shock? And how have we seen men, who have to-day been immensely
rich, be to-morrow, as it were, reduced to nothing! What examples were
made in this city of such precipitations within the memory of some
living, when the Exchequer shutting up ruined the great bankers of
Lombard Street.[23] To what fell Sir Robert Viner--the great Alderman
Backwell--the three brothers of the name of Forth, of whom King Charles
II. made that severe pun, that '_Three-fourths_ of the city were broke?'

To what have we seen men of prodigious bulk in trade reduced--as Sir
Thomas Cook, Sir Basil Firebrass, Sheppard, Coggs, and innumerable
bankers, money-scriveners, and merchants, who thought themselves as
secure against the shocks of trade, as any men in the world could be?
Not to instance our late South Sea directors, and others, reduced by the
terrible fate of bubbles, whose names I omit because they yet live,
though sinking still under the oppression of their fortunes, and whose
weight I would be far from endeavouring to make heavier.

Why, then, should any tradesman, presuming on his own security, and of
his being out of the reach of disaster, harden his heart against the
miseries and distresses of a fellow-tradesman, who sinks, as it were, by
his side, and refuse to accept his offer of composition; at least, if he
cannot object against the integrity of his representations, and cannot
charge him with fraud and deceit, breaking with a wicked design to cheat
and delude his creditors, and to get money by a pretended breach? I say,
why should any tradesman harden his heart in such a case, and not, with
a generous pity, comply with a reasonable and fair proposal, while it is
to be had?

I do acknowledge, if there is an evident fraud, if he can detect the
bankrupt in any wicked design, if he can prove he has effects sufficient
to pay his debts, and that he only breaks with a purpose to cheat his
creditors, and he conceals a part of his estate, when he seems to offer
a sincere surrender; if this be the case, and it can be made appear to
be so--for in such a case, too, we ought to be very sure of the
fact--then, indeed, no favour is due, and really none ought to be shown.

And, therefore, it was a very righteous clause which was inflicted on
the fraudulent bankrupt, in a late act of Parliament, namely, that in
case he concealed his effects, and that it appeared he had, though upon
his oath, not given in a full account of his estate,