d by those who had
maliciously done it.

The scandal spread; the tradesman, a flourishing man, and a considerable
dealer, was run upon by it with a torrent of malice; a match which he
was about with a considerable fortune was blasted and prevented, and
that indeed was the malicious end of the people that did it; nor did it
stop there--it brought his creditors upon him, it ruined him, it brought
out a commission of bankrupt against him, it broke his heart, and killed
him; and after his death, his debts and effects coming in, there
appeared to be seven shillings in the pound estate, clear and good over
and above all demands, all his debts discharged, and all the expenses of
the statute paid.

It was to no purpose that the man purged himself of the crime laid to
his charge--that the author, who had ignorantly and rashly published the
scandal, declared himself ignorant; the man was run down by a torrent of
reproach; scandal oppressed him; he was buried alive in the noise and
dust raised both against his morals and his credit, and yet his
character was proved good, and his bottom in trade was so too, as I have
said above.

It is not the least reason of my publishing this to add, that even the
person who was ignorantly made the instrument of publishing the scandal,
was not able to retrieve it, or to prevent the man's ruin by all the
public reparation he could make in print, and by all the acknowledgement
he could make of his having been ignorantly drawn in to do it. And this
I mention for the honest tradesman's caution, and to put him in mind,
that when he has unwarily let slip anything to the wounding the
reputation of his neighbour tradesman, whether in his trading credit, or
the credit of his morals, it may not be in his power to unsay it again,
that is, so as to prevent the ruin of the person; and though it may
grieve him as long as he lives, as the like did the author I mention,
yet it is not in his power to recall it, or to heal the wound he has
given; and that he should consider very well of beforehand.

A tradesman's credit and a virgin's virtue ought to be equally sacred
from the tongues of men; and it is a very unhappy truth, that as times
now go, they are neither of them regarded among us as they ought to be.

The tea-table among the ladies, and the coffee-house among the men, seem
to be places of new invention for a depravation of our manners and
morals, places devoted to scandal, and where the characters of