made L10,000,
by the help of his credit, and he trades for three times as much in the
year; so that L5000 stock makes L10,000 stock and credit, and that
together makes L30,000 a-year returned in trade.

When you come from him to the warehouse-keeper in London, there you
double and treble upon it, to an unknown degree; for the London
wholesale man shall at his death appear to have credit among the country
clothiers for L10,000 or L15,000, nay, to L20,000, and yet have kept up
an unspotted credit all his days.

When he is dead, and his executors or widow come to look into things,
they are frightened with the very appearance of such a weight of debts,
and begin to doubt how his estate will come out at the end of it. But
when they come to cast up his books and his warehouse, they find,

In debts abroad, perhaps L30,000
In goods in his warehouse L12,000

So that, in a word, the man has died immensely rich; that is to say,
worth between L20,000 and L30,000, only that, having been a long
standard in trade, and having a large stock, he drove a very great
business, perhaps to the tune of L60,000 or L70,000 a-year; so that, of
all the L30,000 owing, there may be very little of it delivered above
four to six months, and the debtors being many of them considerable
merchants, and good paymasters, there is no difficulty in getting in
money enough to clear all his own debts; and the widow and children
being left well, are not in such haste for the rest but that it comes in
time enough to make them easy; and at length it all comes in, or with
but a little loss.

As it is thus in great things, it is the same in proportion with small;
so that in all the trade of England, you may reckon two-thirds of it
carried on upon credit; in which reckoning I suppose I speak much within
compass, for in some trades there is four parts of five carried on so,
and in some more.

All these things serve to show the infinite value of which credit is to
the tradesman, as well as to trade itself; and it is for this reason I
have closed my instructions with this part of the discourse. Credit is
the choicest jewel the tradesman is trusted with; it is better than
money many ways; if a man has L10,000 in money, he may certainly trade
for L10,000, and if he has no credit, he cannot trade for a shilling
more.

But how often have we seen men, by the mere strength of their credit,
trade for ten thousand pounds a-year, and have not one groat of real
stock