who is his employer, and has thereby
made him unable to pay his other bills currently, even of such men's
drafts who had perhaps good reason to draw.

Secondly, it keeps the factor always bare of money, and wounds his
reputation, so that he pays those very bills with discredit, which in
justice to himself he ought not to pay at all, and the borrower has the
money, at the expense of the credit of the lender; whereas, indeed, the
reproach ought to be to him that borrows, not to him that lends--to him
that draws where there are no effects to warrant his draft, not to him
that pays where he does not owe.

But the damage lies on the circumstances of accepting the bill, for the
factor lends his employer the money the hour he accepts the bill, and
the blow to his credit is for not paying when accepted. When the bill is
accepted, the acceptor is debtor to the person to whom the bill is
payable, or in his right to every indorser; for a bill of exchange is in
this case different from a bond, namely, that the right of action is
transferable by indorsement, and every indorser has a right to sue the
acceptor in his own name, and can transfer that right to another;
whereas in a bond, though it be given to me by assignment, I must sue in
the name of the first person to whom the bond is payable, and he may at
any time discharge the bond, notwithstanding my assignment.

Tradesmen, then, especially such as are factors,[46] are unaccountably
to blame to accept bills for their employers before their goods are
sold, and the money received, or within reach: if the employers cannot
wait, the reproach should lie on them, not on the factor; and, indeed,
the manufacturers all over England are greatly wrong in that part of
their business; for, not considering the difference between a time of
demand and a time of glut, a quick or a dead market, they go on in the
same course of making, and, without slackening their hands as to
quantity, crowd up their goods, as if it were enough to them that the
factor had them, and that they were to be reckoned as sold when they
were in his hands: but would the factor truly represent to them the
state of the market--that there are great quantities of goods in hand
unsold, and no present demand, desiring them to slack their hands a
little in making; and at the same time back their directions in a plain
and positive way, though with respect too, by telling them they could
accept no more bills till the goods were