But the main question for a tradesman in this case, and which I have not spoken of yet, is, ’What is the man to do to preserve his credit?  What are the methods that a young tradesman is to take, to gain a good share of credit in his beginning, and to preserve and maintain it when it is gained?’[45]

Every tradesman’s credit is supposed to be good at first.  He that begins without credit, is an unhappy wretch of a tradesman indeed, and may be said to be broke even before he sets up; for what can a man do, who by any misfortune in his conduct during his apprenticeship, or by some ill character upon him so early, begins with a blast upon his credit?  My advice to such a young man would be, not to set up at all; or if he did, to stay for some time, till by some better behaviour, either as a journeyman, or as an assistant in some other man’s shop or warehouse, he had recovered himself; or else to go and set up in some other place or town remote from that where he has been bred; for he must have a great assurance that can flatter himself to set up, and believe he shall recover a lost reputation.

But take a young tradesman as setting up with the ordinary stock, that is to say, a negative character, namely, that he has done nothing to hurt his character, nothing to prejudice his behaviour, and to give people a suspicion of him:  what, then, is the first principle on which to build a tradesman’s reputation? and what is it he is to do?

The answer is short.  Two things raise credit in trade, and, I may say, they are the only things required; there are some necessary addenda, but these are the fundamentals.

1.  Industry. 2.  Honesty.

I have dwelt upon the first; the last I have but a few words to say to, but they will be very significant; indeed, that head requires no comment, no explanations or enlargements:  nothing can support credit, be it public or private, but honesty; a punctual dealing, a general probity in every transaction.  He that once breaks through his honesty, violates his credit—­once denominate a man a knave, and you need not forbid any man to trust him.

Even in the public it appears to be the same thing.  Let any man view the public credit in its present flourishing circumstances, and compare it with the latter end of the years of King Charles II. after the Exchequer had been shut up, parliamentary appropriations misapplied, and, in a word, the public faith broken; who would lend?  Seven or eight per cent, was given for anticipations in King William’s time, though no new fraud had been offered, only because the old debts were unpaid; and how hard was it to get any one to lend money at all!

But, after by a long series of just and punctual dealing, the Parliament making good all the deficient funds, and paying even those debts for which no provision was made, and the like, how is the credit restored, the public faith made sacred again, and how money flows into the Exchequer without calling for, and that at three or four per cent. interest, even from foreign countries as well as from our own people!  They that have credit can never want money; and this credit is to be raised by no other method, whether by private tradesmen, or public bodies of men, by nations and governments, but by a general probity and an honest punctual dealing.