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 sold.  This would bring the trade into a better regulation, and the makers would stop their hands when the market stopped; and when the merchant ceased to buy, the manufacturers would cease to make, and, consequently, would not crowd or clog the market with goods, or wrong their factors with bills.

But this would require a large discourse, and the manufacturers’ objections should be answered, namely, that they cannot stop, that they have their particular sets of workmen and spinners, whom they are obliged to keep employed, or, if they should dismiss them, they could not have them again when a demand for goods came, and the markets revived, and that, besides, the poor would starve.

These objections are easy to be answered, though that is not my present business; but thus far it is to my purpose—­it is the factor’s business to keep himself within compass:  if the goods cannot be sold, the maker must stay till they can; if the poor must be employed, the manufacturer is right to keep them at work if he can; but if he cannot, without oppressing the factor, then he makes the factor employ them, not himself; and I do not see the factor has any obligation upon him to consider the spinners and weavers, especially not at the expense of his own credit, and his family’s safety.

Upon the whole, all tradesmen that trade thus, whether by commission from the country, or upon their own accounts, should make it the standing order of their business not to suffer themselves to be overdrawn by their employers, so as to straiten themselves in their cash, and make them unable to pay their bills when accepted.  It is also to be observed, that when a tradesman once comes to suffer himself to be thus overdrawn, and sinks his credit in kindness to his employer, he buys his employment so dear as all his employer can do for him can never repay the price.