is reason, and this makes it to my purpose in an
extraordinary manner, that whenever the principal shopkeepers remove
from such a street, or settled place, where the principal trade used to
be, the rest soon follow--knowing, that if the fame of the trade is not
there, the customers will not resort thither: and that a tradesman's
business is to follow wherever the trade leads. For a mercer to set up
now in Paternoster Row, or a woollen-draper in St Paul's Churchyard, the
one among the sempstresses, and the other among the chair-makers, would
be the same thing as for a country shopkeeper not to set up in or near
the market-place.[15]

The place, therefore, is to be prudently chosen by the retailer, when he
first begins his business, that he may put himself in the way of
business; and then, with God's blessing, and his own care, he may expect
his share of trade with his neighbours.

2. He must take an especial care to have his shop not so much crowded
with a large bulk of goods, as with a well-sorted and well-chosen
quantity proper for his business, and to give credit to his beginning.
In order to this, his buying part requires not only a good judgment in
the wares he is to deal in, but a perfect government of his judgment by
his understanding to suit and sort his quantities and proportions, as
well to his shop as to the particular place where his shop is situated;
for example, a particular trade is not only proper for such or such a
part of the town, but a particular assortment of goods, even in the same
way, suits one part of the town, or one town and not another; as he that
sets up in the Strand, or near the Exchange, is likely to sell more rich
silks, more fine Hollands, more fine broad-cloths, more fine toys and
trinkets, than one of the same trade setting up in the skirts of the
town, or at Ratcliff, or Wapping, or Redriff; and he that sets up in the
capital city of a county, than he that is placed in a private
market-town, in the same county; and he that is placed in a market-town,
than he that is placed in a country village. A tradesman in a seaport
town sorts himself different from one of the same trade in an inland
town, though larger and more populous; and this the tradesman must weigh
very maturely before he lays out his stock.

Sometimes it happens a tradesman serves his apprenticeship in one town,
and sets up in another; and sometimes circumstances altering, he removes
from one town to another; the change i