ustly, but he must do so; he must act
honestly and justly, and that in all his dealings; he must neither cheat
nor defraud, over-reach nor circumvent his neighbour, nor indeed anybody
he deals with; nor must he design to do so, or lay any plots or snares
to that purpose in his dealing, as is frequent in the general conduct of
too many, who yet call themselves honest tradesmen, and would take it
very ill to have any one tax their integrity.

But after all this is premised, there are some latitudes, like poetical
licences in other cases, which a tradesman is and must be allowed, and
which by the custom and usage of trade he may give himself a liberty in,
which cannot be allowed in other cases to any man, no, nor to the
tradesman himself out of his business--I say, he may take some
liberties, but within bounds; and whatever some pretenders to strict
living may say, yet that tradesman shall pass with me for a very honest
man, notwithstanding the liberty which he gives himself of this kind, if
he does not take those liberties in an exorbitant manner; and those
liberties are such as these.

1. The liberty of asking more than he will take. I know some people have
condemned this practice as dishonest, and the Quakers for a time stood
to their point in the contrary practice, resolving to ask no more than
they would take, upon any occasion whatsoever, and choosing rather to
lose the selling of their goods, though they could afford sometimes to
take what was offered, rather than abate a farthing of the price they
had asked; but time and the necessities of trade made them wiser, and
brought them off of that severity, and they by degrees came to ask, and
abate, and abate again, just as other business tradesmen do, though not
perhaps as some do, who give themselves a fuller liberty that way.

Indeed, it is the buyers that make this custom necessary; for they,
especially those who buy for immediate use, will first pretend
positively to tie themselves up to a limited price, and bid them a
little and a little more, till they come so near the sellers' price,
that they, the sellers, cannot find in their hearts to refuse it, and
then they are tempted to take it, notwithstanding their first words to
the contrary. It is common, indeed, for the tradesman to say, 'I cannot
abate anything,' when yet they do and can afford it; but the tradesman
should indeed not be understood strictly and literally to his words, but
as he means it, namely, tha