e do?[2]

The following directions are calculated for this exigency, and to
prepare the young tradesman to stem the attacks of those fatal customs,
which otherwise, if he yields to them, will inevitably send him the way
of all the thoughtless tradesmen that have gone before him.

Here he will be effectually, we hope, encouraged to set out well; to
begin wisely and prudently; and to avoid all those rocks which the gay
race of tradesmen so frequently suffer shipwreck upon. And here he will
have a true plan of his own prosperity drawn out for him, by which, if
it be not his own fault, he may square his conduct in an unerring
manner, and fear neither bad fortune nor bad friends. I had purposed to
give a great many other cautions and directions in this work, but it
would have spun it out too far, and have made it tedious. I would indeed
have discoursed of some branches of home trade, which necessarily
embarks the inland tradesman in some parts of foreign business, and so
makes a merchant of the shopkeeper almost whether he will or no. For
example, almost all the shopkeepers and inland traders in seaport towns,
or even in the water-side part of London itself, are necessarily brought
in to be owners of ships, and concerned at least in the vessel, if not
in the voyage. Some of their trades, perhaps, relate to, or are employed
in, the building, or fitting, or furnishing out ships, as is the case at
Shoreham, at Ipswich, Yarmouth, Hull, Whitby, Newcastle, and the like.
Others are concerned in the cargoes, as in the herring fishery at
Yarmouth and the adjacent ports, the colliery at Newcastle, Sunderland,
&c., and the like in many other cases.

In this case, the shopkeeper is sometimes a merchant adventurer, whether
he will or not, and some of his business runs into sea-adventures, as in
the salt trade at Sheffield, in Northumberland, and Durham, and again at
Limington; and again in the coal trade, from Whitehaven in Cumberland to
Ireland, and the like.

These considerations urged me to direct due cautions to such tradesmen,
and such as would be particular to them, especially not to launch out in
adventures beyond the compass of their stocks,[3] and withal to manage
those things with due wariness. But this work had not room for those
things; and as that sort of amphibious tradesmen, for such they are,
trading both by water and by land, are not of the kind with those
particularly aimed at in these sheets, I thought it was better