OF HONESTY IN DEALING, AND LYING
There is some difference between an honest man and an honest tradesman;
and though the distinction is very nice, yet, I must say, it is to be
supported. Trade cannot make a knave of an honest man, for there is a
specific difference between honesty and knavery which can never be
altered by trade or any other thing; nor can that integrity of mind
which describes and is peculiar to a man of honesty be ever abated to a
tradesman; the rectitude of his soul must be the same, and he must not
only intend or mean honestly and justly, 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, that he cannot reasonably abate, and that he
cannot afford to abate: and there he may be in earnest, namely, that he
cannot make a reasonable profit of his goods, if he is obliged to abate,
and so the meaning is honest, that he cannot abate; and yet rather than
not take your money, he may at last resolve to do it, in hopes of
getting a better price for the remainder, or being willing to abate his
ordinary gain, rather than disoblige the customer; or being perhaps
afraid he should not sell off the quantity; and many such reasons may be
given why he submits to sell at a lower price than he really intended,
or can afford to do; and yet he cannot be said to be dishonest, or to
lie, in saying at first he cannot, or could not, abate.
A man in trade is properly to be said not to be able to do what he
cannot do to his profit and advantage. The English cannot trade to
Hungary, and into Slavonia--that is to say, they cannot do it to
advantage; but it is better for them to trade to Venice with their
goods, and let the Venetians carry on a trade into Hungary through
Dalmatia, Croatia, &c, and the like in other places.
To bring it down to particular cases: one certain merchant cannot deal
in one sort of goods which another merchant is eminent for; the other
merchant is as free to the trade as he, but he cannot do it to profit;
for he is unacquainted with the trade, and it is out of his way, and
therefore he cannot do it.
Thus, to the case in hand. The tradesman says he cannot sell his goods
under such a price, which in the sense of his business is true; that is
to say, he cannot do it to carry on his trade with the usual and
reasonable advantage which he ought to expect, and which others make in
the same way of business.
Or, he cannot, without underselling the market, and undervaluing the
goods, and seeming to undersell his neighbour-shopkeepers, to whom there
is a justice due in trade, which respects the price of sale; and to
undersell is looked upon as an unfair kind of trading.
All these, and many more, are the reasons why a tradesman may be said
not to lie, though he should say he _cannot_ abate, or _cannot_ sell his
goods under such a price, and yet may after think fit to sell you his
goods something lower than he so intended, or can afford to do, rather
than lose your custom, or rather than lose the selling of his goods, and
taking your ready money, which at that time he may have occasion for.
In these cases, I cannot say a shopkeeper should be tied down to the
literal meaning of his words in the price he asks, or that he is guilty
of lying in not adhering stiffly to the letter of his first demand;
though, at the same time, I would have every tradesman take as little
liberty that way as may be: and if the buyer would expect the tradesman
should keep strictly to his demand, he should not stand and haggle, and
screw the shopkeeper down, bidding from one penny to another, to a
trifle within his price, so, as it were, to push him to the extremity,
either to turn away his customer for a sixpence, or some such trifle, or
to break his word: as if he would say, I will force you to speak
falsely, or turn me away for a trifle.
In such cases, if, indeed, there is a breach, the sin is the buyer's: at
least, he puts himself in the devil's stead, and makes himself both
tempter and accuser; nor can I say that the seller is in that case so
much to blame as the buyer. However, it were to be wished that on both
sides buying and selling might be carried on without it; for the buyer
as often says, 'I won't give a farthing more,' and yet advances, as the
seller says, 'I can't abate a farthing,' and yet complies. These are, as
I call them, _trading lies_; and it were to be wished they could be
avoided on both sides; and the honest tradesman does avoid them as much
as possible, but yet must not, I say, in all cases, be tied up to the
strict, literal sense of that expression, _I cannot abate_, as
above.[26]
2. Another trading licence is that of appointing, and promising payments
of money, which men in business are oftentimes forced to make, and
forced to break, without any scrupple; nay, and without any reproach
upon their integrity. Let us state this case as clearly as we can, and
see how it stands as to the morality of it, for that is the point in
debate.
The credit usually given by one tradesman to another, as particularly by
the merchant to the wholesale-man, and by the wholesale-man to the
retailer, is such, that, without tying the buyer up to a particular day
of payment, they go on buying and selling, and the buyer pays money upon
account, as his convenience admits, and as the seller is content to take
it. This occasions the merchant, or the wholesale-man, to go about, as
they call it, _a-dunning_ among their dealers, and which is generally
the work of every Saturday. When the merchant comes to his customer the
wholesale-man, or warehouse-keeper, for money, he tells him, 'I have no
money, Sir; I cannot pay you now; if you call next week, I will pay
you.' Next week comes, and the merchant calls again; but it is the same
thing, only the warehouseman adds, 'Well, I will pay you next week,
_without fail.'_ When the week comes, he tells him he has met with great
disappointments, and he knows not what to do, but desires his patience
another week: and when the other week comes, perhaps he pays him, and so
they go on.
Now, what is to be said for this? In the first place, let us look back
to the occasion. This warehouse-keeper, or wholesale-man, sells the
goods which he buys of the merchant--I say, he sells them to the
retailers, and it is for that reason I place it first there. Now, as
they buy in smaller quantities than he did of the merchant, so he deals
with more of them in number, and he goes about among them the same
Saturday, to get in money that he may pay his merchant, and he receives
his bag full of promises, too, every where instead of money, and is put
off from week to week, perhaps by fifty shopkeepers in a day; and their
serving him thus obliges him to do the same to the merchant.
Again, come to the merchant. Except some, whose circumstances are above
it, they are by this very usage obliged to put off the Blackwell-hall
factor, or the packer, or the clothier, or whoever they deal with, in
proportion; and thus promises go round for payment, and those promises
are kept or broken as money comes in, or as disappointments happen; and
all this while there is no breach of honesty, or parole; no lying, or
supposition of it, among the tradesmen, either on one side or other.
But let us come, I say, to the morality of it. To break a solemn promise
is a kind of prevarication; that is certain, there is no coming off of
it; and I might enlarge here upon the first fault, namely, of making the
promise, which, say the strict objectors, they should not do. But the
tradesman's answer is this: all those promises ought to be taken as they
are made--namely, with a contingent dependence upon the circumstances of
trade, such as promises made them by others who owe them money, or the
supposition of a week's trade bringing in money by retail, as usual,
both of which are liable to fail, or at least to fall short; and this
the person who calls for the money knows, and takes the promise with
those attending casualties; which if they fail, he knows the shopkeeper,
or whoever he is, must fail him too.
The case is plain, if the man had the money in cash, he need not make a
promise or appointment for a farther day; for that promise is no more or
less than a capitulation for a favour, a desire or condition of a week's
forbearance, on his assurance, that if possible he will not fail to pay
him at the time. It is objected, that the words _if possible_ should
then be mentioned, which would solve the morality of the case: to this
I must answer, that I own I think it needless, unless the man to whom
the promise was made could be supposed to believe the promise was to be
performed, whether it were possible or no; which no reasonable man can
be supposed to do.
There is a parallel case to this in the ordinary appointment of people
to meet either at place or time, upon occasions of business. Two friends
make an appointment to meet the next day at such a house, suppose a
tavern at or near the Exchange: one says to the other, 'Do not fail me
at that time, for I will certainly be there;' the other answers, 'I will
not fail.' Some people, who think themselves more religious than others,
or at least would be thought so, object against these positive
appointments, and tell us we ought to say, 'I will, if it pleases God.'
or I will, life and health permitting;[27] and they quote the text for
it, where our Saviour expressly commands to use such a caution, and
which I shall say nothing to lessen the force of.
But to say a word to our present custom. Since Christianity is the
public profession of the country, and we are to suppose we not only are
Christians ourselves, but that all those we are talking to, or of, are
also Christians, we must add that Christianity supposes we acknowledge
that life, and all the contingencies of life, are subjected to the
dominion of Providence, and liable to all those accidents which God
permits to befall us in the ordinary course of our living in the world,
therefore we expect to be taken in that sense in all such appointments;
and it is but justice to us as Christians, in the common acceptation of
our words, that when I say, _I will certainly_ meet my friend at such a
place, and at such a time, he should understand me to mean, if it
pleases God to give me life and health, or that his Providence permits
me to come, or, as the text says, 'If the Lord will;' for we all know
that unless the Lord will, I cannot meet, or so much as live.
Not to understand me thus, is as much as to say, you do not understand
me to be a Christian, or to act like a Christian in any thing; and on
the other hand, they that understand it otherwise, I ought not to
understand them to be Christians. Nor should I be supposed to put any
neglect or dishonour upon the government of Providence in the world, or
to suggest that I did not think myself subjected to it, because I
omitted the words in my appointment.
In like manner, when a man comes to me for money, I put him off: that,
in the first place, supposes I have not the money by me, or cannot spare
it to pay him at that time; if it were otherwise, it may be supposed I
would pay him just then. He is then perhaps impatient, and asks me when
I will pay him, and I tell him at such a time. This naturally supposes,
that by that time I expect to be supplied, so as to be able to pay; I
have current bills, or promises of money, to be paid me, or I expect the
ordinary takings in my shop or warehouse will supply me to make good my
promise: thus my promise is honest in its foundation, because I have
reason to expect money to come in to make me in a condition to perform
it; but so it falls out, contrary to my expectation, and contrary to the
reason of things, I am disappointed, and cannot do it; I am then,
indeed, a trespasser upon my creditor, whom I ought to have paid, and I
am under affliction enough on that account, and I suffer in my
reputation for it also; but I cannot be said to be a liar, an immoral
man, a man that has no regard to my promise, and the like; for at the
same time I have perhaps used my utmost endeavour to do it, but am
prevented by many several men breaking promise with me, and I am no way
able to help myself.
It is objected to this, that then I should not make my promises
absolute, but conditional. To this I say, that the promises, as is above
observed, are really not absolute, but conditional in the very nature of
them, and are understood so when they are made, or else they that hear
them do not understand them, as all human appointments ought to be
understood; I do confess, it would be better not to make an absolute
promise at all, but to express the condition or reserve with the
promise, and say, 'I will if I can,' or, 'I will if people are just to
me, and perform their promises to me.'
But to this I answer, the importunity of the person who demands the
payment will not permit it--nothing short of a positive promise will
satisfy--they never believe the person intends to perform if he makes
the least reserve or condition in his promise, though, at the same time,
they know that even the nature of the promise and the reason of the
promise strongly implies the condition--I say, the importunity of the
creditor occasions the breach, which he reproaches the debtor with the
immorality of.[28]
Custom, indeed, has driven us beyond the limits of our morals in many
things, which trade makes necessary, and which we cannot now avoid; so
that if we must pretend to go back to the literal sense of the command;
if our yea must be yea, and our nay nay; if no man must go beyond, or
defraud his neighbour; if our conversation must be without covetousness,
and the like--why, then, it is impossible for tradesmen to be
Christians, and we must unhinge all business, act upon new principles in
trade, and go on by new rules--in short, we must shut up shop, and leave
off trade, and so in many things we must leave off living; for as
conversation is called life, we must leave off to converse: all the
ordinary communication of life is now full of lying; and what with
table-lies, salutation-lies, and trading-lies, there is no such thing as
every man speaking truth with his neighbour.
But this is a subject would launch me out beyond the bounds of a
chapter, and make a book by itself. I return to the case particularly in
hand--promises of payment of money. Men in trade, I say, are under this
unhappy necessity, they are forced to make them, and they are forced to
break them; the violent pressing and dunning, and perhaps threatening
too, of the creditor, when the poor shopkeeper cannot comply with his
demand, forces him to promise; in short, the importunate creditor will
not be otherwise put off, and the poor shopkeeper, almost worried, and
perhaps a little terrified too, and afraid of him, is glad to do and say
any thing to pacify him, and this extorts a promise, which, when the
time comes, he is no more able to perform than he was before, and this
multiplies promises, and consequently breaches, so much of which are to
be placed to the accounts of force, that I must acknowledge, though the
debtor is to blame, the creditor is too far concerned in the crime of it
to be excused, and it were to be wished some other method could be found
out to prevent the evil, and that tradesmen would resolve with more
courage to resist the importunities of the creditor, be the consequence
what it would, rather than break in upon their morals, and load their
consciences with the reproaches of it for all their lives after.
I remember I knew a tradesman, who, labouring long under the ordinary
difficulties of men embarrassed in trade, and past the possibility of
getting out, and being at last obliged to stop and call his people
together, told me, that after he was broke, though it was a terrible
thing to him at first too, as it is to most tradesmen, yet he thought
himself in a new world, when he was at a full stop, and had no more the
terror upon him of bills coming for payment, and creditors knocking at
his door to dun him, and he without money to pay. He was no more obliged
to stand in his shop, and be bullied and ruffled by his creditors, nay,
by their apprentices and boys, and sometimes by porters and footmen, to
whom he was forced to give good words, and sometimes strain his
patience to the utmost limits: he was now no more obliged to make
promises, which he knew he could not perform, and break promises as fast
as he made them, and so lie continually both to God and man; and, he
added, the ease of his mind which he felt upon that occasion was so
great, that it balanced all the grief he was in at the general disaster
of his affairs; and, farther, that even in the lowest of his
circumstances which followed, he would not go back to live as he had
done, in the exquisite torture of want of money to pay his bills and his
duns.
Nor was it any satisfaction to him to say, that it was owing to the like
breach of promise in the shopkeepers, and gentlemen, and people whom he
dealt with, who owed him money, and who made no conscience of promising
and disappointing him, and thereby drove him to the necessity of
breaking his own promises; for this did not satisfy his mind in the
breaches of his word, though they really drove him to the necessity of
it: but that which lay heaviest upon him was the violence and clamour of
creditors, who would not be satisfied without such promises, even when
he knew, or at least believed, he should not be able to perform.
Nay, such was the importunity of one of his merchants, that when he came
for money, and he was obliged to put him off, and to set him another
day, the merchant would not be satisfied, unless he would swear that he
would pay him on that day without fail. 'And what said you to him?' said
I. 'Say to him!' said he, 'I looked him full in the face, and sat me
down without speaking a word, being filled with rage and indignation at
him; but after a little while he insisted again, and asked me what
answer I would make him, at which I smiled, and asked him, if he were in
earnest? He grew angry then, and asked me if I laughed at him, and if I
thought to laugh him out of his money? I then asked him, if he really
did expect I should swear that I would pay him the next week, as I
proposed to promise? He told me, yes, he did, and I should swear it, or
pay him before he went out of my warehouse.
I wondered, indeed, at the discourse, and at the folly of the merchant,
who, I understood afterwards, was a foreigner; and though I thought he
had been in jest at first, when he assured me he was not, I was curious
to hear the issue, which at first he was loth to go on with, because he
knew it would bring about all the rest; but I pressed him to know--so he
told me that the merchant carried it to such a height as put him into a
furious passion, and, knowing he must break some time or other, he was
resolved to put an end to his being insulted in that manner; so at last
he rose up in a rage, told the merchant, that as no honest man could
take such an oath, unless he had the money by him to pay it, so no
honest man could ask such a thing of him; and that, since he must have
an answer, his answer was, he would not swear such an oath for him, nor
any man living, and if he would not be satisfied without it, he might do
his worst--and so turned from him; and knowing the man was a
considerable creditor, and might do him a mischief, he resolved to shut
up that very night, and did so, carrying all his valuable goods with him
into the Mint, and the next day he heard that his angry creditor waylaid
him the same afternoon to arrest him, but he was too quick for him; and,
as he said, though it almost broke his heart to shut up his shop, yet
that being delivered from the insulting temper of his creditor, and the
perpetual perplexities of want of money to pay people when they dunned
him, and, above all, from the necessity of making solemn promises for
trifling sums, and then breaking them again, was to him like a load
taken off his back when he was weary, and could stand under it no
longer; it was a terror to him, he said, to be continually lying,
breaking faith with all mankind, and making promises which he could not
perform.
This necessarily brings me to observe here, and it is a little for the
ease of the tradesman's mind in such severe cases, that there is a
distinction to be made in this case between wilful premeditated lying,
and the necessity men may be driven to by their disappointments, and
other accidents of their circumstances, to break such promises, as they
had made with an honest intention of performing them.
He that breaks a promise, however solemnly made, may be an honest man,
but he that makes a promise with a design to break it, or with no
resolution of performing it, cannot be so: nay, to carry it farther, he
that makes a promise, and does not do his endeavour to perform it, or to
put himself into a condition to perform it, cannot be an honest man. A
promise once made supposes the person willing to perform it, if it were
in his power, and has a binding influence upon the person who made it,
so far as his power extends, or that he can within the reach of any
reasonable ability perform the conditions; but if it is not in his power
to perform it, as in this affair of payment of money is often the case,
the man cannot be condemned as dishonest, unless it can be made appear,
either
1. That when he made the promise, he knew he should not be able to
perform it; or,
2. That he resolved when he made the promise not to perform it, though
he should be in a condition to do it. And in both these cases the
morality of promising cannot be justified, any more than the immorality
of not performing it.
But, on the other hand, the person promising, honestly intending when he
made the appointment to perform it if possible, and endeavouring
faithfully to be able, but being rendered unable by the disappointment
of those on whose promises he depended for the performance of his own; I
cannot say that such a tradesman can be charged with lying, or with any
immorality in promising, for the breach was not properly his own, but
the people's on whom he depended; and this is justified from what I said
before, namely, that every promise of that kind supposes the possibility
of such a disappointment, even in the very nature of its making; for, if
the man were not under a moral incapacity of payment, he would not
promise at all, but pay at the time he promised. His promising, then,
implies that he has only something future to depend upon, to capacitate
him for the payment; that is to say, the appointments of payment by
other tradesmen, who owe him (that promises) the money, or the daily
supply from the ordinary course of his trade, suppose him a retailer in
a shop, and the like; all which circumstances are subject to
contingencies and disappointments, and are known to be so by the person
to whom the promise is made; and it is with all those contingencies and
possibilities of disappointment, that he takes or accepts the
tradesman's promise, and forbears him, in hopes that he will be able to
perform, knowing, that unless he receives money as above, he cannot.
I must, however, acknowledge, that it is a very mortifying thing to a
tradesman, whether we suppose him to be one that values his credit in
trade, or his principle as to honest dealing, to be obliged to break his
word; and therefore, where men are not too much under the hatches to the
creditor, and they can possibly avoid it, a tradesman should not make
his promises of payment so positive, but rather conditional, and thereby
avoid both the immorality and the discredit of breaking his word; nor
will any tradesman, I hope, harden himself in a careless forwardness to
promise, without endeavouring or intending to perform, from any thing
said in this chapter; for be the excuse for it as good as it will, as to
the point of strict honesty, he can have but small regard to his own
peace of mind, or to his own credit in trade, who will not avoid it as
much as possible.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] [The practice of haggling about prices is now very properly
abandoned by all respectable dealers in goods, greatly to the comfort of
both sellers and buyers.]
[27] [It was a fashion of trade in Defoe's time, and down to a somewhat
later period, to thrust the phrase 'God willing' into almost every
promise or announcement, the purport of which might possibly be thwarted
by death or any other accident. The phrase, in particular, appeared at
the beginning of all letters in which a merchant announced his design of
visiting retail dealers in the provinces; as, 'God willing, I shall have
the honour of waiting on you on the 15th proximo:' hence English
_riders_, or commercial travellers, came to be known in Scotland by the
nickname of God-willings.' This pious phraseology seems now to be
banished from all mercantile affairs, except the shipping of goods.]
[28] [Notwithstanding all this ingenious reasoning, we cannot help
thinking that it would be better if conditional promises were made in
conditional language. It is not necessarily to be understood in all
cases that a direct unreserved promise means something conditional, so
that there is a liability to being much deceived and grievously
disappointed by all such promises. A sound morality certainly demands
that the tradesman should use the practices described in the text as
rarely, and with as much reluctance, as possible, and that, like other
men, he should make his words, as nearly as may be, the echo of his
thoughts.]