CHAPTER VI.MEN OF BUSINESS.
Examples of a successful pursuit of wealth, either from the beginnings of a moderate fortune, or from absolute penury, are abundant. A life devoted to the acquirement of money, for its own sake, cannot be made the subject of moral eulogy; it can only be introduced among the “Triumphs of Perseverance,” as a proof of the efficacy of that quality of the mind to enable the wealth-winner to compass his resolves. It by no means follows, however, that a career towards opulence is impelled by the mere sordid passion for gain. Happily, among those who have started with a moderate fortune, progressive increase in riches has often been found united with increasing purposes of the noblest philanthropy and public beneficence; while the manly aim for independence has equally distinguished many who have risen to wealth from poverty. A brief rehearsal of the biographies of two persons, of widely different station and character, but whose names have alike become inseparably connected with the history of the first commercial city in the world, will suffice to illustrate our position.
The younger son of Sir Richard, who was a knight, alderman, sheriff, and Lord Mayor of London, and a prosperous merchant, had the twofold example set him by his father, of an intelligent pursuit of trade, and of public spirit and munificence. He was sent to Cambridge, distinguished himself in study, and might, undoubtedly, have risen to reputation in one of the learned professions; but, by his father’s wish, he turned his attention to business, and was admitted a member of the Mercers’ Company at the age of twenty-four. Having, through his father’s eminence as a merchant, succeeded in obtaining the trust of agent to King Edward the Sixth, for taking up money of the merchants of Antwerp, he quickly discerned the abuses under which the king’s interest suffered. He proposed methods for preventing the Flemish merchants from extorting unfair commissions and brokages, and so turned the current of advantage to the king’s favour, that the young prince was enabled to pay all the debts for which his father and the Protector—Somerset—had left him responsible. During the short reign of Edward, this active and enterprising merchant made forty journeys from England to Antwerp; and, by the application of his genius, retrieved English commerce from the disadvantage into which it had fallen by mismanagement at home, and the superior shrewdness of the Netherland merchants. The precious metals had become scarce in our country, but Greshambrought them back again; our commodities were low in price, and foreign ones high, but he reversed their conditions of sale: while the king’s credit, from being very low abroad, was, by Gresham’s skill, raised so high, that he could have borrowed what sums he pleased. For such services the young and acute negotiator had a pension of £100 a year appointed him for life, and estates to the value of £300 a year were also conferred upon him by the king.
At the accession of Mary, Gresham was discharged from his agency; but, on his drawing up a memorial, and its allegements being proved, he was re-instated. Queen Elizabeth immediately re-engaged him, at her accession, and employed him to provide and buy up arms for the national defence. She knighted him a year afterwards, and he then built himself the mansion known by his name in Bishopsgate Street; and, till lately, occupied by the “Gresham professors.”
His noblest public work was performed soon after. His father had striven to move King Henry the Eighth to build an Exchange for the city merchants, who then met in the open air in Lombard Street, but could not. Sir Thomas Gresham now publicly proposed, if the citizens would purchase a piece of ground large enough, and in the proper place, to build an Exchange at his own expense, with covered walks, and all necessary conveniences for the assemblage of merchants. This was done; the site was cleared; Gresham himself laid the foundation stone; and Queen Elizabeth, when the building was complete, “attended by nobility, came fromSomerset House, and caused it, by trumpet and herald, to be proclaimed the ‘Royal Exchange.’” This building, as our young readers know, was burnt down some years ago, and the present stately fabric, opened by Queen Victoria, has been erected on its site.
About the time that the building of the Royal Exchange was commenced, Gresham was again employed to take up moneys for the royal use at Antwerp. Experience had so fully shown him the evil of pursuing this system, that he at length persuaded the Queen to discontinue it, and to borrow of her own merchants in the city of London. Yet his views were so much in advance of the contracted commercial spirit of that age, that the London citizens, in their common hall, blind to their own interests, negatived his proposition when it was first made to them. But, on more mature consideration, several merchants and aldermen raised £16,000, and lent it to the Queen for six months, at six per cent. interest; and the loan was prolonged for six months more, at the same interest, with brokage. This illustrious London citizen, by his superior intelligence, thus opened the way for increasing others’ as well as his own gains.
Sir Thomas Gresham’s successful negotiations issued in so large an increase of his own wealth, that he purchased large estates in several counties, and bought Osterley Park, near Brentford, where he built a large mansion, in which he was accustomed to receive the visits of Elizabeth. Even here the ideas of the merchant were predominant. “The house,” says a writer of theperiod, “standeth in a parke, well wooded and garnished with many faire ponds, which affoorded not onely fish and fowle, as swannes and other water fowle, but also great use for milles, as paper milles, oyle milles, and corn milles.” On his retirement to Osterley, he transformed his residence in Bishopsgate Street into a “college,” for the abode of seven bachelor professors, who were to read lectures there on “divinity, law, physic, astronomy, geometry, music, and rhetoric,” and to have £50 each per year.
He was the richest commoner in England—such were what is usually termed “the substantial” rewards of his perseverance; while his name deserves lasting honour as the patron of learning, and the exemplar of merchant-beneficence. He left, by will, not only ample funds for continuing his “professorships,” but endowments for almshouses, and yearly sums for ten of the city prisons and hospitals.
James Lackington
The son of a journeyman shoemaker and of a weaver’s daughter, passed his early years amidst circumstances which must have enduringly impressed him with the miseries of vice and poverty. His father was a selfish and habitual drunkard, and his mother frequently worked nineteen or twenty hours out of the four-and-twenty to support her family. He was the eldest child of a numerous family, and was put two or three years to a dame’sschool; but was less intent on learning than on “getting on in the world,” even while a boy. He heard a pieman cry his wares, and soon proposed to a baker to sell pies for him; and so successful did young Lackington prove as a pie-vender, that he heard the baker declare, a twelvemonth after, that he had been the means of extricating him from embarrassment. A boyish prank put an end to this engagement; and when the baker wished to renew it Lackington’s father insisted on placing him at the stall. Again, however, his pedlar inclinations, which in after life led him to affluence, rescued him from the disagreeable treatment he expected to receive under his father’s rule. He heard a man cry almanacks in the street, and importuned his father till he obtained leave to start on the same itinerant enterprise. In this he succeeded so well that he deeply aggrieved the other venders, who, as he tells us in his very whimsical but interesting biography, would have “done him a mischiefhad he not possessed a light pair of heels.” Resolute on not continuing at home, he persuaded his father, at length, to bind him apprentice with a shoemaker in a neighbouring town, and at fourteen years of age sat down to learn his trade.
We will not follow this singular specimen of human nature, spoilt by want of education and by evil example, through all the vagaries of his youth. Taking him up at four-and-twenty, after he had experienced considerable changes in religious feeling, and gathered some smatterings of knowledge from reading, we find him marrying, and beginning the world the next morning with one halfpenny. Yet he and his wife set cheerfully to work, he tells us; and by great industry and self-denial, they not only earned a living, but paid off a debt of forty shillings, which was somewhat summarily claimed by a friend of whom he had borrowed that sum. Trials very soon fell to his lot which tended to make him deeply thoughtful. His wife was ill for six months; and, at the end of that period, he was compelled to remove her from Bristol to Taunton, for her health’s sake. During two years and a half the poor woman was removed five times to and from Taunton without permanent recovery; and Lackington, despairing of an amendment of his circumstances under such discouragements, resolved to leave his native district. He therefore gave his wife all the money he had, except what he thought would suffice to bring him to London; and, mounting a stage coach, reached town with but half-a-crown in his pocket. He got work the nextmorning, saved enough in a month to bring up his wife, and she had tolerable health, and obtained “binding work” from his employer.
Lackington was now fairly entered on the path to prosperity. His partner was a pattern of self-denial and economy; they began to save money, bought clothes, and then household furniture, left lodgings, and had a house of their own. A friend, not long after, proposed that Lackington should take a little shop and parlour, which were “to let” in Featherstone-street, City-road, and commence master shoemaker. Lackington agreed, but also formed the resolution to sell old books. With his own scanty collection, a bagful of old volumes he purchased for a guinea, and his scraps of leather, altogether worth about 5l., he accordingly commenced master tradesman. He soon sold off, and increased his stock of books; and next borrowed 5l.of John Wesley’s people—“a sum of money kept on purpose to lend out for three months, without interest, to such of their society whose characters were good, and who wanted temporary relief.” Much to his shame he traduces the character of the philanthropic Wesley and of his brother religionists, in his “Confessions,” even while acknowledging that this benevolent loan was “of great service” to him. He afterwards endeavoured to make theamende honorable, but the mode in which it was made was as unadmirable as his ungrateful offence. But, to return to his narrative.
“In our new situation,” says he, “we lived in a very frugal manner, often dining on potatoes, and quenchingour thirst with water, being determined, if possible, to make some provision for such dismal times as sickness and shortness of work, which had often been our lot, and might be again.” In six months he became worth five-and-twenty pounds in old book stock, removed into Chiswell-street, to a more commodious shop, though the street, he says, was then (in 1775) a dull street, gave up shoemaking, “turned his leather into books,” and soon began to have a great sale. Another series of reverses, during which his wife died, his shop was closed, while he himself was prostrate with fever, and was robbed by nurses, only served to sharpen his intents and strengthen his perseverance, when he recovered. His second marriage, with an intelligent woman, he found of immense advantage, since his new partner was a very efficient helpmate in the book-shop. Next, his friend Dennis became partaker in his business, and advanced a small capital, by which they “doubled stock,” and printed their first catalogue of 12,000 volumes. They took 20l.the first week, and Dennis then advanced 200l.more towards the trade; but, after two years, Lackington was left once more to himself, his friend being weary of the business. A resolution not to give credit gave him great difficulty, he says, for at least seven years, but he carried his plan at last, principally by selling at very small profits. His business premises were successively enlarged, and his sales likewise, until his trade and himself became wonders. At the age of fifty-two he went out of business, leaving his cousin head of the firm. He sold 100,000 volumes annually, during the latter yearsof his personal attention to trade, kept his carriage, purchased two estates, and built himself a genteel house. He once more became a professor of religion, on retiring from business, and built several chapels. He was, in the close of life, benevolent in visiting the sick and indigent, and in relieving the distressed.
“As the first king of Bohemia kept his country shoes by him to remind him from whence he was taken,” says the bookseller, in his “Confessions,” “so I have put a motto on the doors of my carriage, constantly to remind me to what I am indebted for my prosperity, viz. ‘Small profits do great things;’ and reflecting on the means by which I have been enabled to support a carriage, adds not a little to the pleasure of riding in it.” Alluding to the stories that were rife respecting his success, attributing it to his purchasing a “fortunate lottery-ticket,” or “finding bank-notes in an old book,” he says, very emphatically, “I found the whole that I am possessed of, in—small profits, bound byindustry, and clasped byeconomy.”