1. This was probably true in Elizabethan London. Rappaport (1984) pp. 115-23 shows that about half of all masters opened their first shops more than 18 months after freedom and that the average delay was three years. His data also indicate that nearly half of all freemen eventually became continue

      masters. Such figures suggest that many masters were financing themselves at least partly by saving wages.

2. Young merchants could built up capital from commissions earned abroad (see p. 35). Some young men also received salaries or commissions as managers or factors in domestic businesses and these earnings were likely to be far higher than those of a book-keeper.

3. Campbell (1747) pp. 337ff; Collyer (1761) passim.

4. Campbell (1747) p. 64.

5. S.113; PRO C 105/5, Herne v. Barber. Letters from John to James Hudson dated 2 February 1732 and 25 February 1733.

6. 90 out of 275 whose age at marriage is known married at these ages and another 33 married under 24. See pp. 180-5 for a general discussion of age at marriage—the median for the whole sample was 27.

7. GLRO DL/C/247 fos 149-50 (Tarry); for examples of apprentices marrying their masters' daughters, see note 31 of Chapter 7 below.

8.Jordan (1960) pp. 68, 172-7; James (1948) pp. 158-9; Johnson (1922) iv, 323, shows that the Drapers' Company lent 42 legacy parcels to young men in 1687-8, a total of £6900 or about £165 per man. Other examples include the Grocers, who had 30 different legacies totalling £3660 lent out to 81 people in 1635-6 (average £45) (GHMS 11732), and the Fishmongers, who had 35 legacies totalling £2755 lent out to 77 men in 1690 (average £36) (GHMS 6248).

9. Defoe (1726-7) i, 258-74; 34 of the sample were in partnerships and 341 were not, as far as one can tell from the inventories. In analysing the bankruptcy data for 1711-15, lower percentages of partners were found, 8.8 per cent of creditors and 5.8 per cent of debtors. The commonest occupations amongst these 110 partnerships were merchants (32), linen-drapers (19), haberdashers (7), warehousemen (6), mercers (5) woollen-drapers (5), silkmen (4). PRO B4/1-2. For the analysis of this data, see Appendix C, p. 409. These figures understate the proportion of partnerships, since on occasion individuals both sued and were sued without reference to their partnerships, so that the 10 per cent derived from the sample is probably fairly accurate.

10. Defoe (1726-7) i, 312-15; Marshall (1974) pp. 89-90; Barbon (1690) pp. 27-8; cf. William Petty, who stated that traders should not rise 'into debt above halfe the stocke they set up with' (quoted by Hoppit (1986) (2) p. 66).

11. North (1890) i, 53. The story relates to the 1660s.

12. Defoe (1726-7) i, 345-6, quoted by Yamey (1949) p. 104.

13. Review vi, 129-32; cf. iii, 21-7, 33-5; v, 519-20; Defoe (1726-7) i, 412-13; Defoe (1729) p. 19.

14. S.25.

15. Brown (1760) iv, 156; PRO C108/30, letter dated 4 November 1763; Knatchbull quoted by Federer (1980) p. 10; GHMS 205/2; PRO C108/353, Greening v. Greening, Thomas Greening to his father, 19 February 1740.

16. GHMS 11892A, Mitford to George Mallabar, 1 February 1704. As an example of slow payment, one might take the group of Board of Works continue

      tradesmen, who in 1719 claimed to be owed about £40,000 for work performed in George I's reign (from 1714), £20,294 from Queen Anne's reign (1702-14) and £54,910 from the reign of William III (1689-1702). Quoted in Federer (1980) p. 8.

17. Defoe (1726-7) i, 433-4; price quotations from GHMS 11892A, 19017/1, PRO C105/5, C104/44; CJ xxv, 46; see also Price (1980) pp. 97, 100, 108-9 for discounts of 6 and 10 per cent per annum granted to merchants in the later eighteenth century who paid in advance of the time for which they had been given credit.

18. The extent of liabilities and the range of their proportion to assets (from 0 to well over 100 per cent), together with fact that virtually all occupations can be found amongst those with both high and low liabilities, suggest that attempts to deduce net wealth from probate inventories, which only very rarely list liabilities, must be very suspect.

19. Most of the sub-groups of assets distinguished in Table 4.6 are simple enough to identify in inventories. The main problem lies in the distinction between 'trade credit' and 'personal loans'. Loans made on real security, such as pawns or mortgages, are easy to identify but those made on personal security can easily be confused with normal trade credit. To get round this problem, an assumption has been made. All debts owing to the deceased in round figures and secured by bond or other formal instrument (or round figures plus interest at the normal rate of 6 per cent) have been identified as loans and all other debts have been treated as trade credit. In most cases, this is realistic enough. Many lists of debts start with figures such as £500, £100, £103, £101 10s., £50, £53 etc., all secured by bonds, and then continue with non-rounded and unsecured figures. But, in some cases, there is ambiguity and one must accept that there is a measure of uncertainty in the distinction between the two types of debt. However, the distinction is worth trying to make, especially for the analysis of investment in the next chapter.

20. S. 126 and S.303. The value of equipment cannot always be distinguished from stock in trade but other largish valuations were two printers with £388 and £400 and a sugar refiner with about £300 (S.37, 66, 355). Valuations of such items do, however, pose a problem since they are likely to be old and may well be valued at 'scrap' prices, while stock-in-trade was normally fairly new and would be valued at wholesale prices.

21. In the 81 inventories which give this information, the median proportion of doubtful and desperate debts to all debts was 31 per cent. These figures are likely to exaggerate bad debts since the really good debts might well have been called in before the inventory was drawn up. The mercers, Alexander and Bostock, had cumulated bad debts equal to 13 per cent of all debts in 1714 and 10 per cent in 1721, figures which may better represent a general pattern (PRO C110/43). Carlton (1974) p. 44 makes the point that, by setting down good debts as doubtful debts, executors were in a position to cheat legatees entitled to a fixed proportion of the estate, especially children.

22. Vanderlint (1734) p. 142. break

23. Some good examples of such letters can be found in the letter-book of a London tailor, PRO C108/30.

24. Vernon (1678) p. 184. On the custom of London relating to 'foreign attachment' see Laws (1765) pp. 113 ff.

25. CJ xlvii, 645. See Innes (1983) pp. 251-61 for a clear summary of the legal process for collecting debts in the late eighteenth century, which was very much the same as in our period. See also Francis (1986), who, in a very detailed study, emphasizes the attractiveness of common law litigation for the creditor. So long as the creditor could prove the debt, he had a very high probability of complete recovery, whilst the convicted debtor had to pay all costs, making debt collection through the courts a very cheap operation. The very predictability of the legal process provided the creditor with the means effectively to threaten the debtor by the issue of a writ and the pre-trial process. He concludes (p. 905) that 'the promotion of strict, objective attitudes towards debtor performance displaced more lenient social attitudes towards debtors', one more instance of the increasingly capitalist world portrayed in this book. See also Francis (1983) for the development of a more 'certain' contract law in the seventeenth century, a development which he sees as a result of a mutual interest between common lawyers seeking maximum income and businessmen seeking maximum certainty in recovering their debts. My thanks to Henry Horwitz for these two references.

26. Numbers would depend on whether there had recently been an Act to clear the gaols of poor prisoners. In 1791, there were 1957 prisoners for debt in English gaols, of whom 1251 were on mesne process (i.e. awaiting trial), 570 in the King's Bench and 260 in the Fleet Prison, the two main debtors' prisons in London. There would probably have been at least as many in our period since, despite the smaller population, the prisons were cleared less frequently and charitable organizations to free poor prisoners were not so prominent. Defoe claimed that there were 5000 prisoners for debt, but this is almost certainly an exaggeration. CJ xlvii, 646; Review iii, 90; v, 579-83; for a summary of Defoe's views on imprisonment for debt, see Owens & Furbank (1986).

27. Parliamentary History viii, 711 , 723.

28. Defoe (1729) pp. 17-21.

29. Vernon (1678) pp. 183-4; CSPD 1675-6, p. 86; CJ xiii, 36b, 92, 126, 414; and for an excellent general discussion of Courts of Conscience, see Winder (1936).

30. Vernon (1678) pp. 173-7.

31. On private compositions, see Vernon (1678) pp. 167-72; Defoe (1726-7) i, 204-24; Philips (1731) pp. 8-9. All lay writers stress the advantages of compositions over formal bankruptcies.

32. Vernon (1678) pp. 185-6; for a clear summary of the laws of bankruptcy, see Duffy (1980). See also Holdsworth (1903-72) viii, 229-45; xi, 445-6; W. R. Jones (1979). The standard contemporary textbook was Goodinge (1713). Only 'traders' could become bankrupt, a rather vague description which covers virtually everyone who is the subject of this book except such professionals as doctors and lawyers and some people in artisan continue

      trades. Gentlemen could not become bankrupts, unless they were also traders, and therefore could only be sued on a first come first served basis for insolvency, though it was of course open to their creditors to agree to a private composition.

33. Essay (1707) p. iv; for a spirited defence of the new laws, see Defoe (1706). The Acts are 4, 5 Anne c.17 and 6 Anne c.22. Further small changes in the law were embodied in a codifying Act of 1732 (5 Geo. II c.30) which fixed the law until the end of the eighteenth century. Quotation from Review vi, 551.

34. Defoe (1726-7) i, 84; Essay (1707) p. 2.

35. Hoppit (1986) (1) pp. 45-7 and W. R. Jones (1979) p. 5 for overall rates of bankruptcy; numbers of cheesemongers (411) and taverns (447) from Maitland (1739) p. 531; for the number of apothecaries, see Ch. 2, note 140, above; numbers of bankrupts from PRO B4/1-2, the tavern-keepers were described as vintners. Other high numbers of bankrupts relative to likely total numbers include merchants (133), mercers (27), linen-drapers (26), brewers (14), dyers (13) and shipwrights (7). Other vulnerable businesses were probably normally too small to merit a commission of bankruptcy. There were, for instance, only 11 distillers, 9 haberdashers and 18 victuallers amongst the bankrupts in these years, while the building industry, often cited as very prone to bankruptcy, hardly shows up at all, just 8 carpenters and 1 bricklayer.

36. See the rough calculation of the numbers of middle station households on p. 80-1. The 20 years is calculated on the basis that most careers started at about 25 and the average age at death of the sample was 45.

37. Barbon (1690) p. 2.

38. For an example of a man who had adopted this strategy, see S.39, Moses Ingram. He had zero liabilities and his capital was invested in 11 loans secured by bonds and some tenements in Leadenhall Street. There are many others in the sample. Older men tended progressively to shift their capital into this sort of investment portfolio.

39. Defoe (1726-7) i, 75-6; PRO C108/284.

40. Marshall (1974) pp. 95-6; GHMS 18760/1, Boughey to Dr Humphrey Babington, 9 March 1675.

41. Matthews (1906) pp. 22-3. The maximum rate was lowered to 5 per cent in 1714. Very secure borrowers like the East India Company could borrow well below the maximum, but most of the bonds held by men in our sample carried interest at the maximum.

42. Ashton (1959) pp. 86-7; CLRO MCI 375; Orchard & May (1933) pp. 35-7; Sybil Campbell (1933); Price (1980) p. 60.

43. Goodinge (1713) p. A3; Defoe (1726-7) i, p. viii.

44. On renting and leasing shops and houses, see pp. 207-9. Price (1980) p. 100 gives an example of a merchant in the 1770s borrowing on bond at 5 per cent to earn discounts of 10 per cent for early payment. This must have been very common. Federer (1980); PRO C108/353, Greening v. Greening.

45. Barbon (1690) p. 19; Defoe (1726-7) ii, 133-4.

46. PRO C 107/140, Ashton v. Harbin. The wharfingers provide another continue

      example. These were the men who ran the 19 'legal quays' between London Bridge and the Tower where all overseas trade had to be unloaded. For much of our period, the wharfingers combined in 'an offensive and illegal monopoly', as their opponents termed it, sharing the profits from the wharves pro rata of their investment (PRO C110/181, Smith v. Ashton; The Case of the Wharfingers (1704)). In general on the wharfingers, see Chartres (1980) and for the copperas industry, see Bettey (1982). On the Virginia merchants, see Olson (1983).

47. Case (1711) (1); Case (n.d.) (1); PRO C108/132, undated but probably 1720s.

48. PRO C 114/56 pt 2 (Palmer); GHMS 15892A (Mitford).

49. For examples of correspondence in wholesale trades, see PRO C108/132 (letters to Henry Gambier, tea and china dealer), C105/15 (letters to James Hudson, mainly a linen trader but also hats, butter and a host of other things). See Margaret Evans (1977) for the wholesale apothecaries Estwick & Coningsby, nearly all of whose provincial correspondents were kin or inlaws of one or other of the partners, a fact which determined the regional concentration of their business. Nearly all James Hudson's English business was with his native north country and his brother was his chief correspondent and all his correspondents were brother Quakers (PRO C 105/15, Herne v. Barber). Inventories which give addresses of debtors also often demonstrate a regional concentration (e.g. S.171, Peter Short, whose wholesale haberdashery business was concentrated in the east Midlands and Yorkshire). A hint of regional concentration can also often be seen in the addresses of the debtors of those London wholesalers who sued more than one provincial bankrupt. The salter Thomas Constable sued three bankrupts in the period 1711-15, one each in Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge and Norwich; the mercers Lane & Harrison sued three mercers in Frome, Wellington (Somerset) and Devizes, while the two mercers sued by Shewell & Allen lived in Staffordshire and Shropshire. One should not exaggerate such concentration, however, since such easy patterns do not emerge in every case. PRO B4/1-2. For the analysis of these docket-books, see Appendix C, p. 409.

50. These examples are all from the correspondence of James Hudson in PRO C 105/15, Herne v. Barber, letters of 10 October 1731, 2 February 1732 & 19 April 1733 from his brotherJohn and a letter of 18 March 1732 from Anthony Wilson. For a book on the influence of seasonability generally, see E. L. Jones (1964).

51. PRO C105/15, Herne v. Barber, John to James Hudson, 2 February 1732.

52. On the history of negotiable instruments, see, in particular, Holden (1951) and Holden (1955). Promissory notes, which had formerly been known as 'writings obligatory' or 'bills of debt', were simply writings in some such form as 'I promise to pay A or order so much at such and such a time for value received'. They had no standing at law in the early seventeenth century but were indorsable and negotiable by the end. The inland or foreign bill was similar to a post-dated cheque. 'Pay A or order so continue

      much at such and such a time and place to my account.' Although principally a method of remitting money, the bill incorporated credit till the due date and, in foreign bills, a speculation in the movement of exchange rates since the sum mentioned would be worth more or less in other currencies by the time the bill was presented. There were normally four names on a bill, the 'drawer', who instructed the 'drawee' to pay the 'payee', and the 'deliverer' who had given value to the 'drawer' in the first place. 'Drawer' and 'drawee' and 'deliverer' and 'payee' were often two sets of business associates. Indorsement simply meant that the 'payee' wrote on the back of the bill or note, 'Pay the contents on the other side to B', thus making it negotiable. The legal problem had been to determine just what rights B had, since his name did not appear on the original bill. Normal practice was for the drawer to advise the drawee by letter that he had drawn the bill. The drawee then 'accepted' it and made payment at the due date. If the drawee refused to pay an accepted bill, he was liable in law. If he refused to accept the bill (perhaps because he had been given no advice or because the drawer had made no prior arrangements), then the payee could sue the drawer for the money.

53. On the butchers and graziers, see M. G. Davies (1971), who discusses the dominant role assumed by Smithfield as a source of cash in London for the country gentry who used their rents to buy claims to funds in London. In the late seventeenth century, simple instructions in the form of a letter were being replaced by bills and non-commercial people had to be carefully instructed in the conventions surrounding the use of bills. For some nice examples, see the correspondence of the merchant Thomas Boughey with Dr Humphrey Babington of Trinity College, Cambridge (GHMS 18760/1, letters of 9 & 16 March 1675). For Compigne and Gambier, see a mass of letters in C 108/132. The quotation is dated Winton, 29 June 1730.

54.Yamey (1969) pp. 109-10.

55. GLRO DL/C/245 fos 79-80, 349-58; /247 fos 149-50.

56. Grassby (1969) pp. 728-9.

57. Grassby (1969) p. 733 and see pp. 728-36 for examples of profits from our period; Barbon (1690) p. 32.

58. PRO C110/185, Unwin v. Unwin; C110/43, Alexander & Bostock; C103/160, Burgess & Taylor; C110/167, Herne v. Humphreys; C110/179, Staunton & Thorne.

59. CJ xxv, 46-7; purchase of food was obviously income inelastic; so was the purchase of more durable domestic goods, as is shown on pp. 120-1, 291.

60. Marshall (1920) p. 228.

61. Grassby (1969) p. 734; see also pp. 728, 732; North (1890) ii, 409-10; for rates of interest on loans in Syria, see the account book kept by Thomas Palmer as a young factor in Aleppo, PRO C114/56 pt 2; on marriage contracts and dowries, see pp. 194-8.

62. For mortality, see pp. 306-9 and see Earle (1986) pp. 55-63 for a development of this argument about the effects of mortality on accumulation. For the growing tendency for sons to follow their fathers into business, see N. Rogers (1979) and Horwitz (1987) (1). break