376 Tradesman and Merchant — Commercial Population 



reeve by homage — did a large business in lead ore and smelted lead.'- 

 Many other examples might be cited. The fact that any one who 

 chanced to have capital under his control, given the least opportunity, 

 invariably made mercantile use of it indicates how important a factor 

 capital was to early business when credit facilities were meager. 



Commercial Credit. Men of trade and commerce who lacked gold 

 and silver resorted to and developed credit. With minor exceptions 

 the great system of modern credit in the business life of the English 

 people arose in the century before 1760. International exchange, 

 book-credit, promissory notes and a few other representatives of 

 credit had a meager use before 1650, but the real age of credit was 

 inducted by the goldsmith banker during the Civil War and the 

 Puritan regime. 



Book-credit was the simplest, earliest, and most general form of 

 credit. Nearly every seller was likely to grant credit of this kind 

 occasionally or customarily to buyers. Traders bought on time 

 rather than borrow money directly at interest; in fact the two prac- 

 tices were alike, except that book-credit usually drew a higher but 

 implicit rate of interest,- double or more. Shopkeepers and larger 

 tradesmen and merchants carried running accounts with one another 

 and with their customers. The clothier was a considerable giver and 

 taker of this sort of credit. He bought his materials on time and 

 allowed the cloth merchant or draper time. In 1745 an ordinary 

 clothier was generally owing £4000 or £5000 in debt.^ 



Loans attested by promissory notes were faciUtated in two respects 

 about 1700. Greater security was provided by the introduction of 

 fire-insurance.^ It at once became the practice to refuse to lend money 

 upon houses unless they were first insured; by 1723 it was said that 

 not one in a hundred would lend otherwise.^ A means of greater 

 security was also procured by the initiation of a system of public 

 registry of deeds, mortgages, and conveyances.^ The country gentle- 



' V. C. H., Somers, II, 377. 



2 North, Discourse on Trade, 7. 



' Defoe, Com. Eng. Tr., I, 272. See chapter on Textiles and Textiles Materials. 



* After the Great Fire there was much talk of fire insurance. London started 

 municipal insurance against fire in 1680. In the last decades of the century- joint 

 stock and mutual insurance arose. See Sharp, London, II, 425-6; Defoe, Projects, 

 78. 



*Hatton, Comes, 300. 



6 In 1702, for West Riding, 2-3 .\ime. Cap. 4; 1708, for East Riding, 6 Anne, 

 Cap. 25; 1709, for Middlesex, 8 Anne, Cap. 12; and 1735 for North Riding, 8 Geo. 

 II, Cap. 6. 



