PREFACE
sheets, that they contain all the directions needful to make the
tradesman thrive; and if he pleases to listen to them with a temper of
mind willing to be directed, he must have some uncommon ill luck if he
miscarries.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] [October 22, 1707.--Admiral Shovel, with the confederate fleet from
the Mediterranean, as he was coming home, apprehended himself near the
rocks of Scilly about noon, and the weather being hazy, he brought to
and lay by till evening, when he made a signal for sailing. What induced
him to be more cautious in the day than in the night is not known; but
the fleet had not been long under sail before his own ship, the
Association, with the Eagle and Romney, were dashed to pieces upon
the rocks called the Bishop and his Clerks, and all their men lost;
the Ferdinand was also cast away, and but twenty-four of her men
saved. Admiral Byng, perceiving the misfortune, altered his course,
whereby he preserved himself and the rest of the fleet which sailed
after him.--Salmon's Chronological Historian. London, 1723.]
[2] [There is much reason for receiving all such complaints as the above
with caution. The extravagance of the present, in contrast with the
frugality of a past age, has always been a favourite topic of
declamation, and appears to have no other foundation than whim. Indeed,
it is next to impossible that any great body of men could exist in the
circumstances described in the text.]
[3] [Stock is in this book invariably used for what we express by the
term capital.]
[4] [Cicero is here given by mistake for Seneca, who thus suffered death
by order of the tyrant Nero.]