great foreign _negoce_ [_negotium_ (Latin) business], and who, by their
corresponding with all parts of the world, import the growth of all
countries hither--I say, besides these, we have a very great number of
considerable dealers, whom we call tradesmen, who are properly called
warehouse-keepers, who supply the merchants with all the several kinds
of manufactures, and other goods of the produce of England, for
exportation; and also others who are called wholesalemen, who buy and
take off from the merchants all the foreign goods which they import;
these, by their corresponding with a like sort of tradesmen in the
country, convey and hand forward those goods, and our own also, among
those country tradesmen, into every corner of the kingdom, however
remote, and by them to the retailers, and by the retailer to the last
consumer, which is the last article of all trade. These are the
tradesmen understood in this work, and for whose service these sheets
are made public.

Having thus described the person whom I understand by the English
tradesman, it is then needful to inquire into his qualifications, and
what it is that renders him a finished or complete man in his business.

1. That he has a general knowledge of not his own particular trade and
business only--that part, indeed, well denominates a handicraftsman to
be a complete artist; but our complete tradesman ought to understand all
the inland trade of England, so as to be able to turn his hand to any
thing, or deal in any thing or every thing of the growth and product of
his own country, or the manufacture of the people, as his circumstances
in trade or other occasions may require; and may, if he sees occasion,
lay down one trade and take up another when he pleases, without serving
a new apprenticeship to learn it.