by but just looking upon what is offered or proposed, he sees as much at
first view as others do by long inquiry, and with the judgment of many
advisers.

When I am thus speaking of the tradesman's being capable of making
judgment of things, it occurs, with a force not to be resisted, that I
should add, he is hereby fenced against bubbles and projects, and
against those fatal people called projectors, who are, indeed, among
tradesmen, as birds of prey are among the innocent fowls--devourers and
destroyers. A tradesman cannot be too well armed, nor too much
cautioned, against those sort of people; they are constantly surrounded
with them, and are as much in jeopardy from them, as a man in a crowd is
of having his pocket picked--nay, almost as a man is when in a crowd of
pickpockets.

Nothing secures the tradesman against those men so well as his being
thoroughly knowing in business, having a judgment to weigh all the
delusive schemes and the fine promises of the wheedling projector, and
to see which are likely to answer, or which not; to examine all his
specious pretences, his calculations and figures, and see whether they
are as likely to answer the end as he takes upon him to say they will;
to make allowances for all his fine flourishes and outsides, and then to
judge for himself. A projector is to a tradesman a kind of incendiary;
he is in a constant plot to blow him up, or set fire to him; for
projects are generally as fatal to a tradesman as fire in a magazine of
gunpowder.

The honest tradesman is always in danger, and cannot be too wary; and
therefore to fortify his judgment, that he may be able to guard against
such people as these, is one of the most necessary things I can do for