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The ROYAL EXCHANGE The Spectator Saturday "Trade, without
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| “There is no place in the town which I so much
love to frequent as the Royal Exchange. It gives
me a secret satisfaction and in some measure gratifies my
vanity, as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an assembly
of countrymen and foreigners consulting together upon the
private business of mankind, and making this metropolis a
kind of emporium for the whole earth. I must
confess I look upon High Change to be a great council, in
which all considerable nations have their
representatives. Factors in the trading world are what
ambassadors are in the politic world; they negotiate
affairs, conclude treaties, and maintain a good
correspondence between those wealthy societies of men
that are divided from one another by seas and oceans, or
live on the different extremities of a continent. I have
often been pleased to hear disputes adjusted between an
inhabitant of Japan and an Alderman in London, or to see
a subject of the Great Mogul entering into a league with
one of the Czar of Muscovy. I am infinitely delighted in
mixing with these several ministers of commerce, as they
are distinguished by their different walks and different
languages. Sometimes I am jostled among a body of
Armenians; sometimes I am lost in a crowd of Jews; and
sometimes make one in a group of Dutchmen. I am a Dane,
Swede, or Frenchman at different times; or rather fancy
myself like the old philosopher, who upon being asked
what countryman he was, replied, he was a citizen
of the world. (….) If we consider our own country in its natural prospect, without any of the benefits and advantages of commerce, what a barren, uncomfortable spot of earth falls to our share! (…) Our ships are laden with the fruits of every climate; our tables are stored with spices and oils and wines; our rooms are filled with Pyramids of China and adorned with the workmanship of Japan; our morning’s draught comes to us from all the remotest corners of the earth; we repair our bodies with the drugs from America and repose ourselves under Indian canopies. (…) For these reasons, there are not more useful members in the Commonwealth than merchants.They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of nature, find work for the poor, add wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great. Our English merchant converts the tin of his own country into gold, and exchanges its goods for rubies. The Mahometans are clothed in our British manufacture, and the inhabitants of the frozen zone warmed with the fleeces of our sheep. Trade, without enlarging the British territories, has given us a kind of additional empire." |
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The Spectator (1711 -1712) 