Let us state this case as clearly as we can, and see how it stands as to the morality of it, for that is the point in debate.
The credit usually given by one tradesman to another, as particularly by the merchant to the wholesale-man, and by the wholesale-man to the retailer, is such, that, without tying the buyer up to a particular day of payment, they go on buying and selling, and the buyer pays money upon account, as his convenience admits, and as the seller is content to take it.

This occasions the merchant, or the wholesale-man, to go about, as they call it, _a-dunning_ among their dealers, and which is generally the work of every Saturday.

When the merchant comes to his customer the wholesale-man, or warehouse-keeper, for money, he tells him, 'I have no money, Sir; I cannot pay you now; if you call next week, I will pay you.' Next week comes, and the merchant calls again; but it is the same thing, only the warehouseman adds, 'Well, I will pay you next week, _without fail.'_ When the week comes, he tells him he has met with great disappointments, and he knows not what to do, but desires his patience another week: and when the other week comes, perhaps he pays him, and so they go on.
Now, what is to be said for this?
In the first place, let us look back to the occasion.

This warehouse-keeper, or wholesale-man, sells the goods which he buys of the merchant--I say, he sells them to the retailers, and it is for that reason I place it first there.

Now, as they buy in smaller quantities than he did of the merchant, so he deals with more of them in number, and he goes about among them the same Saturday, to get in money that he may pay his merchant, and he receives his bag full of promises, too, every where instead of money, and is put off from week to week, perhaps by fifty shopkeepers in a day; and their serving him thus obliges him to do the same to the merchant.
Again, come to the merchant.