ABSTRACT
As already noted in the previous chapter, when Defoe wrote his advice to a young tradesman, he suggested he regard 'his customers as idols; so far as he may worship idols by allowance, he is to bow down and worship'. Although Defoe did not make the connection explicit, one of the so-called allowances the tradesman would have to offer was credit. Selling for cash alone was virtually impossible and 'the tradesman that trades wholly thus, is not yet born, or if there ever were any such, they are all dead'. However, despite the assumption that sale through credit was inevitable, Defoe was quick to point to the dangers, warning that 'He that takes credit may give credit, but he must be exceedingly watchful, for it is the most dangerous state of life that a man can live in' .2 Defoe seems in his advice to agree with a commonly held view today that credit is a facility offered solely for the benefit of the consumer and he never discussed its positive advantages for the tradesman. Yet the benefits were real. The offer of credit not only facilitated sale, it also helped to create a bond between buyer and seller, tying the one to the other. On a more mundane level it enabled the tradesman to hold a smaller reserve of cash in the shop.
