COMMERCE has always been a risky venture, rife with variables and unknowns, a ship at the mercy of sudden and often-mysterious forces. From the outset of a tradesman's career, potential pitfalls yawned before him. How large a shop should he keep? How much stock, and of what quality, should fill its shelves? How much credit should be extended to buyers, and how much borrowing would be needed for start-up? Each of these questions, and all the others that went along with them, could determine the course of the fledgling business and the prosperity of its owner; each choice carried its own load of risk. Similar decisions confronted newly qualified professionals. Could clients of a neighbouring law practice be approached without endangering one's professional ties? Could a young physician afford to keep a coach? Could he afford not to? As Margaret Hunt argues, the middle classes faced probably the highest financial risks of any group in eighteenth-century England, owning no mortgageable land yet responsible for managing and increasing their personal- and businessbased credit.

With ruin always a possibility for the merchant and professional classes, its members sought security from the debtor's prison in reputations for honesty and hard work, including a thorough knowledge of the market and one's place within it. Those who earned such reputations attracted investors, and in lean times were able to get cash loans, which were often crucial to surviving short-term crises. To contemporaries, undue risk was a major cause of business failure in the eighteenth century; over-extending oneself was often the last mistake a businessman got the chance to make. Writers of the period urged merchants to strive for profit while staying on the safe side of investment: security was the watchword, comfortable gains the goal. The very virtues that kept businesses afloat were the ones coalescing into what are today called middleclass values: integrity, attention to detail, a relentless work ethic.