He would rather at any time relinquish something of his lawful rights, than engage in an irritating dispute. He would rather be the object than the agent in a dishonorable or fraudulent transaction. When one told old Bishop Latimer that the cutler had cozened him in making him pay two pence for a knife not worth a penny, "No," said Latimer, "he cozened not me, but his own conscience." The good merchant is not in haste to be rich, observing that they who are so are apt to "fall into temptation and a snare," and often make shipwreck of their honor and virtue. He pursues commerce as his chosen calling, his regular employment. He expects to continue in it long, perhaps all his days, and is therefore content to make small profits and accumulate slowly. When he first entered into business, he was determined not to be a drudge, nor be chained to the desk like a galley-slave, nor make his counting-room his home. He recollects that he is not merely a merchant, but a man; and that he has a mind to improve, a heart to cultivate, and a character to form. He is therefore resolved to have time to develop and store his intellect, to exercise his social affections, and to enjoy in moderation the innocent and rational pleasures of life. He accordingly sets apart and consecrates a portion of his time, his evenings at least, to be spent at home, in the bosom of his family. He will not, on any account, deny himself this relaxation; he will not, for any consideration, rob himself of this source of improvement and happiness. He is willing, if need be, to labor more years in order to obtain the desired amount of wealth, provided he can improve himself in the mean time, and enjoy life as he goes along. The good merchant, though an enterprising man, and willing to run some risks, knowing this to be essential to success in commercial adventure, yet is not willing to risk every thing, nor put all on the hazard of a single throw. He feels that he has no right to do this-that it is morally wrong thus to put in jeopardy his own peace and the comfort and prospects of his family. Of course he engages in no wild and visionary schemes, the results of which are altogether uncertain, being based upon unreasonable expectations and improbable suppositions. He is particularly careful to embark in no speculation out of his regular line of business, and with the details of which he is not familiar. He is aware, that although he knows all about the cost of a ship, and can determine the quality and estimate the value of a bale of cotton, he is not a good judge of the worth of wild lands, having had no experience therein. Accordingly, he will have nothing to do with any bargains of this sort, however promising they may appear. He will not take a leap in the dark, nor purchase upon the representations of others, who may be interested in the sale; fearing lest what is described to him as a well-timbered township may turn out to be a barren waste, and what appears, on paper, a level and well-watered district, may be found, on inspection, a steep and stony mountain, of no value. whatever. He therefore deems it safest for him to keep clear of these grand speculations, and to attend, quietly and regularly, to his own business. Above all, he makes it a matter of conscience not to risk in hazardous enterprises the property of others entrusted to his keeping. The good merchant, having thus acquired a competency, and perhaps amassed a fortune, is liberal in dispensing his wealth. At the outset, he is careful to indulge in no extravagance, and to live within his means, the neglect of which precaution he finds involves so many in failure and ruin. Simple in his manners, and unostentatious in his habits of life, he abstains from all frivolous and foolish expenditures. At the same time, he is not niggardly or mean. On the contrary, he is liberal in the whole arrangement of his household, where every thing is for use and comfort, and nothing for ostentation and display. Whatever will contribute to the improvement and welfare of his family, or whatever will gratify their innocent tastes, be it books, or engravings, or pictures, he obtains, if within his means, though it cost much; knowing that at the same time he may foster the genius and reward the labors of our native authors and artists, an estimable class of men, whose works reflect honor upon their country, and who consequently merit the patronage of the community. But whatever is intended for mere parade and vain show, he will have none of, though it cost nothing. He thinks it wise and good economy to spend a great deal of money, if he can afford it, to render home attractive, and to make his children wise, virtuous, and happy. Above all, he never grudges what is paid to the faithful schoolmaster for their intellectual and moral training;. for a good education he deems above all price. Having thus liberally provided for all the wants of his household, the good merchant remembers and cares for all who are related to him, and who may in any way stand in need of his aid. And this aid is adminis tered in the most kind and delicate manner. He does not wait to be solicited; he will not stop to be thanked. He anticipates their wishes, and by a secret and silent bounty removes the painful sense of dependence and obligation. He feels it a pleasure, as well as a duty, to help them; he claims it as his privilege to do good unto his brethren. He would feel ashamed to have his needy relatives relieved by public charity or private alms. But our good merchant feels that he has duties, not only to his immediate relatives and friends, but to a larger family, the community in which he lives. He is deeply interested in its virtue and happiness, and feels bound to contribute his full share to the establishment and support of all good institutions, particularly the institutions of learning, humanity, and religion. He is led to this by the expansive and liberalizing spirit of his calling. It is, unfortunately, the tendency of some occupations to narrow the mind and contract the heart. The mere division of labor, incident to, and inseparable from, many mechanical and manufacturing pursuits, though important and beneficial in other respects, yet serves to cramp and dwarf the intellect. The man who spends all his days in making the heads of pins, thinks of nothing else, and is fit for nothing else. Commercial pursuits, on the other hand, being so various, extensive, and complicate, tend to enlarge the mind, and banish narrow and selfish feelings. The merchant looks abroad over the world, puts a girdle round the earth, has communications with all climes and all nations, and is thus led to take large and liberal views of all things. The wealth which he has acquired easily and rapidly, he is consequently disposed to spend freely and munificently. It has been beautifully said of Roscoe, the distinguished Liverpool merchant, "Wherever you go, you perceive traces of his footsteps in all that is elegant and liberal. He found the tide of wealth flowing merely in the channels of traffic; he has diverted from it invigorating rills to refresh the gardens of literature. The noble institutions for literary and scientific purposes, which reflect such credit on that city, have mostly been originated, and have all been effectually promoted by him." In like manner, our good merchant encourages learning, and patronizes learned men. He is particularly liberal in endowing the higher seats of education, whence flow the streams that make glad the cities and churches of our God. The good merchant is, likewise, a munificent benefactor to all institutions which have for their object the alleviation of human wretchedness, and the cure of the thousand ills which flesh is heir to. He lends, too, a substantial support to the institutions of religion. He feels the need of them himself, and he understands their unspeakable importance to the peace, good order, and virtue of society. He thinks that he sleeps sounder, and that his property is more secure, in a community where the sanctions of religion are superadded to the penalties of the law; where the stated inculcation of religious principles and sentiments diffuses a healthy moral atmosphere, which, though unseen, presses, like the weight of the surrounding air, upon every part of the body politic, and keeps it in its place. Accordingly, he contributes cheerfully and liberally to the support of public worship, and moreover, as Fuller says of the good parishioner, "he is bountiful in contributing to the repair of God's house, conceiving it fitting that such sacred places should be handsomely and decently maintained." Such we conceive to be the character of the good merchant. It may, perhaps, be thought by some, that the character is a visionary one; and that, amidst the competitions of trade, the temptations to unlawful gain, the eager desire of accumulating, and the natural unwillingness to part with what has been acquired with much labor and pains, there can be no place for the high-minded and generous virtues which we have described. We might have thought so too, if we had never seen them exhibited in actual life. The portrait which we have attempted to draw is not a fancy sketch, but a transcript from nature and reality. WILLIAM PARSONS was born at Byfield, Massachusetts, on the 6th of August, 1755. He was the son of the Reverend Moses Parsons, the clergyman of that town, and was one of eight children, three daughters and five sons, among the latter of whom was the late distinguished chief justice of Massachusetts. After receiving a good education at Dummer Academy, he became an apprentice to an elder brother who was engaged in trade at Gloucester. Before coming of age, however, he entered upon the hard and perilous life of a sailor, which he pursued for five years, having the command of a vessel, and making many successful voyages. Like many other of our rich merchants, who were the architects of their own fortune, he took his first lessons in industry and enterprise amidst the hardships, privations, and dangers of a sea life; than which, there is no better school for the development and exercise of intellectual and moral energy. In 1780, at the age of twenty-five, Mr. Parsons quitted the sea, and married the lady who, for forty-seven years, by her congenial spirit and the similarity of her views, by sympathizing in all his benevolent feelings, and co-operating in all his plans and deeds of charity, contributed so much to make his life tranquil and his home happy. In the same year he entered into business, and removed to Boston, where he remained till his death, a period of fifty-seven years, actively engaged to the last in commerce and navigation, having, at the time of his demise, one vessel upon the ocean, and dying, at the age of eighty-one, the oldest merchant and ship-owner in Boston. The prominent traits in the character of Mr. Parsons, were his unbending integrity, his uncompromising adherence to truth and right, his conscientious regard for duty, his entire freedom from selfishness, and his tender and comprehensive benevolence. These qualities shed a daily beauty on his life, and spread a sacred fragrance over his memory. In the mercantile community, no one stood higher than Mr. Parsons; -his very name was synonymous with integrity. In all his transactions he was systematic, exact, high-minded, honorable. By a regular, yet not slavish attention to business, he amassed a handsome fortune, which would have been much larger, had he made business the sole end of life, or had he not distributed his wealth, as he went along, with such a free and liberal hand. His losses, which at times were great, never disturbed his singular equanimity; he regretted them only as curtailing his means of doing good. To his honor it should be mentioned, that he never had a dispute with the numerous mechanics and laborers whom he employed. He might sometimes, indeed, think himself wronged, and perhaps say so; but yet he would pay the bill, and leave the man to settle the matter with his own conscience. The wealth he had thus honorably acquired, he spent in the most generous manner. He had an open heart and an open hand. Considering his first duty to be to his own family and relatives, he gathered them under his wing, and overshadowed them with his love. His house was like a patriarch's tent, or the gathering-place of a tribe. He was a sort of universal providence, remembering the forgotten, and attending the neglected. The absent were not out of his mind, nor the distant beyond the reach of his care. But his good feelings and charities were not confined within this circle, large though it was. The destitute, the sick, the afflicted, resorted to him for aid and solace, and never applied in vain. "His secret bounty largely flowed, And brought unask'd relief." Was any new charity contemplated, any humane object set on foot in the city, Mr. Parsons was one of the first to be applied to, to give it the sanction of his approval and the encouragement of his purse. And such applications, frequent though they were, he always attended to most cheerfully, and responded to most liberally, deeming it a favor that the opportunity was affored him of doing his part in promoting a good object. His house was long the seat of a generous, but quiet and unostentatious hospitality, where there was nothing for display, but every thing for the comfort of his guests. His doors were open for his friends to enter at all times, and they were sure to be received with a cheerful welcome and a placid smile. He departed this life in the spring of 1837, full of years, full of usefulness, and full of honors. As has been beautifully said of another, "Death, which harmonizes the pictures of human character, found little in his to spiritualize or to soften. Kindness of disposition was the secret but active law of his moral being. He had no sense of injury but as something to be forgiven. The liberal allowance which he extended to all human frailties grew more active when they affected his own interests and interfered with his own hopes; so that however he might reprobate evil at a distance, as soon as it came within his sphere, he desired only to overcome it by good. Envy, hatred, and malice, were to him mere names, like the figures of speech in a school-boy's theme, or the giants in a fairy tale, - phantoms which never touched him with a sense of reality. His guileless simplicity of heart was preserved by the happy constitution of his own nature, which passion could not disturb, and evil had no power to stain. He diffused the serenity of a good conscience, and the warmth of unchilled affections, through a large circle of relatives and friends, who were made happy by his mere presence. Such was he to the last, amidst the infirmities which age had accumulated around himthe gentlest of monitors and the most considerate of sufferers.' "Of no distemper, of no blast he died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long; ART. VI. NEW COMMERCIAL FIELD. Travels in South-Eastern Asia, embracing Hindostan, Malaya, Siam, and China, with a full account of the Burman Empire; with Dissertations, Tables, &c. By Rev. HOWARD MALCOM. Boston: 1839. Gould, Kendall, & Lincoln. 2 vols. 12mo. HERE is one of the few books of travels which is to be bought and studied, and referred to in future, not borrowed and read. Its pages are crowded with facts respecting things, as they are not with incidents which happened to the traveller. The botanist, politician, geologist, geographer, and merchant, will each find his own department rich in information. The advocate of missions will find more, both of information and encouragement, than he can obtain any where else, respecting these countries; and the mere miscellaneous reader will enjoy it as well as any novel, or narrative of the day. The style is what it should be, grave and dignified, yet sprightly and neat, coming directly to the point, without waste of words, and making the reader forget the author in his interest in the subject. It would occupy too much space to condense and arrange, for a single number of our work, all the important commercial information contained in the volumes before us, as too many of the facts, prices, &c., are stated in an insulated manner; but we take pleasure in gathering some paragraphs, and giving the substance of others. It is very desirable that our enterprising merchants should scrutinize this field afresh. With some sections of the East, such as Batavia, Calcutta, Sumatra, Canton, etc., we are intimately engaged in a lucrative and honorable trade; but with Burmah, Siam, and the Malay peninsula, we are doing almost no business, while the prices of various articles, stated by Mr. Malcom, furnish strong inducement to feel our way in these places. To avoid the trouble of constant quotation, we have thrown into our own language the facts and reasonings of the author of the work above named. From Burmah might be imported paddy,* lac, anatto, turmeric, tobacco, tea, and black varnish, beside rubies, sapphires, noble serpentine, and bullion. Rice and bullion are not allowed to be exported from Burmah Proper, but there is no restriction at Maulmain, Akyab, Ramree, Rangoon and other places under British sway. Rice is therefore dearer at Rangoon and Bassein. Paddy was selling at Rangoon, during Mr. M.'s visit, for the almost incredible low sum of two dollars and thirty cents per hundred bushels! The best of cleaned rice retailed in the Bazar, at the same time, for a fraction less than twelve cents per bushel, *Rice in the husk. Cleaned rice will hardly do well for so long a voyage. |