Because England produces more goods as well for home consumption as for foreign exportation, and those goods all made of its own produce or manufactured by its own inhabitants, than any other nation in the world.2.Because England consumes within itself more goods of foreign growth, imported from the several countries where they are produced or wrought, than any other nation in the world.

And--3.

Because for the doing this England employs more shipping and more seamen than any other nation, and, some think, than all the other nations, of Europe.
Hence, besides the great number of wealthy merchants who carry on this great foreign _negoce_ [_negotium_ (Latin) business], and who, by their corresponding with all parts of the world, import the growth of all countries hither--I say, besides these, we have a very great number of considerable dealers, whom we call tradesmen, who are properly called warehouse-keepers, who supply the merchants with all the several kinds of manufactures, and other goods of the produce of England, for exportation; and also others who are called wholesalemen, who buy and take off from the merchants all the foreign goods which they import; these, by their corresponding with a like sort of tradesmen in the country, convey and hand forward those goods, and our own also, among those country tradesmen, into every corner of the kingdom, however remote, and by them to the retailers, and by the retailer to the last consumer, which is the last article of all trade.

These are the tradesmen understood in this work, and for whose service these sheets are made public.
Having thus described the person whom I understand by the English tradesman, it is then needful to inquire into his qualifications, and what it is that renders him a finished or complete man in his business.
1.

That he has a general knowledge of not his own particular trade and business only--that part, indeed, well denominates a handicraftsman to be a complete artist; but our complete tradesman ought to understand all the inland trade of England, so as to be able to turn his hand to any thing, or deal in any thing or every thing of the growth and product of his own country, or the manufacture of the people, as his circumstances in trade or other occasions may require; and may, if he sees occasion, lay down one trade and take up another when he pleases, without serving a new apprenticeship to learn it.
2.