Thomas, the present lord Onslow, also married Elizabeth, the daughter of Mr. Knight, an eminent merchant, by whom he has one son.

Thomas Marsham, esq., in the reign of king James I. was one of the aldermen of London, and ancestor of the present lord Romney.

Sir Robert Ducie, bart., was in 1628 a sheriff, and in 1631 lord mayor of London; and marrying Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Pyot, esq., alderman of that city, had four sons; one of which, sir William Ducie, bart., was created knight of the Bath, and lord viscount Down, in Ireland; but dying without issue, Elizabeth Morton, his sister, succeeded to his estate, and was the mother of Matthew Ducie Morton, lord Ducie.

Robert Walpole married Susan, daughter of sir Edward Barkham, knight, who in 1621 was lord mayor of London; from whom descended Robert, Horace, and Galfrid Walpole; the last of which married Cornelia, daughter of Mr. Hays, of London; the second married Mary, daughter of Mr. Peter Lombard, a tradesman; and Robert, now earl of Orford, and knight of the Garter, as has been said, married Catharine, daughter of John Shorter, esq., a merchant of London, by whom he has three sons, one of which is Robert, lord Walpole of Walpole, Norfolk.

The late lord chancellor King owes his descent to trade, and was himself, in his younger years, some time in a shop business at Exeter.

The mother of the late excellent lord chancellor Talbot, who was of the noble family of the earls of Shrewsbury, was Catharine, daughter of alderman King, of London, by whom his lordship's father, the lord bishop of Durham, had eight sons, including his lordship, and several daughters.

We might probably add to this illustrious list, by a more exact scrutiny, still more noble families among the English nobility, and several also among the Irish, as earl Tilney, son of sir Josiah Child; lord Bateman, son of sir James Bateman, alderman and lord mayor of London, &c. But what we have done will abundantly show the near relation there is between many of our principal nobility and the eminent traders of England; and it is not the least part of our design, in this chapter, to inspire the citizens, on one part, with a noble emulation, and a resolution to do nothing unworthy of themselves; and the nobility, on the other, with a desire of cherishing and protecting, on all proper occasions, the trade and commerce of this nation, to which they are so much indebted for their high distinctions in life.

CHAP. XXV.

Of the dignity of trade in England, more than in other countries. That England is the greatest trading country in the world; that our climate is the best to live in; that our men are the stoutest and best; that the tradesmen in England are not of the meanest of the people; that the wealth of the nation lies chiefly among them; that trade is a continual fund for supplying the decays in the rank of gentry; that an ordinary trader can spend more than a gentleman of 500l. a year; that an estate is a pond, but trade a spring; that the descendants of tradesmen here, for gallantry of spirit and greatness of soul, are not inferior to the descendants of the best families. Further hints to the ladies whose pride will not let them stoop to marry a tradesman. To trade, and not to conquest, is owing the present grandeur of the English nation. How much the landed interest owes to trade.

THE instances which we have given in the last chapter, abundantly make for the honour of the British traders; and we may venture to say, at the same time, are very far from doing dishonour to the nobility who have from time to time entered into alliance with them; for it is very well known, that besides the benefit which we reap by being a trading nation, which is our principal glory, trade is a very different thing in England than it is in many other countries, and is carried on by persons who, both in

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their education and descent, are far from being the dregs of the people.

King Charles II., who was perhaps the prince of all the kings that ever reigned in England, who best understood the country and the people he governed, used to say, that the tradesmen were the only gentry in England. His majesty spoke it merrily, but it had a happy signification in it, such as was peculiar to the bright genius of that prince, who, though he was not the best governor, was the best acquainted with the world of all the princes of his age, if not of all the men in it; and I make no scruple to advance these three points in honour of our country; viz.—

1. That we are the greatest trading country in the world, because we have the greatest exportation of the growth and product of our land, and of the manufacture and labour of our people; and the greatest importation and consumption of the growth, product, and manufactures of other countries from abroad, of any nation in the world.

2. That our climate is the best and most agreeable to live in, because a man can be more out of doors in England than in other countries.

3. That our men are the stoutest and best, because, strip them naked from the waist upwards, and give them no weapons at all but their hands and heels, and turn them into a room or stage, and lock them in with the like number of other men of any nation, man for man, and they shall beat the best men you shall find in the world.

As so many of our noble and wealthy families, as we have shown, are raised by and derived from trade, so it is true, and indeed it cannot well be otherwise, that many of the younger branches of our gentry, and even of the nobility itself, have descended again into the spring from whence they flowed, and have become tradesmen; and thence it

is that, as I said above, our tradesmen in England are not, as it generally is in other countries, always of the meanest of our people. Nor is trade itself in England, as it generally is in other countries, the meanest thing the men can turn their hand to; but, on the contrary, trade is the readiest way for men to raise their fortunes and families; and therefore it is a field for men of figure and of good families to enter upon.

N. B. By trade we must be understood to include navigation and foreign discoveries; because they are, generally speaking, all promoted and carried on by trade, and even by tradesmen, as well as merchants; and the tradesman, as owners, are at this time as much concerned in shipping as the merchants, only the latter may be said to be the chief employers of the shipping.

Having thus done a particular piece of justice to onrselves, in the value we put upon trade and tradesmen in England, it reflects very much upon the understandings of those refined heads who pretend to depreciate that part of the nation which is so infinitely superior in wealth to the families who call themselves gentry, and so infinitely more nu

merous.

As to the wealth of the nation, that undoubtedly lies chiefly among the trading part of the people; and though there are a great many families raised within few years, in the late war, by great employments and by great actions abroad, to the honour of the English gentry, yet how many more families among the tradesmen have been raised to immense estates, even during the same time, by the attending circumstances of the war; such as the clothing, the paying, the victualling and furnishing, &c., both