Modern scholars have seen the important bearing of the history of commerce upon the history of the world; have seen, rather-as who, in this most commercial of all eras, can fail to see?-how large a chapter it forms in the history of the world, although crowded out of the space it ought to fill by the wars and crimes which destroy what it creates. Hume was among the first to call attention to this branch of historical inquiry, and Heeren has investigated with much learning the commerce of the ancients. If we were in possession of lives of the great merchants of antiquity, what light would they not throw upon the origin of States, the foundation of cities, and inventions and discoveries, of which we now do not even know the dates? Trade planted Tyre, Carthage, Marseilles, London, and all the Ionic colonies of Greece. Plato was for a while a merchant; Herodotus, they say, was a merchant. Trade was honorable at Athens, as among all nations of original and vigorous thought; when we find discredit attached to it, it is among nations of a secondary and less original civilization, like the Romans. But if commerce forms so large a chapter in the history of the world, what would the history of America be if commerce and men of commerce were left out? Trade discovered America in the vessels of adventurers, seeking new channels to the old marts of India; trade planted the American colonies, and made them flourish, even in New England, say what we please about Plymouth Rock; our colonial growth was the growth of trade-revolution and independence were the results of measures of trade and commercial legislation, although they undoubtedly involved the first principles of free government the history of the country, its politics and policy, has ever since turned chiefly upon questions of trade and of finance, sailors' rights, protection, banks, and cotton. Agriculture is doubtless the leading pursuit of the American, as of every other people, being the occupation of the great mass of the population; but it is not agriculture, it is commerce, that has multiplied with such marvelous rapidity the cities and towns of the United States, and made them grow with such marvelous growth-which has built Chicago in twenty years and San Francisco in five. It is trade that is converting the whole continent into a cultivated field, and binding its ends together with the iron bands of the railroad. If commerce be thus pre-eminently the characteristic of the country and of the age, it is fit that the Lives of the Merchants should be written and read. Were it not for the picturesque eloquence of Burke, the enterprise of the American merchants of the colonial times would be in danger of being lost sight of in the dazzling brilliance of our commercial career since the Revolution. It is perhaps no exaggeration to say, that the growth of American trade during the colonial period was relatively as great as it has been since; and there are names in the list of the merchants of those times which should find a place and would adorn the pages of American Mercantile Biography. They were no common men who laid those foundations upon which the trade of America has been built; men of enterprise, men of intellect, . men of religion. In this, the first volume of a series of the Lives of American Merchants, I propose to begin with what may be called the First Period of our Commercial History as a nation, giving the lives of deceased merchants only. During this period, although but the life of one man in duration, the seed sown by the merchants of the colonial time has attained the growth, the wonderful growth of which we are the witnesses, and enjoy the fruits. Of a few of these remarkable men, by whom the work has thus been carried on, and whose enterprise and wisdom have given scope and impulse and permanence to American commerce, biographies are given in the present volume. I propose in a second volume to give the lives of other merchants of this period, together with those of living merchants; and to give completeness to this collection of Mercantile Biographies, I hope to be able hereafter to do justice to the merchants of the colonial period. I am indebted, as the reader will see, to the eminent literary ability of EDWARD EVERETT, CHARLES KING, THOMAS G. CARY, S. AUSTIN ALLIBONE, JOHN L. BLAKE, D. D., and others, for valuable contributions. I deem it unnecessary to go further into details, as to the design and plan of this work, in this place. Nor need I enlarge upon the general subject of commerce, its history, dignity, and usefulness, since the reader will find these topics ably and vividly illustrated in the excellent Introductory Essay, for which I am indebted to GEORGE R. RUSSELL, Esq., of Boston, who is himself a happy illustration of the union of mercantile enterprise with liberal scholarship. In this volume of Mercantile Biography, a brief notice of Mr. Russell's life will not be out of place. I am sure it will be acceptable to all readers of the essay which follows. GEORGE ROBERT RUSSELL is the eldest son of Jonathan Russell, a name not unknown in the annals of diplomacy. In 1814, while a boy, he accompanied his father and Mr. Clay to Gottenburg, in the "John Adams;" he and Mr. Lewis, late Collector of Philadelphia, being now the only survivors of the ministers, secretaries, and attachés, who went out in that vessel. He afterwards went to Ghent, where he remained during the negotiations which there took place, and was at school in Paris for two years, which included the Hundred Days, and the possession of that city by the allied powers. He graduated at Brown University in 1821, having among his classmates Horace Mann and Samuel G. Howe, the latter of whom was his chum. He studied law under John Sargeant, of Philadelphia, where he was admitted to the bar. His career at the bar was short. Soon after his admission he made a voyage round Cape Horn, and made himself acquainted with the trade of Chili and Peru. He next visited Canton and Manilla, and in the latter place became well known as the founder of the house of Russell & Sturgis, and was deservedly popular with his numerous correspondents and acquaintances. The favorable results of ten or twelve years' application to business have enabled him to retire from the turmoil of trade, and enjoy his "otium cum dignitate" at West Roxbury, in the neighborhood of Boston; in him that otium does not degenerate into idleness. Mr. Russell is a son-in-law of the late ROBERT G. SHAW, of Boston, and I will only add, that if examples were needed in proof of the positions assumed in the Essay, the author might himself be adduced as evidence that the "Merchant" may also be a gentleman and a scholar, as well as an honest and kind-hearted man. F. H. |