His brother "Joe," being a shrewd
man of business, of uncommon foresight and comprehensiveness, though
rather adventurous, gave me a hint, and soon provided me with another
partner, a graduate of Cambridge, named Fisher, with whom I was
associated a few months longer. Then came the peace of 1815, which threw
the whole country into a paroxysm of joy, unsettling business
everywhere, at home and abroad, and setting people together by the ears
upon all the great questions of the day.
And here began the new and very brief career of Mr. Pierpont as a man of
business. Wholly unfitted as he was for even the regular course of
trade, he was the last man in the world for the great emergencies of the
hour. The whole business of the country was little better than gambling.
Our largest importing houses were lotteries or faro-banks; and we had no
manufactures worth mentioning. We made no woollen goods, and our few
cottons, if sold at all, were sold for British, and stood no chance with
the trash that came from beyond the Cape of Good Hope, "warped with
hoop-poles, and filled with oven-wood." Our foreign merchandise came
tumbling down so fast, that no prospective calculations could be made
upon their value. Not having manufactured ourselves, we knew nothing
about the cost of production, and had no idea how much our friends over
sea could afford to fall, even from the lowest prices ever heard of.
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