Credit and Moneylending

Abstract

During the busy season of the year the factor needed a considerable cash balance to pay charges, to make whatever money payments were necessary to ‘help off’ goods in barter transactions, and to buy goods for cash. If he was fortunate, his cash chests were at their lowest in the spring interval between two racoltas, when there was usually little business stirring. So cash needs fluctuated greatly in the course of a year; and over longer periods the optimum cash reserve changed as the general trend of the market was towards or away from money sales of cloth or money purchases of silk. The reserves a particular house had to keep changed as its principals at home expanded or contracted the scale of their dealings with the Levant. These fluctuating needs for money could be met with more or with less economy, but various forces were continually pushing the factors away from the most economical solutions. The most obvious answer to varying cash requirements would, of course, have been the carrying of a cash reserve large enough to meet the greatest stringency, letting it build up during slack times.

The said Partners or either of them shall not engage in lending Money on Interest to Agas or Public Ministers or other Natives of the Country, except Merchants of known Credit, for or by reason of any pretense whatsoever.

partnership articles of lupart and hyde, 1735¹