IF THERE WAS ONE CLEAR SIGNAL to start asking questions about a merchant's financial viability, it was one of their bills of exchange being protested for non-payment. This usually meant that the payer did not have enough funds with the drawee, and whilst this did not necessarily mean the payer was insolvent, it certainly started rumours. Joshua Johnson noted in 1771 that Hanbury & Co. had protested Barnes & Ridgate's bills, which had hurt their credit. A merchant's ability to get credit was so tied up with reputation, that it was his reputation, hence the term credibility. Credit was an ‘intensely social fact’ [emphasis in original], but also an emotive one. A reputation could take years to construct, yet a small piece of gossip, a sniff of scandal, a rumour of a bill protested, and the merchant's reputation could be deconstructed in seconds. As William Gordon noted in 1763, ‘a merchant ought constantly to have in view, the support of his personal credit, which if is but once blown upon, is not without great difficulty achieved’.

It is therefore very unlikely that William Wilson in the quotation above would really sooner have had his bills protested. His correspondent in Philadelphia, Arthur Jones, had asked him about the prospects of a cargo of wheat he was sending to Wilson at Alexandria (Virginia). Wilson was not prepared to comment in advance for fear that he would be wrong and his judgment subsequently questioned. Nor were ‘the Creatures who are generally buyers of wheat’ prepared to risk their reputation on speculating about possible prices and the market for wheat; they would ‘freeze with terror to be asked the question’. During another transaction in which it had taken a long time to sell some flour sent by Jones to Wilson, Jones had expressed his worries over his cash flow problems. Frustrated, and feeling that Wilson did not care about his predicament, he wrote:

that is, his ‘honor’ being his reputation.