David Sassoon: Reluctant Front-Runner, Relentless Consolidator

“It made him hesitate when his sons pointed excitedly to the profits being made in cotton. He declined to be hurried.”

“He started active trading from a very small quayside warehouse, owned by Zacharia. It was rat-free but far removed from the spacious ancestral serdab in Baghdad which at times bulged with merchandise like an Aladdin's Cave. The dhow captains slowly came to know him as a man of honour whose word could be trusted even in the smallest enterprise. He bought wharf space and rented it to traders who arrived by sea or overland to sell their goods and stock up. He added steadily to his capital but preferred to act as a middleman, particularly for Bombay merchants, rather than compete independently with local dealers who had more substantial reserves. It was the birth of a lifelong antipathy to all gambling transactions, however tempting. Cautiously he began to export a few horses, dates, sheepskins and small consignments of pearls to India, content with the lighter cargoes of silks and metal-ware that came back. With neither boats nor camels to distribute goods, he wisely decided to limit his imports.”