The rose business had served the family well, but by now they were prosperous merchants with diversified businesses.
Particularly the prosperous merchants and bankers, whose taxes paid for the police.
Was it worth looking for the town treasurer, and finding out who were the two or three most prosperous merchants?
He had an elder brother James, born 1791, who was a prosperous merchant.
So how was it that someone who had done all of this looked like a prosperous merchant about to make a great deal?
Both his parents came from prosperous merchant and landowning families.
They say these men - usually the more prosperous merchants - have often served themselves.
The first act of Nicholas, when he became a rich and prosperous merchant, was to buy his father's old house.
He might have been a prosperous merchant, or perhaps a physician.
His father was a prosperous local merchant, and a friend of the poet Moore.