There's nothing new in that: despite thousands of merchant seamen dying in the Atlantic Convoys, the US didn't give them veteran status until 1982.
They were not shtetl Jews; they came from Zhytomyr, a fairly prosperous, sophisticated Ukrainian city where my grandfather made a substantial living as a lumber merchant, despite distressing complications, like the time Cossacks ripped off Uncle David's beard and threw my 5-year-old mother and her younger brother Morris down the basement stairs after promising to come back and kill them.
The negotiations collapsed in 1898, and Norway at the same time demonstrated its independence by abolishing the union emblem on its merchant flag despite the king's veto.
But, he said, Halla was able to turn to other commercial banks and to merchant banks, despite being warned of the dangers of short-term loans.
His earliest preserved poem, Der guote Gerhart ("Gerhard the Good"), is the story of a Cologne merchant who, despite his unaristocratic calling, has all the courtly qualities of an Arthurian knight.
It is a fact the Tories would rather not dwell on, though the heir to the baronetcy of Ballentaylor has the "master of the universe" attitude of an Oxford-educated merchant banker despite his fresh face.
Mind you, the court found Amex powerless on instincts like those, and it said it was better for society if Amex could unilaterally decide to fund consumer freebies with merchant overcharges, despite overwhelming traditional evidence of power.
La Meillerie's expedition then visited Senegal and Cayenne, failing to make any impact on British merchant shipping despite orders to commerce raid when possible.
Mortality need not always be a source of terror, and Bergman, despite his reputation, is not the merchant of unshakable gloom.
Most of Ocean City's famous 2.5-mile boardwalk will be off limits to smokers under an ordinance passed by the City Council despite objections from merchants who fear a loss of tourist business.
