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Franklin's Autobiography

by Benjamin Franklin · English · Gutenberg #36151 · 444,526 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Franklin's Autobiography

Author: Benjamin Franklin

Editor: O. Leon Reid


        
Release date: May 18, 2011 [eBook #36151]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36151

Credits: Produced by Larry B. Harrison and the Online Distributed
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Produced by Larry B. Harrison and the Online Distributed
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[Illustration]

  ECLECTIC ENGLISH CLASSICS

  FRANKLIN'S
  AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  EDITED BY
  O. LEON REID

  HEAD OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, LOUISVILLE MALE
  HIGH SCHOOL, LOUISVILLE, KY.

  NEW YORK · CINCINNATI · CHICAGO
  AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY




  Copyright, 1896 and 1910, by
  AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

  BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

  W. P. 12




INTRODUCTION.


When Franklin was born, in 1706, Queen Anne was on the English throne,
and Swift and Defoe were pamphleteering. The one had not yet written
"Gulliver's Travels," nor the other "Robinson Crusoe;" neither had
Addison and Steele and other wits of Anne's reign begun the
"Spectator." Pope was eighteen years old.

At that time ships bringing news, food and raiment, and laws and
governors to the ten colonies of America, ran grave chances of falling
into the hands of the pirates who infested the waters of the shores.
In Boston Cotton Mather was persecuting witches. There were no stage
coaches in the land,--merely a bridle path led from New York to
Philadelphia,--and a printing press throughout the colonies was a
raree-show.

Only six years before Franklin's birth, the first newspaper report for
the first newspaper in the country was written on the death of Captain
Kidd and six of his companions near Boston, when the editor of the
"News-Letter" told the story of the hanging of the pirates, detailing
the exhortations and prayers and their taking-off. Franklin links us
to another world of action.

His boyhood in Boston was a stern beginning of the habit of hard work
and rigid economy which marked the man. For a year he went to the
Latin Grammar School on School Street, but left off at the age of ten
to help his father in making soap and candles. He persisted in showing
such "bookish inclination," however, that at twelve his father
apprenticed him to learn the printer's trade. At seventeen he ran off
to Philadelphia and there began his independent career.

In the main he led such a life as the maxims of "Poor Richard"[1]
enjoin. The pages of the Autobiography show few deviations from such a
course. He felt the need of school training and set to work to educate
himself. He had an untiring industry, and love of the approval of his
neighbor; and he knew that more things fail through want of care than
want of knowledge. His practical imagination was continually forming
projects; and, fortunately for the world, his great physical strength
and activity were always setting his ideas in motion. He was
human-hearted, and this strong sympathy of his, along with his
strength and zeal and "projecting head" (as Defoe calls such a
spirit), devised much that helped life to amenity and comfort. In
politics he had the outlook of the self-reliant colonist whose
devotion to the mother institutions of England was finally alienated
by the excesses of a power which thought itself all-powerful.

In this Autobiography Franklin tells of his own life to the year 1757,
when he went to England to support the petition of the legislature
against Penn's sons. The grievance of the colonists was a very
considerable one, for the proprietaries claimed that taxes should not
be levied upon a tract greater than the whole State of Pennsylvania.

Franklin was received in England with applause. His experiments in
electricity and his inventions had made him known, and the sayings of
"Poor Richard" were already in the mouths of the people. But he
waited nearly three years before he could obtain a hearing for the
matter for which he had crossed the sea.

During the delay he visited the ancient home of his family, and made
the acquaintance of men of mark, receiving also that degree of Doctor
of Civil Law by which he came to be known as Dr. Franklin. In this
time, too, he found how prejudiced was the common English estimate of
the value of the colonies. He wrote Lord Kames in 1760, after the
defeat of the French in Canada: "No one can more sincerely rejoice
than I do on the reduction of Canada; and this is not merely as I am a
colonist, but as I am a Briton. I have long been of opinion that the
_foundations of the future grandeur and stability of the British
empire lie in America_; and though, like other foundations, they are
low and little now, they are, nevertheless, broad and strong enough to
support the greatest political structure that human wisdom ever yet
erected. I am, therefore, by no means for restoring Canada. If we keep
it all the country from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi will in
another century be filled with British people. Britain itself will
become vastly more populous by the immense increase of its commerce;
the Atlantic sea will be covered with your trading ships; and your
naval power, thence continually increasing, will extend your influence
round the whole globe and awe the world!... But I refrain, for I see
you begin to think my notions extravagant, and look upon them as the
ravings of a madman."

At last Franklin won the king's signature to a bill by the terms of
which the surveyed lands of the proprietaries should be assessed, and,
his business accomplished, he returned to Philadelphia. "You require
my history," he wrote to Lord Kames, "from the time I yet sail for
America. I left England about the end of August, 1762, in company
with ten sail of merchant ships, under a convoy of a man-of-war. We
had a pleasant passage to Madeira.... Here we furnished ourselves with
fresh provisions, and refreshments of all kinds; and, after a few
days, proceeded on our voyage, running southward until we got into the
trade winds, and then with them westward till we drew near the coast
of America. The weather was so favorable that there were few days in
which we could not visit from ship to ship, dining with each other and
on board of the man-of-war; which made the time pass agreeably, much
more so than when one goes in a single ship; for this was like
traveling in a moving village, with all one's neighbors about one.

"On the 1st of November I arrived safe and well at my own home, after
an absence of near six years, found my wife and daughter well,--the
latter grown quite a woman, with many amiable accomplishments acquired
in my absence,--and my friends as hearty and affectionate as ever,
with whom my house was filled for many days to congratulate me on my
return. I had been chosen yearly during my absence to represent the
city of Philadelphia in our Provincial Assembly; and on my appearance
in the House, they voted me three thousand pounds sterling for my
services in England, and their thanks, delivered by the Speaker. In
February following, my son arrived with my new daughter; for, with my
consent and approbation, he married, soon after I left England, a very
agreeable West India lady, with whom he is very happy. I accompanied
him to his government [New Jersey], where he met with the kindest
reception from the people of all ranks, and has lived with them ever
since in the greatest harmony. A river only parts that province and
ours, and his residence is within seventeen miles of me, so that we
frequently see each other.

"In the spring of 1763 I set out on a tour through all the northern
colonies to inspect and regulate the post offices in the several
provinces. In this journey I spent the summer, traveled about sixteen
hundred miles, and did not get home till the beginning of November.
The Assembly sitting through the following winter, and warm disputes
arising between them and the governor, I became wholly engaged in
public affairs; for, besides my duty as an Assemblyman, I had another
trust to execute, that of being one of the commissioners appointed by
law to dispose of the public money appropriated to the raising and
paying an army to act against the Indians and defend the frontiers.
And then, in December, we had two insurrections of the back
inhabitants of our province.... Governor Penn made my house for some
time his headquarters, and did everything by my advice; so that for
about forty-eight hours I was a very great man, as I had been once
some years before, in a time of public danger.[2]

"But the fighting face we put on and the reasoning we used with the
insurgents ... having turned them back and restored quiet to the city,
I became a less man than ever; for I had by this transaction made
myself many enemies among the populace; and the governor, ... thinking
it a favorable opportunity, joined the whole weight of the proprietary
interest to get me out of the Assembly; which was accordingly effected
at the last election by a majority of about twenty-five in four
thousand voters. The House, however, when they met in October,
approved of the resolutions taken, while I was Speaker, of petitioning
the Crown for a change of government, and requested me to return to
England to prosecute that petition; which service I accordingly
undertook, and embarked at the beginning of November last, being
accompanied to the ship, sixteen miles, by a cavalcade of three
hundred of my friends, who filled our sails with their good wishes,
and I arrived in thirty days at London."

Instead of giving his efforts to the proposed change of government
Franklin found greater duties. The debt which England had incurred
during the war with the French in Canada she now looked to the
colonists for aid in removing. At home taxes were levied by every
device. The whole country was in distress and laborers starving. In
the colonies there was the thrift that comes from narrowest means; but
the people refused to answer parliamentary levies and claimed that
they would lay their own taxes through their own legislatures. They
resisted so successfully the enforcement of the Stamp Act that
Parliament began to discuss its repeal. At this juncture Franklin was
examined before the Commons in regard to the results of the act.

     _Q._ Do you not think the people of America would submit to pay
     the stamp duty if it was moderated?

     _A._ No, never, unless compelled by force of arms....

     _Q._ What was the temper of America toward Great Britain before
     the year 1763?[3]

      _A._ The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the
     government of the Crown, and paid, in their courts, obedience to
     the acts of Parliament. Numerous as the people are in the several
     old provinces, they cost you nothing in forts, citadels, garrisons,
     or armies, to keep them in subjection. They were governed by this
     country at the expense only of a little pen, ink, and paper; they
     were led by a thread. They had not only a respect but an affection
     for Great Britain, for its laws, its customs and manners, and even
     a fondness for its fashions that greatly increased the commerce.
     Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard; to
     be an "Old England man" was, of itself, a character of some
     respect, and gave a kind of rank among us.

     _Q._ And what is their temper now?

     _A._ Oh, very much altered....

     _Q._ If the Stamp Act should be repealed, would it induce the
     assemblies of America to acknowledge the right of Parliament to
     tax them, and would they erase their resolutions?

     _A._ No, never.

     _Q._ Are there no means of obliging them to erase those
     resolutions?

     _A._ None that I know of; they will never do it unless compelled
     by force of arms.

     _Q._ Is there a power on earth that can force them to erase them?

     _A._ No power, how great soever, can force men to change their
     opinions....

     _Q._ What used to be the pride of the Americans?

     _A._ To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain.

     _Q._ What is now their pride?

     _A._ To wear their old clothes over again, till they can make new
     ones.

After the repeal of the act, Franklin wrote to his wife: "I am willing
you should have a new gown, which you may suppose I did not send
sooner as I knew you would not like to be finer than your neighbors
unless in a gown of your own spinning. Had the trade between the two
countries totally ceased, it was a comfort to me to recollect that I
had once been clothed from head to foot in woolen and linen of my
wife's manufacture, that I never was prouder of any dress in my life,
and that she and her daughter might do it again if it was necessary."

Franklin stayed ten years in England. In 1774 he presented to the king
the petition of the first Continental Congress, in which the
petitioners, who protested their loyalty to Great Britain, claimed the
right of taxing themselves. But, finding this and other efforts at
adjustment of little avail, he returned to Philadelphia in May, 1775.
On the 5th of July he wrote to Mr. Strahan, an old friend in London:
"You are a member of Parliament, and one of that majority which has
doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns and
murder our people. Look upon your hands; they are stained with the
blood of your relations! You and I were long friends; you are now my
enemy, and I am yours."

After the Declaration of Independence and the establishment of the
States as a nation, Franklin was chosen as representative to France.
"I am old and good for nothing," he said, when told of the choice,
"but, as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, I am but a
fag-end; you may have me for what you please."

It was a most important post. France was the ancient enemy of England,
and the contingent of men and aid of money which Franklin gained served
to the successful issue of the Revolution. He lived while in France at
Passy, near Paris, from which he wrote to a friend in England: "You are
too early ... in calling me rebel; you should wait for the event which
will determine whether it is a rebellion or only a revolution.... I know
you wish you could see me; but, as you cannot, I will describe myself to
you. Figure me in your mind as jolly as formerly, and as strong and
hearty, only a few years older; very plainly dressed, wearing my thin,
gray, straight hair, that peeps out under my only coiffure, a fine fur
cap which comes down my forehead almost to my spectacles. Think how this
must appear among the powdered heads of Paris! I wish every lady and
gentleman in France would only be so obliging as to follow my fashion,
comb their own heads as I do mine, dismiss their friseurs, and pay me
half the money they pay to them."

At last, in 1785, he came home, old and broken in health. He was
chosen president, or governor, of Pennsylvania, and the faith of the
people in his wisdom made him delegate to the convention which framed
the Constitution in 1787. He died in 1790, and was buried by his wife
in the graveyard of Christ Church, Philadelphia.

The epitaph which he had written when a printer was not put upon his
tomb:

    THE BODY

    OF

    BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,

    PRINTER

    (Like the cover of an old book,
    Its contents torn out,
    And stript of its lettering and gilding,)
    Lies here, food for worms.
    But the work shall not be lost,
    For it will (as he believed) appear once more
    In a new and elegant edition,
    Revised and corrected
    by
    The Author.

[Footnote 1: See pp. 198-206.]

[Footnote 2: The time of Braddock's defeat.]

[Footnote 3: When the old duties "upon all rum, spirits, molasses,
syrups, sugar," etc., were renewed, and extended to other articles.]




THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.




§ 1. PARENTAGE AND BOYHOOD.


    TWYFORD,[4] _at the Bishop of St. Asaph's, 1771_.

Dear Son:[5] I have ever had pleasure in obtaining any little
anecdotes of my ancestors. You may remember the inquiries I made among
the remains of my relations when you were with me in England, and the
journey I undertook for that purpose. Imagining it may be equally
agreeable to you to know the circumstances of my life, many of which
you are yet unacquainted with, and expecting the enjoyment of a week's
uninterrupted leisure in my present country retirement, I sit down to
write them for you. To which I have besides some other inducements.
Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and
bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the
world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share
of felicity, the conducing means I made use of, which with the
blessing of God so well succeeded, my posterity may like to know, as
they may find some of them suitable to their own situations, and
therefore fit to be imitated.

That felicity, when I reflected on it, has induced me sometimes to say
that, were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a
repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the
advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of
the first. So I might, besides correcting the faults, change some
sinister accidents and events of it for others more favorable. But
though this were denied, I should still accept the offer. Since such a
repetition is not to be expected, the next thing like living one's
life over again seems to be a recollection of that life, and to make
that recollection as durable as possible by putting it down in writing.

Hereby, too, I shall indulge the inclination, so natural in old men,
to be talking of themselves and their own past actions; and I shall
indulge it without being tiresome to others,--who, through respect to
age, might conceive themselves obliged to give me a hearing,--since
this may be read or not as any one pleases. And, lastly, (I may as
well confess it, since my denial of it will be believed by nobody,)
perhaps I shall a good deal gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I scarce
ever heard or saw the introductory words, "Without vanity, I may say,"
etc., but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike
vanity in others, whatever share they may have of it themselves; but I
give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it
is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others that are
within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it would
not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity
among the other comforts of life.

And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to
acknowledge that I owe the mentioned happiness of my past life to his
kind providence, which led me to the means I used and gave them
success. My belief of this induces me to hope, though I must not
presume, that the same goodness will still be exercised toward me in
continuing that happiness, or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse,
which I may experience as others have done; the complexion of my
future fortune being known to Him only in whose power it is to bless
to us even our afflictions.

The notes one of my uncles (who had the same kind of curiosity in
collecting family anecdotes) once put into my hands furnished me with
several particulars relating to our ancestors. From these notes I
learned that the family had lived in the same village, Ecton, in
Northamptonshire,[n] for three hundred years, and how much longer he
knew not, (perhaps from the time when the name of Franklin, that
before was the name of an order of people,[6] was assumed by them as a
surname when others took surnames all over the kingdom,) on a freehold
of about thirty acres, aided by the smith's business, which had
continued in the family till his time, the eldest son being always
bred to that business,--a custom which he and my father followed as to
their eldest sons. When I searched the registers at Ecton, I found an
account of their births, marriages, and burials from the year 1555
only, there being no registers kept in that parish at any time
preceding. By that register I perceived that I was the youngest son of
the youngest son for five generations back. My grandfather, Thomas,
who was born in 1598, lived at Ecton till he grew too old to follow
business longer, when he went to live with his son John, a dyer at
Banbury, in Oxfordshire, with whom my father served an apprenticeship.
There my grandfather died and lies buried. We saw his gravestone in
1758. His eldest son, Thomas, lived in the house at Ecton, and left it
with the land to his only child, a daughter, who, with her husband,
one Fisher, of Wellingborough, sold it to Mr. Isted, now lord of the
manor there. My grandfather had four sons that grew up, namely,
Thomas, John, Benjamin, and Josiah. I will give you what account I
can of them, at this distance from my papers, and if these are not
lost in my absence, you will among them find many more particulars.

Thomas was bred a smith under his father; but, being ingenious, and
encouraged in learning (as all my brothers were) by an Esquire[7]
Palmer, then the principal gentleman in that parish, he qualified
himself for the business of scrivener;[8] became a considerable man in
the county; was a chief mover of all public-spirited undertakings for
the county or town of Northampton and his own village, of which many
instances were related of him; and much taken notice of and patronized
by the then Lord Halifax. He died in 1702, Jan. 6, old style,[9] just
four years to a day before I was born. The account we received of his
life and character from some old people at Ecton, I remember, struck
you as something extraordinary, from its similarity to what you knew
of mine. "Had he died on the same day," you said, "one might have
supposed a transmigration."[10]

John was bred a dyer, I believe, of woolens. Benjamin was bred a silk
dyer, serving an apprenticeship at London. He was an ingenious man. I
remember him well, for when I was a boy he came over to my father in
Boston, and lived in the house with us some years. He lived to a great
age. His grandson, Samuel Franklin, now lives in Boston. He left
behind him two quarto volumes, in manuscript, of his own poetry,
consisting of little occasional pieces addressed to his friends and
relations, of which the following, sent to me, is a specimen.[11] He
had formed a shorthand of his own, which he taught me, but, never
practicing it, I have now forgot it. I was named after this uncle,
there being a particular affection between him and my father. He was
very pious, a great attender of sermons of the best preachers, which
he took down in his shorthand, and had with him many volumes of them.
He was also much of a politician; too much, perhaps, for his station.
There fell lately into my hands, in London, a collection he had made
of all the principal pamphlets relating to public affairs, from 1641
to 1717; many of the volumes are wanting, as appears by the numbering,
but there still remain eight volumes in folio and twenty-four in
quarto and octavo. A dealer in old books met with them, and knowing me
by my sometimes buying of him, he brought them to me. It seems my
uncle must have left them here when he went to America, which was
above fifty years since. There are many of his notes in the margins.

This obscure family of ours was early in the Reformation, and
continued Protestants through the reign of Queen Mary,[12] when they
were sometimes in danger of trouble on account of their zeal against
the queen's religion. They had got an English Bible, and to conceal
and secure it, it was fastened open with tapes under and within the
cover of a joint stool.[13] When my great-great-grandfather read it to
his family, he turned up the joint stool upon his knees, turning over
the leaves then under the tapes. One of the children stood at the door
to give notice if he saw the apparitor coming, who was an officer of
the spiritual court. In that case the stool was turned down again upon
its feet, when the Bible remained concealed under it as before. This
anecdote I had from my uncle Benjamin.

The family continued all of the Church of England till about the end
of Charles II.'s reign, when some of the ministers that had been outed
for nonconformity,[14] holding conventicles in Northamptonshire,
Benjamin and Josiah adhered to them, and so continued all their lives;
the rest of the family remained with the Episcopal Church.

Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife, with three
children, into New England, about 1682. The conventicles having been
forbidden by law, and frequently disturbed, induced some considerable
men of his acquaintance to remove to that country, and he was
prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy
their mode of religion with freedom. By the same wife he had four
children more born there, and by a second wife ten more,--in all
seventeen, of which I remember thirteen sitting at one time at his
table, who all grew up to be men and women and married. I was the
youngest son, and the youngest child but two, and was born in Boston,
New England.[15] My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger,
daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of
whom honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather, in his Church history
of that country entitled "Magnalia Christi Americana," as "a goodly
learned Englishman," if I remember the words rightly. I have heard
that he wrote sundry small occasional pieces, but only one of them was
printed, which I saw now many years since. It was written in 1675, in
the homespun verse of that time and people, and addressed to those
then concerned in the government there. It was in favor of liberty of
conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other
sectaries that had been under persecution,[16] ascribing the Indian
wars, and other distresses that had befallen the country, to that
persecution, as so many judgments of God to punish so heinous an
offense, and exhorting a repeal of those uncharitable laws. The whole
appeared to me as written with a good deal of decent plainness and
manly freedom. The six concluding lines I remember, though I have
forgotten the two first of the stanza; but the purport of them was
that his censures proceeded from good will, and, therefore, he would
be known to be the author.

    "Because to be a libeler [says he]
    I hate it with my heart;
    From Sherburne[17] town, where now I dwell,
      My name I do put here;
    Without offense your real friend,
      It is Peter Folgier."[18]

My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was
put to the grammar school[19] at eight years of age, my father intending
to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the church. My
early readiness in learning to read, (which must have been very early,
as I do not remember when I could not read,) and the opinion of all his
friends that I should certainly make a good scholar, encouraged him in
this purpose of his. My uncle Benjamin, too, approved of it, and
proposed to give me all his shorthand volumes of sermons, I suppose as a
stock to set up with, if I would learn his character.[20] I continued,
however, at the grammar school not quite one year, though in that time I
had risen gradually from the middle of the class of that year to be the
head of it, and, further, was removed into the next class above it in
order to go with that into the third at the end of the year. But my
father in the mean time, from a view of the expense of a college
education, which, having so large a family, he could not well afford,
and the mean living many so educated were afterward able to
obtain,--reasons that he gave to his friends in my hearing,--altered his
first intention, took me from the grammar school, and sent me to a
school for writing and arithmetic, kept by a then famous man, Mr. George
Brownell, very successful in his profession generally, and that by mild,
encouraging methods. Under him I acquired fair writing pretty soon, but
I failed in the arithmetic, and made no progress in it. At ten years old
I was taken home to assist my father in his business, which was that of
a tallow chandler and soap boiler, a business he was not bred to, but
had assumed on his arrival in New England, and on finding his dyeing
trade would not maintain his family, being in little request.
Accordingly, I was employed in cutting wick for the candles, filling the
dipping mold and the molds for cast candles,[21] attending the shop,
going of errands, etc.

I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the sea, but my
father declared against it. However, living near the water, I was much
in and about it, learned early to swim well and to manage boats; and
when in a boat or canoe with other boys I was commonly allowed to
govern, especially in any case of difficulty; and upon other occasions
I was generally a leader among the boys, and sometimes led them into
scrapes, of which I will mention one instance, as it shows an early
projecting public spirit, though not then justly conducted.

There was a salt marsh that bounded part of the mill pond, on the edge
of which, at high water, we used to stand to fish for minnows. By much
trampling we had made it a mere quagmire. My proposal was to build a
wharf there fit for us to stand upon, and I showed my comrades a large
heap of stones which were intended for a new house near the marsh and
which would very well suit our purpose. Accordingly, in the evening,
when the workmen were gone, I assembled a number of my playfellows,
and working with them diligently like so many emmets,[22] sometimes
two or three to a stone, we brought them all away and built our little
wharf. The next morning the workmen were surprised at missing the
stones, which were found in our wharf. Inquiry was made after the
removers; we were discovered and complained of; several of us were
corrected by our fathers; and, though I pleaded the usefulness of the
work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful which was not honest.

I think you may like to know something of his person and character. He
had an excellent constitution of body, was of middle stature, but well
set and very strong. He was ingenious, could draw prettily, was
skilled a little in music, and had a clear, pleasing voice, so that
when he played psalm tunes on his violin and sung withal, as he
sometimes did in an evening after the business of the day was over, it
was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a mechanical genius, too, and
on occasion was very handy in the use of other tradesmen's tools; but
his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and solid judgment
in prudential matters, both in private and public affairs. In the
latter, indeed, he was never employed, the numerous family he had to
educate and the straitness of his circumstances keeping him close to
his trade; but I remember well his being frequently visited by leading
people, who consulted him for his opinion in affairs of the town or of
the church he belonged to, and showed a good deal of respect for his
judgment and advice; he was also much consulted by private persons
about their affairs when any difficulty occurred, and frequently
chosen an arbitrator between contending parties. At his table he liked
to have as often as he could some sensible friend or neighbor to
converse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or useful
topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his
children. By this means he turned our attention to what was good,
just, and prudent in the conduct of life, and little or no notice was
ever taken of what related to the victuals on the table, whether it
was well or ill dressed, in or out of season, of good or bad flavor,
preferable or inferior to this or that other thing of the kind, so
that I was brought up in such a perfect inattention to those matters
as to be quite indifferent what kind of food was set before me, and so
unobservant of it that to this day if I am asked I can scarce tell a
few hours after dinner what I dined upon. This has been a convenience
to me in traveling, where my companions have been sometimes very
unhappy for want of a suitable gratification of their more delicate,
because better instructed, tastes and appetites.

My mother had likewise an excellent constitution. I never knew either
my father or mother to have any sickness but that of which they died,
he at eighty-nine and she at eighty-five years of age. They lie buried
together at Boston, where I some years since placed a marble[23] over
their grave with this inscription:

    JOSIAH FRANKLIN,
    and
    ABIAH his wife,
    lie here interred.
    They lived lovingly together in wedlock
    fifty-five years.
    Without an estate, or any gainful employment,
    By constant labor and industry,
    with God's blessing,
    They maintained a large family
    comfortably,
    and brought up thirteen children
    and seven grandchildren
    reputably.
    From this instance, reader,
    Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling,
    And distrust not Providence.
    He was a pious and prudent man;
    She, a discreet and virtuous woman.
    Their youngest son,
    In filial regard to their memory,
    Places this stone.
    J. F. born 1655, died 1744, ætat[24] 89.
    A. F. born 1667, died 1752, ---- 85.

By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be grown old. I used
to write more methodically. But one does not dress for private company
as for a public ball. 'Tis perhaps only negligence.

To return: I continued thus employed in my father's business for two
years, that is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother John, who
was bred to that business, having left my father, married, and set up
for himself at Rhode Island, there was all appearance that I was
destined to supply his place and become a tallow chandler. But my
dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under apprehensions
that if he did not find one for me more agreeable I should break away
and get to sea, as his son Josiah had done, to his great vexation. He
therefore sometimes took me to walk with him, and see joiners,
bricklayers, turners, brasiers,[25] etc., at their work, that he might
observe my inclination and endeavor to fix it on some trade or other
on land. It has ever since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen
handle their tools; and it has been useful to me, having learned so
much by it as to be able to do little jobs myself in my house when a
workman could not readily be got, and to construct little machines for
my experiments while the intention of making the experiment was fresh
and warm in my mind. My father at last fixed upon the cutler's trade,
and my uncle Benjamin's son, Samuel, who was bred to that business in
London, being about that time established in Boston, I was sent to be
with him some time on liking. But his expectations of a fee with me
displeasing my father, I was taken home again.

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came
into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the "Pilgrim's
Progress," my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate
little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's
"Historical Collections;" they were small chapmen's[26] books, and
cheap, forty or fifty in all. My father's little library consisted
chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have
since often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst for
knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way, since it was
now resolved I should not be a clergyman. "Plutarch's Lives" there
was, in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to
great advantage. There was also a book of Defoe's called an "Essay on
Projects," and another of Dr. Mather's called "Essays to Do Good,"
which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some
of the principal future events of my life.

This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a
printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession. In
1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and letters
to set up his business in Boston. I liked it much better than that of
my father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To prevent the
apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to
have me bound to my brother. I stood out some time, but at last was
persuaded and signed the indentures[27] when I was yet but twelve
years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years
of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages during the last
year. In a little time I made great proficiency in the business, and
became a useful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books.
An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me
sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon
and clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the
night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned
early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted.

And after some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had
a pretty collection of books, and who frequented our printing house,
took notice of me, invited me to his library, and very kindly lent me
such books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry, and made
some little pieces; my brother, thinking it might turn to account,
encouraged me, and put me on composing occasional ballads. One was
called "The Lighthouse Tragedy," and contained an account of the
drowning of Captain Worthilake with his two daughters; the other was a
sailor's song on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard), the pirate. They
were wretched stuff, in the Grub Street[28] ballad style; and when
they were printed he sent me about the town to sell them. The first
sold wonderfully, the event being recent, having made a great noise.
This flattered my vanity; but my father discouraged me by ridiculing
my performances and telling me verse makers were generally beggars. So
I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one; but as prose
writing has been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was
a principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a
situation, I acquired what little ability I have in that way.

There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name, with
whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed, and very fond
we were of argument and very desirous of confuting each other; which
disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit,[n]
making people often extremely disagreeable in company by the
contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence,
besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of
disgusts and perhaps enmities where you may have occasion for
friendship. I had caught it by reading my father's books of dispute
about religion. Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom
fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts
that have been bred at Edinburgh.

A question was once, somehow or other, started between Collins and me,
of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning, and their
abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper, and that
they were naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary side, perhaps a
little for dispute's sake. He was naturally more eloquent, had a ready
plenty of words, and sometimes, as I thought, bore me down more by his
fluency than by the strength of his reasons. As we parted without
settling the point, and were not to see each other again for some time,
I sat down to put my arguments in writing, which I copied fair and sent
to him. He answered, and I replied. Three or four letters of a side had
passed, when my father happened to find my papers and read them. Without
entering into the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about the
manner of my writing. He observed that, though I had the advantage of my
antagonist in correct spelling and pointing (which I owed to the
printing house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method,
and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw
the justice of his remarks, and thence grew more attentive to the manner
in writing, and determined to endeavor at improvement.

About this time I met with an odd volume of the "Spectator."[29] It
was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read
it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the
writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this
view, I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the
sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without
looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing
each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed
before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I
compared my "Spectator" with the original, discovered some of my
faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or
a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should
have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since
the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different
length to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would
have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and
also have tended to fix that variety in my mind and make me master of
it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse;
and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned
them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into
confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the
best order before I began to form the full sentences and complete the
paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By
comparing my work afterward with the original, I discovered many
faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying
that in certain particulars of small import I had been lucky enough to
improve the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think I
might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which
I was extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading
was at night after work, or before it began in the morning, or on
Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing house alone, evading
as much as I could the common attendance on public worship, which my
father used to exact of me when I was under his care, and which indeed
I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford
time to practice it.

When about sixteen years of age I happened to meet with a book,
written by one Tryon, recommending a vegetable diet. I determined to
go into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but
boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. My refusal to
eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for
my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon's manner of
preparing some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, making
hasty pudding, and a few others, and then proposed to my brother that
if he would give me weekly half the money he paid for my board I would
board myself. He instantly agreed to it, and I presently found that I
could save half what he paid me. This was an additional fund for
buying books. But I had another advantage in it. My brother and the
rest going from the printing house to their meals, I remained there
alone, and, dispatching presently my light repast, which often was no
more than a biscuit or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins, or a
tart from the pastry cook's, and a glass of water, had the rest of the
time till their return for study, in which I made the greater progress
from that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which
usually attend temperance in eating and drinking.

And now it was that, being on some occasion made ashamed of my
ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed in learning when at
school, I took Cocker's book of arithmetic, and went through the whole
by myself with great ease. I also read Seller's and Shermy's books of
navigation, and became acquainted with the little geometry they
contain, but never proceeded far in that science. And I read about
this time Locke "On the Human Understanding," and the "Art of
Thinking," by Messrs. du Port Royal.[30]

While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English
grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), at the end of which there were
two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter
finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method;[31]
and soon after I procured Xenophon's "Memorable Things of Socrates,"
wherein there are many instances of the same method. I was charmed
with it, adopted it, dropped my abrupt contradiction and positive
argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter. And being
then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in
many points of our religious doctrine, I found this method safest for
myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it.
Therefore I took a delight in it, practiced it continually, and grew
very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge,
into concessions the consequences of which they did not foresee,
entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate
themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my
cause always deserved.

I continued this method some few years, but gradually left it,
retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest
diffidence; never using, when I advanced anything that may possibly be
disputed, the words "certainly," "undoubtedly," or any others that
give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather saying, "I
conceive" or "apprehend" a thing to be so and so; "it appears to me,"
or "I should think it so or so," for such and such reasons; or "I
imagine it to be so;" or "it is so, if I am not mistaken." This habit,
I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion
to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have
been from time to time engaged in promoting; and, as the chief ends of
conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to
persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their
power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails
to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one of
those purposes for which speech was given to us,--to wit, giving or
receiving information or pleasure. For if you would inform, a positive
and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke
contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish information
and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time
express yourself as firmly fixed in your present opinions, modest,
sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you
undisturbed in the possession of your error. And by such a manner you
can seldom hope to recommend yourself in pleasing your hearers, or to
persuade those whose concurrence you desire. Pope says judiciously:

    "Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
    And things unknown propos'd as things forgot;"

further recommending to us to

    "Speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence."

And he might have coupled with this line that which he has coupled
with another, I think, less properly:

    "For want of modesty is want of sense."

If you ask why less properly, I must repeat the lines:

    "Immodest words admit of no defense,
    For want of modesty is want of sense."[32]

Now, is not "want of sense" (where a man is so unfortunate as to want
it) some apology for his "want of modesty?" and would not the lines
stand more justly thus?

    "Immodest words admit _but_ this defense,
    That want of modesty is want of sense."

This, however, I should submit to better judgments.

My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a newspaper. It was the
second that appeared in America, and was called the "New England
Courant."[33] The only one before it was the "Boston News-Letter." I
remember his being dissuaded by some of his friends from the
undertaking, as not likely to succeed, one newspaper being, in their
judgment, enough for America. At this time (1771) there are not less
than five and twenty. He went on, however, with the undertaking, and
after having worked in composing the types and printing off the sheets,
I was employed to carry the papers through the streets to the customers.

He had some ingenious men among his friends, who amused themselves by
writing little pieces for this paper, which gained it credit and made
it more in demand; and these gentlemen often visited us. Hearing their
conversations and their accounts of the approbation their papers were
received with, I was excited to try my hand among them; but, being
still a boy, and suspecting that my brother would object to printing
anything of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I contrived to
disguise my hand, and, writing an anonymous paper, I put it in at
night under the door of the printing house. It was found in the
morning, and communicated to his writing friends when they called in
as usual. They read it, commented on it in my hearing, and I had the
exquisite pleasure of finding it met with their approbation, and that,
in their different guesses at the author, none were named but men of
some character among us for learning and ingenuity. I suppose now that
I was rather lucky in my judges, and that perhaps they were not really
so very good ones as I then esteemed them.

Encouraged, however, by this, I wrote and conveyed in the same way to
the press several more papers, which were equally approved; and I kept
my secret till my small fund of sense for such performances was pretty
well exhausted, and then I discovered[34] it, when I began to be
considered a little more by my brother's acquaintance, and in a manner
that did not quite please him, as he thought, probably with reason, that
it tended to make me too vain. And perhaps this might be one occasion of
the differences that we began to have about this time. Though a brother,
he considered himself as my master and me as his apprentice, and
accordingly expected the same services from me as he would from another,
while I thought he demeaned[35] me too much in some he required of me,
who from a brother expected more indulgence. Our disputes were often
brought before our father, and I fancy I was either generally in the
right or else a better pleader, because the judgment was generally in my
favor. But my brother was passionate, and had often beaten me, which I
took extremely amiss; and, thinking my apprenticeship very tedious, I
was continually wishing for some opportunity of shortening it, which at
length offered in a manner unexpected.

One of the pieces in our newspaper, on some political point which I
have now forgotten, gave offense to the Assembly.[36] He was taken up,
censured, and imprisoned for a month, by the Speaker's warrant, I
suppose, because he would not discover his author. I, too, was taken
up and examined before the council; but, though I did not give them
any satisfaction, they contented themselves with admonishing me, and
dismissed me, considering me, perhaps, as an apprentice, who was bound
to keep his master's secrets.

During my brother's confinement, which I resented a good deal,
notwithstanding our private differences, I had the management of the
paper; and I made bold to give our rulers some rubs in it, which my
brother took very kindly, while others began to consider me in an
unfavorable light, as a young genius that had a turn for libeling and
satire. My brother's discharge was accompanied with an order of the
House (a very odd one) that James Franklin should no longer print the
paper called the "New England Courant."

There was a consultation held in our printing house among his friends
what he should do in this case. Some proposed to evade the order by
changing the name of the paper; but my brother seeing inconveniences
in that, it was finally concluded on, as a better way, to let it be
printed for the future under the name of Benjamin Franklin; and to
avoid the censure of the Assembly that might fall on him as still
printing it by his apprentice, the contrivance was that my old
indenture should be returned to me, with a full discharge on the back
of it, to be shown on occasion; but to secure to him the benefit of my
service I was to sign new indentures for the remainder of the term,
which were to be kept private. A very flimsy scheme it was; however,
it was immediately executed, and the paper went on accordingly under
my name for several months.

At length, a fresh difference arising between my brother and me, I
took upon me to assert my freedom, presuming that he would not venture
to produce the new indentures. It was not fair in me to take this
advantage, and this I therefore reckon one of the first errata[37] of
my life; but the unfairness of it weighed little with me when under
the impressions of resentment for the blows his passion too often
urged him to bestow upon me, though he was otherwise not an
ill-natured man. Perhaps I was too saucy and provoking.

When he found I would leave him, he took care to prevent my getting
employment in any other printing house of the town, by going round and
speaking to every master, who accordingly refused to give me work. I
then thought of going to New York, as the nearest place where there
was a printer; and I was rather inclined to leave Boston when I
reflected that I had already made myself a little obnoxious to the
governing party, and, from the arbitrary proceedings of the Assembly
in my brother's case, it was likely I might, if I stayed, soon bring
myself into scrapes; and, further, that my indiscreet disputations
about religion began to make me pointed at with horror by good people
as an infidel or atheist. I determined on the point, but, my father
now siding with my brother, I was sensible that, if I attempted to go
openly, means would be used to prevent me. My friend Collins,
therefore, undertook to manage a little for me. He agreed with the
captain of a New York sloop for my passage, under the notion of my
being a young acquaintance of his that had got into trouble, and
therefore I could not appear or come away publicly. So I sold some of
my books to raise a little money, was taken on board privately, and,
as we had a fair wind, in three days I found myself in New York, near
three hundred miles from home, a boy of but seventeen, without the
least recommendation to, or knowledge of, any person in the place, and
with very little money in my pocket.

[Footnote 4: A village near Winchester, Hampshire, England, where Dr.
Jonathan Shipley had his country house. Dr. Shipley was Bishop of St.
Asaph's in Wales, and Franklin's friend.]

[Footnote 5: Franklin's only living son, William, who in 1762 had been
made royal governor of New Jersey, with the hope of detaching Franklin
from the cause of the colonists.]

[Footnote 6: A franklin was a freeman, or freeholder, or owner of the
land on which he dwelt. The franklins were by their possessions fitted
for becoming sheriffs, knights, etc. After the Norman Conquest, men in
England took, in addition to the first name, another which was
suggested by their condition in life, their trade, or some personal
peculiarity. See Note, p. 203.]

[Footnote 7: A title given in England in Franklin's time to the
descendants of knights and noblemen.]

[Footnote 8: A writer whose duties were similar to those of our notary.]

[Footnote 9: "Old style," i.e., the method of reckoning time which
formerly prevailed and which had caused an error of eleven days. The
new style of reckoning was adopted in England in 1752.]

[Footnote 10: The passage of the soul into another body; one might
have supposed that the soul of the uncle had taken up abode in
Franklin's body.]

[Footnote 11: Franklin omitted the verses.]

[Footnote 12: Who was queen from 1553 to 1558.]

[Footnote 13: "Joint stool," i.e., a stool made of parts fitted
together.]

[Footnote 14: "Outed for nonconformity," i.e., turned out of the
church for not conforming to the usages of the Church of England and
for holding meetings of dissenters for public worship.]

[Footnote 15: Franklin was born Sunday, Jan. 17, 1706 (Jan. 6, old
style). The family then lived in a small house on Milk Street, near
the Old South Church, where the Boston Post building now stands.]

[Footnote 16: The persecution which the first settlers practiced
against all who differed with them in religious doctrines.]

[Footnote 17: Sherburne is now called Nantucket.]

[Footnote 18: The lines which Dr. Franklin had forgotten are these:

    "I am for peace and not for war,
      And that's the reason why
    I write more plain than some men do,
      That used to daub and lie.
    But I shall cease, and set my name
      To what I here insert,
    Because to be a libeler
      I hate it with my heart."
]

[Footnote 19: In Franklin's time the grammar school was a school for
teaching Latin, which was begun by committing the grammar to memory.]

[Footnote 20: Characters, or method of writing shorthand.]

[Footnote 21: Candles were made by dipping wicks in the fat a number
of times, and also by setting the wicks in a mold and pouring the fat
round them.]

[Footnote 22: Ants.]

[Footnote 23: The marble having crumbled, a larger stone was placed
over the grave in 1827, and Franklin's inscription repeated. It stands
in the Granary Burying Ground.]

[Footnote 24: Aged.]

[Footnote 25: A joiner is a mechanic who does the woodwork of houses,
etc.; a turner, one who works with a lathe; a brasier, a worker in
brass.]

[Footnote 26: A chapman was a peddler.]

[Footnote 27: Agreements written upon sheets, the edges of which were
cut or indented to match each other, for security and identification.]

[Footnote 28: A street in London in which many writers of small
ability or reputation, or of unhappy fortune, had lodgings. "Grub
Street style," therefore, means poor or worthless in literary value.
The term, which always implied a sneer, was made current by Pope and
Swift and their coterie.]

[Footnote 29: A paper published in London every week day from the 1st
of March, 1711, to the 6th of December, 1712, and made up for the most
part of essays by Addison, Steele, and their friends. It held aloof
from politics, and dealt with the manners of the time and with
literature.]

[Footnote 30: These gentlemen of Port Royal lived in the old convent
of Port Royal des Champs, near Paris. They were learned men who, with
other works, prepared schoolbooks, among which was the "Art of
Thinking," a logic.]

[Footnote 31: "The Socratic method," i.e., the method of modest
questioning, which Socrates used with pupils and opponents alike, and
by which he led them to concessions and unforeseen conclusions.]

[Footnote 32: These lines are not Pope's, but Lord Roscommon's,
slightly modified.]

[Footnote 33: "The New England Courant was the fourth newspaper that
appeared in America. The first number of the Boston News-Letter was
published April 24, 1704. This was the first newspaper in America. The
Boston Gazette commenced Dec. 21, 1719; the American Weekly Mercury,
at Philadelphia, Dec. 22, 1719; the New England Courant, Aug. 21,
1721. Dr. Franklin's error of memory probably originated in the
circumstance of his brother having been the printer of the Boston
Gazette when it was first established. This was the second newspaper
published in America."--SPARKS.]

[Footnote 34: Told.]

[Footnote 35: Lowered; put down.[n]]

[Footnote 36: The legislature.]

[Footnote 37: Errors; mistakes.]




§ 2. SEEKS HIS FORTUNE.


My inclinations for the sea were by this time worn out, or I might now
have gratified them. But, having a trade, and supposing myself a
pretty good workman, I offered my service to the printer in the place,
old Mr. William Bradford, who had been the first printer in
Pennsylvania, but removed from thence upon the quarrel of George
Keith. He could give me no employment, having little to do and help
enough already; but says he, "My son at Philadelphia has lately lost
his principal hand, Aquila Rose, by death; if you go thither I believe
he may employ you." Philadelphia was a hundred miles farther; I set
out, however, in a boat for Amboy, leaving my chest and things to
follow me round by sea.

In crossing the bay we met with a squall that tore our rotten sails to
pieces, prevented our getting into the Kill,[38] and drove us upon
Long Island. In our way, a drunken Dutchman, who was a passenger too,
fell overboard. When he was sinking, I reached through the water to
his shock pate, and drew him up so that we got him in again. His
ducking sobered him a little, and he went to sleep, taking first out
of his pocket a book, which he desired I would dry for him. It proved
to be my old favorite author, Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," in Dutch,
finely printed on good paper, with copper cuts, a dress better than I
had ever seen it wear in its own language. I have since found that it
has been translated into most of the languages of Europe, and suppose
it has been more generally read than any other book, except, perhaps,
the Bible. Honest John[39] was the first that I know of who mixed
narration and dialogue; a method of writing very engaging to the
reader, who in the most interesting parts finds himself, as it were,
brought into the company and present at the discourse. Defoe[n] in his
"Crusoe," his "Moll Flanders," "Religious Courtship," "Family
Instructor," and other pieces, has imitated it with success; and
Richardson has done the same in his "Pamela," etc.

When we drew near the island we found it was at a place where there
could be no landing, there being a great surf on the stony beach. So
we dropped anchor, and swung round toward the shore. Some people came
down to the water edge and hallooed to us, as we did to them; but the
wind was so high and the surf so loud that we could not hear so as to
understand each other. There were canoes on the shore, and we made
signs, and hallooed that they should fetch us; but they either did not
understand us or thought it impracticable, so they went away, and
night coming on, we had no remedy but to wait till the wind should
abate. In the mean time, the boatman and I concluded to sleep if we
could, and so crowded into the scuttle with the Dutchman, who was
still wet, and the spray beating over the head of our boat leaked
through to us, so that we were soon almost as wet as he. In this
manner we lay all night, with very little rest; but the wind abating
the next day, we made a shift to reach Amboy before night, having been
thirty hours on the water, without victuals, or any drink but a bottle
of filthy rum, the water we sailed on being salt.

In the evening I found myself very feverish, and went in to bed; but,
having read somewhere that cold water, drunk plentifully, was good for
a fever, I followed the prescription, sweat plentifully most of the
night, my fever left me, and in the morning, crossing the ferry, I
proceeded on my journey on foot, having fifty miles to Burlington,[40]
where I was told I should find boats that would carry me the rest of
the way to Philadelphia.

It rained very hard all the day. I was thoroughly soaked, and by noon a
good deal tired, so I stopped at a poor inn, where I stayed all night,
beginning now to wish that I had never left home. I cut so miserable a
figure, too, that I found, by the questions asked me, I was suspected to
be some runaway servant and in danger of being taken up on that
suspicion. However, I proceeded the next day, and got in the evening to
an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept by one Dr. Brown.
He entered into conversation with me while I took some refreshment, and,
finding I had read a little, became very sociable and friendly. Our
acquaintance continued as long as he lived.[n] He had been, I imagine,
an itinerant doctor; for there was no town in England, or country in
Europe, of which he could not give a very particular account. He had
some letters,[41] and was ingenious, but much of an unbeliever, and
wickedly undertook, some years after, to travesty the Bible in doggerel
verse, as Cotton had done Virgil. By this means he set many of the facts
in a very ridiculous light, and might have hurt weak minds if his work
had been published; but it never was.

At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reached
Burlington, but had the mortification to find that the regular boats
were gone a little before my coming, and no other expected to go
before Tuesday, this being Saturday; wherefore I returned to an old
woman in the town of whom I had bought gingerbread to eat on the
water, and asked her advice. She invited me to lodge at her house till
a passage by water should offer; and, being tired with my foot
traveling, I accepted the invitation. She, understanding I was a
printer, would have had me stay at that town and follow my business,
being ignorant of the stock necessary to begin with. She was very
hospitable, gave me a dinner of ox cheek with great good will,
accepting only of a pot of ale in return; and I thought myself fixed
till Tuesday should come. However, walking in the evening by the side
of the river, a boat came by, which I found was going toward
Philadelphia, with several people in her. They took me in, and, as
there was no wind, we rowed all the way, and about midnight, not
having yet seen the city, some of the company were confident we must
have passed it, and would row no farther. The others knew not where we
were; so we put toward the shore, got into a creek, and landed near an
old fence, with the rails of which we made a fire, the night being
cold, in October, and there we remained till daylight. Then one of the
company knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little above
Philadelphia, which we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and
arrived there about eight or nine o'clock on the Sunday morning, and
landed at the Market Street wharf.

I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and
shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may in your
mind compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since
made there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come
round by sea. I was dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuffed out
with shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul, nor where to look for
lodging. I was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest; I
was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch
dollar and about a shilling in copper.[42] The latter I gave the
people of the boat for my passage, who at first refused it, on account
of my rowing; but I insisted on their taking it, a man being sometimes
more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty,
perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little.

Then I walked up the street, gazing about, till near the market house
I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and,
inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's he
directed me to, in Second Street, and asked for biscuit, intending
such as we had in Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in
Philadelphia. Then I asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told they
had none such. So not considering or knowing the difference of money
and the greater cheapness, nor the names of his bread, I bade him give
me threepenny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great
puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it, and, having
no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and
eating the other. Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth
Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when
she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly
did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went
down Chestnut Street and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the
way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market Street wharf,
near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river
water; and, being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a
woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and
were waiting to go farther.

Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had
many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I
joined them, and thereby was led into the great meetinghouse of the
Quakers near the market.[43] I sat down among them, and, after looking
round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labor
and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and
continued so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to
rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in,
in Philadelphia.

Walking down again toward the river, and looking in the faces of
people, I met a young Quaker man, whose countenance I liked, and,
accosting him, requested he would tell me where a stranger could get
lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three Mariners. "Here,"
says he, "is one place that entertains strangers, but it is not a
reputable house; if thee wilt walk with me I'll show thee a better."
He brought me to the Crooked Billet, in Water Street. Here I got a
dinner, and while I was eating it several sly questions were asked me,
as it seemed to be suspected from my youth and appearance that I might
be some runaway.

After dinner my sleepiness returned; and, being shown to a bed, I lay
down without undressing and slept till six in the evening, was called to
supper, went to bed again very early, and slept soundly till next
morning. Then I made myself as tidy as I could, and went to Andrew
Bradford the printer's. I found in the shop the old man, his father,
whom I had seen at New York, and who, traveling on horseback, had got to
Philadelphia before me. He introduced me to his son, who received me
civilly, and gave me a breakfast, but told me he did not at present want
a hand, being lately supplied with one; but there was another printer in
town, lately set up, one Keimer, who, perhaps, might employ me; if not,
I should be welcome to lodge at his house, and he would give me a little
work to do now and then till fuller business should offer.

The old gentleman said he would go with me to the new printer; and
when we found him, "Neighbor," says Bradford, "I have brought to see
you a young man of your business; perhaps you may want such a one." He
asked me a few questions, put a composing stick[44] in my hand to see
how I worked, and then said he would employ me soon, though he had
just then nothing for me to do; and, taking old Bradford, whom he had
never seen before, to be one of the townspeople that had a good will
for him, he entered into a conversation on his present undertaking and
prospects; while Bradford, not discovering that he was the other
printer's father, on Keimer's saying he expected soon to get the
greatest part of the business into his own hands, drew him on by
artful questions, and starting little doubts, to explain all his
views, what interest he relied on, and in what manner he intended to
proceed. I, who stood by and heard all, saw immediately that one of
them was a crafty old sophister,[45] and the other a mere novice.
Bradford left me with Keimer, who was greatly surprised when I told
him who the old man was.

Keimer's printing house, I found, consisted of an old shattered press
and one small, worn-out font of English,[46] which he was then using
himself, composing an elegy on Aquila Rose, before mentioned, an
ingenious young man of excellent character, much respected in the
town, clerk of the Assembly, and a pretty poet. Keimer made verses
too, but very indifferently. He could not be said to write them, for
his manner was to compose them in the types, directly out of his head.
So, there being no copy,[47] but one pair of cases, and the elegy
likely to require all the letters, no one could help him. I endeavored
to put his press (which he had not yet used and of which he understood
nothing) into order fit to be worked with; and, promising to come and
print off his elegy as soon as he should have got it ready, I returned
to Bradford's, who gave me a little job to do for the present, and
there I lodged and dieted.[48] A few days after Keimer sent for me to
print off the elegy. And now he had got another pair of cases, and a
pamphlet to reprint, on which he set me to work.

These two printers I found poorly qualified for their business.
Bradford had not been bred to it, and was very illiterate; and Keimer,
though something of a scholar, was a mere compositor, knowing nothing
of press work. He had been one of the French prophets,[49] and could
act their enthusiastic agitations. At this time he did not profess any
particular religion, but something of all on occasion, was very
ignorant of the world, and had, as I afterward found, a good deal of
the knave in his composition. He did not like my lodging at Bradford's
while I worked with him. He had a house, indeed, but without
furniture, so he could not lodge me; but he got me a lodging at Mr.
Read's, before mentioned, who was the owner of his house; and, my
chest and clothes being come by this time, I made rather a more
respectable appearance in the eyes of Miss Read than I had done when
she first happened to see me eating my roll in the street.

I began now to have some acquaintance among the young people of the
town that were lovers of reading, with whom I spent my evenings very
pleasantly; and, gaining money by my industry and frugality, I lived
very agreeably, forgetting Boston as much as I could, and not desiring
that any there should know where I resided, except my friend Collins,
who was in my secret and kept it when I wrote to him. At length an
incident happened that sent me back again much sooner than I had
intended. I had a brother-in-law, Robert Holmes, master of a sloop
that traded between Boston and Delaware. He being at Newcastle, forty
miles below Philadelphia, heard there of me, and wrote me a letter,
mentioning the concern of my friends in Boston at my abrupt departure,
assuring me of their good will to me and that everything would be
accommodated to my mind if I would return, to which he exhorted me
very earnestly. I wrote an answer to his letter, thanked him for his
advice, but stated my reasons for quitting Boston fully and in such a
light as to convince him I was not so wrong as he had apprehended.

Sir William Keith, governor of the province, was then at Newcastle;
and Captain Holmes, happening to be in company with him when my letter
came to hand, spoke to him of me and showed him the letter. The
governor read it, and seemed surprised when he was told my age. He
said I appeared a young man of promising parts, and therefore should
be encouraged; the printers at Philadelphia were wretched ones; and,
if I would set up there, he made no doubt I should succeed; for his
part, he would procure me the public business, and do me every other
service in his power. This my brother-in-law afterward told me in
Boston, but I knew as yet nothing of it when, one day, Keimer and I
being at work together near the window, we saw the governor and
another gentleman (which proved to be Colonel French of Newcastle),
finely dressed, come directly across the street to our house, and
heard them at the door.

Keimer ran down immediately, thinking it a visit to him; but the
governor inquired for me, came up, and with a condescension and
politeness I had been quite unused to, made me many compliments,
desired to be acquainted with me, blamed me kindly for not having made
myself known to him when I first came to the place, and would have me
away with him to the tavern, where he was going with Colonel French to
taste, as he said, some excellent Madeira. I was not a little
surprised, and Keimer stared like a pig poisoned. I went, however,
with the governor and Colonel French to a tavern at the corner of
Third Street, and over the Madeira he proposed my setting up my
business, laid before me the probabilities of success, and both he and
Colonel French assured me I should have their interest and influence
in procuring the public business of both governments.[50] On my
doubting whether my father would assist me in it, Sir William said he
would give me a letter to him, in which he would state the advantages,
and he did not doubt of prevailing with him. So it was concluded I
should return to Boston in the first vessel, with the governor's
letter recommending me to my father. In the mean time the intention
was to be kept a secret, and I went on working with Keimer as usual,
the governor sending for me now and then to dine with him, a very
great honor I thought it, and conversing with me in the most affable,
familiar, and friendly manner imaginable.

About the end of April, 1724, a little vessel offered for Boston. I
took leave of Keimer as going to see my friends. The governor gave me
an ample letter, saying many flattering things of me to my father,
and strongly recommending the project of my setting up at Philadelphia
as a thing that must make my fortune. We struck on a shoal in going
down the bay, and sprung a leak; we had a blustering time at sea, and
were obliged to pump almost continually, at which I took my turn. We
arrived safe, however, at Boston in about a fortnight. I had been
absent seven months, and my friends had heard nothing of me; for my
brother Holmes was not yet returned, and had not written about me. My
unexpected appearance surprised the family; all were, however, very
glad to see me, and made me welcome, except my brother. I went to see
him at his printing house. I was better dressed than ever while in his
service, having a genteel new suit from head to foot, a watch, and my
pockets lined with near five pounds sterling in silver. He received me
not very frankly, looked me all over, and turned to his work again.

The journeymen were inquisitive where I had been, what sort of a
country it was, and how I liked it. I praised it much, and the happy
life I led in it, expressing strongly my intention of returning to it;
and one of them asking what kind of money we had there, I produced a
handful of silver and spread it before them, which was a kind of
raree-show[51] they had not been used to, paper being the money of
Boston. Then I took an opportunity of letting them see my watch; and
lastly (my brother still grum and sullen) I gave them a piece of
eight[52] to drink, and took my leave. This visit of mine offended him
extremely; for, when my mother some time after spoke to him of a
reconciliation, and of her wishes to see us on good terms together,
and that we might live for the future as brothers, he said I had
insulted him in such a manner before his people that he could never
forget or forgive it. In this, however, he was mistaken.

My father received the governor's letter with some apparent surprise,
but said little of it to me for several days, when, Captain Holmes
returning, he showed it to him, asked him if he knew Keith, and what
kind of man he was, adding his opinion that he must be of small
discretion to think of setting a boy up in business who wanted yet
three years of being at man's estate. Holmes said what he could in
favor of the project, but my father was clear in the impropriety of
it, and at last gave a flat denial to it. Then he wrote a civil letter
to Sir William, thanking him for the patronage he had so kindly
offered me, but declining to assist me as yet in setting up, I being,
in his opinion, too young to be trusted with the management of a
business so important, and for which the preparation must be so
expensive.

My friend and companion, Collins, who was a clerk in the post office,
pleased with the account I gave him of my new country, determined to
go thither also; and, while I waited for my father's determination, he
set out before me by land to Rhode Island, leaving his books, which
were a pretty collection of mathematics and natural philosophy, to
come with mine and me to New York, where he proposed to wait for me.

My father, though he did not approve Sir William's proposition, was
yet pleased that I had been able to obtain so advantageous a character
from a person of such note where I had resided, and that I had been so
industrious and careful as to equip myself so handsomely in so short a
time; therefore, seeing no prospect of an accommodation between my
brother and me, he gave his consent to my returning again to
Philadelphia, advised me to behave respectfully to the people there,
endeavor to obtain the general esteem, and avoid lampooning and
libeling, to which he thought I had too much inclination; telling me
that by steady industry and a prudent parsimony I might save enough by
the time I was one and twenty to set me up; and that, if I came near
the matter, he would help me out with the rest. This was all I could
obtain, except some small gifts as tokens of his and my mother's love,
when I embarked again for New York, now with their approbation and
their blessing.

The sloop putting in at Newport, Rhode Island, I visited my brother
John, who had been married and settled there some years. He received
me very affectionately, for he always loved me. A friend of his, one
Vernon, having some money due to him in Pennsylvania, about
thirty-five pounds currency, desired I would receive it for him, and
keep it till I had his directions what to remit it in. Accordingly, he
gave me an order. This afterward occasioned me a good deal of
uneasiness.

At Newport we took in a number of passengers for New York, among which
were two young women, companions, and a grave, sensible, matronlike
Quaker woman, with her attendants. I had shown an obliging readiness
to do her some little services, which impressed her, I suppose, with a
degree of good will toward me; therefore, when she saw a daily growing
familiarity between me and the two young women, which they appeared to
encourage, she took me aside, and said, "Young man, I am concerned for
thee, as thou hast no friend with thee, and seems not to know much of
the world, or of the snares youth is exposed to. Depend upon it, those
are very bad women; I can see it in all their actions; and if thee art
not upon thy guard, they will draw thee into some danger. They are
strangers to thee, and I advise thee, in a friendly concern for thy
welfare, to have no acquaintance with them." As I seemed at first not
to think so ill of them as she did, she mentioned some things she had
observed and heard that had escaped my notice, but now convinced me
she was right. I thanked her for her kind advice, and promised to
follow it. When we arrived at New York, they told me where they lived,
and invited me to come and see them; but I avoided it, and it was well
I did; for the next day the captain missed a silver spoon and some
other things, that had been taken out of his cabin, and he got a
warrant to search their lodgings, found the stolen goods, and had the
thieves punished. So, though we had escaped a sunken rock, which we
scraped upon in the passage, I thought this escape of rather more
importance to me.

At New York I found my friend Collins, who had arrived there some time
before me. We had been intimate from children, and had read the same
books together; but he had the advantage of more time for reading and
studying, and a wonderful genius for mathematical learning, in which
he far outstripped me. While I lived in Boston most of my hours of
leisure for conversation were spent with him, and he continued a sober
as well as an industrious lad, was much respected for his learning by
several of the clergy and other gentlemen, and seemed to promise
making a good figure in life. But, during my absence, he had acquired
a habit of sotting with brandy; and I found, by his own account, and
what I heard from others, that he had been drunk every day since his
arrival at New York, and behaved very oddly. He had gamed, too, and
lost his money, so that I was obliged to discharge his lodgings, and
defray his expenses to and at Philadelphia, which proved extremely
inconvenient to me.

The then governor of New York, Burnet (son of Bishop Burnet), hearing
from the captain that a young man, one of his passengers, had a great
many books, desired he would bring me to see him. I waited upon him
accordingly, and should have taken Collins with me but that he was not
sober. The governor treated me with great civility, showed me his
library, which was a very large one, and we had a good deal of
conversation about books and authors. This was the second governor who
had done me the honor to take notice of me; which, to a poor boy like
me, was very pleasing.

We proceeded to Philadelphia. I received on the way Vernon's money,
without which we could hardly have finished our journey. Collins
wished to be employed in some countinghouse; but, whether they
discovered his dramming by his breath or by his behavior, though he
had some recommendations he met with no success in any application,
and continued lodging and boarding at the same house with me and at my
expense. Knowing I had that money of Vernon's, he was continually
borrowing of me, still promising repayment as soon as he should be in
business. At length he had got so much of it that I was distressed to
think what I should do in case of being called on to remit it.

His drinking continued, about which we sometimes quarreled; for, when a
little intoxicated, he was very fractious. Once, in a boat on the
Delaware with some other young men, he refused to row in his turn. "I
will be rowed home," says he. "We will not row you," says I. "You must,
or stay all night on the water," says he; "just as you please." The
others said, "Let us row; what signifies it?" But, my mind being soured
with his other conduct, I continued to refuse. So he swore he would make
me row, or throw me overboard; and coming along, stepping on the
thwarts,[53] toward me, when he came up and struck at me I clutched him,
and, rising, pitched him headforemost into the river. I knew he was a
good swimmer, and so was under little concern about him; but before he
could get round to lay hold of the boat, we had with a few strokes
pulled her out of his reach; and ever when he drew near the boat, we
asked if he would row, striking a few strokes to slide her away from
him. He was ready to die with vexation, and obstinately would not
promise to row. However, seeing him at last beginning to tire, we lifted
him in and brought him home dripping wet in the evening. We hardly
exchanged a civil word afterward, and a West India captain, who had a
commission to procure a tutor for the sons of a gentleman at Barbadoes,
happening to meet with him, agreed to carry him thither. He left me
then, promising to remit me the first money he should receive in order
to discharge the debt; but I never heard of him after.

The breaking into this money of Vernon's was one of the first great
errata of my life; and this affair showed that my father was not much
out in his judgment when he supposed me too young to manage business
of importance. But Sir William, on reading his letter, said he was too
prudent. There was great difference in persons, and discretion did not
always accompany years, nor was youth always without it. "And since he
will not set you up," says he, "I will do it myself. Give me an
inventory of the things necessary to be had from England, and I will
send for them. You shall repay me when you are able; I am resolved to
have a good printer here, and I am sure you must succeed." This was
spoken with such an appearance of cordiality that I had not the least
doubt of his meaning what he said. I had hitherto kept the proposition
of my setting up a secret in Philadelphia, and I still kept it. Had it
been known that I depended on the governor, probably some friend that
knew him better would have advised me not to rely on him, as I
afterward heard it as his known character to be liberal of promises
which he never meant to keep. Yet, unsolicited as he was by me, how
could I think his generous offers insincere? I believed him one of the
best men in the world.[54]

I presented him an inventory of a little printing house, amounting, by
my computation, to about one hundred pounds sterling. He liked it, but
asked me if my being on the spot in England to choose the types, and
see that everything was good of the kind, might not be of some
advantage. "Then," says he, "when there you may make acquaintances,
and establish correspondences in the bookselling and stationery way."
I agreed that this might be advantageous. "Then," says he, "get
yourself ready to go with Annis,"[55] which was the annual ship, and
the only one at that time usually passing between London and
Philadelphia. But it would be some months before Annis sailed, so I
continued working with Keimer, fretting about the money Collins had
got from me, and in daily apprehensions of being called upon by
Vernon; which, however, did not happen for some years after.

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from
Boston, being becalmed off Block Island, our people set about catching
cod, and hauled up a good many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of
not eating animal food; and on this occasion I considered, with my
master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder,
since none of them had, or ever could, do us any injury that might
justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable; but I had
formerly been a great lover of fish, and when this came hot out of the
frying pan it smelled admirably well. I balanced some time between
principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were
opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I,
"If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I dined
upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people,
returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So
convenient a thing it is to be a "reasonable" creature, since it enables
one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

Keimer and I lived on a pretty good, familiar footing, and agreed
tolerably well, for he suspected nothing of my setting up. He retained
a great deal of his old enthusiasms, and loved argumentation. We
therefore had many disputations. I used to work him so with my
Socratic method, and had trepanned[56] him so often by questions
apparently so distant from any point we had in hand and yet by degrees
led to the point, and brought him into difficulties and
contradictions, that at last he grew ridiculously cautious, and would
hardly answer me the most common question without asking first, "What
do you intend to infer from that?" However, it gave him so high an
opinion of my abilities in the confuting way that he seriously
proposed my being his colleague in a project he had of setting up a
new sect. He was to preach the doctrines, and I was to confound all
opponents. When he came to explain with me upon the doctrines, I found
several conundrums which I objected to, unless I might have my way a
little too, and introduce some of mine.

Keimer wore his beard at full length, because somewhere in the Mosaic
law it is said, "Thou shalt not mar the corners of thy beard."[57] He
likewise kept the seventh day Sabbath; and these two points were
essentials with him. I disliked both, but agreed to admit them upon
condition of his adopting the doctrine of using no animal food. "I
doubt," said he, "my constitution will not bear that." I assured him
it would, and that he would be better for it. He was usually a great
glutton, and I promised myself some diversion in half starving him. He
agreed to try the practice if I would keep him company. I did so, and
we held it for three months. We had our victuals dressed and brought
to us regularly by a woman in the neighborhood, who had from me a list
of forty dishes, to be prepared for us at different times, in all
which there was neither fish, flesh, nor fowl; and the whim suited me
the better at this time from the cheapness of it, not costing us above
eighteen pence sterling each per week. I have since kept several Lents
most strictly, leaving the common diet for that, and that for the
common, abruptly, without the least inconvenience, so that I think
there is little in the advice of making those changes by easy
gradations. I went on pleasantly, but poor Keimer suffered grievously,
tired of the project, longed for the flesh pots of Egypt, and ordered
a roast pig. He invited me and two women friends to dine with him;
but, it being brought too soon upon table, he could not resist the
temptation, and ate the whole before we came.

I had made some courtship during this time to Miss Read. I had a great
respect and affection for her, and had some reason to believe she had
the same for me; but, as I was about to take a long voyage, and we
were both very young,--only a little above eighteen,--it was thought
most prudent by her mother to prevent our going too far at present, as
a marriage, if it was to take place, would be more convenient after my
return, when I should be, as I expected, set up in my business.
Perhaps, too, she thought my expectations not so well founded as I
imagined them to be.

My chief acquaintances at this time were Charles Osborne, Joseph
Watson, and James Ralph, all lovers of reading. The two first were
clerks to an eminent scrivener or conveyancer in the town, Charles
Brogden; the other was clerk to a merchant. Watson was a pious,
sensible young man, of great integrity; the others rather more lax in
their principles of religion, particularly Ralph, who, as well as
Collins, had been unsettled by me, for which they both made me
suffer. Osborne was sensible, candid, frank; sincere and affectionate
to his friends, but, in literary matters, too fond of criticising.
Ralph was ingenious, genteel in his manners, and extremely eloquent; I
think I never knew a prettier talker. Both of them were great admirers
of poetry, and began to try their hands in little pieces. Many
pleasant walks we four had together on Sundays into the woods, near
Schuylkill, where we read to one another and conferred on what we read.

Ralph was inclined to pursue the study of poetry, not doubting but he
might become eminent in it, and make his fortune by it, alleging that
the best poets must, when they first began to write, make as many
faults as he did. Osborne dissuaded him, assured him he had no genius
for poetry, and advised him to think of nothing beyond the business he
was bred to; that, in the mercantile way, though he had no stock, he
might, by his diligence and punctuality, recommend himself to
employment as a factor,[58] and in time acquire wherewith to trade on
his own account. I approved the amusing one's self with poetry now and
then, so far as to improve one's language, but no farther.

On this it was proposed that we should each of us, at our next
meeting, produce a piece of our own composing, in order to improve by
our mutual observations, criticisms, and corrections. As language and
expression were what we had in view, we excluded all considerations of
invention by agreeing that the task should be a version of the
eighteenth Psalm, which describes the descent of Deity. When the time
of our meeting grew nigh, Ralph called on me first, and let me know
his piece was ready. I told him I had been busy, and, having little
inclination, had done nothing. He then showed me his piece for my
opinion, and I much approved it, as it appeared to me to have great
merit. "Now," says he, "Osborne never will allow the least merit in
anything of mine, but makes a thousand criticisms out of mere envy. He
is not so jealous of you; I wish, therefore, you would take this
piece, and produce it as yours; I will pretend not to have had time,
and so produce nothing. We shall then see what he will say to it." It
was agreed, and I immediately transcribed it that it might appear in
my own hand.

We met; Watson's performance was read; there were some beauties in it,
but many defects. Osborne's was read; it was much better; Ralph did it
justice; remarked some faults, but applauded the beauties. He himself
had nothing to produce. I was backward; seemed desirous of being
excused; had not had sufficient time to correct, etc. But no excuse
would be admitted; produce I must. It was read and repeated; Watson
and Osborne gave up the contest, and joined in applauding it. Ralph
only made some criticisms, and proposed some amendments; but I
defended my text. Osborne was against Ralph, and told him he was no
better a critic than poet, so he dropped the argument. As they two
went home together, Osborne expressed himself still more strongly in
favor of what he thought my production, having restrained himself
before, as he said, lest I should think it flattery. "But who would
have imagined," said he, "that Franklin had been capable of such a
performance; such painting, such force, such fire! He has even
improved the original. In his common conversation he seems to have no
choice of words; he hesitates and blunders; and yet, good heavens! how
he writes!" When we next met, Ralph discovered the trick we had played
him, and Osborne was a little laughed at.

This transaction fixed Ralph in his resolution of becoming a poet. I
did all I could to dissuade him from it, but he continued scribbling
verses till Pope cured him.[59] He became, however, a pretty good
prose writer. More of him hereafter. But, as I may not have occasion
again to mention the other two, I shall just remark here that Watson
died in my arms a few years after, much lamented, being the best of
our set. Osborne went to the West Indies, where he became an eminent
lawyer and made money, but died young. He and I had made a serious
agreement that the one who happened first to die should, if possible,
make a friendly visit to the other, and acquaint him how he found
things in that separate state. But he never fulfilled his promise.

The governor, seeming to like my company, had me frequently to his
house, and his setting me up was always mentioned as a fixed thing. I
was to take with me letters recommendatory to a number of his friends,
besides the letter of credit to furnish me with the necessary money
for purchasing the press and types, paper, etc. For these letters I
was appointed to call at different times, when they were to be ready;
but a future time was still named. Thus he went on till the ship,
whose departure, too, had been several times postponed, was on the
point of sailing. Then, when I called to take my leave and receive the
letters, his secretary, Dr. Baird, came out to me and said the
governor was extremely busy in writing, but would be down at Newcastle
before the ship, and there the letters would be delivered to me.

Ralph, though married, and having one child, had determined to
accompany me on this voyage. It was thought he intended to establish a
correspondence, and obtain goods to sell on commission; but I found
afterward that, through some discontent with his wife's relations, he
proposed to leave her on their hands, and never return again. Having
taken leave of my friends, and interchanged some promises with Miss
Read, I left Philadelphia in the ship, which anchored at Newcastle.
The governor was there; but when I went to his lodging, the secretary
came to me from him with the civilest message in the world, that he
could not then see me, being engaged in business of the utmost
importance, but should send the letters to me on board, and wished me
heartily a good voyage and a speedy return, etc. I returned on board a
little puzzled, but still not doubting.

[Footnote 38: Kill von Kull, the strait between Staten Island and New
Jersey.]

[Footnote 39: That is, John Bunyan, the author of the book.]

[Footnote 40: In New Jersey.]

[Footnote 41: Learning.]

[Footnote 42: English penny pieces. The coin money used by the
colonists was at this time of foreign make.]

[Footnote 43: This market stood on the southwest corner of Second and
Market Streets.]

[Footnote 44: A composing stick is a small tray which the compositor
holds in his left hand and in which he arranges the type that he picks
out of the cases with his right hand.]

[Footnote 45: A false reasoner, and hence a deceiver.]

[Footnote 46: The name of a kind of type.]

[Footnote 47: Manuscript or printing of original matter.]

[Footnote 48: Boarded.]

[Footnote 49: The Camisards, who broke away from the state religion of
France, and suffered persecution at the hands of Louis XIV. They
showed their spiritual zeal by the prophetic mania and by working
miracles, as well as by a stout attachment to their creed.]

[Footnote 50: "Both governments," i.e., both Pennsylvania and Delaware.]

[Footnote 51: Peep show.]

[Footnote 52: "Piece of eight," i.e., the Spanish dollar, containing
eight reals. The present value of a real is about five cents.]

[Footnote 53: The seats across the boat on which the oarsmen sit.]

[Footnote 54: For Governor Keith's character and popularity, see p. 58.]

[Footnote 55: Captain Annis, commander of the ship, is here referred to.]

[Footnote 56: Entrapped.]

[Footnote 57: Lev. xix. 27.]

[Footnote 58: An agent or commission merchant.]

[Footnote 59: In 1728 Alexander Pope published his Dunciad, and in Book
III. lines 165, 166, he refers to Ralph, who was then living in London:

    "Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls.
    And makes night hideous--answer him, ye owls!"

Later, his History of England during the Reigns of King William, Queen
Anne, and King George I. was highly praised (see pp. 177, 178).]




§ 3. FIRST VISIT TO LONDON.


Mr. Andrew Hamilton, a Famous Lawyer of Philadelphia, Had Taken
Passage in the same ship for himself and son, and with Mr. Denham, a
Quaker merchant, and Messrs. Onion and Russel, masters of an iron work
in Maryland, had engaged the great cabin; so that Ralph and I were
forced to take up with a berth in the steerage, and, none on board
knowing us, were considered as ordinary persons. But Mr. Hamilton and
his son (it was James, since governor) returned from Newcastle to
Philadelphia, the father being recalled by a great fee to plead for a
seized ship; and, just before we sailed, Colonel French coming on
board, and showing me great respect, I was more taken notice of, and,
with my friend Ralph, invited by the other gentlemen to come into the
cabin, there being now room. Accordingly, we removed thither.

Understanding that Colonel French had brought on board the governor's
dispatches, I asked the captain for those letters that were to be put
under my care. He said all were put into the bag together, and he
could not then come at them; but, before we landed in England, I
should have an opportunity of picking them out; so I was satisfied for
the present, and we proceeded on our voyage. We had a sociable company
in the cabin, and lived uncommonly well, having the addition of all
Mr. Hamilton's stores, who had laid in plentifully. In this passage
Mr. Denham contracted a friendship for me that continued during his
life. The voyage was otherwise not a pleasant one, as we had a great
deal of bad weather.

When we came into the Channel the captain kept his word with me, and
gave me an opportunity of examining the bag for the governor's
letters. I found none upon which my name was put as under my care. I
picked out six or seven, that, by the handwriting, I thought might be
the promised letters, especially as one of them was directed to
Basket, the king's printer, and another to some stationer.

We arrived in London the 24th of December, 1724. I waited upon the
stationer, who came first in my way, delivering the letter as from
Governor Keith. "I don't know such a person," says he; but, opening
the letter, "Oh! this is from Riddlesden. I have lately found him to
be a complete rascal, and I will have nothing to do with him, nor
receive any letters from him." So, putting the letter into my hand, he
turned on his heel and left me, to serve some customer. I was
surprised to find these were not the governor's letters; and, after
recollecting and comparing circumstances, I began to doubt his
sincerity. I found my friend Denham, and opened the whole affair to
him. He let me into Keith's character; told me there was not the least
probability that he had written any letters for me; that no one who
knew him had the smallest dependence on him; and he laughed at the
notion of the governor's giving me a letter of credit, having, as he
said, no credit to give. On my expressing some concern about what I
should do, he advised me to endeavor getting some employment in the
way of my business. "Among the printers here," said he, "you will
improve yourself, and when you return to America you will set up to
greater advantage."

We both of us happened to know, as well as the stationer, that
Riddlesden, the attorney, was a very knave. He had half ruined Miss
Read's father by persuading him to be bound[60] for him. By this
letter it appeared there was a secret scheme on foot to the prejudice
of Hamilton (supposed to be then coming over with us), and that Keith
was concerned in it with Riddlesden. Denham, who was a friend of
Hamilton's, thought he ought to be acquainted with it; so, when he
arrived in England, which was soon after, partly from resentment and
ill will to Keith and Riddlesden and partly from good will to him, I
waited on him, and gave him the letter. He thanked me cordially, the
information being of importance to him; and from that time he became
my friend, greatly to my advantage afterward on many occasions.

But what shall we think of a governor's playing such pitiful tricks,
and imposing so grossly on a poor ignorant boy! It was a habit he had
acquired. He wished to please everybody; and, having little to give,
he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenious, sensible man, a
pretty good writer, and a good governor for the people, though not for
his constituents, the proprietaries,[61] whose instructions he
sometimes disregarded. Several of our best laws were of his planning,
and passed during his administration.

Ralph and I were inseparable companions. We took lodgings together in
Little Britain[62] at three shillings and sixpence a week,--as much as
we could then afford. He found some relations, but they were poor, and
unable to assist him. He now let me know his intentions of remaining in
London, and that he never meant to return to Philadelphia. He had
brought no money with him, the whole he could muster having been
expended in paying his passage. I had fifteen pistoles;[63] so he
borrowed occasionally of me to subsist while he was looking out for
business. He first endeavored to get into the playhouse, believing
himself qualified for an actor; but Wilkes,[64] to whom he applied,
advised him candidly not to think of that employment, as it was
impossible he should succeed in it. Then he proposed to Roberts, a
publisher in Paternoster Row, to write for him a weekly paper like the
"Spectator," on certain conditions which Roberts did not approve. Then
he endeavored to get employment as a hackney writer,[65] to copy for the
stationers and lawyers about the Temple,[66] but could find no vacancy.

I immediately got into work at Palmer's, then a famous printing house
in Bartholomew Close, and here I continued near a year. I was pretty
diligent, but spent with Ralph a good deal of my earnings in going to
plays and other places of amusement. We had together consumed all my
pistoles, and now just rubbed on from hand to mouth. He seemed quite
to forget his wife and child, and I, by degrees, my engagements with
Miss Read, to whom I never wrote more than one letter, and that was to
let her know I was not likely soon to return. This was another of the
great errata of my life, which I should wish to correct if I were to
live it over again. In fact, by our expenses I was constantly kept
unable to pay my passage.

At Palmer's I was employed in composing[67] for the second edition of
Wollaston's "Religion of Nature." Some of his reasonings not appearing
to me well founded, I wrote a little metaphysical piece, in which I
made remarks on them. It was entitled, "Dissertation on Liberty and
Necessity, Pleasure and Pain." I inscribed it to my friend Ralph; I
printed a small number. It occasioned my being more considered by Mr.
Palmer as a young man of some ingenuity, though he seriously
expostulated with me upon the principles of my pamphlet, which to him
appeared abominable. My printing this pamphlet was another erratum.

While I lodged in Little Britain I made an acquaintance with one Wilcox,
a bookseller, whose shop was at the next door. He had an immense
collection of secondhand books. Circulating libraries were not then in
use; but we agreed that, on certain reasonable terms, which I have now
forgotten, I might take, read, and return any of his books. This I
esteemed a great advantage, and I made as much use of it as I could.

My pamphlet falling into the hands of one Lyons, a surgeon, author of
a book entitled "The Infallibility of Human Judgment," it occasioned
an acquaintance between us. He took great notice of me, called on me
often to converse on those subjects, carried me to the Horns, a
pale-ale house in ---- Lane, Cheapside, and introduced me to Dr.
Mandeville, author of the "Fable of the Bees," who had a club there,
of which he was the soul, being a most facetious, entertaining
companion. Lyons, too, introduced me to Dr. Pemberton, at Batson's
Coffee-house, who promised to give me an opportunity, some time or
other, of seeing Sir Isaac Newton, of which I was extremely desirous;
but this never happened.

I had brought over a few curiosities, among which the principal was a
purse made of the asbestos, which purifies by fire. Sir Hans Sloane[68]
heard of it, came to see me, and invited me to his house in Bloomsbury
Square, where he showed me all his curiosities, and persuaded me to let
him add that to the number, for which he paid me handsomely.

In our house there lodged a young woman, a milliner, who, I think, had
a shop in the Cloisters. She had been genteelly bred, was sensible and
lively, and of most pleasing conversation. Ralph read plays to her in
the evenings; they grew intimate; she took another lodging, and he
followed her. They lived together some time; but, he being still out
of business, and her income not sufficient to maintain them with her
child, he took a resolution of going from London to try for a country
school, which he thought himself well qualified to undertake, as he
wrote an excellent hand, and was a master of arithmetic and accounts.
This, however, he deemed a business below him; and, confident of
future better fortune, when he should be unwilling to have it known
that he once was so meanly employed, he changed his name, and did me
the honor to assume mine; for I soon after had a letter from him,
acquainting me that he was settled in a small village, (in Berkshire,
I think it was, where he taught reading and writing to ten or a dozen
boys, at sixpence each per week,) recommending Mrs. T---- to my care,
and desiring me to write to him, directing for Mr. Franklin,
Schoolmaster, at such a place.

He continued to write frequently, sending me large specimens of an
epic poem which he was then composing, and desiring my remarks and
corrections. These I gave him from time to time, but endeavored rather
to discourage his proceeding. One of Young's[n] satires was then just
published. I copied and sent him a great part of it, which set in a
strong light the folly of pursuing the Muses with any hope of
advancement by them. All was in vain; sheets of the poem continued to
come by every post.

A breach at last arose between us; and, when he returned again to
London, he let me know he thought I had canceled all the obligations he
had been under to me. So I found I was never to expect his repaying me
what I lent to him or advanced for him. This, however, was not then of
much consequence, as he was totally unable; and in the loss of his
friendship I found myself relieved from a burden. I now began to think
of getting a little money beforehand; and, expecting better work, I left
Palmer's to work at Watts's, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, a still greater
printing house. Here I continued all the rest of my stay in London.

At my first admission into this printing house I took to working at
press,[69] imagining I felt a want of the bodily exercise I had been
used to in America, where press work is mixed with composing. I drank
only water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were great
guzzlers of beer. On occasion, I carried up and down stairs a large
form of types in each hand, when others carried but one in both hands.
They wondered to see, from this and several instances, that the
"Water-American," as they called me, was stronger than themselves, who
drank strong beer! We had an alehouse boy who attended always in the
house to supply the workmen. My companion at the press drank every day
a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and
cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint
in the afternoon about six o'clock, and another when he had done his
day's work. I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he
supposed, to drink strong beer that he might be strong to labor. I
endeavored to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer
could only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley
dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour
in a pennyworth of bread; and therefore, if he would eat that with a
pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer.
He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his
wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor--an expense I was
free from. And thus these poor devils keep themselves always under.

Watts after some weeks desiring to have me in the composing room, I
left the pressmen; a new _bien venu_,[70] or sum for drink, being five
shillings, was demanded of me by the compositors. I thought it an
imposition, as I had paid below; the master thought so too, and
forbade my paying it. I stood out two or three weeks, was accordingly
considered as an excommunicate, and had so many little pieces of
private mischief done me, by mixing my sorts,[71] transposing my
pages, breaking my matter, etc., if I were ever so little out of the
room, and all ascribed to the chapel[72] ghost, which they said ever
haunted those not regularly admitted, that, notwithstanding the
master's protection, I found myself obliged to comply and pay the
money, convinced of the folly of being on ill terms with those one is
to live with continually.

I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon acquired considerable
influence. I proposed some reasonable alterations in their chapel laws,
and carried them against all opposition. From my example, a great part
of them left their muddling breakfast of beer and bread and cheese,
finding they could with me be supplied from a neighboring house with a
large porringer of hot water gruel, sprinkled with pepper, crumbed with
bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the price of a pint of beer,
namely, three halfpence. This was a more comfortable as well as cheaper
breakfast, and kept their heads clearer. Those who continued sotting
with beer all day were often, by not paying, out of credit at the
alehouse, and used to make interest with me to get beer, their "light,"
as they phrased it, "being out." I watched the pay table on Saturday
night, and collected what I stood engaged for them, having to pay
sometimes near thirty shillings a week on their accounts. This, and my
being esteemed a pretty good "riggite,"--that is, a jocular verbal
satirist,--supported my consequence in the society. My constant
attendance (I never making a Saint Monday[73]) recommended me to the
master; and my uncommon quickness at composing occasioned my being put
upon all work of dispatch, which was generally better paid. So I went on
now very agreeably.

My lodging in Little Britain being too remote, I found another in Duke
Street, opposite to the Romish Chapel. It was two pair of stairs
backward, at an Italian warehouse. A widow lady kept the house; she
had a daughter, and a maidservant, and a journeyman who attended the
warehouse, but lodged abroad. After sending to inquire my character at
the house where I last lodged, she agreed to take me in at the same
rate, three shillings and sixpence per week; cheaper, as she said,
from the protection she expected in having a man lodge in the house.
She was a widow, an elderly woman; had been bred a Protestant, being a
clergyman's daughter, but was converted to the Catholic religion by
her husband, whose memory she much revered; had lived much among
people of distinction, and knew a thousand anecdotes of them as far
back as the time of Charles II. She was lame in her knees with the
gout, and, therefore, seldom stirred out of her room, so sometimes
wanted company; and hers was so highly amusing to me that I was sure
to spend an evening with her whenever she desired it. Our supper was
only half an anchovy each, on a very little strip of bread and butter,
and half a pint of ale between us; but the entertainment was in her
conversation. My always keeping good hours, and giving little trouble
in the family, made her unwilling to part with me; so that, when I
talked of a lodging I had heard of, nearer my business, for two
shillings a week, which, intent as I now was on saving money, made
some difference, she bid me not think of it, for she would abate me
two shillings a week for the future; so I remained with her at one
shilling and sixpence as long as I stayed in London.

In a garret of her house there lived a maiden lady of seventy, in the
most retired manner, of whom my landlady gave me this account: she was
a Roman Catholic, had been sent abroad when young, and lodged in a
nunnery with an intent of becoming a nun; but, the country not
agreeing with her, she returned to England, where, there being no
nunnery, she had vowed to lead the life of a nun, as near as might be
done in those circumstances. Accordingly, she had given all her estate
to charitable uses, reserving only twelve pounds a year to live on,
and out of this sum she still gave a great deal in charity, living
herself on water gruel only, and using no fire but to boil it. She had
lived many years in that garret, being permitted to remain there
gratis by successive Catholic tenants of the house below, as they
deemed it a blessing to have her there. A priest visited her to
confess her every day. "I have asked her," says my landlady, "how she,
as she lived, could possibly find so much employment for a confessor."
"Oh," said she, "it is impossible to avoid vain thoughts." I was
permitted once to visit her. She was cheerful and polite, and
conversed pleasantly. The room was clean, but had no other furniture
than a mattress, a table with a crucifix and book, a stool which she
gave me to sit on, and a picture over the chimney of St. Veronica[74]
displaying her handkerchief, with the miraculous figure of Christ's
bleeding face on it, which she explained to me with great seriousness.
She looked pale, but was never sick; and I give it as another instance
on how small an income life and health may be supported.

At Watts's printing house I contracted an acquaintance with an
ingenious young man, one Wygate, who, having wealthy relations, had
been better educated than most printers,--was a tolerable Latinist,
spoke French, and loved reading. I taught him and a friend of his to
swim at twice going into the river, and they soon became good
swimmers. They introduced me to some gentlemen from the country, who
went to Chelsea[75] by water to see the college and Don Saltero's[76]
curiosities. In our return, at the request of the company, whose
curiosity Wygate had excited, I stripped and leaped into the river,
and swam from near Chelsea to Blackfriar's,[77] performing on the way
many feats of activity, both upon and under the water, that surprised
and pleased those to whom they were novelties.

I had from a child been ever delighted with this exercise, had studied
and practiced all Thevenot's motions and positions, and added some of
my own, aiming at the graceful and easy as well as the useful. All
these I took this occasion of exhibiting to the company, and was much
flattered by their admiration; and Wygate, who was desirous of
becoming a master, grew more and more attached to me on that account,
as well as from the similarity of our studies. He at length proposed
to me traveling all over Europe together, supporting ourselves
everywhere by working at our business. I was once inclined to it; but,
mentioning it to my good friend, Mr. Denham, with whom I often spent
an hour when I had leisure, he dissuaded me from it, advising me to
think only of returning to Pennsylvania, which he was now about to do.

I must record one trait of this good man's character. He had formerly
been in business at Bristol, but failed, in debt to a number of
people, compounded, and went to America. There, by a close application
to business as a merchant, he acquired a plentiful fortune in a few
years. Returning to England in the ship with me, he invited his old
creditors to an entertainment, at which he thanked them for the easy
composition[78] they had favored him with, and, when they expected
nothing but the treat, every man at the first remove found under his
plate an order on a banker for the full amount of the unpaid
remainder, with interest.

He now told me he was about to return to Philadelphia, and should carry
over a great quantity of goods, in order to open a store there. He
proposed to take me over as his clerk, to keep his books (in which he
would instruct me), copy his letters, and attend the store. He added
that, as soon as I should be acquainted with mercantile business, he
would promote me by sending me with a cargo of flour and bread, etc., to
the West Indies, and procure me commissions from others which would be
profitable; and, if I managed well, would establish me handsomely. The
thing pleased me, for I was grown tired of London, remembered with
pleasure the happy months I had spent in Pennsylvania, and wished again
to see it; therefore I immediately agreed on the terms of fifty pounds a
year, Pennsylvania money; less, indeed, than my present gettings as a
compositor, but affording a better prospect.

I now took leave of printing, as I thought, forever, and was daily
employed in my new business, going about with Mr. Denham among the
tradesmen to purchase various articles, and seeing them packed up,
doing errands, calling upon workmen to dispatch, etc.; and, when all
was on board, I had a few days' leisure. On one of these days, I was,
to my surprise, sent for by a great man I knew only by name, a Sir
William Wyndham, and I waited upon him. He had heard by some means or
other of my swimming from Chelsea to Blackfriar's, and of my teaching
Wygate and another young man to swim in a few hours. He had two sons
about to set out on their travels; he wished to have them first taught
swimming, and proposed to gratify[79] me handsomely if I would teach
them. They were not yet come to town, and my stay was uncertain, so I
could not undertake it; but from this incident I thought it likely
that, if I were to remain in England and open a swimming school, I
might get a good deal of money; and it struck me so strongly that, had
the overture been sooner made me, probably I should not so soon have
returned to America. After many years, you and I had something of more
importance to do with one of these sons of Sir William Wyndham, become
Earl of Egremont, which I shall mention in its place.

Thus I spent about eighteen months in London; most part of the time I
worked hard at my business, and spent but little upon myself except in
seeing plays and in books. My friend Ralph had kept me poor; he owed
me about twenty-seven pounds, which I was now never likely to
receive,--a great sum out of my small earnings! I loved him,
notwithstanding, for he had many amiable qualities. I had by no means
improved my fortune; but I had picked up some very ingenious
acquaintance, whose conversation was of great advantage to me; and I
had read considerably.

We sailed from Gravesend on the 23d of July, 1726. For the incidents
of the voyage I refer you to my journal, where you will find them all
minutely related. Perhaps the most important part of that journal is
the plan[80] to be found in it, which I formed at sea, for regulating
my future conduct in life. It is the more remarkable, as being formed
when I was so young, and yet being pretty faithfully adhered to quite
through to old age.

[Footnote 60: Responsible for the payment of a note.]

[Footnote 61: The owners or proprietors of Pennsylvania, which Charles
II. had given William Penn, were Penn's sons. They lived in England.]

[Footnote 62: A street in London.]

[Footnote 63: A pistole was a Spanish gold coin worth about four
dollars.]

[Footnote 64: A comedian of some note.]

[Footnote 65: A hackney writer, or hack writer, is one employed to
write according to direction.]

[Footnote 66: Inns of Court in London, occupied by lawyers.]

[Footnote 67: Setting type.]

[Footnote 68: A celebrated physician and naturalist. To him Franklin
wrote:

"SIR: Having lately been in the northern parts of America, I have
brought from thence a purse made of the asbestos, ... called by the
inhabitants 'salamander cotton.' As you are noted to be a lover of
curiosities, I have informed you of this; and if you have any
inclination to purchase or see it, let me know your pleasure by a line
for me at the Golden Fan, Little Britain, and I will wait upon you
with it. I am, sir, your most humble servant,

    "B. FRANKLIN."
]

[Footnote 69: This press is now preserved at the Patent Office in
Washington.]

[Footnote 70: A French expression meaning "welcome."]

[Footnote 71: Pieces in a font of type.]

[Footnote 72: "A printing house used to be called a chapel by the
workmen, and a journeyman, on entering a printing house, was
accustomed to pay one or more gallons of beer 'for the good of the
chapel,'"--W. F. FRANKLIN, quoted by Bigelow.]

[Footnote 73: "Never making," etc., i.e., never making a holiday of
Monday. The heavy drinkers of Saturday night and Sunday needed Monday
to recover from their excesses.]

[Footnote 74: The woman who, according to legend, wiped the face of
Jesus on his way to Calvary, and carried away the likeness of his
face, which had been miraculously printed on the cloth.]

[Footnote 75: A suburb of London, north of the Thames.]

[Footnote 76: Don Saltero had been a servant to Sir Hans Sloane, and
had learned from him to treasure curiosities. He now had a coffeehouse
at Chelsea.]

[Footnote 77: A name given to a part of London. The distance Franklin
swam was about three miles.]

[Footnote 78: Settlement.]

[Footnote 79: Pay.]

[Footnote 80: This plan has never been found.]




4. IN PHILADELPHIA AND IN BUSINESS FOR HIMSELF.


We landed in Philadelphia on the 11th of October, where I found sundry
alterations. Keith was no longer governor, being superseded by Major
Gordon. I met him walking the streets as a common citizen. He seemed a
little ashamed at seeing me, but passed without saying anything. I
should have been as much ashamed at seeing Miss Read, had not her
friends, despairing with reason of my return after the receipt of my
letter, persuaded her to marry another, one Rogers, a potter, which
was done in my absence. With him, however, she was never happy, and
soon parted from him, refusing to bear his name, it being now said
that he had another wife. He was a worthless fellow, though an
excellent workman, which was the temptation to her friends. He got
into debt, ran away in 1727 or 1728, went to the West Indies, and died
there. Keimer had got a better house, a shop well supplied with
stationery, plenty of new types, a number of hands, though none good,
and seemed to have a great deal of business.

Mr. Denham took a store in Water Street, where we opened our goods; I
attended the business diligently, studied accounts, and grew, in a
little time, expert at selling. We lodged and boarded together; he
counseled me as a father, having a sincere regard for me. I respected
and loved him, and we might have gone on together very happy; but, in
the beginning of February, 1726/7,[81] when I had just passed my
twenty-first year, we were both taken ill. My distemper was a
pleurisy, which very nearly carried me off. I suffered a good deal,
gave up the point in my own mind, and was rather disappointed when I
found myself recovering, regretting, in some degree, that I must now,
some time or other, have all that disagreeable work to do over again.
I forget what his distemper was; it held him a long time, and at
length carried him off. He left me a small legacy in a nuncupative[82]
will, as a token of his kindness for me, and he left me once more to
the wide world; for the store was taken into the care of his
executors, and my employment under him ended.

My brother-in-law, Holmes, being now at Philadelphia, advised my
return to my business; and Keimer tempted me, with an offer of large
wages by the year, to come and take the management of his printing
house, that he might better attend his stationer's shop. I had heard a
bad character of him in London from his wife and her friends, and was
not fond of having any more to do with him. I tried for further
employment as a merchant's clerk; but, not readily meeting with any, I
closed again with Keimer. I found in his house these hands: Hugh
Meredith, a Welsh Pennsylvanian, thirty years of age, bred to country
work; honest, sensible, had a great deal of solid observation, was
something of a reader, but given to drink. Stephen Potts, a young
countryman of full age, bred to the same, of uncommon natural parts,
and great wit and humor, but a little idle. These he had agreed with
at extremely low wages per week, to be raised a shilling every three
months, as they would deserve by improving in their business; and the
expectation of these high wages, to come on hereafter, was what he had
drawn them in with. Meredith was to work at press, Potts at
bookbinding, which he, by agreement, was to teach them, though he knew
neither one nor the other. John ----, a wild Irishman, brought up to
no business, whose service, for four years, Keimer had purchased[83]
from the captain of a ship; he, too, was to be made a pressman. George
Webb, an Oxford scholar, whose time for four years he had likewise
bought, intending him for a compositor, of whom more presently; and
David Harry, a country boy, whom he had taken apprentice.

I soon perceived that the intention of engaging me at wages so much
higher than he had been used to give was to have these raw, cheap
hands formed through me; and, as soon as I had instructed them, then
they being all articled[84] to him, he should be able to do without
me. I went on, however, very cheerfully, put his printing house in
order, which had been in great confusion, and brought his hands by
degrees to mind their business and to do it better.

It was an odd thing to find an Oxford scholar in the situation of a
bought servant. He was not more than eighteen years of age, and gave me
this account of himself: he was born in Gloucester, educated at a
grammar school there, and had been distinguished among the scholars for
some apparent superiority in performing his part when they exhibited
plays. He belonged to the Witty Club there, and had written some pieces
in prose and verse, which were printed in the Gloucester newspapers.
Thence he was sent to Oxford, where he continued about a year, but not
well satisfied, wishing of all things to see London, and become a
player. At length, receiving his quarterly allowance of fifteen
guineas,[85] instead of discharging his debts he walked out of town, hid
his gown in a furze bush, and footed it to London, where, having no
friends to advise him, he fell into bad company, soon spent his guineas,
found no means of being introduced among the players, grew necessitous,
pawned his clothes, and wanted bread. Walking the street very hungry,
and not knowing what to do with himself, a crimp's[86] bill was put into
his hand, offering immediate entertainment and encouragement to such as
would bind themselves to serve in America. He went directly, signed the
indentures, was put into the ship, and came over, never writing a line
to acquaint his friends what was become of him. He was lively, witty,
good-natured, and a pleasant companion, but idle, thoughtless, and
imprudent to the last degree.

John, the Irishman, soon ran away; with the rest I began to live very
agreeably, for they all respected me the more as they found Keimer
incapable of instructing them, and that from me they learned something
daily. We never worked on Saturday, that being Keimer's Sabbath, so I
had two days for reading. My acquaintance with ingenious people in the
town increased. Keimer himself treated me with great civility and
apparent regard, and nothing now made me uneasy but my debt to Vernon,
which I was yet unable to pay, being hitherto but a poor economist.
He, however, kindly made no demand of it.

Our printing house often wanted sorts, and there was no letter founder
in America. I had seen types cast at James's in London, but without
much attention to the manner; however, I now contrived a mold, made
use of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the matrices[87] in
lead, and thus supplied in a pretty tolerable way all deficiencies. I
also engraved several things on occasion; I made the ink; I was
warehouseman,[88] and everything, and, in short, quite a factotum.

But, however serviceable I might be, I found that my services became
every day of less importance, as the other hands improved in the
business; and when Keimer paid my second quarter's wages he let me
know that he felt them too heavy, and thought I should make an
abatement. He grew by degrees less civil, put on more of the master,
frequently found fault, was captious, and seemed ready for an
outbreaking. I went on, nevertheless, with a good deal of patience,
thinking that his encumbered circumstances were partly the cause. At
length a trifle snapped our connections; for, a great noise happening
near the courthouse, I put my head out of the window to see what was
the matter. Keimer, being in the street, looked up and saw me, and
called out to me in a loud voice and angry tone to mind my business,
adding some reproachful words that nettled me the more for their
publicity, all the neighbors, who were looking out on the same
occasion, being witnesses how I was treated. He came up immediately
into the printing house; continued the quarrel; high words passed on
both sides. He gave me the quarter's warning we had stipulated,
expressing a wish that he had not been obliged to so long a warning. I
told him that his wish was unnecessary, for I would leave him that
instant; and so, taking my hat, walked out of doors, desiring
Meredith, whom I saw below, to take care of some things I left, and
bring them to my lodgings.

Meredith came accordingly in the evening, when we talked my affair
over. He had conceived a great regard for me, and was very unwilling
that I should leave the house while he remained in it. He dissuaded me
from returning to my native country, which I began to think of; he
reminded me that Keimer was in debt for all he possessed; that his
creditors began to be uneasy; that he kept his shop miserably, sold
often without profit for ready money, and often trusted without
keeping accounts; that he must therefore fail, which would make a
vacancy I might profit of. I objected my want of money. He then let me
know that his father had a high opinion of me, and, from some
discourse that had passed between them, he was sure would advance
money to set us up, if I would enter into partnership with him. "My
time," says he, "will be out with Keimer in the spring; by that time
we may have our press and types in from London. I am sensible I am no
workman; if you like it, your skill in the business shall be set
against the stock I furnish, and we will share the profits equally."

The proposal was agreeable, and I consented. His father was in town,
and approved of it, the more as he saw I had great influence with his
son, had prevailed on him to abstain long from dram drinking, and he
hoped might break him of that wretched habit entirely when we came to
be so closely connected. I gave an inventory to the father, who
carried it to a merchant; the things were sent for, the secret was to
be kept till they should arrive, and in the mean time I was to get
work, if I could, at the other printing house. But I found no vacancy
there, and so remained idle a few days, when Keimer, on a prospect of
being employed to print some paper money in New Jersey, which would
require cuts and various types that I only could supply, and
apprehending Bradford might engage me and get the job from him, sent
me a very civil message, that old friends should not part for a few
words, the effect of sudden passion, and wishing me to return.
Meredith persuaded me to comply, as it would give more opportunity for
his improvement under my daily instructions; so I returned, and we
went on more smoothly than for some time before. The New Jersey job
was obtained, I contrived a copperplate press for it, the first that
had been seen in the country; I cut several ornaments and checks[89]
for the bills. We went together to Burlington, where I executed the
whole to satisfaction; and he received so large a sum for the work as
to be enabled thereby to keep his head much longer above water.

At Burlington I made an acquaintance with many principal people of the
province. Several of them had been appointed by the Assembly a
committee to attend the press, and take care that no more bills were
printed than the law directed. They were therefore, by turns,
constantly with us, and generally he who attended brought with him a
friend or two for company. My mind having been much more improved by
reading than Keimer's, I suppose it was for that reason my
conversation seemed to be more valued. They had me to their houses,
introduced me to their friends, and showed me much civility; while he,
though the master, was a little neglected. In truth, he was an odd
fish; ignorant of common life, fond of rudely opposing received
opinions, slovenly to extreme dirtiness, enthusiastic in some points
of religion, and a little knavish withal.

We continued there near three months; and by that time I could reckon
among my acquired friends Judge Allen, Samuel Bustill, the secretary of
the province, Isaac Pearson, Joseph Cooper, and several of the Smiths,
members of Assembly, and Isaac Decow, the surveyor general. The latter
was a shrewd, sagacious old man, who told me that he began for himself,
when young, by wheeling clay for the brickmakers, learned to write after
he was of age, carried the chain for surveyors, who taught him
surveying, and he had now by his industry acquired a good estate; and
says he, "I foresee that you will soon work this man out of his
business, and make a fortune in it at Philadelphia." He had not then the
least intimation of my intention to set up there or anywhere. These
friends were afterward of great use to me, as I occasionally was to some
of them. They all continued their regard for me as long as they lived.

Before I enter upon my public appearance in business, it may be well
to let you know the then state of my mind with regard to my principles
and morals, that you may see how far those influenced the future
events of my life. My parents had early given me religious
impressions, and brought me through my childhood piously in the
Dissenting[90] way. But I was scarce fifteen when, after doubting by
turns of several points, as I found them disputed in the different
books I read, I began to doubt of revelation itself. Some books
against Deism[91] fell into my hands; they were said to be the
substance of sermons preached at Boyle's Lectures. It happened that
they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by
them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be
refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short,
I soon became a thorough Deist. My arguments perverted some others,
particularly Collins and Ralph; but, each of them having afterward
wronged me greatly without the least compunction, and recollecting
Keith's conduct toward me (who was another freethinker), and my own
toward Vernon and Miss Read, which at times gave me great trouble, I
began to suspect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not
very useful. My London pamphlet, which had for its motto these lines
of Dryden:

    "Whatever is, is right. Though purblind man
    Sees but a part o' the chain, the nearest link:
    His eyes not carrying to the equal beam
    That poises all above;"[92]

and from the attributes of God, his infinite wisdom, goodness, and
power, concluded that nothing could possibly be wrong in the world,
and that vice and virtue were empty distinctions, no such things
existing, appeared now not so clever a performance as I once thought
it; and I doubted whether some error had not insinuated itself
unperceived into my argument, so as to infect all that followed, as is
common in metaphysical reasonings.

I grew convinced that truth, sincerity, and integrity in dealings
between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of
life; and I formed written resolutions, which still remain in my
journal book, to practice them ever while I lived. Revelation had
indeed no weight with me as such; but I entertained an opinion that,
though certain actions might not be bad because they were forbidden by
it, or good because it commanded them, yet probably those actions
might be forbidden because they were bad for us, or commanded because
they were beneficial to us, in their own natures, all the
circumstances of things considered. And this persuasion, with the kind
hand of Providence, or some guardian angel, or accidental favorable
circumstances and situations, or all together,--preserved me, through
this dangerous time of youth and the hazardous situations I was
sometimes in among strangers, remote from the eye and advice of my
father, without any willful gross immorality or injustice, that might
have been expected from my want of religion. I say willful, because
the instances I have mentioned had something of necessity in them,
from my youth, inexperience, and the knavery of others. I had,
therefore, a tolerable character to begin the world with; I valued it
properly, and determined to preserve it.

We had not been long returned to Philadelphia before the new types
arrived from London. We settled with Keimer, and left him by his
consent before he heard of it. We found a house to hire near the
market, and took it. To lessen the rent, which was then but
twenty-four pounds a year, though I have since known it to let for
seventy, we took in Thomas Godfrey, a glazier, and his family, who
were to pay a considerable part of it to us, and we to board with
them. We had scarce opened our letters and put our press in order,
before George House, an acquaintance of mine, brought a countryman to
us, whom he had met in the street inquiring for a printer. All our
cash was now expended in the variety of particulars we had been
obliged to procure, and this countryman's five shillings, being our
first fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any
crown I have since earned; and the gratitude I felt toward House has
made me often more ready than perhaps I should otherwise have been to
assist young beginners.

There are croakers in every country, always boding its ruin. Such a one
then lived in Philadelphia, a person of note, an elderly man, with a
wise look and a very grave manner of speaking. His name was Samuel
Mickle. This gentleman, a stranger to me, stopped one day at my door,
and asked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing
house. Being answered in the affirmative, he said he was sorry for me,
because it was an expensive undertaking, and the expense would be lost;
for Philadelphia was a sinking place, the people already half bankrupts,
or near being so, all appearances to the contrary, such as new buildings
and the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge fallacious; for
they were, in fact, among the things that would soon ruin us. And he
gave me such a detail of misfortunes now existing, or that were soon to
exist, that he left me half melancholy. Had I known him before I engaged
in this business, probably I never should have done it. This man
continued to live in this decaying place, and to declaim in the same
strain, refusing for many years to buy a house there, because all was
going to destruction; and at last I had the pleasure of seeing him give
five times as much for one as he might have bought it for when he first
began his croaking.

I should have mentioned before, that in the autumn of the preceding
year I had formed most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of
mutual improvement, which we called the "Junto."[93] We met on Friday
evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his
turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of morals,
politics, or natural philosophy, to be discussed by the company; and
once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on
any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of
a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry
after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and,
to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or
direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and
prohibited under small pecuniary penalties.[n]

The first members were: Joseph Breintnal, a copier of deeds for the
scriveners, a good-natured, friendly, middle-aged man, a great lover
of poetry, reading all he could meet with, and writing some that was
tolerable; very ingenious in many little knick-knackeries, and of
sensible conversation. Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician,
great in his way, and afterward inventor of what is now called
Hadley's Quadrant.[94] But he knew little out of his way, and was not
a pleasing companion; as, like most great mathematicians I have met
with, he expected universal precision in everything said, or was
forever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of
all conversation. He soon left us. Nicholas Scull, a surveyor,
afterward surveyor general, who loved books, and sometimes made a few
verses. William Parsons, bred a shoemaker, but loving reading, had
acquired a considerable share of mathematics, which he first studied
with a view to astrology that he afterward laughed at. He also became
surveyor general. William Maugridge, a joiner, a most exquisite
mechanic, and a solid, sensible man. Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and
George Webb I have characterized before. Robert Grace, a young
gentleman of some fortune, generous, lively, and witty; a lover of
punning and of his friends. And William Coleman, then a merchant's
clerk, about my age, who had the coolest, clearest head, the best
heart, and the exactest morals of almost any man I ever met with. He
became afterward a merchant of great note, and one of our provincial
judges. Our friendship continued without interruption to his death,
upward of forty years; and the club continued almost as long, and was
the best school of philosophy, morality, and politics that then
existed in the province; for our queries, which were read the week
preceding their discussion, put us upon reading with attention upon
the several subjects, that we might speak more to the purpose; and
here, too, we acquired better habits of conversation, everything being
studied in our rules which might prevent our disgusting each other.
From hence the long continuance of the club, which I shall have
frequent occasion to speak further of hereafter.

But my giving this account of it here is to show something of the
interest I had, every one of these exerting themselves in recommending
business to us. Breintnal particularly procured us from the Quakers
the printing forty sheets of their history, the rest being to be done
by Keimer; and upon this we worked exceedingly hard, for the price was
low. It was a folio, pro patria size, in pica, with long primer notes.
I composed of it a sheet a day, and Meredith worked it off at press;
it was often eleven at night, and sometimes later, before I had
finished my distribution[95] for the next day's work, for the little
jobs sent in by our other friends now and then put us back. But so
determined I was to continue doing a sheet a day of the folio that one
night, when, having imposed[96] my forms, I thought my day's work
over, one of them by accident was broken, and two pages reduced to
pi,[97] I immediately distributed and composed it over again before I
went to bed; and this industry, visible to our neighbors, began to
give us character and credit; particularly, I was told, that mention
being made of the new printing office at the merchants' Every-Night
Club, the general opinion was that it must fail, there being already
two printers in the place, Keimer and Bradford; but Dr. Baird (whom
you and I saw many years after at his native place, St. Andrew's, in
Scotland) gave a contrary opinion: "For the industry of that
Franklin," says he, "is superior to anything I ever saw of the kind; I
see him still at work when I go home from club, and he is at work
again before his neighbors are out of bed." This struck the rest, and
we soon after had offers from one of them to supply us with
stationery; but as yet we did not choose to engage in shop business.

I mention this industry the more particularly and the more freely,
though it seems to be talking in my own praise, that those of my
posterity who shall read it may know the use of that virtue, when they
see its effects in my favor throughout this relation.

George Webb, who had found a female friend that lent him wherewith to
purchase his time of Keimer, now came to offer himself as a journeyman
to us. We could not then employ him; but I foolishly let him know, as
a secret, that I soon intended to begin a newspaper, and might then
have work for him. My hopes of success, as I told him, were founded on
this: that the then only newspaper, printed by Bradford, was a paltry
thing, wretchedly managed, no way entertaining, and yet was profitable
to him; I therefore thought a good paper would scarcely fail of good
encouragement. I requested Webb not to mention this; but he told it
to Keimer, who immediately, to be beforehand with me, published
proposals for printing one himself, on which Webb was to be employed.
I resented this; and, to counteract them, as I could not yet begin our
paper, I wrote several pieces of entertainment for Bradford's paper,
under the title of the "Busy Body," which Breintnal continued some
months. By this means the attention of the public was fixed on that
paper, and Keimer's proposals, which were burlesqued and ridiculed,
were disregarded. He began his paper, however, and, after carrying it
on three quarters of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers, he
offered it to me for a trifle; and I, having been ready some time to
go on with it, took it in hand directly, and it proved in a few years
extremely profitable to me.[98]

I perceive that I am apt to speak in the singular number, though our
partnership still continued; the reason may be that, in fact, the
whole management of the business lay upon me. Meredith was no
compositor, a poor pressman, and seldom sober. My friends lamented my
connection with him, but I was to make the best of it.

Our first papers made a quite different appearance from any before in
the province; a better type, and better printed; but some spirited
remarks of my writing, on the dispute[99] then going on between
Governor Burnet and the Massachusetts Assembly, struck the principal
people, occasioned the paper and the manager of it to be much talked
of, and in a few weeks brought them all to be our subscribers.

Their example was followed by many, and our number went on growing
continually. This was one of the first good effects of my having
learned a little to scribble;[n] another was that the leading men,
seeing a newspaper now in the hands of one who could also handle a
pen, thought it convenient to oblige and encourage me. Bradford still
printed the votes and laws and other public business. He had printed
an address of the House to the governor in a coarse, blundering
manner; we reprinted it elegantly and correctly, and sent one to every
member. They were sensible of the difference; it strengthened the
hands of our friends in the House, and they voted us their printers
for the year ensuing.

Among my friends in the House I must not forget Mr. Hamilton, before
mentioned, who was then returned from England, and had a seat in it.
He interested himself for me strongly in that instance, as he did in
many others afterward, continuing his patronage till his death.[100]

Mr. Vernon, about this time, put me in mind of the debt I owed him, but
did not press me. I wrote him an ingenuous letter of acknowledgment,
craved his forbearance a little longer, which he allowed me, and as soon
as I was able I paid the principle, with interest, and many thanks; so
that erratum was in some degree corrected.

But now another difficulty came upon me which I had never the least
reason to expect. Mr. Meredith's father, who was to have paid for our
printing house, according to the expectations given me, was able to
advance only one hundred pounds currency, which had been paid; and a
hundred more was due to the merchant, who grew impatient, and sued us
all. We gave bail, but saw that, if the money could not be raised in
time, the suit must soon come to a judgment and execution, and our
hopeful prospects must, with us, be ruined, as the press and letters
must be sold for payment, perhaps at half price.

In this distress two true friends, whose kindness I have never
forgotten, nor ever shall forget while I can remember anything, came
to me separately, unknown to each other, and, without any application
from me, offering each of them to advance me all the money that should
be necessary to enable me to take the whole business upon myself, if
that should be practicable; but they did not like my continuing the
partnership with Meredith, who, as they said, was often seen drunk in
the streets, and playing at low games in alehouses, much to our
discredit. These two friends were William Coleman and Robert Grace. I
told them I could not propose a separation while any prospect remained
of the Merediths' fulfilling their part of our agreement, because I
thought myself under great obligations to them for what they had done
and would do if they could; but, if they finally failed in their
performance, and our partnership must be dissolved, I should then
think myself at liberty to accept the assistance of my friends.

Thus the matter rested for some time, when I said to my partner,
"Perhaps your father is dissatisfied at the part you have undertaken
in this affair of ours, and is unwilling to advance for you and me
what he would for you alone. If that is the case, tell me, and I will
resign the whole to you, and go about my business." "No," said he, "my
father has really been disappointed, and is really unable; and I am
unwilling to distress him further. I see this is a business I am not
fit for. I was bred a farmer, and it was a folly in me to come to
town, and put myself, at thirty years of age, an apprentice to learn a
new trade. Many of our Welsh people are going to settle in North
Carolina, where land is cheap. I am inclined to go with them, and
follow my old employment. You may find friends to assist you. If you
will take the debts of the company upon you, return to my father the
hundred pounds he has advanced, pay my little personal debts, and
give me thirty pounds and a new saddle, I will relinquish the
partnership, and leave the whole in your hands." I agreed to this
proposal; it was drawn up in writing, signed, and sealed immediately.
I gave him what he demanded, and he went soon after to Carolina, from
whence he sent me next year two long letters, containing the best
account that had been given of that country, the climate, the soil,
husbandry, etc., for in those matters he was very judicious. I printed
them in the papers, and they gave great satisfaction to the public.

As soon as he was gone, I recurred to my two friends; and because I
would not give an unkind preference to either, I took half of what
each had offered and I wanted of one, and half of the other, paid off
the company's debts, and went on with the business in my own name,
advertising that the partnership was dissolved. I think this was in or
about the year 1729.

About this time there was a cry among the people for more paper money,
only fifteen thousand pounds being extant in the province, and that
soon to be sunk. The wealthy inhabitants opposed any addition, being
against all paper currency, from an apprehension that it would
depreciate, as it had done in New England, to the prejudice of all
creditors. We had discussed this point in our Junto, where I was on
the side of an addition, being persuaded that the first small sum
struck in 1723 had done much good by increasing the trade, employment,
and number of inhabitants in the province, since I now saw all the old
houses inhabited and many new ones building; whereas, I remembered
well that when I first walked about the streets of Philadelphia,
eating my roll, I saw most of the houses in Walnut Street, between
Second and Front Streets, with bills on their doors, "To be Let;" and
many likewise in Chestnut Street and other streets, which made me then
think the inhabitants of the city were deserting it one after another.

Our debates possessed me so fully of the subject that I wrote and
printed an anonymous pamphlet on it, entitled, "The Nature and
Necessity of a Paper Currency." It was well received by the common
people in general; but the rich men disliked it, for it increased and
strengthened the clamor for more money, and they, happening to have no
writers among them that were able to answer it, their opposition
slackened, and the point was carried by a majority in the House. My
friends there, who conceived I had been of some service, thought fit
to reward me by employing me in printing the money,--a very profitable
job and a great help to me. This was another advantage gained by my
being able to write.

The utility of this currency became by time and experience so evident
as never afterward to be much disputed; so that it grew soon to
fifty-five thousand pounds, and in 1739 to eighty thousand pounds,
since which it rose during war to upward of three hundred and fifty
thousand pounds, trade, building, and inhabitants all the while
increasing, though I now think there are limits, beyond which the
quantity may be hurtful.[101]

I soon after obtained, through my friend Hamilton, the printing of the
Newcastle paper money, another profitable job, as I then thought it,
small things appearing great to those in small circumstances; and
these, to me, were really great advantages, as they were great
encouragements. He procured for me, also, the printing of the laws and
votes of that government,[102] which continued in my hands as long as
I followed the business.

I now opened a little stationer's shop. I had in it blanks of all
sorts, the correctest that ever appeared among us, being assisted in
that by my friend Breintnal. I had also paper, parchment, chapmen's
books, etc. One Whitemash, a compositor I had known in London, an
excellent workman, now came to me, and worked with me constantly and
diligently; and I took an apprentice, the son of Aquila Rose.

I began now gradually to pay off the debt I was under for the printing
house. In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I
took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to
avoid all appearances to the contrary. I dressed plainly; I was seen
at no places of idle diversion; I never went out a-fishing or
shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes debauched me from my work, but
that was seldom, snug,[103] and gave no scandal; and, to show that I
was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I
purchased at the stores through the streets on a wheelbarrow. Thus,
being esteemed an industrious, thriving young man, and paying duly for
what I bought, the merchants who imported stationery solicited my
custom; others proposed supplying me with books, and I went on
swimmingly. In the mean time, Keimer's credit and business declining
daily, he was at last forced to sell his printing house to satisfy his
creditors. He went to Barbadoes, and there lived some years in very
poor circumstances.

His apprentice, David Harry, whom I had instructed while I worked with
him, set up in his place at Philadelphia, having bought his materials.
I was at first apprehensive of a powerful rival in Harry, as his
friends were very able and had a good deal of interest. I therefore
proposed a partnership to him, which he, fortunately for me, rejected
with scorn. He was very proud, dressed like a gentleman, lived
expensively, took much diversion and pleasure abroad, ran in debt, and
neglected his business; upon which, all business left him; and,
finding nothing to do, he followed Keimer to Barbadoes, taking the
printing house with him. There this apprentice employed his former
master as a journeyman; they quarreled often; Harry went continually
behindhand, and at length was forced to sell his types and return to
his country work in Pennsylvania. The person that bought them employed
Keimer to use them, but in a few years he died.

There remained now no competitor with me at Philadelphia but the old
one, Bradford, who was rich and easy, did a little printing now and
then by straggling hands, but was not very anxious about the business.
However, as he kept the post office, it was imagined he had better
opportunities of obtaining news. His paper was thought a better
distributer of advertisements than mine, and therefore had many more,
which was a profitable thing to him, and a disadvantage to me; for,
though I did indeed receive and send papers by post, yet the public
opinion was otherwise, for what I did send was by bribing the
riders,[104] who took them privately, Bradford being unkind enough to
forbid it, which occasioned some resentment on my part; and I thought
so meanly of him for it that, when I afterward came into his
situation, I took care never to imitate it.

I had hitherto continued to board with Godfrey, who lived in part of
my house with his wife and children, and had one side of the shop for
his glazier's business, though he worked little, being always absorbed
in his mathematics. Mrs. Godfrey projected a match for me with a
relation's daughter, and took opportunities of bringing us often
together, till a serious courtship on my part ensued, the girl being
in herself very deserving. The old folks encouraged me by continual
invitations to supper, and by leaving us together, till at length it
was time to explain. Mrs. Godfrey managed our little treaty. I let her
know that I expected as much money[n] with their daughter as would pay
off my remaining debt for the printing house, which I believe was then
above a hundred pounds. She brought me word they had no such sum to
spare. I said they might mortgage their house in the loan office. The
answer to this, after some days, was that they did not approve the
match; that, on inquiry of Bradford, they had been informed the
printing business was not a profitable one; the types would soon be
worn out and more wanted; that S. Keimer and D. Harry had failed one
after the other, and I should probably soon follow them; and therefore
I was forbidden the house, and the daughter shut up.

Whether this was a real change of sentiment, or only artifice, on a
supposition of our being too far engaged in affection to retract, and
therefore that we should steal a marriage, which would leave them at
liberty to give or withhold what they pleased, I know not; but I
suspected the latter, resented it, and went no more. Mrs. Godfrey
brought me afterward some more favorable accounts of their
disposition, and would have drawn me on again; but I declared
absolutely my resolution to have nothing more to do with that family.
This was resented by the Godfreys; we differed, and they removed,
leaving me the whole house, and I resolved to take no more inmates.

But this affair having turned my thoughts to marriage, I looked round
me and made overtures of acquaintance in other places; but soon found
that, the business of a printer being generally thought a poor one, I
was not to expect money with a wife, unless with such a one as I
should not otherwise think agreeable. In the mean time a friendly
correspondence as neighbors and old acquaintances had continued
between me and Mr. Read's family, who all had a regard for me from the
time of my first lodging in their house. I was often invited there and
consulted in their affairs, wherein I sometimes was of service. I
pitied poor Miss Read's unfortunate situation, who was generally
dejected, seldom cheerful, and avoided company. I considered my
giddiness and inconstancy when in London as in a great degree the
cause of her unhappiness, though the mother was good enough to think
the fault more her own than mine, as she had prevented our marrying
before I went thither, and persuaded the other match in my absence.
Our mutual affection was revived, but there were now great objections
to our union. The match[105] was indeed looked upon as invalid, a
preceding wife being said to be living in England; but this could not
easily be proved because of the distance; and though there was a
report of his death, it was not certain. Then, though it should be
true, he had left many debts, which his successor might be called upon
to pay. We ventured, however, over all these difficulties, and I took
her to wife Sept. 1, 1730. None of the inconveniences happened that we
had apprehended; she proved a good and faithful helpmate, assisted me
much by attending shop, we throve together, and have ever mutually
endeavored to make each other happy. Thus I corrected that great
erratum as well as I could.[106]

About this time, our club meeting not at a tavern but in a little room
of Mr. Grace's set apart for that purpose, a proposition was made by
me that, since our books were often referred to in our disquisitions
upon the queries, it might be convenient to us to have them all
together where we met, that upon occasion they might be consulted; and
by thus clubbing our books to a common library, we should, while we
liked to keep them together, have each of us the advantage of using
the books of all the other members, which would be nearly as
beneficial as if each owned the whole. It was liked and agreed to, and
we filled one end of the room with such books as we could best spare.
The number was not so great as we expected; and though they had been
of great use, yet, some inconveniences occurring for want of due care
of them, the collection, after about a year, was separated, and each
took his books home again.

And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature,--that for a
subscription library.[n] I drew up the proposals, got them put into form
by our great scrivener, Brockden, and, by the help of my friends in the
Junto, procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with,
and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to
continue. We afterward obtained a charter, the company being increased
to one hundred. This was the mother of all the North American
subscription libraries, now so numerous. It is become a great thing
itself, and continually increasing. These libraries have improved the
general conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and
farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and
perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made
throughout the colonies in defense of their privileges.[107]


CONTINUATION OF THE ACCOUNT OF MY LIFE, BEGUN AT PASSY, NEAR PARIS,
1784.

It is some time since I received the above letters,[108] but I have
been too busy till now to think of complying with the request they
contain. It might, too, be much better done if I were at home among my
papers, which would aid my memory, and help to ascertain dates; but my
return being uncertain, and having just now a little leisure, I will
endeavor to recollect and write what I can; if I live to get home, it
may there be corrected and improved.

Not having any copy here of what is already written, I know not
whether an account is given of the means I used to establish the
Philadelphia Public Library, which, from a small beginning, is now
become so considerable, though I remember to have come down to near
the time of that transaction (1730). I will therefore begin here with
an account of it, which may be struck out if found to have been
already given.

At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania there was not a good
bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston.
In New York and Philadelphia the printers were indeed stationers; they
sold only paper, etc., almanacs, ballads, and a few common
schoolbooks. Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their
books from England; the members of the Junto had each a few. We had
left the alehouse where we first met, and hired a room to hold our
club in. I proposed that we should all of us bring our books to that
room, where they would not only be ready to consult in our
conferences, but become a common benefit, each of us being at liberty
to borrow such as he wished to read at home. This was accordingly
done, and for some time contented us.

Finding the advantage of this little collection, I proposed to render
the benefit from books more common by commencing a public subscription
library. I drew a sketch of the plan and rules that would be
necessary, and got a skillful conveyancer, Mr. Charles Brockden, to
put the whole in form of articles of agreement to be subscribed, by
which each subscriber engaged to pay a certain sum down for the first
purchase of books, and an annual contribution for increasing them. So
few were the readers at that time in Philadelphia, and the majority of
us so poor, that I was not able, with great industry, to find more
than fifty persons, mostly young tradesmen, willing to pay down for
this purpose forty shillings each and ten shillings per annum.

On this little fund we began. The books were imported; the library was
opened one day in the week for lending to the subscribers, on their
promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned. The
institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns
and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations;
reading became fashionable; and our people, having no public
amusements to divert their attention from study, became better
acquainted with books, and in a few years were observed by strangers
to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same
rank generally are in other countries.

When we were about to sign the above-mentioned articles, which were to
be binding on us, our heirs, etc., for fifty years, Mr. Brockden, the
scrivener, said to us: "You are young men, but it is scarcely probable
that any of you will live to see the expiration of the term fixed in
the instrument." A number of us, however, are yet living; but the
instrument was, after a few years, rendered null by a charter that
incorporated and gave perpetuity to the company.[109]

The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the
subscriptions made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's self
as the proposer of any useful project that might be supposed to raise
one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors,
when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I
therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a
scheme of a "number of friends," who had requested me to go about and
propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my
affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after practiced it on such
occasions, and, from my frequent successes, can heartily recommend it.
The present little sacrifice of your vanity will afterward be amply
repaid. If it remains awhile uncertain to whom the merit belongs, some
one more vain than yourself will be encouraged to claim it, and then
even envy will be disposed to do you justice by plucking those assumed
feathers, and restoring them to their right owner.

This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study,
for which I set apart an hour or two each day, and thus repaired in
some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended
for me. Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself. I spent no
time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind; and my industry in my
business continued as indefatigable as it was necessary. I was
indebted for my printing house; I had a young family coming on to be
educated, and I had to contend for business with two printers, who
were established in the place before me. My circumstances, however,
grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continuing, and my
father having, among his instructions to me when a boy, frequently
repeated a proverb of Solomon, "Seest thou a man diligent in his
business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean
men,"[110] I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining
wealth and distinction, which encouraged me, though I did not think
that I should ever literally "stand before kings;" which, however, has
since happened, for I have stood before five, and even had the honor
of sitting down with one (the King of Denmark) to dinner.[n]

We have an English proverb that says, "He that would thrive must ask
his wife." It was lucky for me that I had one as much disposed to
industry and frugality as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in my
business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing
old linen rags for the paper makers, etc. We kept no idle servants,
our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For
instance, my breakfast was a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I
ate it out of a two-penny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon. But
mark how luxury will enter families and make a progress in spite of
principle. Being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a
china bowl with a spoon of silver! They had been bought for me without
my knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of
three-and-twenty shillings, for which she had no other excuse or
apology to make but that she thought her husband deserved a silver
spoon and china bowl as well as any of his neighbors. This was the
first appearance of plate and china in our house, which afterward, in
a course of years, as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to
several hundred pounds in value.

I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and, though I early
absented myself from the public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being
my studying day, I never was without some religious principles. I
never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made
the world, and governed it by his providence; that the most acceptable
service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal;
and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here
or hereafter. These I esteemed the essentials of every religion; and
being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I
respected them all, though with different degrees of respect as I
found them more or less mixed with other articles which, without any
tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, served principally
to divide us, and make us unfriendly to one another. This respect to
all, with an opinion that the worst had some good effects, induced me
to avoid all discourse that might tend to lessen the good opinion
another might have of his own religion; and as our province increased
in people, and new places of worship were continually wanted, and
generally erected by voluntary contribution, my mite for such
purpose, whatever might be the sect, was never refused.

Though I seldom attended any public worship, I had still an opinion of
its propriety and of its utility when rightly conducted, and I
regularly paid my annual subscription for the support of the only
Presbyterian minister or meeting we had in Philadelphia. He used to
visit me sometimes as a friend, and admonish me to attend his
administrations, and I was now and then prevailed on to do so, once
for five Sundays successively. Had he been in my opinion a good
preacher, perhaps I might have continued, notwithstanding the occasion
I had for the Sunday's leisure in my course of study; but his
discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments or explications of
the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry,
uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was
inculcated or enforced, their aim seeming to be rather to make us
Presbyterians than good citizens.

At length he took for his text that verse of the fourth chapter of
Philippians: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are
of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise,
think on these things;" and I imagined, in a sermon on such a text, we
could not miss of having some morality. But he confined himself to
five points only, as meant by the apostle: 1. Keeping holy the Sabbath
day. 2. Being diligent in reading the holy Scriptures. 3. Attending
duly the public worship. 4. Partaking of the sacrament. 5. Paying a
due respect to God's ministers. These might be all good things; but,
as they were not the kind of good things that I expected from that
text, I despaired of ever meeting with them from any other, was
disgusted, and attended his preaching no more. I had some years before
composed a little liturgy, or form of prayer, for my own private use
(in 1728), entitled "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion." I
returned to the use of this, and went no more to the public
assemblies. My conduct might be blamable, but I leave it without
attempting further to excuse it, my present purpose being to relate
facts, and not to make apologies for them.

[Footnote 81: This method of expression was adopted on the reformation
of the calendar in England in 1752. It shows in this case that the
February was of the year 1726 according to the old style, and 1727
according to the new calendar. The year 1751 began on the 25th of
March, the former New-Year's Day, and ended, by act of Parliament, at
the 1st of January, 1752.]

[Footnote 82: Declared by word of mouth, not written.]

[Footnote 83: Those who were unable to pay for their passage by ship
from one country to another, sometimes sold their service for a term
of years to the captain who brought them over.]

[Footnote 84: Bound by articles of apprenticeship.]

[Footnote 85: The guinea contains twenty-one shillings, while the
pound has twenty.]

[Footnote 86: A crimp is one who brings recruits to the army or
sailors to ships by false inducements.]

[Footnote 87: Molds.]

[Footnote 88: Here used for salesman.]

[Footnote 89: Marks or registers by which a bill may be identified.]

[Footnote 90: See Note 3, p. 19.]

[Footnote 91: Belief in the existence of a personal God, but denying
revelation.]

[Footnote 92:

    "Whatever is, is in its causes just,
    Since all things are by fate. But purblind man
    Sees but a part o' the chain, the nearest links;
    His eyes not carrying to the equal beam
    That poises all above."

    DRYDEN, _[OE]dipus_, act iii. sc. I.
]

[Footnote 93: The word means an assembly of persons engaged for a
common purpose. It is from the Spanish _junta_ ("a council").]

[Footnote 94: An instrument used in navigation for measuring the
altitude of the sun.]

[Footnote 95: Putting the types no longer needed for printing into the
proper boxes.]

[Footnote 96: Set up for printing.]

[Footnote 97: Type in a jumbled mass.]

[Footnote 98: "This paper was called The Universal Instructor in all
Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette. Keimer printed his last
number--the thirty-ninth--on the twenty-fifth day of September,
1729."--BIGELOW.]

[Footnote 99: The governor brought instructions from the king that his
salary should be one thousand pounds. The legislature claimed the
liberty of fixing the sum themselves. Franklin ended his article with
this sentence: "Their happy mother country will perhaps observe with
pleasure that, though her gallant cocks and matchless dogs abate their
natural fire and intrepidity when transported to a foreign clime (as
this nation is), yet her sons in the remotest part of the earth, and
even to the third and fourth descent, still retain that ardent spirit
of liberty, and that undaunted courage, which has in every age so
gloriously distinguished Britons and Englishmen from the rest of
mankind."]

[Footnote 100: FRANKLIN'S NOTE.--I got his son once five hundred
pounds.]

[Footnote 101: This money had not the full value of the pound sterling.]

[Footnote 102: That is, the government of Delaware.]

[Footnote 103: In secret.]

[Footnote 104: Men on horseback who carried the mail.]

[Footnote 105: Miss Read's first marriage.]

[Footnote 106: Mrs. Franklin died Dec. 19, 1774. Franklin celebrated
his wife in a song, of which the following verses are a part:

    "Of their Chloes and Phyllises poets may prate,
      I sing my plain country Joan,
    These twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life,
      Blest day that I made her my own.

           *       *       *       *       *

    "Am I loaded with care, she takes off a large share,
      That the burden ne'er makes me to reel;
    Does good fortune arrive, the joy of my wife
      Quite doubles the pleasure I feel.

           *       *       *       *       *

    "Some faults have we all, and so has my Joan,
      But then they're exceedingly small;
    And, now I'm grown used to them, so like my own,
      I scarcely can see them at all.

    "Were the finest young princess with millions in purse,
      To be had in exchange for my Joan,
    I could not get better wife, might get a worse,
      So I'll stick to my dearest old Joan."
]

[Footnote 107: FRANKLIN'S MEMORANDUM.--Thus far was written with the
intention expressed in the beginning, and therefore contains several
little family anecdotes of no importance to others. What follows was
written many years after in compliance with the advice contained in
these letters (see p. 192), and accordingly intended for the public.
The affairs of the Revolution occasioned the interruption.]

[Footnote 108: See Note 1.]

[Footnote 109: The Philadelphia Library was incorporated in 1742. In
its building is a tablet which reads as follows:

    Be it remembered,
    in honor of the Philadelphia youth
    (then chiefly artificers),
    that in MDCCXXXI.
    they cheerfully,
    at the instance of Benjamin Franklin,
    one of their number,
    instituted the Philadelphia Library,
    which, though small at first,
    is become highly valuable and extensively useful,
    and which the walls of this edifice
    are now destined to contain and preserve;
    the first stone of whose foundation
    was here placed
    the thirty-first day of August, 1789.

The inscription, save the mention of himself, was prepared by Franklin.]

[Footnote 110: See Prov. xxii. 29.]




§5. CONTINUED SELF-EDUCATION.


It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of
arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any
fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural
inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or
thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might
not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had
undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my
care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised
by another; habit took the advantage of inattention; inclination was
sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded at length that the mere
speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely
virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the
contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and
established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform
rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore contrived the
following method.

In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my
reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different
writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance,
for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by
others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure,
appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our
avarice and ambition. I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness,
to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annexed to each, than a few
names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues
all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable, and
annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I
gave to its meaning.

These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:

1. TEMPERANCE.

Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

2. SILENCE.

Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling
conversation.

3. ORDER.

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business
have its time.

4. RESOLUTION.

Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you
resolve.

5. FRUGALITY.

Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste
nothing.

6. INDUSTRY.

Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all
unnecessary actions.

7. SINCERITY.

Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak,
speak accordingly.

8. JUSTICE.

Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your
duty.

9. MODERATION.

Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they
deserve.

10. CLEANLINESS.

Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.

11. TRANQUILLITY.

Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

12. CHASTITY.

13. HUMILITY.

Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I
judged it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the
whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time; and, when I
should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till
I should have gone through the thirteen; and, as the previous
acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain
others, I arranged them with that view as they stand above. Temperance
first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head
which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and
guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits
and the force of perpetual temptations. This being acquired and
established, Silence would be more easy; and my desire being to gain
knowledge at the same time that I improved in virtue, and considering
that in conversation it was obtained rather by the use of the ears
than of the tongue, and therefore wishing to break a habit I was
getting into of prattling, punning, and joking, which only made me
acceptable to trifling company, I gave Silence the second place. This
and the next, Order, I expected would allow me more time for attending
to my project and my studies. Resolution, once become habitual, would
keep me firm in my endeavors to obtain all the subsequent virtues;
Frugality and Industry, freeing me from my remaining debt, and
producing affluence and independence, would make more easy the
practice of Sincerity and Justice, etc. Conceiving then that,
agreeably to the advice of Pythagoras in his "Golden Verses,"[111]
daily examination would be necessary, I contrived the following method
for conducting that examination.

I made a little book,[112] in which I allotted a page for each of the
virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns,
one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for
the day. I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the
beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues, on
which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black
spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed
respecting that virtue upon that day.

I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues
successively. Thus, in the first week my great guard was to avoid
every (the least) offense against Temperance, leaving the other
virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking every evening the
faults of the day. Thus, if in the first week I could keep my first
line, marked T., clear of spots, I supposed the habit of that virtue
so much strengthened, and its opposite weakened, that I might venture
extending my attention to include the next, and for the following week
keep both lines clear of spots. Proceeding thus to the last, I could
go through a course complete in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a
year. And, like him who, having a garden to weed, does not attempt to
eradicate all the bad

                   _FORM OF THE PAGES._

    -----------------------------------------------------
    |                    TEMPERANCE.                    |
    |---------------------------------------------------|
    |                EAT NOT TO DULLNESS;               |
    |              DRINK NOT TO ELEVATION.              |
    |---------------------------------------------------|
    |                | S. | M. | T. | W. | T. | F. | S. |
    |----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
    | T[emperance]   |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |
    |----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
    | S[ilence]      |  * |  * |    |  * |    |  * |    |
    |----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
    | O[rder]        | ** |  * |  * |    |  * |  * |  * |
    |----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
    | R[esolution]   |    |    |  * |    |    |  * |    |
    |----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
    | F[rugality]    |    |  * |    |    |  * |    |    |
    |----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
    | I[ndustry]     |    |    |  * |    |    |    |    |
    |----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
    | S[incerity]    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |
    |----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
    | J[ustice]      |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |
    |----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
    | M[oderation]   |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |
    |----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
    | C[leanliness]  |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |
    |----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
    | T[ranquillity] |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |
    |----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
    | C[hastity]     |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |
    |----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----|
    | H[umility]     |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |
    -----------------------------------------------------

herbs at once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but
works on one of the beds at a time, and, having accomplished the
first, proceeds to a second, so I should have, I hoped, the
encouraging pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I made in
virtue, by clearing successively my lines of their spots, till in the
end, by a number of courses, I should be happy in viewing a clean
book, after a thirteen-weeks' daily examination. My little book had
for its motto these lines from Addison's "Cato:"

    "Here will I hold. If there's a power above us
    (And that there is, all Nature cries aloud
    Thro' all her works), He must delight in virtue;
    And that which He delights in must be happy."

Another from Cicero:

     "O vitæ Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque
     vitiorum! Unus dies, bene et ex præceptis tuis actus, peccanti
     immortalitati est anteponendus."[113]

Another from the Proverbs of Solomon, speaking of wisdom or virtue:

     "Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches
     and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths
     are peace." (iii. 16, 17.)

And, conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought it right
and necessary to solicit his assistance for obtaining it. To this end
I formed the following little prayer, which was prefixed to my tables
of examination, for daily use:

     "O powerful Goodness! bountiful Father! merciful Guide! Increase
     in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen
     my resolutions to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my
     kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power
     for thy continual favors to me."

I used also sometimes a little prayer which I took from Thomson's Poems:

    "Father of light and life, thou Good Supreme!
    O teach me what is good; teach me Thyself!
    Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
    From every low pursuit; and fill my soul
    With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure;
    Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!"

The precept of Order requiring that every part of my business should
have its allotted time, one page in my little book contained the
following scheme of employment for the twenty-four hours of a natural
day.

          THE MORNING.          { 5}   Rise, wash, and address Powerful
    _Question._ What good shall { 6} Goodness![n] Contrive day's
    I do this day?              {  } business, and take the resolution
                                { 7} of the day; prosecute the present
                                {  } study, and breakfast.

                                  8}
                                  9}
                                 10}   Work.
                                 11}

               NOON.            {12}   Read, or overlook my accounts,
                                { 1} and dine.

                                  2}
                                  3}   Work.
                                  4}
                                  5}

             EVENING.           { 6}   Put things in their places.
    _Question._ What good have  { 7} Supper. Music or diversion, or
    I done to-day?              { 8} conversation. Examination of
                                { 9} the day.

                                {10}
                                {11}
                                {12}
              NIGHT.            { 1}   Sleep.
                                { 2}
                                { 3}
                                { 4}

I entered upon the execution of this plan for self-examination, and
continued it, with occasional intermissions, for some time. I was
surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined;
but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. To avoid the
trouble of renewing now and then my little book, which, by scraping
out the marks on the paper of old faults to make room for new ones in
a new course, became full of holes, I transferred my tables and
precepts to the ivory leaves of a memorandum book, on which the lines
were drawn with red ink, that made a durable stain, and on those lines
I marked my faults with a black lead pencil, which marks I could
easily wipe out with a wet sponge. After a while I went through one
course only in a year, and afterward only one in several years, till
at length I omitted them entirely, being employed in voyages and
business abroad, with a multiplicity of affairs that interfered; but I
always carried my little book with me.

My scheme of Order gave me the most trouble; and I found that, though
it might be practicable where a man's business was such as to leave
him the disposition of his time,--that of a journeyman printer, for
instance,--it was not possible to be exactly observed by a master, who
must mix with the world, and often receive people of business at their
own hours. Order, too, with regard to places for things, papers, etc.,
I found extremely difficult to acquire. I had not been early
accustomed to it, and, having an exceeding good memory, I was not so
sensible of the inconvenience attending want of method. This article,
therefore, cost me so much painful attention, and my faults in it
vexed me so much, and I made so little progress in amendment and had
such frequent relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the
attempt, and content myself with a faulty character in that respect,
like the man who, in buying an ax of a smith, my neighbor, desired to
have the whole of its surface as bright as the edge. The smith
consented to grind it bright for him if he would turn the wheel. He
turned, while the smith pressed the broad face of the ax hard and
heavily on the stone, which made the turning of it very fatiguing. The
man came every now and then from the wheel to see how the work went
on, and at length would take his ax as it was, without farther
grinding. "No," said the smith, "turn on, turn on; we shall have it
bright by and by; as yet, it is only speckled." "Yes," says the man,
"but I think I like a speckled ax best." And I believe this may have
been the case with many, who, having, for want of some such means as I
employed, found the difficulty of obtaining good and breaking bad
habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given up the struggle,
and concluded that a "speckled ax" was best. For something, that
pretended to be reason, was every now and then suggesting to me that
such extreme nicety as I exact

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