LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 
 
 RESENTED ^Y //\^ 
 
 PRI 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
LESSONS FROM THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 Benjamin Franklin 
 
 1706 — 1790. 
 
 BUFFALO : 
 
 PKTER PAUL i 1;R0., PRINTERS AND BINDERS. 
 
 189I. 
 
£730? 
 
PREFACE 
 
 While thinking last summer how I might use- 
 fully employ some leisure hours, it occurred to me 
 to prepare the following compilation for the benefit 
 of the young people of Buffalo, having in view 
 especially those who have lately graduated, or who 
 are about to graduate from our public and other 
 schools. It may also be interesting and not un- 
 profitable reading to older persons who are not 
 familiar with the details of Benjamin Franklin's 
 business career. 
 
 It is for the most part an abridgment, consisting 
 of those portions of Franklin's autobiography 
 which may be useful for instruction and example in 
 the conduct of business and life, and excluding 
 many genealogical and other details and various 
 episodes which are comparatively uninteresting, are 
 not within the purpose of the volume, and would 
 enhance its cost. These considerations afford, I 
 think, a sufficient answer to the objections usually 
 and sometimes properly made to abridgments. 
 
IV 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that there was any- 
 thing sordid in the character or philosophy of 
 Franklin. It is true that he taught that " honesty 
 is the best policy." So the Sermon on the Mount 
 declares that the righteous shall have their reward. 
 But he was one of the most benevolent and public- 
 spirited of men. He believed in pecuniary inde- 
 pendence as a vitally important means of happiness 
 and usefulness, and as a shield against temptation. 
 Leaving school at ten years of age, starting in life 
 substantially pennyless, dependent upon his own 
 exertions, passing his youth in a country which 
 was in a state of extreme poverty, he felt and taught 
 that economy was a pressing duty. When a boy 
 he left his boarding house and lived on less than 
 fifty cents a week so that he might have more 
 money to buy books ; but he never saved a cent for 
 the sake of the cent ; and from his early youth he 
 loved knowledge, self-improvement, his country and 
 his kind more than money. At forty-two, having 
 acquired a modest competence, he retired from 
 active business, and devoted forty-two years more 
 to these other ojects. 
 
 In boyhood he prepared for his own use certain 
 rules of cunduct to which he adhered during his 
 youth and early manhood, and by which he was 
 largely guided all his life. By practicing these 
 methods, largely aided, of course, by circumstances. 
 
he probably enjoyed and accomplished as much 
 as any man of his generation. 
 
 The number of elements which went to the 
 making of the life and character of Franklin, and 
 which are illustrated in the following pages, is 
 remarkable. Enterprise and prudence, energy 
 and moderation, the achievement of pecuniary 
 independence without avarice, economy coupled 
 with benevolence and public spirit, the best 
 methods of industry, temperance, the use of time, 
 manners, the value of friends and how to select 
 and retain them, the arts of conversation, discus- 
 sion and debate, the management and use of clubs 
 and other associations, the most successful methods 
 of acquiring and exerting influence and of accom- 
 plishing results, how to select and read books, 
 how to write, how to acquire languages and other 
 knowledge, how to mingle wit and wisdom, sobri- 
 ety and humor, how wisely to conduct one's self soci- 
 ally, politically, morally and religiously ; in fact all 
 the characteristics and methods by which Franklin 
 rose from poverty ignorance and obscurity to 
 wealth, learning and fame are in this little book 
 described and illustrated by a man not surpassed 
 by any historical character in common sense ; and 
 all are portrayed in a style so delightful that there 
 is not a dull page in it. It also constitutes an 
 
VI 
 
 interesting picture of the manners and customs o( 
 our country during the first half of the last century. 
 
 It is not expected that the example of Franklin 
 can or should be followed in its details, at the 
 present day ; but the instructions and life of this 
 great American should be recalled to the memory 
 of every succeeding generation. Next to his 
 native strength and breadth of mind, his boyish 
 passion for the best books doubtless did more than 
 any other cause to make him what he was. 
 Among them was Plutarch's Lives, a thorough 
 acquaintance with which is of itself a kind of 
 liberal education. An interest in these lives and 
 a love of books ought never to go out of fashion. 
 
 Our young Benjamin was very poor when, an 
 utter stranger and with about a dollar in his pocket, 
 he became a resident of Philadelphia ; but there 
 are many boys and girls in Buffalo much poorer 
 than he was, because he was a skilful printer, and 
 every young man or woman who has acquired a 
 trade and is skilful in it has already laid the foun- 
 dation of an almost sure success, if the lessons of 
 Franklin's life in Philadelphia are duly studied and 
 heeded. As to the boys and girls who are de- 
 pressed by poverty and have no trade, I am sure 
 that if they will read this volume it will encourage 
 them to get one as soon as possible, and also to 
 see, that while they cannot all be Franklins', they 
 
Vll 
 
 can (unless prevented by unusual misfortunes) 
 become respected and prosperous. I earnestly 
 wish this little book might have the widest circu- 
 lation among such young people ; and I am un- 
 selfish in this wish, as it will be sold at the cost of 
 its publication. 
 
 I have added a brief chronological statement of 
 the leading events of Franklin's life subsequent to 
 the period embraced in his autobiography, so that 
 it may be seen what were the results in his old age 
 of the habits of his youth. 
 
 I understand how small is my contribution to 
 the value of this book, and I should not sub- 
 scribe my name to this preface but for the hope that 
 my recommendation may increase its circulation. 
 
 E. C. SPRAGUE. 
 Buffalo, Dec. 15th, i8gi. 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Josiah Franklin, my father, married young, and 
 carried his wife with three children to New England, 
 about 1685. By the same wife he had four children 
 more born there, and by a second wife ten others, in all 
 seventeen ; of whom I remember thirteen sitting together 
 at his table, who all grew up to years of maturity and 
 were married ; 1 was the youngest son, and the youngest 
 of all the children, excepting two daughters. I was 
 born in Boston, in New England. My mother, the 
 second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter 
 Folger, one of the first settlers of New England. 
 
 I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, 
 my father intending to devote me, as the tithe of his 
 sons, to the service of the Church. I continued at the 
 grammar-school rather less than a year, though in that 
 time I had risen gradually from the middle of the class of 
 that year to be at the head of it, and was removed 
 into the next class, whence I was to be placed in the 
 third at the end of the year. But my father, burdened 
 with a numerous family, was unable to support the ex- 
 pense of a college education, took me from the grammar- 
 school, and sent me to a school for writing and arith- 
 metic, kept by a then famous man, Mr. George 
 
Brownell, successful in his profession. Under him I 
 learned to write a good hand pretty soon, but I failed 
 in the arithmetic. At ten years old I was taken to help 
 my father in his business, which was that of a tallow- 
 chandler and soap-boiler. Accordingly, I was employed 
 in cutting wicks for the candles, filling the dipping 
 mould and the moulds for cast candles, attending the 
 shop, going of errands, etc. 
 
 I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination to 
 go to sea, but my father declared against it ; but 
 residing near the water, I was much in and on it. 
 I learned to swim well, and to manage boats. 
 
 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 every appearance that I was destined to 
 supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler. But 
 my dislike to the trade continuing, my father had appre- 
 hensions that if he did not find one to put me to more 
 agreeable, I should break loose and get to sea, as his son 
 Josiah had done, to his great vexation. In con- 
 sequence he took me to walk with him, and see joiners, 
 bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their work, that 
 he might observe my inclination, and endeavor to fix it 
 on some trade that would keep me on land. It has ever 
 since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle 
 their tools, and it has been often useful to me to have 
 learned so much by it as to be able to do jobs myself 
 in the house when a workman was not at hand, and to 
 
construct little machines for my experiments, when the 
 intention of making these experiments was fresh and 
 warm in my mind. My father determined at last for 
 the cutler's trade, and placed me for some days on trial 
 with Samuel, son to my uncle Benjamin. But the sum 
 he exacted as a fee displeasing my father, I was taken 
 home again. 
 
 From my infancy I was fond of reading, and all the 
 money that came into my hands was laid out in books. 
 My first acquisition was 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 books, and cheap, forty in all. My 
 father's little library consisted chiefly of books in 
 polemic divinity, most of which I read. I have 
 often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst 
 for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my 
 way. Plutarch's Lives I read abundantly, and I still 
 think that time spent to great advantage. There was 
 also a book of De Foe's, called an Essay on Projecfs, 
 and another of Dr. Mather's, called an Essay to do 
 Goody which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that 
 had an influence on some of the principle 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 171 7 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 
 inchnation, my father was impatient to have me bound 
 to my brother. I stood out some time, but at last was 
 persuaded, and signed the indenture when I was yet 
 but twelve years old. I was to serve an apprenticeship 
 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 progress 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 chamber reading the greatest part of 
 the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening 
 and to be returned in the morning, lest it should be 
 found missing. 
 
 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 argu- 
 ment, and very desirous of confuting one another, 
 which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a 
 very bad habit, .making people often extremely disagree- 
 able in company by the contradiction that is necessary 
 to bring it into practice ; and thence, besides souring 
 and spoiling the conversation, it is productive of disgusts 
 and perhaps enmities. I had caught it by reading my 
 father's books of dispute on religion. Persons of good 
 sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except 
 lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts who have 
 been bred at Edinburgh. 
 
5 
 
 About this time I met with an odd volume of the 
 Spectator. 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 sentiments 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 fuily as it had been expressed 
 before, in any suitable words that should occur to me. 
 Then I compared my Spectator with the original, dis- 
 covered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I 
 found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in 
 recollecting and using them. 
 
 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 collection of hints into con- 
 fusion, 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 the thoughts. By 
 comparing my work with the original, I dis- 
 covered many faults and corrected them; but I some- 
 times had the pleasure to fancy that, in certain 
 particulars of small consequence, I had been fortunate 
 enough to improve the method or the language, and 
 this encouraged me to think I might m time come to 
 be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely 
 
ambitious. The time I allotted for these exercises and 
 for reading was at night, or before work began in the 
 morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in 
 the printing-house, evading as much as I could the 
 constant attendance at public worship which my father 
 used to exact of me when I was under his care. 
 
 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 refusing 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 pro- 
 posed 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 ai:)pre- 
 
hension which generally attend temperance in eating and 
 drinking. 
 
 Now it was that, being on some occasion made 
 ashamed of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice 
 failed learning when at school, I took Cocker's book 
 on arithmetic, and went through the whole by myself 
 with the greatest ease. I also read Seller's and Sturny's 
 book of Navigation, and became acquainted with the 
 little geometry it contains ; but never proceeded far in 
 that science. I read about this time Locke On the 
 Human Understanding, and the Art of Thinking, by 
 Messrs. du Port Royal. 
 
 While I was intent on improving my language, I met 
 with an English Grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), 
 having at the end of it two little sketches on the 
 arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a 
 specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method ; and soon 
 after I procured Xenophon's Memorable Things of 
 Socrates, wherein there are many examples of the same 
 method. I was charmed with it, adopted it, dropped 
 my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, 
 and put on the humble inquirer. 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 advance 
 anything that may possibly be disputed, the words 
 certainly, u7idoubtedly, or any others that give the air of 
 positiveness to an opinion ; but rather say, 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 ; 
 
8 
 
 or J imagine it to be so ; or // 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 and 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. 
 
 My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a 
 newspaper. It was the second that appeared in America, 
 and was called the Neiu England Coiirant. The only 
 one before it was the Boston News-Letter. I was em- 
 ployed to carry the papers 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 suspect- 
 ing that my brother would object to printing anything 
 of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I con- 
 trived to disguise my hand, and writing an anonymous 
 paper, I put it in at night under the door of the print- 
 ing-house. It was found in the morning, and communi- 
 cated to his writing friends when they called m 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 that 
 I was rather lucky in my judges, and that they were 
 not really so very good ones as I then believed them 
 to be. 
 
 Encouraged, however, by this attempt, I wrote and 
 sent in the same way to the press several other pieces 
 that were equally approved ; and I kept my secret till 
 all my fund of sense for such performances was 
 exhausted, and then discovered it, when I began to be 
 considered a little more by my brother's acquaintance. 
 That did not quite please him, as he thought it tended 
 to make me too vain. 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 degraded 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 ex- 
 tremely 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. Perhaps this harsh and tyrannical treat- 
 
lO 
 
 ment of me might be a means of impressing me with the 
 aversion to arbitrary power that has stuck to me through 
 my whole life. 
 
 One of the pieces in our newspaper on some political 
 point, which I have now forgotten, gave offence to the 
 Assembly. My brother was taken up, censured, and 
 imprisoned for a month, by the speaker's warrant, I 
 suppose, because he would not discover the author. I 
 too was taken up and examined before the council ; but, 
 though I did not give them any satisfaction, they con- 
 tented 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 youth that had a turn for libelling 
 and satire. My brother's discharge was accompanied 
 with an order (a very odd one), that ''James Franklin 
 should no longe? print the paper called the New England 
 Courant. ' ' 
 
 On a consultation held in our printing-house among 
 his friends, what he should do in this conjuncture, 
 it was proposed to elude the order by changing the 
 name of the paper; but my brother, seeing incon- 
 veniences in this, came to a conclusion as a better way, 
 to let the paper be printed in future under the name 
 of Benjamin Franklin ; and to avoid the censure of 
 
II 
 
 the Assembly, that might fall on him as still printing it 
 by his apprentice, he consented that my old indenture 
 should be returned to me, with a discharge on the back 
 of it, to show in case of necessity ; and in order to 
 secure to him the benefit of my service, I should sign 
 new indentures for the remainder of my time, which 
 were to be kept private. A very flimsy scheme it was ; 
 however, it wa-s immediately executed, and the paper 
 was printed 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 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, il 
 
12 
 
 I Stayed, soon bring myself into scrapes. My friend 
 Collins agreed with the captain of a New York sloop 
 to take me. I sold my books to raise a little money, 
 was taken on board the sloop privately, had a fair wind, 
 and in three days found myself at New York, near 
 three hundred miles from home, at the age of seven- 
 teen, without the least recommendation to, or knowl- 
 edge of any person in the place, and very little money 
 in my pocket. 
 
 Conceiving myself a pretty good workman, I offered 
 my service to a printer in the place, old Mr, William 
 Bradford, who had been the first printer in Pennsylvania, 
 but removed thence in consequence of a quarrel with 
 the Governor George Keith. He could give me no 
 employment, having little to do, and hands enough 
 already; but he said, "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 one hundred miles further; 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, and drove us upon Long Island. On approach- 
 ing the island, we found it was in a place where there 
 could be no landing, there being a great surge on the 
 stony beach. So we dropped anchor, and swung out 
 our cable towards the shore. 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. 
 
13 
 
 In the evening I found myself very feverish, and 
 went to bed; but having read somewhere that cold 
 water drank plentifully was good for a fever, I followed 
 the prescription, and 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 go to Burlington, 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 I had never left home. I made so miserable a 
 figure, too, that I found, by the questions asked me, 
 I was suspected to be some runaway indentured servant, 
 and in danger of being taken up on that suspicion. 
 However, I proceeded next day, and got in the evening 
 to an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept 
 by one Dr. Brown. 
 
 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 
 and no other expected to go before Tuesday, this 
 this being Saturday. However, walking in the evening 
 by the side of the river, a boat came by, which I found 
 was going towards Phdadelphia, 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 
 
14 
 
 others knew not where we were ; so we put towards the 
 shore, got into a creek, 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 Sunday morning, and 
 landed at 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 coming 
 round by sea. I was dirty from my being so long in 
 the boat. My pockets were stuffed out with shirts and 
 stockings, and I knew no one nor where to look for 
 lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and the want 
 of sleep, I was very hungry; and my whole stock of 
 cash consisted in a single dollar, and about a shilling 
 in copper coin. The latter I gave to the boatmen for 
 my passage. At first they refused it on account of my 
 having rowed ; but I insisted on their taking it. Man 
 is sometimes more generous when he has little money 
 than when he has plenty, perhaps to prevent his being 
 thought to have but little. 
 
 I walked towards the top of the street, gazing about 
 till near Market Street, where I met a boy with bread. 
 I had often made a meal of dry bread, and inquiring 
 where he had bought it, I went immediately to the 
 
baker's he directed me to, Second Street. I asked for 
 biscuits, intending such as we had at Boston ; but that 
 sort, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I 
 asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had 
 none. Not knowing the different prices^ I told him to 
 give me three-penny 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 eat- 
 ing 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 meeting-house of the 
 Quakers near the market. I sat down among them, and 
 after looking round a while and hearing nothing said, 
 being very drowsy through labor and want of rest the 
 preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so 
 
i6 
 
 till the meeting broke up, when some one was kind 
 enough to rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house 
 I was in or slept in, in Philadelphia. 
 
 I then walked down towards the river, and looking in 
 the faces of every one, I met a young Quaker man, 
 whose countenance pleased me, and, accosting him, re- 
 quested he would tell me where a stranger could get a 
 lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three 
 Mariners. '^Here," said he, " is a house that enter- 
 tains strangers, but it is not a reputable one ; if thee 
 wilt walk with me, I'll show thee a better one." He 
 brought me to the Crooked Billet in Water Street. 
 There I got a dinner; and while I was eating, several 
 questions were asked me. as from my youth and appear- 
 ance, I was suspected of being a runaway. 
 
 After dinner, my host having shown me to a bed, I 
 laid myself on it without undressing, and slept till six 
 in the evening, when I was called to supper, went to 
 bed again very early, and slept soundly till next 
 morning. Then I made myself as neat as I could, and 
 went to Andrew Bradford the printer. 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, 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 
 
17 
 
 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 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 town's people that had a 
 good will for him, 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 interests 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, and the other a mere novice. Bradford 
 left me with Keimer, w^ho was greatly surprised when I 
 told him who the old man was. 
 
 The printing-house, I found, consisted of an old 
 damaged press, and one small, worn-out fount of English 
 types, which he was using himself, composing an Elegy 
 on Aquila Rose, before mentioned, an ingenious young 
 man, of excellent character, much respected in the 
 town, secretary to the Assembly, and a pretty poet. 
 Keimer made verses too, but very indifferently. He 
 
i8 
 
 could not he said io write them, for his manner was to 
 compose them in the types directly out of his head. 
 There being no copy, but oue pair of cases, and the 
 Elegy requiring all the letter, 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 
 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. 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 
 presswork. 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 of 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 peoi)le of the town that were lovers of reading, 
 with whom I spent my evenings very pleasantly ; and 
 gained money by my industry and frugality. I lived 
 
19 
 
 v^ery contented, and forgot Boston as much as I could, 
 and did not wish it should be known where I resided 
 except to my friend Collins, who was in the secret, and 
 kept it. At length, an incident happened that occa- 
 sioned my return home much sooner than I had in- 
 tended. 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, 
 and hearing of me, wrote me a letter mentioning the 
 grief of my friends in Boston at my abrupt departure, 
 assuring me of their good-will to me, and that every- 
 thing would be accommodated to my mind if I would 
 return ; to which he entreated me earnestly. I wrote 
 an answer to his letter, thanked him for his advice, but 
 stated my reasons for leaving Boston so fully and in 
 such a light as to convince him that I was not so much 
 in the 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 afterwards 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 (who 
 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 sur- 
 prised, and Keimer stared with astonishment. 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. He 
 stated the probabilities of my success, and both he and 
 Colonel French assured me I should have their interest 
 and influence in procuring the public business of both 
 governments. As I expressed doubts that my father 
 would assist me in it. Sir William said he would give me 
 a letter to him, in which he would set forth the ad- 
 vantages, and he did not doubt he should determine 
 him to comply. So it was concluded I should return 
 to Boston by the first vessel, with the governor's letter 
 to my father. In the meantime it was to be kept a 
 secret, and I went on working with Keimer as usual. 
 The governor sent for me now and then to dine with 
 
21 
 
 him, which I considered a great honor, as he conversed 
 with me in a mosl affable, familiar, and friendly 
 manner. 
 
 About the end of April, 1724, a little vessel ofiered 
 for Boston. ] 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 Phila- 
 delphia as a thing that would 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 fort- 
 night. 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 ; ex- 
 pressing 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 i-are show 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 dollar 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 recon- 
 ciliation, 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 
 surprise, but said little of it to me for some time, 
 when Captain Holmes returning, he showed it to him, 
 and asked him if he knew Sir William Keith, and 
 what kind of man he was ; adding that he must be of 
 small discretion to think of setting a youth up in business 
 who wanted three years to arrive at man's estate. 
 Holmes said what he could in favor of the project, but 
 my father was decidedly against it, and at last gave a 
 flat denial. 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 an undertaking so important, 
 and for which the preparation was so expensive. 
 
 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 
 
23 
 
 note where I had resided, and that I had Ijeen 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, ad- 
 vised me to behave respectfully to the people there, 
 endeavor to obtain the general esteem, and avoid 
 lampooning and libelling, to which he thought I had 
 too much inclination; telling me, that by steady indus- 
 try and prudent parsimony I might save enough by the 
 time I was one-and-twenty to set me up ; and that, if 
 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 em- 
 barked 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 affec- 
 tionately, for he always loved me. A friend of his, 
 one Vernon, having some money due to him in Penn- 
 sylvania, about thirty-five pounds currency, desired I 
 would recover it for him, and keep it till I had his 
 directions what to employ it in. Accordingly he gave 
 me an order to receive it. This business afterwards 
 occasioned me a good deal of uneasiness. 
 
 At New York I found my friend Collins, who had 
 arrived there some time before me. We proceeded to 
 Philadelphia. I received in the way Vernon's money, 
 without which we could hardly have finished our jour- 
 
24 
 
 ney. Collins 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 borrow- 
 ing 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. 
 
 The violation of my trust respecting Vernon's money 
 was one of the first great errata of my life ; and this 
 showed that my father was not much out in his judgment 
 when he considered me too young to manage busi- 
 ness. But Sir William, on reading his letter, said 
 he was too prudent, that there was great difference in 
 persons; and discretion did not always accompany 
 years, nor was youth always without it. ''But since 
 he will not set you up, 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 re- 
 pay 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 afterwards heard it as his 
 known character to be liberal of promises which he 
 never meant to keep. Yet, unsolicited as he was by 
 
25 
 
 me, how could I think his generous offers insincere ? I 
 beHeved him one of the best men in the world. 
 
 I presented him an inventory of a litttle 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," said he, "when 
 there, you may make acquaintance, and establish corres- 
 pondences in the book-selling and stationery line." I 
 agreed that this might be advantageous. " Then," says 
 he, " get yourself ready to go with Annis," which was 
 the annual ship, and the only one at that time usually 
 passing between London and Philadelphia. But as it 
 would be some months before Annis sailed, I con- 
 tinued working with Keimer, fretting extremely about the 
 money Collins had got from me, and in great appre- 
 hensions of being called upon for it by Vernon ; this, 
 however, did not happen tor some years after. 
 
 I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first 
 voyage from Boston, being becalmed off Block Island, 
 our people employed themselves in catching cod, and 
 hauled up a great number. Till then I had stuck to my 
 resolution of eating nothing that had had life, and on 
 this occasion I considered, according to my master 
 Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked 
 murder, since none of them had, or could do us any 
 injury that might justify this massacre. All this 
 seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been 
 a great lover of fish, and, when this came out of the 
 
frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanced some 
 time between principle and inclination, till recol- 
 lecting 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 may- 
 n't eat you." So I dined upon cod very heartily, and 
 continued to eat as other people, returning only now 
 and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So con- 
 venient 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. 
 
 The governor, seeming to like my company, had me 
 frequently at 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, 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 we went on till the 
 ship, whose departure too had been several times post- 
 poned, 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 gov- 
 ernor was extremely busy in writing, but would be down 
 at Newcastle before the ship, and then the letters would 
 be delivered to me. 
 
 I quitted 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 
 
27 
 
 expressions of the greatest regret that he could not then 
 see me, being engaged in business of the utmost im- 
 portance, but that he would send the letters to me on 
 board, wishing me heartily a good voyage and a speedy 
 return, etc. I returned on board a little puzzled, but 
 still not doubting. 
 
 Mr. Andrew Hamilton, a celebrated lawyer of Phil- 
 adelphia, had taken his passage in the same ship for him- 
 self and son, with Mr. Denham, a Quaker merchant, 
 and Messrs. Oniam and Russel, masters of an iron work 
 in Maryland, who had engaged the great cabin; so 
 that a friend of mine, Ralph, and I were forced to take 
 up with a berth in the steerage, and none on board 
 knowing us, we 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 re- 
 moved thither. 
 
 Understanding that Colonel French had brought on 
 board the governor's dispatches, I asked the captain for 
 those letters that were to be 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 ex- 
 amining 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 Baskett, the king's printer, and 
 another to some stationer. We arrived in London the 
 24th of December, 1724. I waited upon the stationer, 
 M^ho 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 Riddles- 
 den. 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 cus- 
 tomer. I was surprised to find these were not the 
 governor's letters; and, after recollecting and com- 
 paring 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 
 
29 
 
 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 express- 
 ing some concern about what I should do, he advised 
 me to endeavor getting some employment in the way of 
 my business. 
 
 I immediately got into work at Palmer's, then a 
 famous printing-house, where I continued near a year. 
 I now began to think of getting a little 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, imagining I felt a want of the 
 bodily exercise I had been used to in America, where 
 presswork is mixed with composing. I drank only 
 water ; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were 
 great drinkers 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- 
 America?i, as they called me, was stronger than them- 
 selves, who drank stro?ig 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. 
 
30 
 
 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 pro- 
 portion to the grain or flower 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 
 could 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 vile 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 
 for drink, being five shillings, was demanded of 
 me by the compositors. I thought it an imposition, as 
 I had paid one to the pressmen ; 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 malice practised 
 on me, by mixing my sorts, transposing and breaking my 
 matter, etc., etc., if I ever stepped out of the 
 room, and all ascribed to the chapel 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. 
 
31 
 
 I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon ac- 
 quired considerable influence. I proposed some reason- 
 able alterations in their 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 por- 
 ringer of hot water-gruelj sprinkled with pepper, 
 crumbed with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the 
 price of a pint of beer, viz., three half- pence. This 
 was a more comfortable as well as cheaper breakfast, and 
 kept their heads clearer. Those who continued sotting 
 with their 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, beivg 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 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 three pair of stairs backwards, at an 
 Italian warehouse. A widow lady kept the house ; she 
 had a daughter, and a maid servant, 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 times of Charles the Second. 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 slice 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 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 land- 
 
33 
 
 lady gave me this account: that 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 purposes, reserving only twelve 
 pounds a year to live on, and out of this sum she still 
 gave a part 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 
 remam 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 asked her," says my landlady, *'how she, as 
 she lived, could possibly find so much employment for a 
 confessor?" "Oh," said she, 'Mt 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 Saint Veronica 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. 
 
34 
 
 At Watt'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. He proposed to me travelling 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. 
 
 He 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 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 then present gettings as a compositor, 
 but affording a better prospect. 
 
35 
 
 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 see them packed up, 
 delivering messages, calling upon workmen to dis- 
 patch, etc. 
 
 Thus I spent about eighteen months in London. I 
 had by no means improved my fortune ; but I had 
 made some very ingenious acquaintances, whose con- 
 versation was of great advantage to me ; and I had 
 read considerably. We sailed from Gravesend on the 
 23d of July, 1726. 
 
 We landed in Philadelphia on the nth 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, and passed without 
 saying anything. Miss Read had married one Rogers, 
 a potter, which was done in my absence. With him, 
 however, she was never happy, and soon parted from 
 him, refusing to cohabit with him or bear his name, it 
 now being 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. 
 
36 
 
 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 coun- 
 selled me as a father, having a sincere regard for me. I 
 respected and loved him, and we might have gone on 
 together very happily ; but in the beginning of February, 
 1727, when I had just passed my twenty-first year, we 
 both were 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 at the 
 time 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 Mr. Denham's distemper was; it 
 held him a long time, and at length carried him off. 
 He left me a small legacy in a nuncupative 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 Philadel- 
 phia, 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 to his stationer's shop. I had 
 heard a bad character of him in London from his wife 
 and her friends, and was not for having any more 
 to do with him. I wished for employment as a 
 merchant's clerk; but not meeting with any, I closed 
 
37 
 
 again with Keimer. I found in his house these 
 hands : Hugh Meredith, a Welsh Pennsylvanian, thirty 
 years of age, bred to country work; he was honest, 
 sensible, 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 extreme 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 agree- 
 ment, 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 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 being 
 all articled 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. 
 
38 
 
 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. 
 My acquaintance with ingenious people in the town 
 increased. We never worked on Saturday, that 
 being Keimer' s Sabbath, so I had two days for reading. 
 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-foundery in America ; I had seen types cast at 
 James's in London, but without much attention to the 
 manner ; however, I now contrived a mould, and made 
 use of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the matrices 
 in lead, and thus supplied in a pretty tolerable way all 
 deficiencies. I also engraved several things on occasion ; 
 made the ink ; I was warehouseman, 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 their business ; and when 
 Keimer paid a 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 the airs of master, frequently found fault, was cap- 
 tious, and seemed ready for an outbreaking. I went on, 
 nevertheless, with a good deal of patience, thinking 
 
39 
 
 that his incumbered circumstances were partly the cause. 
 At length a trifle snapped our connections ; for, a great 
 noise happening near the court-house, I put my head ont 
 of the window to see what was the matter. Keimer, 
 being in the street, looked up and saw me, 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 print- 
 ing-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 his wish was 
 unnecessary, for I would leave him that instant ; and so, 
 taking my hat, I 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 a 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 
 
40 
 
 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 to me, and I consented. 
 His father was in town and approved of it ; the more as he 
 said 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 meantime 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 oppor- 
 tunity 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 copper-plate press for it, the first that had 
 been seen in the country ; I cut several ornaments and 
 checks for the bills. We went together to Burlington, 
 where I executed the whole to satisfaction ; and he re- 
 ceived so large a sum for the work as to be enabled 
 thereby to keep himself longer from ruin. 
 
 ^-t Burlington I made 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 
 rnind having been much more improved by reading than 
 Keimer's, I suppose it was for that reason my conver- 
 sation 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 creature; 
 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 
 
42 
 
 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 said he, "1 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 afterwards of great 
 use to me, as I occasionally w^as to some of them. They 
 all continued their regard for me as long as they lived. 
 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 let 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 par- 
 ticulars 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 otherwise should have been to assist young 
 beginners. 
 
43 
 
 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 me 
 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 sink- 
 ing place, the people already half bankrupts, or near 
 being so ; all the 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 person 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 
 croaking. 
 
 I should nave mentioned before, that in the autumn 
 of the preceding year, I had formed most of my in- 
 genious acquaintance into a club for mutual improve- 
 ment, which we called the Junto ; we met on Friday 
 evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every 
 
44 
 
 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 con- 
 ducted 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. 
 
 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 toler- 
 able ; very ingenious in many little knicknackeries, 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. 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 con- 
 versation. 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 read- 
 ing, had acquired a considerable share of mathematics, 
 
45 
 
 which he first studied with a view to astrology, and 
 afterwards laughed at it. 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 afterwards 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 dis- 
 cussion, 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. 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 some- 
 thing of the interest I had, every one of these exerting 
 themselves in recommending business to us. Breintnal 
 
46 
 
 particularly procured us from the Quakers the printing 
 of forty sheets of their history, the rest being to be 
 done by Keimer; and upon these we worked exceed- 
 ingly hard, for the price was low. It was a folio, pro 
 patria size, in pica, with long primer notes. I com- 
 posed 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 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 con- 
 tinue doing a sheet a day of the folio, that one night, 
 when, having imposed my forms, I thought my day's 
 work over, one of them by accident was broken, and 
 two pages reduced to pi, 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 
 merchant's 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 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 off'ers 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 more particularly and the 
 more freely, though it seems to be talking in my own 
 
47 
 
 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 freely thought a good 
 paper would scarcely fail of good encouragement. I 
 requested Webb not to mention it ; but he told it to 
 Keimer, who immediately, to be beforehand with me, 
 published proposals for one himself, on which Webb was 
 to be employed. I was vexed at this ; and to counteract 
 them, not being able to commence our paper, I wrote 
 several amusing pieces 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 
 we 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. 
 
48 
 
 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 com- 
 positor, 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 quite d different appearance 
 from any before in the province; a better type, and 
 better printed ; and some remarks of my writing, on the 
 dispute 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; another was, that the leading men, seeing a 
 newspaper now in the hands of those who could also 
 handle a pen, thought it convenient to oblige and en- 
 courage 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 ihe hands of our friends in 
 the House, and they voted us their printers for the year 
 ensuing. 
 
49 
 
 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 him- 
 self for me strongly in that instance, as he did in many 
 others afterward, continuing his patronage till his death. 
 
 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, craving his for- 
 bearance a little longer, which he allowed me. As soon 
 as I was able, I paiu the principal 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 pay- 
 ment, perhaps at half price. 
 
 In this distress two true friends, whose kindress 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, 
 offered each of them to advance me all the money that 
 should be necessary to enable me to take the whole busi- 
 
5° 
 
 ness upon myself, if that should be practicable ; but 
 they did not like my continuing the j^artnership with 
 Meredith, who, as they said, was often seen drunk in 
 the street, and playing at low games in ale-houses, 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. 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 em- 
 ployment. You may find friends to assist you. If you 
 will take the debts of the company upon you, return to 
 
51 
 
 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 imme- 
 diately. I gave him what he demanded, and he went 
 soon after to Carolina, whence he sent me next year two 
 long letters, containing the best account that had been 
 given of that country, the climate, the soil and 
 husbandry, for in those matters he was very judicious. 
 I printed them in the papers, and they gave great satis- 
 faction 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 dis- 
 solved. 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 
 injury 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 
 
52 
 
 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 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, en- 
 titled ^^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, but 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 ex- 
 perience so evident that the principles upon which it 
 was founded were never afterwards much disputed ; so 
 that it grew soon to fifty-five thousand pounds, and 
 in 1739 to eighty thousand pounds, trade, building, 
 and inhabitants all the while increasing, though I now 
 think there are limits beyond which the quantity may 
 be hurtful. 
 
53 
 
 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 appear- 
 ing great to those in small circumstances ; and these, to 
 me, were really great advantages, as they were great en- 
 couragements. Mr. Hamilton procured for me, also, 
 the printing of the laws and votes of that government, 
 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 printmg-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 appear- 
 ances to the contrary. I dressed plain ; 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, was private and 
 gave no scandal ; and, to show that I was not above my 
 business, I sometimes brought home the paper I pur- 
 chased at the stores through the streets on a wheel- 
 barrow. Thus being esteemed an industrious, thriving 
 young man, and paying duly for what I bought, the 
 
54 
 
 merchants who imported stationery solicited my custom ; 
 others proposed supplying me with books, and I v/ent 
 on prosperously. In the meantime, Keimer's credit and 
 business declining daily, he was at last forced to sell his 
 printing-house to satisfy his, creditors. 
 
 A friendly correspondence as neighbors had continued 
 between me and Mrs. 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 gen- 
 erally dejected, seldom cheerful, and avoided company. 
 Our mutual affection was revived, but there were now 
 great objections to our union. That match* 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, etc. ; 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, September i, 1730. None of the incon- 
 veniences happened that we had apprehended ; she 
 proved a good and faithful helpmate, assisted me much 
 by attending to the shop ; we throve together, and ever 
 mutually endeavored to make each other happy. 
 
 About this time, our club meeting, not at a tavern, 
 but in a little room of Mr. Grace's, set apart for that 
 
 *That is, the match between Miss Read and Rogers. 
 
55 
 
 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. 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 afterwards obtained 
 a charter, the company being increased to one hundred ; 
 this was the mother of all the North American sub- 
 scription 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 
 
56 
 
 perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand 
 so generally made throughout the colonies in defence of 
 their privileges. 
 
 The objections and reluctances I met with in solicit- 
 ing 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 7tu?nber of 
 friends y 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 
 practised it on such occasions ; and from my frequent 
 successes can heartily recommend it. The present little 
 sacrifice of your vanity will afterwards be amply repaid. 
 If it remains a while uncertain to whom the merit 
 belongs, some one more vain than yourself will be en- 
 couraged to claim it, and then even envy will be dis- 
 posed 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 in- 
 defatigable as it was necessary. I was indebted for my 
 
57 
 
 printing-house ; I had a young family coming on to be 
 educated, and I had two compositors to contend with 
 for business, 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 calling, he shall stand before kings , 
 he shall not stand before mean men,^^ I from thence con- 
 sidered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and 
 distinction, which encouraged me, though I did not 
 think that I should ever literally sta7id before kings, 
 which, however, has since happened ; for I have stood 
 before Uve, and even had the honor of sitting down 
 with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner. 
 
 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, pur- 
 chasing 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 break- 
 fast was a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate 
 it out of a twopenny 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 w^ife, and had cost her the 
 
58 
 
 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 in- 
 creased, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds 
 in value. 
 
 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, 
 and 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 attention was taken up 
 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 con- 
 cluded, 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 
 
59 
 
 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 : — 
 
 I. — 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; that is, 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 inno- 
 cently and justly ; and, if you speak, speak accordingly. 
 
 8. — Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or 
 omitting the benefits that are your duty. 
 
6o 
 
 9. — Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resent- 
 ing injuries so much as you think they deserve. 
 
 10. — Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in 
 body, clothes, or habitation. 
 
 II. — 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 acqui- 
 sition of certain others, I arranged them with that view, 
 as they stand above. 
 
 I made a little book, 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 entered upon the execution of this plan for self- 
 examination, and continued it with occasional inter- 
 missions for some time. I was surprised to find myself 
 
6i 
 
 so much fuller of faults than I had imagined ; but I had 
 the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. Something, 
 however, that pretended to be reason, was every now 
 and then suggesting to me that such extreme nicety as I 
 exacted of myself might be a kind of foppery in morals, 
 which, if it were known, would make me ridiculous ; 
 that a perfect character might be attended with the 
 inconvenience of being envied and hated ; and that a 
 benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to 
 keep his friends in countenance. 
 
 In truth, I found myself incorrigible with respect to 
 Order ; and now I am grown old, and my memory bad, 
 I feel very sensibly the want of it. But, on the whole, 
 though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so 
 ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, 
 by the endeavor, a better and a happier man than I 
 otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it ; 
 as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the en- 
 graved copies, though they never reach the wished -for 
 excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the 
 endeavor, and is tolerable while it continues fair and 
 legible. 
 
 It may be well my posterity should be informed that 
 to this little artifice, with the blessing of God, their 
 ancestor owed the constant felicity of his life, down to 
 his seventy-ninth year, in which this is written. What 
 reverses may attend the remainder is in the hand of 
 Providence; but, if they arrive, the reflection on past 
 happiness enjoyed ought to help his bearing them with 
 more resignation. To Temperance he ascribes his long- 
 
62 
 
 continued health, and what is stili left to him of a good 
 constitution ; to Industry and Frugality, the early easi- 
 ness of his circumstances and acquisition of his fortune, 
 with all that knowledge that enabled him to be a useful 
 citizen, and obtained for him some degree of reputation 
 among the learned ; to Sincerity and Justice, the con- 
 fidence of his country, and the honorable employs it 
 conferred upon him ; and to the joint influence of the 
 whole mass of the virtues, even in the imperfect state 
 he was able to acquire them, all that evenness of temper, 
 and that cheerfulness in conversation, which makes his 
 company still sought for, and agreeable even to his 
 young acquaintance. I hope, therefore, that some of 
 my descendants may follow the example and reap the 
 benefit. 
 
 My list of virtues contained at first but twelve ; but 
 a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was 
 generally thought proud ; that my pride showed itself 
 frequently in conversation ; that I was not content with 
 being in the right when discussing any point, but was 
 overbearing, and rather insolent, of which he con- 
 vinced me by mentioning several instances; I deter- 
 mined endeavoring to cure myself, if I could, of this 
 vice or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to 
 my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word. 
 
 I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the 
 reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard 
 to the appearance of it. I made it a rule to forbear all 
 direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all 
 positive assertion of my own. I even forbid myself, 
 
63 
 
 agreeably to the old laws of our Junto, the use of every 
 word or expression in the language that imported a fixed 
 opinion, such as certainly, undoubtedly, etc., and I 
 adopted, instead of them, / conceive, I apprehe?id, or / 
 imagine a thing to be so or so ; or it so appears to me at 
 present. When another asserted something that I 
 thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contra- 
 dicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some 
 absurdity in his proposition ; and in answering I began 
 by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his 
 opinion would be right, but in the present case there 
 appeared or seemed to me some difference, etc. I soon 
 found the advantage of this change in my manner ; the 
 conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. 
 The modest way in which I proposed my opinions pro- 
 cured them a readier reception and less contradiction ; 
 I had less mortification when I was found to be in the 
 wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others to give 
 up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to 
 be in the right. 
 
 And this mode, which I at first put on with some 
 violence to natural inclination, became at length so 
 easy, and so habitual to me, that perhaps for the last 
 fifty years no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression 
 escape me. And to this habit (after my character of 
 integrity) I think it principally owing that I had early 
 so much weight with my fellow-citizens when I proposed 
 new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much 
 influence in public councils when I became a member ; 
 for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to 
 
64 
 
 much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct 
 in language, and yet I generally carried my points. 
 
 In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural 
 passions so hard to subdue 2& pride. Disguise it, struggle 
 with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is 
 still alive, and will every now and then peep out and 
 show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this 
 history ; for, even if I could conceive that I had com- 
 pletely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my 
 humility. 
 
 Having mentioned a great and extensive project which 
 I had conceived, it seems proper that some account 
 should be here given of that project and its object. Its 
 first rise in my mind appears in the following little 
 paper, accidentally preserved, viz. : — 
 
 Observatio?is on my reading history, in Library, 
 May 19th, 1 73 1. 
 
 *'That the great affairs of the world, the wars, revo- 
 lutions, etc., are carried on and effected by parties. 
 
 ^'That the view of these parties is their present gen- 
 eral interest, or what they take to be such. 
 
 '^That the different views of these different parties 
 occasion all confusion. 
 
 *' That while a party is carrying on a general design, 
 each man has his particular private interest in view. 
 
 "■ That as soon as a party has gained its general point, 
 each member becomes intent upon his particular inter- 
 est ; which, thwarting others, breaks that party into 
 divisions, and occasions more confusion. 
 
65 
 
 " That few in public affairs act from a mere view of 
 the good of their country, whatever they may pretend ; 
 and, though their actings bring real good to their 
 country, yet men primarily considered that their own 
 and their country's interest were united, and did not act 
 from a principle of benevolence. 
 
 ''That fewer still, in public affairs, act with a view to 
 the good of mankind. 
 
 "There seems to me at present to be great occasion 
 for raising a United Party for Virtue, by forming the 
 virtuous and good men of all nations into a regular 
 body, to be governed by suitable, good, and wise rules, 
 which good and wise men may probably be more unan- 
 imous in their obedience to, than common people are 
 to common laws. 
 
 " I at present think that whoever attempts this aright, 
 and is well qualified, cannot fail of pleasing God, and 
 of meeting with success." 
 
 Revolving this project in my mind, as to be under- 
 taken hereafter, when my circumstances should afford 
 me the necessary leisure, I put down from time to time, 
 on pieces of paper, such thoughts as» occurred to me 
 respecting it. Most of these are lost ; but I find one 
 purporting to be the substance of an intended creed, 
 containing, as I thought, the essentials of every known 
 religion, and being free of everything that might shock 
 the professors of any religion. It is expressed in these 
 words, viz. : — 
 
 " That there is one God, who made all things. 
 
 " That He governs the world by his providence. 
 
66 
 
 ''That He ought to be worshipped by adoration, 
 prayer, and thanksgiving. 
 
 ''But that the most acceptable service of God is 
 doing good to man. 
 
 "That the soul is immortal. 
 
 " And that God will certainly reward virtue and 
 punish vice, either here or hereafter." 
 
 My ideas at that time were that the sect should be 
 begun and spread at first among young and single men 
 only ; that each person to be initiated should not only 
 declare his assent to such creed, but should have exer- 
 cised himself with the thirteen weeks' examination and 
 practice of the virtues, as in the before-mentioned 
 model ; that the existence of such a society should be 
 kept a secret, till it was become considerable, to prevent 
 solicitations for the admission of improper persons, but 
 that the members should each of them search among his 
 acquaintance for ingenuous, well-disposed youths, to 
 w^hom, with prudent caution, the scheme should be 
 gradually communicated ; that the members should en- 
 gage to afford their advice, assistance, and support to 
 each other in promoting one another's interests, busi- 
 ness, and advancement in life ; that, for distinction, we 
 should be called The Society of the Free and Easy : 
 free, as being, by the general practice and habit of the 
 virtues, free from the dominion of vice ; and particularly 
 by the practice of industry and frugality, free from 
 debt, which exposes a man to confinement, and a 
 species of slavery to his creditors. 
 
67 
 
 This is as much as I can now recollect of the project, 
 except that I communicated it in part to two young 
 men, who adopted it with some enthusiasm; but my 
 then narrow circumstances, and the necessity I was 
 under of sticking close to my business, occasioned my 
 postponing the further prosecution of it at that time ; 
 and my multifarious oocupations, public and private, 
 induced me to continue postponing, so that it has been 
 omitted till I have no longer strength or activity left 
 sufficient for sucli an enterprise ; though I am still of 
 opinion that it was a practicable scheme, and might have 
 been very useful, by forming a great number of good 
 citizens; and I was not discouraged by the seeming 
 magnitude of the undertaking, as I have always thought 
 that one man of tolerable abilities may work great 
 changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, 
 if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amuse- 
 ments or other employments that would divert his 
 attention, makes the execution of that same plan his 
 sole study and business. 
 
 In 1732 I first published my Almanack, under the 
 name of Richard Saunders ; it was continued by me 
 about twenty-five years, commonly called Poor Richard'' s 
 Almanac. I endeavored to make it both entertaining 
 and useful ; and it accordingly came to be in such 
 demand, that I reaped considerable profit from it, vend- 
 ing annually near ten thousand. And observing that it 
 was generally read, scarce any neighborhood in the 
 province being without it, I considered it as a proper 
 vehicle for conveying instruction among the common 
 
6S 
 
 people, who bought scarcely any other books; I there- 
 fore filled all the little spaces that occurred between the 
 remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sen- 
 tences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality 
 as the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing 
 virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want to act 
 always honestly, as, to use here one of those proverbs, 
 // is hard for an empty sack to sta?id upright. 
 
 These proverbs, which contained the wisdom of many 
 ages and nations, I assembled and formed into a con- 
 nected discourse prefixed to the Almanack of 1757, as 
 the harangue of a wise old man to the people attending 
 an auction. The bringing all these scattered counsels 
 thus into a focus enabled them to make greater im- 
 pression. The piece, being universally approved, was 
 copied in all the newspapers of the Continent ; re- 
 printed in Britain on a large sheet of paper to be stuck 
 up in houses; two translations were made of it in 
 France, and great numbers bought by the clergy and 
 gentry, to distribute gratis among their poor parishioners 
 and tenants. In Pennsylvania, as it discouraged useless 
 expense in foreign superfluities, some thought it had its 
 share of influence in producing that growing plenty of 
 money which was observable for several years after its 
 publication. 
 
 I considered my newspaper, also, as another means of 
 communicating instruction, and in that view frequently 
 reprinted in it extracts from the Spectator, and other 
 moral writers ; and sometimes published little pieces of 
 my own, which had been first composed for reading in 
 
69 
 
 our Junto. Of these are a Socratic dialogue, tending 
 to prove that, whatever might be his parts and abilities, 
 a vicious man could not properly be called a man of 
 sense ; and a discourse on self-denial, showing that 
 virtue was not secure till its practice became a habitude^ 
 and was free from the opposition of contrary incli- 
 nations. These may be found in the papers about the 
 beginning of 1735. 
 
 In the conduct of my newspaper, I carefully excluded 
 all libelling and personal abuse, which is of late years 
 become so disgraceful to our country. Whenever I was 
 solicited to insert anything of that kind, and the writers 
 pleaded, as they generally did, the liberty of the press, 
 and that a newspaper was like a stage-coach, in which 
 any one who would pay had a right to a place, my 
 answer was, that I would print the piece separately if 
 desired, and the author might have as many copies as 
 he pleased to distribute himself, but that I would not 
 take upon me to spread his detraction ; and that, having 
 contracted with my subscribers to furnish them with 
 what might be either useful or entertaining, I could not 
 fill their papers with private altercation, in which they 
 had no concern, without doing them manifest injustice. 
 Now, many of our printers make no scruple of gratify- 
 ing the malice of individuals by false accusations of the 
 fairest characters among ourselves, augmenting ani- 
 mosity even to the producing of duels ; and are, more- 
 over, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous reflections on 
 the government of neighboring states, and even on the 
 conduct of our best national allies, which may be 
 
70 
 
 attended with the most pernicious consequences. These 
 things I mention as a caution to young printers, and 
 that they may be encouraged not to pollute their 
 presses and disgrace their profession by such infamous 
 practices, but refuse steadily, as they may see by my 
 example that such a course of conduct will not, on the 
 whole, be injurious to their interests. 
 
 In 1733 I sent one of my journeymen to Charleston. 
 South Carolina, where a printer was wanting. I 
 furnished him with a press and letters, on an agreement 
 of partnership, by w^hich I was to receive one-third of 
 the profits of the business, paying one-third of the ex- 
 pense. He was a man of learning, and honest but 
 ignorant in matters of account ; and, though he some- 
 times made me remittances, I could get no account from 
 him, nor any satisfactory state of our partnership while 
 he lived. On his decease, the business was continued 
 by his widow, who, being born and bred in Holland, 
 where, as I have been informed, the knowledge of 
 accounts makes a part of female education, she not only 
 sent me as clear a statement as she could find of the 
 transactions past, but continued to account with the 
 greatest regularity and exactness every quarter after- 
 wards, and managed the business with such success that 
 she not only brought up reputably a fomily of children, 
 but, at the expiration of the term, was able to purchase 
 of me the printing-house, and establish her son in it. 
 
 I mention this affair chiefly for the sake of recom- 
 mending that branch of education for our young women 
 as likely to be of more use to them and their children. 
 
71 
 
 in case of widowhood, than either music or dancing, by 
 preserving them from losses by imposition of crafty men, 
 and enabling them to continue, perhaps, a profitable 
 mercantile house, with established correspondence, till 
 a son is grown up fit to undertake and go on with it, to 
 the lasting advantage and enriching of the family. 
 
 I had begun in 1733 to study languages; I soon made 
 myself so much a master of the French as to be able to 
 read the books in the language with ease. I then under- 
 took the Italian. An acquaintance, who was also learn- 
 ing it, used often to tempt me to play chess with him. 
 Finding this took up too much of the time I had to 
 spare for study, I at length refused to play any more, 
 unless on this condition, that the victor in every game 
 should have a right to impose a task, either in parts of 
 the grammar to be got by heart, or in translations, 
 which tasks the vanquished was to perform upon honor, 
 before our next meeting. As we played pretty equally, 
 we thus beat one another into that language. I after- 
 wards, with a little painstaking, acquired as much of the 
 Spanish as to read their books also. 
 
 I have already mentioned that I had only one year's 
 instruction in a Latin school, and that when very 
 young, after which I neglected that language entirely. 
 But when I had attained an acquaintance with the 
 French, Italian, and Spanish, I was surprised to find, on 
 looking over a Latin Testament, that I understood so 
 much more of that language than I had imagined, 
 which encouraged me to apply myself again to the study 
 
72 
 
 of it, and I met with more success, as those preceding 
 languages had greatly smoothed my way. 
 
 After ten years' absence from Boston, and having 
 become easy in my circumstances, I made a journey 
 thither to visit my relations, which I could not sooner 
 well afford. In returning, I called at Newport to see 
 my brother James, then settled there with his printing- 
 house. Our former differences were forgotten, and our 
 meeting was very cordial and affectionate. He was fast 
 declining in his health, and requested of me that, in 
 case of his death, which he apprehended not far distant, 
 I would take home his son, then but ten years of age, 
 and bring him up to the printing business. This I 
 accordingly performed, sending him a few years to 
 school before I took him into the office. His mother 
 carried on the business till he was grown up, when I 
 assisted him with an assortment of new types, those of 
 his father being in a manner worn out. Thus it was 
 that I made my brother ample amends for the service I 
 had deprived him of by leaving him so early. 
 
 Our club, the Junto, was found so useful, and afforded 
 such satisfaction to the members, that several were 
 desirous of introducing their friends, which could not 
 well be done without exceeding tvhat we had settled as 
 a convenient number, viz., twelve. We had from the 
 beginning made it a rule to keep our institution a secret, 
 which was pretty well observed ; the intention was to 
 avoid applications of improper persons for admittance, 
 some of whom, perhaps, we might find it difficult to 
 refuse. I was one of those who were against any addi- 
 
73 
 
 tion to our number, but, instead of it, made in writing 
 a proposal that every member separately should endeavor 
 to form a subordinate club, with the same rules respect- 
 ing queries, etc., and without informing them of the 
 connection with the Junto. The advantages proposed 
 were, the improvement of so many more young citizens 
 by the use of our institutions ; our better acquaintance 
 with the general sentiments of the inhabitants on any 
 occasion, as the Junto member might propose what 
 queries we should desire, and was to report to the Junto 
 what passed in his separate club ; the promotion of our 
 particular interests in business by more extensive recom- 
 mendation, and the increase of our influence in public 
 affairs, and our power of doing good by spreading 
 through the several clubs the sentiments of the Junto. 
 
 The project was approved, and every member under- 
 took to form his club, but they did not all succeed. 
 Five or six only were completed, which were called by 
 different names, as the Vine, the Union, the Band. 
 They were useful to themselves, and afforded us a good 
 deal of amusement, information, and instruction, 
 besides answering, in some considerable degree, our 
 views of influencing the public opinion on particular 
 occasions, of which I shall give some instances in course 
 of time as they happened. 
 
 My first promotion was my being chosen, in 1736, 
 clerk of the General Assembly. The choice was made 
 that year without opposition ; but the year following, 
 when I was again proposed (the choice, like that of the 
 members, being annual), a new member made a long 
 
74 
 
 speech against me, in order to favor some other candi- 
 date. I was, however, chosen, which was the more 
 agreeable to me, as, besides the pay for the immediate 
 service as clerk, the place gave me a better opportunity 
 of keeping up an interest among the members, which 
 secured to me the business of printing the votes, laws, 
 jjaper money, and othei occasional jobs for the public, 
 that, on the whole, were very profitable. 
 
 I therefore did not like the opposition of this new 
 member, who was a gentleman of fortune and education, 
 with talents that v.-ere likely to give him, in time, great 
 influence in the House, which indeed afterwards 
 happened. I did not, however, aim at gaining his favor 
 by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some 
 time, took this other method. Having heard that he 
 had in his library a certain very scarce and curious 
 book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of 
 perusing that book, and requesting that he would do me 
 the favor of lending it to me for a few days. He sent 
 it immediately, and I returned it in about a week with 
 another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favor. 
 When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which 
 he had never done before), and with great civility; and 
 he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all 
 occasions, so that we became great friends, and our 
 friendship continued to his death. This is another 
 instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, 
 which says, ^^ He that has otice done you a kindness wile 
 he more 7'eady to do you another, than he whom you your- 
 self have ohligedy And it shows how much more 
 
75 
 
 profitable it is prudently to remove, than to resent, 
 return, and continue inimical proceedings. 
 
 In 1737, Colonel Spotsvvood, late governor of Vir- 
 ginia, and then postmaster-general, being dissatisfied 
 with the conduct of his deputy at Philadelphia, respect- 
 ing some negligence in rendering, and want of exactness 
 in framing his accounts, took from him the commission 
 and offered it to me. I accepted it readily, and found 
 it of great advantage ; for though the salary was small 
 it facilitated the correspondence that improved my news- 
 paper, increased the number demanded, as well as the 
 advertisements to be inserted, so that it came to afford 
 me a considerable income. My old competitor's news- 
 paper declined proportionably, and I was satisfied 
 without retaliating his refusal, while postmaster, to 
 permit my papers being carried by the riders. Thus he 
 suffered greatly from his neglect in due accounting; 
 and I mention it as a lesson to those young men who 
 may be employed in managing affairs for others, that 
 they should always render accounts, and make remit- 
 tances, with great clearness and punctuality. The 
 character of observing such a conduct is the most 
 powerful of all recommendations to new employments 
 and increase of business. 
 
 I began now to turn my thoughts a little to public 
 affairs, beginning, however, with small matters. The 
 city watch was one of the first things that I conceived 
 to want regulation. It was managed by the constables 
 of the respective wards in turn ; the constable warned a 
 number of housekeepers to attend him for the night. 
 
76 
 
 Those who chose never to attend paid him six shillings 
 a year to be excused, which was supposed to go to hiring 
 substitutes, but was, in reality, much more than was 
 necessary for that purpose, and made the constableship 
 a place of profit ; and the constable, for a little drink, 
 often got such ragamuffins about him as a watch, that 
 respectable housekeepers did not choose to mix with. 
 Walking the rounds, too, was often neglected, and most 
 of the nights spent in tippling. I thereupon wrote a 
 paper to be read in the Junto, representing these 
 irregularities, but insisting more particularly on the 
 inequality of this six-shilling tax of the constables, 
 respecting the circumstances of those who paid it, since 
 a poor widow housekeeper, all whose property to be 
 guarded by the watch did not perhaps exceed the value 
 of fifty pounds, paid as much as the wealthiest merchant, 
 who had thousands of pounds' worth of goods in his 
 stores. 
 
 On the whole, I proposed as a more effectual watch, 
 the hiring of proper men to serve constantly in that 
 business ; and as a more equitable way of supporting 
 the charge, the levying a tax that should be proportioned 
 to the property. This idea, being approved by the 
 Junto, was communicated to the other clubs, but as 
 arising in each of them ; and though the plan was not 
 immediately carried into execution, yet, by preparing 
 the minds of })eople for the change, it paved the way 
 for the law obtained a few years after, when the members 
 of our clubs were grown into more influence. 
 
77 
 
 About this time x wrote a paper (first to be read in 
 the Junto, but it was afterward published) on the differ- 
 ent accidents and carelessnesses by which houses were 
 set on fire, with cautions against them, and means pro- 
 posed of avoiding them. This was spoken of as a useful 
 piece, and gave rise to a project, which soon followed 
 it, of forming a company for the more ready extinguish- 
 ing of fires, and mutual assistance in removing and 
 securing of goods when in danger. Associates in this 
 scheme were presently found, amounting to thirty. 
 Our articles of agreement obliged every member to 
 keep always in good order, and fit for use, a certain 
 number of leather buckets, with strong bags and baskets 
 (for packing and transporting of goods), which were to 
 be brought to every fire ; and we agreed to meet once a 
 month and spend a social evening together, in dis- 
 coursing and communicating such ideas as occurred to 
 us upon the subject of fires, as might be useful in our 
 conduct on such occasions. 
 
 The utility of this institution soon appeared, and 
 many more desiring to be admitted than we thought 
 convenient for one company, they were advised to form 
 another, which was accordingly done ; and thus went 
 on, one new company after another, till they became so 
 numerous as to include most of the inhabitants who were 
 men of property ; and now, at the time of my writing 
 this, though upward of fifty years since its establish- 
 ment, that which I first formed, called the Union Fire 
 Company, still subsists, though the first members are all 
 deceased but one besides myself, who is older by a year 
 
78 
 
 than I am. The fines that have been paid by members 
 for absence at the monthly meetings have beeA applied 
 to the purchase of fire-engines, ladders, fire-hooks, and 
 other useful implements for each company, so that I 
 question whether there is a city in the world better pro- 
 vided with the means of putting a stop to beginning 
 conflagrations; and, in fact, since these institutions, the 
 city has never lost by fire more than one or two houses 
 at a time, and the flames have often been extinguished 
 betore the house in which they began had been "half 
 consumed. 
 
 My business was now constantly augmenting and my 
 circumstances daily growing easier, my newspaper having 
 become very profitable, as being for a time almost the 
 only one in this and the neighboring provinces. I ex- 
 perienced too, the truth of the observation ''that after 
 getting the Jii'st hundred pounds it is more easy to get the 
 second,'' money itself being of a prolific nature. 
 
 The partnership at Carolina having succeeded, I was 
 encouraged to engage in others, and to promote several 
 of my workmen, who had behaved well, by establishing 
 them in printing-houses in different colonies, on the 
 same terms with that in Carolina. Most of them did 
 well, being enabled at the end of our term, six years, to 
 purchase the types of me and go on working for them- 
 selves, by which means several families were raised. 
 Partnerships often finish in quarrels ; but I was happy 
 in this, that mine were all carried on and ended 
 amicably, owing, I think, a good deal to the precaution 
 of having very explicitly settled, in our articles, every- 
 
79 
 
 thing to be done by or expected from each partner, so 
 that there was nothing to dispute, which precaution I 
 would therefore recommend to all who enter into 
 partnerships; for, whatever esteem partners may have 
 for, and confidence in each other at the time of the 
 contract, little jealousies and disgusts may arise, with 
 ideas of inequality in the care and burden of the busi- 
 ness, etc., which are attended often with breach of 
 friendship and of the connection, perhaps with lawsuits 
 and other disagreeable consequences. 
 
 I had, on the whole, abundant reason to be satisfied 
 with my being established in Pennsylvania. There 
 were, however, two things that I regretted, there being 
 no provision for defence, nor for a complete education 
 of youth; no militia, nor any college. I therefore, in 
 1743, drew up a proposal for establishing an academy; 
 and at that time, thinking the Reverend Richard Peters, 
 who was out of employ, a fit person to superintend such 
 an institution, I communicated the project to him ; but 
 he, having more profitable views in the service of the 
 proprietaries, which succeeded, declined the under- 
 taking ; and, not knowing another at that time suitable 
 for such a trust, I let the scheme lie awhile dormant. I 
 :succeeded better the next year, 1744, in proposing and 
 establishing a Philosophical Society. The paper I wrote 
 for that purpose will be found among my writings, if 
 not lost. 
 
 With respect to defence, Spain having been several 
 years at war against Great Britain, and being at length 
 joined by France, which brought us into great danger, 
 
8o 
 
 and the labored and long-continued endeavor of our 
 governor, Thomas, to prevail with our Quaker Assembly 
 to pass a militia law, and make other provisions for the 
 security of the province, having proved abortive, I pro- 
 posed to try what might be done by a voluntary sub- 
 scription of the people. To promote this, I first wrote 
 and published a pamphlet, entitled Plain Truth, in 
 which I stated our defenceless situation in strong lights, 
 with the necessity of union and discipline for our 
 defence, and promised to propose in a few days an 
 association, to be generally signed for that purpose. 
 The pamphlet had a sudden and surprising effect. I was 
 called upon for the instrument of association, and 
 having settled the draft of it with a few friends, I 
 appointed a meeting of the citizens in the large building 
 before mentioned. The house was pretty full ; I had 
 prepared a number of printed copies, and provided pens 
 and ink dispersed all over the room. I harangued 
 them a little on the subject, read the paper, explained 
 it, and then distributed the copies, which were eagerly 
 signed, not the least objection being made. 
 
 When the company separated, and the papers were 
 collected, we found above twelve hundred signatures ; 
 and other copies being dispersed in the country, the 
 subscribers amounted at length to upward of ten 
 thousand. These all furnished themselves as soon as 
 they could with arms, formed themselves into companies 
 and regiments, chose their own officers, and met every 
 week to be instructed in the manual exercise, and other 
 parts of military discipline. The women, by subscrip- 
 
8i 
 
 tions among themselves, provided silk colors, which 
 they presented to the companies, painted with different 
 devices and mottoes, which I supplied. 
 
 The officers of the companies composing the Phila- 
 delphia regiment, being met, chose me for their colonel ; 
 but, conceiving myself unfit, I declined that station, 
 and recommended Mr. Lawrence, a fine person, and 
 man of influence, who was accordingly appointed. I 
 then proposed a lottery to defray the expense of build- 
 ing a battery below the town, and furnishing it with 
 cannon. It filled expeditiously, and the battery was 
 soon erected, the merlons being framed of logs and 
 filled with earth. We bought some old cannon from 
 Boston, but these not being sufficient, we wrote to 
 London for more, soliciting, at the same time, our 
 proprietaries for some assistance, though without much 
 expectation of obtaining it. 
 
 Meanwhile Colonel Lawrence, Mr. Allen, Abram 
 Taylor, Esquire, and myself were sent to New York by 
 the associators, commissioned to borrow some cannon 
 of Governor Clinton. He at first refused us peremp- 
 torily; but at a dinner with his council, where there 
 was great drinking of Madeira wine, as the custom of 
 that place then was, he softened by degress, and said he 
 would lend us six. After a few more bumpers he ad- 
 vanced to ten ; and at length he very good-naturedly 
 conceded eighteen. They were fine cannon, eighteen- 
 pounders, with their carriages, which were soon trans- 
 ported and mounted on our batteries, where the associ- 
 ators kept a nightly guard while the war lasted, and 
 
82 
 
 among the rest I regularly took my turn of duty there 
 as a common soldier. 
 
 My activity in these operations was agreeable to the 
 governor and council ; they took me into confidence, 
 and I was consulted by them in every measure where 
 their concurrence was thought useful to the association. 
 Calling in the aid of religion, I proposed to them the 
 proclaiming a fast, to promote reformation, and implore 
 the blessing of Heaven on our undertaking. They em- 
 braced the motion ; but, as it was the first fast ever 
 thought of in the province, the secretary had no pre- 
 cedent from which to draw the proclamation. My edu- 
 cation in New England, where a fast is proclaimed 
 every year, was here of some advantage : I drew it in 
 the accustomed style; it was translated into German, 
 printed in both languages, and circulated through the 
 province. This gave the clergy of the different sects 
 an opportunity of influencing their congregations to 
 join in the association, and it would probably have been 
 general among all but Quakers if the peace had not 
 soon intervened. 
 
 It was thought by some of my friends that, by my 
 activity in these affairs, I should offend that sect, and 
 thereby lose my interest in the Assembly of the province, 
 where they formed a great majority. A young gentle- 
 man, who had likewise some friends in the Assembly, 
 and wished to succeed me as their clerk, acquainted me 
 that it was decided to displace me at the next election ; 
 and he, through good will, advised me to resign, as more 
 consistent with my honor than being turned out. My 
 
83 
 
 answer to him was, that I had read or heard of some 
 pubHc man who made it a rule never to ask for an 
 office, and never to refuse one when offered to him. 
 "I approve," says I, ''of this rule, and will practise it 
 with a small addition : I shall never ask, never refuse, 
 nor ever resign an office. If they will have my office 
 of clerk to dispose of to another, they shall take it from 
 me. I will not, by giving it up, lose my right of some 
 time or other making reprisal on my adversaries." I 
 heard, however, no more of this ; I was chosen again 
 unanimously at the next election. Possibly, as they 
 disliked my late intimacy with the members of council, 
 who had joined the governors in all the disputes about 
 military preparations, with which the House had long 
 been harassed, they might have been pleased if I would 
 voluntarily have left them ; but they did not care to 
 displace me on account merely of my zeal for the 
 association, and they could not well give another 
 reason. 
 
 In order of time, I should have mentioned before, 
 that having, in 1742, invented an open stove for the 
 better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving 
 fuel, as the the fresh air admitted was warmed in enter- 
 ing, I made a present of the model to Mr. Robert 
 Grace, one of my early friends, who. having an iron- 
 furnace, found the casting of the plates for these stoves 
 a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand. 
 To promote that demand, I wrote and published a 
 pamphlet, entitled ''An Account of the new-invented 
 Pennsylvanian Fireplaces ; wherein their Construction 
 
84 
 
 •ajid Manner of Operation is pariicii/arly explained ; 
 their Advantages al)ove every other Method of wa?-mifig 
 J^ooms de?nonstrated ; and all Objeetions that have been 
 raised against the Use of tJiem answered and obviated,"" 
 etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Governor 
 Thomas was so pleased with the construction of this 
 stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a 
 patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years ; 
 but I declined it from a principle which has ever weighed 
 with me on such occasions, viz : That, as we e?ijoy great 
 advantages from the itiventions of others, we should be 
 glad of an opportiDiity to serve others by atiy inve?ttion of 
 vii7's ; and this we should do freely and generously. 
 
 An ironmonger in London, however, assuming a good 
 deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own, 
 and making some small changes in the machine, which 
 rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and 
 made, as I was told, a little fortune by it. And this is 
 not the only instance of patents taken out for my in- 
 ventions by others, though not always with the same 
 success, v/hich I never contested, as having no desire of 
 profiting by patents myself, and hating disputes. The 
 use of these fireplaces in very many houses, both of this 
 and the neighboring States, has been, and is, a great 
 saving of wood to the inhabitants. 
 
 Peace being concluded, and the association business 
 therefore at an end, I turned my thoughts again to the 
 affair of establishing an academy. The first step I took 
 was to associate in the design a number of active friends, 
 of whom the junto fiirnished a good i)art ; the next was 
 
85 
 
 to write and publish a pamphlet, entitled Proposals 
 relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania. 
 This I distributed among the principal inhabitants 
 gratis ; and as soon as I could suppose their minds a 
 little prepared by the perusal of it, I set on foot a sub- 
 scription for opening and supporting an academy ; it 
 was to be paid in quotas yearly for five years ; by so 
 dividing it, I judged the subscription might be larger, 
 and I believe it was so, amounting to no less, if I 
 remember right, than five thousand pounds. 
 
 In the introduction to these proposals, I stated their 
 publication, not as an act of mine, but of some public- 
 spirited gentlemen, avoiding as much as I could, accord- 
 ing to my usual rule, the presenting myself to the 
 public as the author of any scheme for their benefit. 
 
 The subscribers, to carry the project into immediate 
 execution, chose out of their number twenty-four trus- 
 tees, and appointed Mr. Francis, then attorney-general, 
 and myself to draw up constitutions for the government 
 of the academy ; which being done and signed, a house 
 was hired, masters engaged, and the schools opened, I 
 think, in the same year, 1749. 
 
 The scholars increasing fast, the house was soon found 
 too small, and we were looking out for a piece of ground, 
 properly situated, with intent to build, when accident 
 threw into our way a large house ready built, which, 
 with a few alterations, might well serve our purpose. 
 This was a building erected by the hearers of Mr. 
 Whitefield, and was obtained for us in the following 
 manner. 
 
S6 
 
 The enthusiasm which existed when the house was 
 built had long since abated, and its trustees had not 
 been able to procure fresh contributions for paying 
 the ground-rent, and discharging some other debts 
 the building had occasioned, which embarrassed them 
 greatly. Being a member of both sets of trustees, that 
 for the building and that for the academy, I had a good 
 opportunity of negotiating with both, and brought 
 them finally to an agreement, by which the trustees for 
 the building were to cede it to those of the academy, 
 the latter undertaking to discharge the debt, to keep 
 forever open in the building a large hall for occasional 
 preachers, according to the original intention, and 
 maintain a free school for the instruction of poor 
 children. Writings were accordingly drawn, and on 
 paying the debts the trustees of the academy were put 
 in possession of the premises ; and by dividing the 
 great and lofty hall into stories and different rooms 
 above and below for the several schools, and purchasing 
 some additional ground the whole was soon made fit for 
 our purpose, and the scholars removed into the build- 
 ing. The whole care and trouble of agreeing with the 
 workmen, purchasing materials, and superintending the 
 work, fell upon me; and I went through it the more 
 cheerfully, as it did not then interfere with my private 
 business, having the year before taken a very able, indus- 
 trious and honest partner, Mr. David Hall, with whose 
 character I was well acquainted, as he had worked for 
 me four years. He took off my hands all care of the 
 ])rinting office, paying me punctually my share of the 
 
87 
 
 profits. This partnership continued eighteen years, 
 successfully for us both. 
 
 The trustees of the academy, after a while, were 
 incorporated by a charter from the governor; their 
 funds were increased by contributions in Britain and 
 grants of land from the proprietaries, to which the 
 Assembly has since made considerable addition ; and 
 thus was established the present University of Philadel- 
 phia. I have been continued one of its trustees from the 
 beginning, now near forty years, and have had the very 
 great pleasure of seeing a number of the youth who 
 have received their education in it, distinguished by 
 their improved abilities, serviceable in public stations, 
 and ornaments to their country. 
 
 When I disengaged myself from private business, I 
 flattered myself that, by the sufficient though moderate 
 fortune I had acquired, I had secured leisure during the 
 rest of my life for philosophical studies and amuse- 
 ments. I purchased all Dr. Spence's apparatus who had 
 come from England to lecture in Philadelphia, and I 
 proceeded in my electrical experiments with great 
 alacrity ; but the public now considering me as a man 
 of leisure, laid hold of me for their purposes, every part 
 of our civil government, and almost at the same time 
 imposing some duty upon me. The governor put me 
 into the commission of the peace ; the corporation of the 
 city chose me of the common council, and soon after an 
 alderman ; and the citizens at large chose me a burgess 
 to represent them in Assembly. This latter station was 
 the more agreeable to me, as I was at length tired with 
 
sitting there to hear the debates, in which, as clerk, I 
 could take no part, and which were often so uninterest- 
 ing that I was induced to amuse myself with making 
 magic squares or circles, or anything to avoid weariness ; 
 and I conceived my becoming a member would enlarge 
 my power of doing good. I would not, however, in- 
 sinuate that my ambition was not flattered by all these 
 promotions; it certainly was; for considering my low 
 beginning, they were great things to me ; and they 
 were still more pleasing, as being so many spontaneous 
 testimonies of the public good opinion, and by me 
 entirely unsolicited. 
 
 The office of justice of the peace I tried a little, by 
 attending a few courts, and sitting on the bench to 
 hear causes; but finding that more knowledge of the 
 common law than I possessed was necessary to act in 
 that station with credit, I gradually withdrew from it, 
 excusing myself by my being obliged to attend the 
 higher duties of a legislator in the Assembly. My 
 election to this trust was repeated every year for ten 
 years, without my ever asking any elector for his vote, 
 or signifying, either directly or indirectly, any desire 
 of being chosen. On taking my seat in the House, 
 my son was appointed their clerk. 
 
 The year following, a treaty being to be held with 
 the Indians at Carlisle, the governor sent a message to 
 the House, proposing that they should nominate some 
 of their members, to be joined with some members of 
 council, as commissioners for that purpose. The House 
 named the speaker (Mr. Norris) and myself; and being 
 
89 
 
 commissioned, we went to Carlisle, and met the Indians 
 accordingly. 
 
 As those people are extremely apt to get drunk, and, 
 when so, are very quarrelsome and disorderly, we 
 strictly forbade the selling any liquor to them ; and 
 when they complained of this restriction, we told them 
 that if they would continue sober during the treaty, we 
 would give them plenty of rum when business was over. 
 They promised this, and they kept their promise be,cause 
 they could get no rum, and the treaty was conducted 
 very orderly, and concluded to mutual satisfaction. 
 They then claimed and received the rum ; this was in 
 the afternoon ; they were near one hundred men, 
 women, and children, and were lodged in temporary 
 cabins, built in the form of a square, just without the 
 town. In the evening hearing a great noise among 
 them the commissioners walked to see what was the 
 matter. We found they had made a great bonfire in 
 the middle of the square; they were all drunk, men 
 and women, quarreling and fighting. Their dark- 
 colored bodies, half naked, seen only by the gloomy 
 light of the bonfire, running after and beating one 
 another with firebrands, accompanied by their horrid 
 yellings, formed a scene the most resembling our ideas 
 of hell that could well be imagined ; there was no 
 appeasing the tumult, and we retired to our lodging. 
 At midnight a number of them came thundering at our 
 door, demanding more rum, of which we took no 
 notice. 
 
90 
 
 The next day, sensible they had misbehaved in giving 
 us that disturbance, they sent three of their old counsel- 
 lors to make their apology. The orator acknowledged 
 the fault, but laid it upon the rum ; and then endeavored 
 to excuse the rum by saying, "7%<? G?'eat Spirit, who 
 made all things, made everything for some ttse, and what- 
 ever use he designed anything for, that icse it should 
 always be put to. Now, when he made ru?n, he said, 
 'Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with' audit 
 must be so.'' And, indeed, if it be the design of 
 Providence to extirpate these savages in order to make 
 room for the cultivators of the earth, it seems not im- 
 probable that rum may be the appointed means. It has 
 already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited 
 the sea-coast. 
 
 In 1 75 1, Dr. Thomas Bond, a particular friend of 
 mine, conceived the idea of establishing a hospital in 
 Philadelphia (a very beneficent design, which has been 
 ascribed to me, but was originally his) for the reception 
 and cure of poor sick persons, whether inhabitants of 
 the province or strangers. He was zealous and active 
 in endeavoring to procure subscriptions for it, but the 
 proposal being a novelty in America, and at first not 
 well understood, he met but with small success. 
 
 At length he came to me with the compliment that 
 he found there was no such thing as carrying a public- 
 spirited project through without my being concerned in 
 it. *'For," says he, "I am often asked by those to 
 whom I propose subscribing, Have you consulted 
 Franklin upon this business? And what does he think 
 
91 
 
 of it? And when I tell them that I have not, supposing 
 it rather out of your line, they do not subscribe, but say 
 they will consider it." I inquired into the nature and 
 probable utility of this scheme, and receiving from him 
 a very satisfactory explanation, I not only subscribed to 
 it myself, but engaged heartily in the design of pro- 
 curing subscriptions from others. Previously, however, 
 to the solicitation I endeavored to prepare the minds of 
 the people by writing on the subject in the newspapers, 
 which was my usual custom in such cases, but which Dr. 
 Bond had omitted. 
 
 The subscriptions afterwards were more free and 
 generous ; but, beginning to flag, I saw they would be 
 insufficient without some assistance from the Assembly, 
 and therefore proposed to petition for it, which was 
 done. The country members did not at first relish the 
 project ; they objected that it could only be serviceable 
 to the city, and therefore the citizens alone should be at 
 the expense of it ; and they doubted whether the citi- 
 zens themselves generally approved of it. My allegation 
 on the contrary, that it met with such approbation as to 
 leave no doubt of our being able to raise two thousand 
 pounds by voluntary donations, they considered as a 
 most extravagant supposition, and utterly impossible. 
 
 On this I formed my plan ; and, asking leave to 
 bring in a bill for incorporating the contributors accord- 
 ing to the prayer of their petition, and granting them a 
 blank sum of money, which leave was obtained chiefly 
 on the consideration that the House could throw the 
 bill out if they did not like it, I drew it so as to make 
 
92 
 
 the important clause a conditional one, viz., "And be 
 it enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that when the 
 said contributors shall have met and chosen their man- 
 agers and treasurer, and shall have raised by their contri- 
 butions a capital stock of two thousand pounds value (the 
 yearly interest of which is to be applied to the accommo- 
 dating of the sick poor in the said hospital, and of 
 charge for diet, attendance, advice, and medicines), 
 and shall fnake the same appear to the satisfactioft of the 
 speaker of the Assembly for the time being, that then it 
 shall and may be lawful for the said speaker, and he is 
 hereby required, to sign an order on the provincial 
 treasurer for the payment of two thousand pounds, in 
 two yearly payments, to the treasurer of the said 
 hospital, to be applied to the founding, building, and 
 finishing of the same." 
 
 This condition carried the bill through ; for the 
 members who had opposed the grant, and now con- 
 ceived they might have the credit of being charitable 
 without the expense, agreed to its passage; and then^ 
 in soliciting subscriptions among the people, we urged 
 the conditional promise of the law as an additional 
 motive to give, since every man's donation would be 
 doubled ; thus the clause worked both ways. The sub- 
 scriptions accordingly soon exceeded the requisite sum^ 
 and we claimed and received the public gift, which en- 
 abled us to carry the design into execution. A con- 
 venient and handsome building was soon erected ; the 
 institution has by constant experience been found useful, 
 and flourishes to this day ; and I do not remember any 
 
93 
 
 of my political manoeuvres, the success of which gave 
 me at the time more pleasure, or wherein, after thinking 
 ■of it, I more easily excused myself for having made 
 some use of cunning. 
 
 Our city, though laid out with a beautiful regularity, 
 the streets large, straight, and crossing each other at 
 right angles, had the disgrace of suffering those streets 
 to remain long unpaved, and in wet weather the wheels 
 of heavy carriages ploughed them into a quagmire, so 
 that it was difficult to cross them ; and in dry weather 
 the dust was offensive. I had lived near what was called 
 the Jersey Market, and saw with pain the inhabitants 
 wading in mud while purchasing their provisions. A 
 strip of ground down the middle of that market was at 
 length paved with brick, so that, being once in the 
 market, they had firm footing, but were often over 
 shoes in dirt to get there. By talking and writing on 
 the subject, I was at length instrumental in getting the 
 street paved with stone between the market and the 
 bricked foot pavement, that was on each side next the 
 houses. This, for some time, gave an easy access to the 
 market dry-shod ; but the rest of the street not being 
 paved, whenever a carriage came out of the mud upon 
 this pavement, it shook off and left its dirt upon it, and 
 it was soon covered with mire, which was not removed, 
 the city as yet having no scavengers. 
 
 After some inquiry, I found a poor, industrious man, 
 who was willing to undertake keeping the pavement 
 clean, by sweeping it twice a week, carrying off the dirt 
 from before all the neighbors' doors, for the sum of six- 
 
94 
 
 pence per month, to be paid by each house. I then 
 wrote and printed a paper setting forth the advantages 
 to the neighborhood that might be obtained by this 
 small expense ; the greater ease in keeping our houses 
 clean, so much dirt not being brought in by people's 
 feet ; the benefit to the shops by more custom, as buyers 
 could more easily get at them ; and by not having, in 
 windy weather, the dust blown in upon their goods, 
 etc., etc. I sent one of these papers to each house, and 
 in a day or two went round to see who would subscribe 
 an agreement to pay these sixpences ; it was unanimously 
 signed, and for a time well executed. All the in- 
 habitants of the city were delighted with the cleanliness 
 of the pavement that surrounded the market, it being a 
 convenience to all, and this raised a general desire to 
 have all the streets paved, and made the people more 
 willing to submit to a tax for that purpose. 
 
 After some time I drew a bill for paving the city, and 
 brought it into the Assembly. It was just before I went 
 to England, in 1757, and did not pass till I was gone, 
 and then with an alteration in the mode of assessment, 
 which I thought not for the better, but with an 
 additional provision for lighting as well as paving the 
 streets, which was a great improvement. It was by a 
 private person, the late Mr. John Clifton, his giving a 
 sample of the utility of lamps, by placing one at his 
 door, that the people were first impressed with the idea 
 of lighting all the city. The honor of this public bene- 
 fit has also been ascribed to me, but it belongs truly to 
 that gentleman. 1 did but follow his example, and have 
 
95 
 
 only some merit to claim respecting the form of our 
 lamps, as differing from the globe lamps we were at first 
 supplied with from London. Those we found incon- 
 venient in these respects : they admitted no air below ; 
 the smoke, therefore, did not readily go out above, but 
 circulated in the globe, lodged on its inside, and soon 
 obstructed the light they were intended to afford ; 
 giving, besides, the daily trouble of wiping them clean ; 
 and an accidental stroke on one of them would 
 demolish it and render it totally useless. I therefore 
 suggested the composing them of four flat panes, with a 
 long funnel above to draw up the smoke, and crevices 
 admitting air below, to facilitate the ascent of the 
 smoke ; by this means they were kept clean, and did 
 not grow dark in a few hours, as the London lamps do, 
 but continued bright till morning, and an accidental 
 stroke would generally break but a single pane, easily 
 repaired. 
 
 Having been for some time employed by the post- 
 master-general of America as his comptroller in regu- 
 lating several offices, and bringing the officers to ac- 
 count, I was, upon his death in 1753, appointed, 
 jointly with Mr. William Hunter, to succeed him, by a 
 commission from the postmaster-general in England. 
 The American office never had hitherto paid anything 
 to that of Britain. We were to have six hundred 
 pounds a year between us, if we could make that sum 
 out of the profits of the office. To do this a variety of 
 improvements were necessary ; some of these were 
 inevitably at first expensive, so that in the first four years 
 
96 
 
 the office became above nine hundred pounds in debt to 
 us. But it soon after began to repay us ; and before I 
 was displaced by a freak of the ministers, we had brought 
 it to yield three times as much clear revenue to the 
 crown as the post-office of Ireland. 
 
 The business of the post-office occasioned my taking 
 a journey this year to New England, where the College 
 of Cambridge, of their own motion, presented me with 
 the degree of Master of Arts. Yale College, in Con- 
 necticut, had before made me a similar compliment. 
 Thus, without studying in any college, I came to partake 
 of their honors. They were conferred in consideration 
 of my improvements and discoveries in the electric 
 branch of natural philosophy. 
 
 In 1754, war with France being again apprehended, 
 a congress of commissioners from the different colonies 
 was, by an order of the Lords of Trade, to be assembled 
 at Albany, there to confer with the chiefs of the Six 
 Nations concerning the means of defending both their 
 country and ours. Governor Hamilton, having received 
 this order, acquainted the House with it, requesting 
 they would furnish proper presents for the Indians, to 
 be given on this occasion ; and naming the speaker 
 (Mr. Norris) and myself to join Mr. Thomas Penn and 
 Mr. Secretary Peters as commissioners to act for Penn- 
 sylvania. The House approved the nomination, and 
 provided the goods for the present, though they did not 
 much like treating out of the provinces; and we met 
 the other commissioners at Albany about the middle 
 of June. 
 
97 
 
 In our way thither, I projected and drew a plan for 
 the union of all the colonies under one government, so 
 far as might be necessary for defence and other im- 
 portant general purposes. As we passed through New^ 
 York, I had there shown my project to Mr. James 
 Alexander and Mr. Kennedy, two gentlemen of great 
 knowledge in public affairs, and, being fortified by 
 their approbation, I ventured to lay it before the 
 Congress. It then appeared that several of the com- 
 missioners had formed plans of the same kind. A pre- 
 vious question was first taken, whether a union should 
 be established, which passed in the affirmative unani- 
 mously. A committee was then appointed, one member 
 from each colony, to consider the several plans, and 
 report. Mine happened to be jjreferred, and, with a 
 few amendments, was accordingly reported. 
 
 By this i)lan the general government was to be ad- 
 ministered by a president-general, appointed and sup- 
 ported by the crown, and a general council w^as to be 
 chosen b}- the representatives of the people of the 
 several colonies, met in their respective assemblies. 
 The debates upon it in Congress went on daily, hand 
 in hand with the Indian business. Many objections 
 and difficulties were started, but at length they were 
 all overcome, and the plan was unanimously agreed to, 
 and copies ordered to be transmitted to the Board of 
 Trade and to the assemblies of the several provinces. 
 Its fate was singular : the assemblies did not adopt it, 
 as they all thought there was too much prerogative in it, 
 and in England it was judged to have too much of the 
 
98 
 
 deinocratic. The Board of Trade did not approve it, 
 nor recommend it for the approbation of his majesty; 
 but another scheme was formed, supposed to answer the 
 same purpose better, Avhereby the governors of the 
 l^rovinces, with some members of their respective coun- 
 cils, were to meet and order the raising of troops, 
 building of forts, etc., and to draw on the treasury of 
 Great Britain for the expense, which was afterwards to 
 be refunded by an act of parliament laying a tax on 
 America. My plan, with my reasons in support of it, 
 is to be found among my political papers that are 
 printed. 
 
 War being in a manner commenced with France, the 
 government of Massachusetts Bay projected an attack 
 upon Crown Point and sent Mr. Quincy to Pennsyl- 
 vania, and Mr. Pownall, afterward Governor Pownall, 
 to New York, to solicit assistance. As I was in the 
 Assembly, knew its temper, and was Mr. Quincy' s 
 countryman, he applied to me for my influence and 
 assistance. I dictated his address to them, which was 
 well received. They voted an aid of ten thousand 
 pounds, to be laid out in provisions. But the governor 
 refusing his assent to their bill (which included this 
 with other sums granted for the use of the crown,) 
 unless a clause were inserted exempting the proprietary 
 estate from bearing any part of the tax that would be 
 necessary, the Assembly, though very desirous of mak- 
 ing their grant to New England effectual, were at a loss 
 how to accomplish it. Mr. Quincy labored hard with 
 the governor to obtain his assent, but he was obstinate. 
 
99 
 
 I then suggested a method of doing the business 
 without the governor, by orders on the trustees of the 
 Loan Office, which, by law the Assembly had the right 
 of drawing. There M-as, indeed, little or no money at 
 that time in the office, and therefore I proposed that 
 the orders should be payable in a year, and to bear an 
 interest of five per cent. With these orders I supposed 
 the provisions might easily be purchased. The Assem- 
 bly, with very little hesitation, adopted the proposal. 
 The orders were immediately printed, and I was one of 
 the committee directed to sign and dispose of them. 
 The fund for paying them was the interest of all the 
 paper currency then extant in the province upon loan,, 
 together with the revenue arising from the excise, which 
 being known to be more than sufficient, they obtained 
 credit, and were not only taken in payment for the 
 provisions, but many moneyed people, who had cash 
 lying by them, vested it in those orders, which they 
 found advantageous, as they bore interest while upon 
 hand, and might upon any occasion be used as money, 
 so that they were eagerly all bought up, and in a feu- 
 weeks none of them were to be seen. Thus this im- 
 portant affair was by ni}- means completed. Mr. 
 Quincy returned thanks to the Assembly in a handsome 
 memorial, went home highly pleased with the success 
 of his embassy, and ever after bore for me the most 
 cordial and affectionate friendship. 
 
 The British government, not choosing to permit the 
 union of the colonies as proposed at Albany, and to 
 trust that union with their defence, lest thev should 
 
thereby grow loo military and feel their own strength, 
 .suspicions and jealousies at this time being entertained 
 of them, sent over General Braddock with two regi- 
 ments of regular English troops for that purpose. He 
 landed at Alexandria, in Virginia, and thence marched 
 to Fredericktown, in Maryland, where he halted for 
 carriages. Our Assembly apprehending, from some in- 
 formation, that he had conceived violent prejudices 
 against them, as averse to the service, wished me to 
 wait upon him, not as from them, but as postmaster- 
 general, under the guise of proposing to settle with him 
 the mode of conducting with most celerity and certainty 
 the despatches between him and the governors of the 
 several provinces, with whom he must necessarily have 
 continual correspondence, and of which they proposed 
 to pay the expense. My son accompanied me on this 
 journey. 
 
 We found the general at Fredericktown, waiting im- 
 patiently for the return of those he had sent through 
 the back parts of Maryland and Virginia to collect 
 wagons. I stayed with him several days, dined with 
 him daily, and had full opportunity of removing his 
 prejudices, by the information of what the Assembly 
 had before his arrival actually done, and were willing 
 to do, to facilitate his operations. When I was about 
 to depart, tlie returns of wagons to be obtained were 
 brought in, by which it api)eared that they amounted 
 only to twenty-five, and not all of those were in service- 
 able condition. The General and all the officers were 
 surprised, declared the expedition was then at an end, 
 
being impossible, and exclaimed against the ministers 
 for ignorantly sending them into a coimtry destitute of 
 the means of conveying their stores, baggage, etc., not 
 less than one hundred and fifty wagons being necessary. 
 
 I happened to say I thought it was a pity they had 
 not been landed in Pennsylvania, as in that country 
 almost every farmer has his wagon. The general 
 eagerly laid hold of my words, and said, ''Then you, 
 sir, who are a man of interest there, can procure them 
 for us ; and I beg you will undertake it." I asked what 
 terms were to be offered the owners of the wagons ; 
 and I was desired to put on paper the terms that ap- 
 peared to me necessary. This I did, and they were 
 agreed to and a commission and instructions accord- 
 ingly prepared immediately. 
 
 I received of the general about eight hundred 
 pounds, to be disbursed in advance-money to the wagon 
 owners; but that sum being insufficient, I advanced 
 upward of two hundred pounds more, and in two weeks 
 the one hundred and fifty wagons, with two hundred 
 and fifty-nine carrying horses, were on their march for 
 the camp. The advertisement promised payment 
 according to the valuation, in case any wagon or horse 
 should be lost. The owners, however, alleging they 
 did not know General Braddock, or what dependence 
 might be had on his promise, insisted on my bond for 
 the performance, which I accordingly gave them. 
 
 While I was at the camp, supping one evening with 
 the officers of Colonel Dunbar's regiment, he repre- 
 sented to me his concern for the subalterns, who, he 
 
T02 
 
 said, were generally not in affluence, and could ill afford, 
 in this dear country, to lay in the stores that might be 
 necessary in so long a march through a wilderness, where 
 nothing was to be purchased. I commiserated their 
 case, and resolved to endeavor procuring them some 
 relief. I said nothing, however, to him of my intention, 
 but wrote the next morning to the committee of the 
 Assembly, who had the disposition of some public 
 money, warmly recommending the case of these officers 
 to their consideration, and proposing that a present 
 should be sent them of necessaries and refreshments. 
 My son, who had some experience of a camp life, and 
 of its wants, drew up a list for me, which I enclosed in 
 my letter. The committee approved, and used such 
 diligence that, conducted by my son, the stores arrived 
 at the camp as soon as the wagons. They consisted of 
 twenty parcels. 
 
 These twenty parcels, well packed, were placed on as 
 many horses, each parcel, with the horse, being intended 
 as a present for one officer. They were very thankfully 
 received, and the kindness acknowledged by letters to 
 me from the colonels of both regiments, in the most 
 grateful terms. The general, too, was highly satisfied 
 with my conduct in procuring him the wagons, and 
 readily paid my account of disbursements, thanking me 
 repeatedly, and requesting my further assistance in send- 
 ing provisions after him. I undertook this also, and 
 was busil)' emplo\ed in it till we heard of his defeat, 
 advancing for the service of my own money upwards of 
 one thousand pounds sterling, of which I sent him an 
 
I03 
 
 account. It came to his hands, luckily for me, a few- 
 days before the battle, and he returned me immediately 
 an order on the paymaster for the round sum of one 
 thousand pounds, leaving the remainder to the next 
 account. I consider this payment as good luck, having 
 never been able to obtain that remainder, of which more 
 hereafter. 
 
 This general was, I think, a brave man, and might 
 probably have made a figure as a good officer in some 
 European war. But he had too much self-confidence, 
 too high an opinion of the validity of regular troops, 
 and too mean a one of both Americans and Indians, 
 George Croghan, our Indian interpreter, joined him on 
 his march with one hundred of those people, who 
 might have been of great use to his army as guides and 
 scouts if he had treated them kindly ; but he slighted 
 and neglected them, and they gradually left him. 
 
 In conversation with him one day, he was giving me 
 some account of his intended progress. "After taking 
 Fort Duquesne," says he, ''I am to proceed to Niagara ; 
 and, having taken that, to Frontenac, if the season will 
 allow time; and I suppose it will, for Duquesne can 
 hardly detain me above three or four days ; and then I 
 see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara." 
 Having before revolved in my mind the long line his 
 army must make in their march by a very narrow road, 
 to be cut for them through the woods and bushes, and 
 also what I had read of a former defeat of fifteen 
 hundred French, who invaded the Illinois country, I 
 had conceived some doubts and some fears for the event 
 
I04 
 
 of the cami)aign. But I ventured only to say, "To be 
 sure, sir, if you arrive well before Duquesne, with these 
 fine troops, so well provided with artillery, the fort 
 though completely fortified, and assisted with a very 
 strong garrison, can probably make but a short re- 
 sistance. The only danger 1 apprehend of obstruction 
 to your march is from the ambuscades of the Indians, 
 who, by constant practice, are dexterous in laying and 
 executing them ; and the slender line, near four miles 
 long, which your army must make, may expose it to be 
 attacked by surprise in its flanks, and to be cut like a 
 thread into several pieces, which, from their distance, 
 can not come up in time to support each other." 
 
 He smiled at my ignorance, and replied, ''These 
 savages may, indeed, be a formidable enemy to your 
 raw American militia, but upon the king's regular and 
 disciplined troops. Sir, it is impossible they should make 
 any impression." I was conscious of an impropriety in 
 my disputing with a military man in matters of his pro- 
 fession, and said no more. The enemy, however, did 
 not take the advantage of his army which I apprehended 
 its long line of march exposed it to, but let it advance 
 without interru})tion till within nine miles of the place; 
 and then, when more in a body (for it had just passed a 
 river, where the front had halted till all were come 
 over), and in a more open i)art of the woods than any it 
 had passed, attacked its advanced guard by a heavy fire 
 from behind trees and bushes, which was the first intelli- 
 gence the general had of an enemy's being near him. 
 This guard being disordered, the general hurried the 
 
I05 
 
 troops up to their assistance, which was done in great 
 confusion, through wagons, baggage, and cattle; and 
 presently the fire came upon their flank : the officers, 
 being on horseback, were more easily distinguished, 
 picked out as marks, and fell very fast ; and the soldiers 
 w^ere crowded together in a huddle, having or hearing 
 no orders, and standing to be shot at till two-thirds of 
 them were killed; and then, being seized with a panic, 
 the whole fled with precipitation. 
 
 The wagoners took each a horse out of his team and 
 scampered ; their example was immediately followed by 
 others ; so that all the wagons, provisions, artillery, and 
 stores were left to the enemy. The general, being 
 wounded, was brought off with difficulty ; his secretary, 
 Mr. Shirley, was killed by his side ; and out of eighty- 
 six oflicers, sixty-three were killed or wounded, and 
 seven hundred and fourteen men killed of eleven 
 hundred. These eleven hundred had been picked men 
 from the whole army; the rest had been left behind 
 with Colonel Dunbar, who was to follow with the 
 heavier part of the stores, provisions, and baggage. 
 The flyers, not being pursued, arrived at Dunbar's camp, 
 and the panic they brought with them instantly seized 
 him and all his people; and, though he had now above 
 one thousand men, and the enemy who had beaten 
 Braddock did not at most exceed four hundred Indians 
 and French together, instead of proceeding, and en- 
 deavoring to recover some of the lost honor, he ordered 
 all the stores, ammunition, etc., to be destroyed, that he 
 might have more horses to assist his flight towards the 
 
io6 
 
 settlements, and less lumber to remove. He was there 
 met with requests from the governors of Virginia, Mary- 
 land, and Pennsylvania, that he would post his troops 
 on the frontiers, so as to afford some protection to the 
 inhabitants; but he continued his hasty march through 
 all the country, not thinking himself safe till he arrived 
 at Philadelphia, where the inhabitants could protect 
 him. This whole transaction gave us Americans the 
 first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the prowess of 
 British regulars had not been well founded. 
 
 In their first march, too, from their landing till they 
 got beyond the settlements, they had plundered and 
 stripped the inhabitants, totally ruining some poor 
 families, besides insulting, abusing, and confining the 
 people if they remonstrated. This was enough to put 
 us out of conceit of such defenders, if we had really 
 wanted any. How different was the conduct of our 
 French friends in 1781, who, during a march through 
 the most inhabited part of our country from Rhode 
 Island to Virginia, near seven hundred miles, occa- 
 sioned not the smallest complaint for the loss of a pig, 
 a chicken, or even an apple. 
 
 Captain Orme, who was one of the general's aides- 
 de-camp, and, being grievously wounded, was brought 
 off with him, and continued with him to his death, 
 which happened in a few days, told me that he was 
 totally silent all day, and at night only said, " IV/io 
 would have thought it?'' That he was silent again the 
 following day, saying only at last, '^We shall better 
 
I07 
 
 know how to deal with them another time T and died in 
 a few minutes after. 
 
 The secretary's papers, with all the general's orders, 
 instructions, and correspondence, falling into the ene- 
 my's hands, they selected and translated into French 
 a number of the articles, which they printed, to prove 
 the hostile intentions of the British court before the 
 declaration of war. Among these I saw some letters 
 of the general to the ministry, speaking highly of the 
 great service I had rendered the army, and recom- 
 mending me to their notice. David Hume, who was 
 some years after secretary to Lord Hertford, when 
 minister in France, and afterward to General Conway, 
 when secretary of state, told me he had seen among the 
 papers in that office, letters from Braddock highly 
 recommending me. But the expedition having been 
 unfortunate, my service it seems, was not thought of 
 much value, for those recommendations were never of 
 any use to me. 
 
 As to rewards from himself, I asked only one, which 
 was that he would give orders to his officers not to enlist 
 any more of our bought servants, and that he would 
 discharge such as had been already enlisted. This he 
 readily granted, and several were accordingly returned 
 to their masters, on my application. 
 
 As soon as the loss of the wagons and horses was 
 generally known, all the owners came upon me for the 
 valuation which I had given bond to pay. Their de- 
 mands gave me a great deal of trouble. I acquainted 
 them that the money was ready in the paymaster's 
 
io8 
 
 hands, but that order for paying it must first be 
 obtained from General Shirley, and that I had applied 
 for it, but he l^eing at a distance, an answer could not 
 soon be received, and they must have patience. All 
 this, ho'.vevcr, was not sufficient to satisfy them, and 
 some began to sue me. General Shirley at length re- 
 lieved me from this terrible situation by appointing 
 commissioners to examine the claims, and ordering pay- 
 ment. The}' amounted to near twenty thousand pounds,, 
 which to })ay would have ruined me. 
 
 In 1746, being at Boston, I met there with a Dr. 
 Spence, who was lately arrived from Scotland, and 
 showed me some electric experiments. They were im- 
 perfectly performed, as he was not very expert ; but, 
 being on a subject quite new to me, they equally sur- 
 prised and pleased me. Soon after my return to Phil- 
 adelphia, our library company received from Mr. P. 
 Collinson, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, a 
 present of a glass tube, with some account of the use of 
 it in making such experiments. I eagerly seized the 
 opportunity of repeating what I had seen at Boston ; 
 and, by much practice, acquired great readiness in per- 
 forming those, also, which we had an account of from 
 England, adding a number of new ones. I say much 
 practice, for my house was continually full, for some 
 time, with people who came to see these new wonders. 
 
 To divide a little this incumbrance among my friends, 
 I caused a number of similar tubes to be blown in our 
 glass-house, with which they furnished themselves, so 
 that we had at length several performers. Among these. 
 
I09 
 
 the principal was Mr. Kinnersley, an ingenious neighbor, 
 who, being out of business, I encouraged to undertake 
 showing the experiments for money, and drew up for 
 him two lectures, in which the experiments were ranged 
 in such order, and accompanied with such explanations 
 in such method, as that the foregoing should assist in 
 comprehending the following. He procured an elegant 
 apparatus for the purpose, in which all the little 
 machines that I had roughly made for myself were 
 neatly formed by instrument-makers. His lectures were 
 well attended, and gave great satisfaction ; and after 
 some time he went through the colonies, exhibiting 
 them in every capital town, and picked up some money. 
 In the West India islands, indeed, it was with difficulty 
 the experiments could be made, from the general 
 moisture of the air. 
 
 Obliged as we were to Mr. CoUinson for his present 
 of the tube, etc., I thought it right he should be in- 
 fprmed of our success in using it, and wrote him several 
 letters containing accounts of our experiments. He got 
 them read in the Royal Society, where they were not at 
 first thought worth so much notice as to be printed in 
 their Transactions. One paper, which I wrote for Mr. 
 Kinnersley, on the sameness of lightning with electricity, 
 I sent to Dr. Mitchel, an acquaintance of mine, and one 
 of the members also of that society, who wrote me word 
 that it had been read but was laughed at by the con- 
 noisseurs. The papers, however, being shown to Dr. 
 Fothergill, he thought them of too much value to be 
 stifled, and advised the printing of them. Mr. 
 
no 
 
 Collinson then gave Ihem to Cave for publication in hi<> 
 Gentlemen's Magazine ; but he chose to print them 
 separately in a pamphlet, and Dr. Fothergill wrote the 
 preface. Cave, it seems, judged rightly for his profit, 
 for by the additions that arrived afterward, they swelled 
 to a quarto volume, which has had five editions, and 
 cost him nothing for copy-money. 
 
 It was, however, some time before those papers were 
 much taken notice of in England. A copy of them 
 happening to fall into the hands of the Count de Buffon, 
 a philosopher deservedly of great reputation in France, 
 and, indeed, all over Europe, he prevailed with M. 
 Dubourg to translate them into French, and they were 
 printed at Paris. The publication offended the Abbe 
 NoUet, preceptor in Natural Philosophy to the royal 
 family, and an able experimenter, who had formed and 
 published a theory of electricity, which then had the 
 general vogue. He could not at first believe that such 
 a work came from America, and said it must have been 
 fabricated by his enemies at Paris, to oppose his system. 
 Afterwards, having been assured that there really ex- 
 isted such a person as Franklin at Philadelphia, which 
 he had doubted, he wrote and published a volume of 
 Letters, chiefly addressed to me, defending his theory, 
 and denying the verity of my experiments, and of the 
 positions deduced from them. 
 
 I once purposed answering the abbe, and actually 
 began the answer; but, on consideration that my writ- 
 ings contained a description of experiments which any 
 one might repeat and verify, and if not to be verified. 
 
Ill 
 
 could not be defended ; or of observations offered as 
 conjectures, and not delivered dogmatically, therefore, 
 not laying me under any obligation to defend them ; 
 and reflecting that a dispute between two persons, writ- 
 ing in different languages, might be lengthened greatly 
 by mistranslations, and thence misconceptions of one 
 another's meaning, much of one of the abbe's letters 
 being founded on an error in the translation, I con- 
 cluded to let my papers shift for themselves, believing 
 it was better to spend what time I could spare from 
 public business in making new experiments, than in 
 disputing about those already made. I therefore never 
 answered M. NoUet, and the event gave me no cause to 
 repent my silence; for my friend M. le Roy, of the 
 Royal Academy of Sciences, took up my cause and 
 refuted him; my book was translated into the Italian, 
 German, and Latin languages; and the doctrine it con- 
 tained was by degrees universally adopted by the 
 philosophers of Europe, in preference to that of the 
 abbe ; so that he lived to see himself the last of his 
 
 sect, except Monsieur B , of Paris, his eleve and 
 
 immediate disciple. 
 
 What gave my book the more sudden and general 
 celebrity, was the success of one of its proposed ex- 
 periments, made by Messrs. Dalibard aud De Lor at 
 Marly, for drawing lightning from the clouds. This 
 engaged the public attention everywhere. M. de Lor, 
 who had an apparatus for experimental philosophy, and 
 lectured in that branch of science, undertook to repeat 
 what he called the Philadelphia Experiments ; and, after 
 
112 
 
 they were performed before the king and court, all the 
 curious of Paris flocked to see them. I will not swell 
 this narrative with an account of that capital experi- 
 ment, nor of the infinite pleasure I received in the 
 success of a similar one I made soon after with a kite at 
 Philadelphia, as both are to be found in the histories of 
 electricity. 
 
 Dr. Wright, an English physician, when at Paris, 
 wrote to a friend, who was of the Royal Society, an 
 account of the high esteem my experiments were in 
 among the learned abroad, and of their wonder that 
 my writings had been so little noticed in England, 
 The society, on this, resumed the consideration of the 
 letters that had been read to them ; and the celebrated 
 Dr. Watson drew up a summary account of them, and 
 of all I had afterwards sent to England on the subject, 
 which he accompanied with some praise of the writer. 
 This summary was then printed in their Transactions ; 
 and some members of the society in London, particu- 
 larly the very ingenious Mr. Canton, having verified 
 the experiment by procuring lightning from the clouds 
 by a pointed rod, and acquainted them with the success, 
 they soon made me more than amends for the slight 
 with which they had before treated me. Without my 
 having made any application for that honor, they chose 
 me a member, and voted that 1 should be excused the 
 customary payments, which would have amounted to 
 twenty-five guineas ; and ever since have given me their 
 transactions gratis. They also presented me with the 
 gold medal of Sir Godfrey Copely, for the year 1753, 
 
113 
 
 the delivery of which was accompanied by a very hand- 
 some speech of the president, Lord Macclesfield, 
 wherein I was highly honored. 
 
 Our new governor, Captain Denny, brought over for 
 me the before-mentioned medal from the Royal Societv, 
 which he presented to me at an entertainment given 
 him by the city. He accompanied it with very polite 
 expressions of his esteem for me, having as he said, been 
 long acquainted with my character. After dinner^ 
 when the company, as was customary at that time, were 
 engaged in drinking, he took me aside into another 
 room, and acquainted me that he had been advised bv 
 his friends in England to cultivate a friendship with me, 
 as one who was capable of giving him advice, and of 
 contributing most effectually to the making his adminis- 
 tration easy; that he therefore desired of all things to 
 have a good understanding with me, and he begged 
 me to be assured of his readiness on all accasions to 
 render me every service that might be in his power. 
 He said much to me, also, of the proprietor's good 
 disposition towards the province, and of the advantage 
 it might be to us all, and to me in particular, if the 
 opposition that had been so long continued to his 
 measures was dropped, and harmony restored between 
 him and the people ; in effecting which, it was thought, 
 no one could be more serviceable than myself; and I 
 might depend on adequate acknowledgments and re- 
 compenses. The drinkers finding we did not return 
 immediately to the table, sent us a decanter of Madeira, 
 which the governor made liberal use of, and in propor- 
 
114 
 
 tion became more profuse of his solicitations and 
 promises. 
 
 My answers were to this purpose : that my circum- 
 stances, thanks to God, were such as to make proprie- 
 tary favors unnecessary to me ; and that, being a 
 member of the Assembly, I could not possibly accept 
 of any ; that, however, I had no personal enmity to 
 the proprietary, and that, whenever the public measures 
 he proposed should appear to be for the good of the 
 people, no one should espouse and forward them more 
 zealously than myself; my past opposition having been 
 founded on this, that the measures which had been 
 urged were evidently intended to serve the proprietary 
 interest, with great prejudice to that of the people , 
 that I was much obliged to him (the governor) for his 
 profession of regard to me, and that he might rely on 
 everything in my power to render his administration as 
 easy to him as possible, hoping at the same time that he 
 had not brought with him the same unfortunate in- 
 structions his predecessor had been hampered with. 
 
 On this he did not then explain himself; but when 
 he afterwards came to do business with the Assembly, 
 they appeared again, the disputes were renewed, and 
 I was as active as ever in the opposition, being the 
 penman, first, of the request to have a communication 
 of the instructions, and then of the remarks upon them, 
 which may be found in the votes of the time, and in 
 Historical Review I afterward published. But between 
 us personally no enmity arose ; we were often together ; 
 he was a man of letters, had seen much of the world. 
 
"5 
 
 and was very entertaining and pleasing in conversation. 
 
 The Assembly finally finding the proprietary obsti- 
 nately persisted in shackling their deputies with in- 
 structions inconsistent not only with the privileges of 
 the people, but with the service of the crown, resolved 
 to petition the king against them, and appointed me 
 their agent to go over to England, to present and 
 support the petition. 
 
 It was about the beginning of April that I came to 
 New York and I think it was near the end of June 
 before we sailed. Upon my arrival in England I set out 
 immediately, with my son, for London, and we only 
 stopped a little by the way to view Stonehenge on 
 Salisbury Plain, and Lord Pembroke's house and 
 gardens, wnth the very curious antiquities at Wilton. 
 We arrived in London the 27th of July, 1757. 
 
 END OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 I add to the foregoing autobiography, which closes 
 with the 27th of July, 1757, a few facts ,of Fr.inklin's 
 subsequent life, displaying some of the fruits of his self 
 education. 
 
 In England, in 1757, he was endeavoring as the agent 
 of Pennsylvania, to obtain from the son of William 
 Penn, or from the King, a settlement of the disputes 
 between the Penn family and the Colony, and par- 
 ticularly to compel the Penn family to bear their proper 
 share of the expenses of the province. He met with 
 bitter and prolonged opposition. While in England 
 
ii6 
 
 upon this mission he enjoyed the society of the states- 
 men, scholars and scientists of England, and he is said 
 to have suggested and advised the attempt which led to 
 the Conquest of Canada. After three years of effort he 
 succeeded in accomplishing the purpose of his mission 
 to the satisfaction of the people of Pennsylvania. 
 While in England, and in 1760, he published a 
 pamphlet strongly urging the retention of Canada as 
 one of the conditions of making peace with France, 
 and this policy was adopted. The same year he was 
 appointed by the Assembly of Pennsylvania to receive 
 and invest the sum of about thirty thousand pounds, 
 awarded by Great Britain to Pennsylvania on account of 
 her expenditures and losses during the French War; a 
 trust which he successfully performed. Some part of 
 the time of this visit to England was occupied by a tour 
 through Holland and Flanders, and he was very much 
 tingaged also in philosophical studies and experiments. 
 In 1762 he invented a musical instrument called the 
 Armonica, which was for many years quite fashionable 
 in Europe. In the same year he received the degree of 
 Doctor of Laws from the Universities of Oxford and 
 Edinburgh. He left England in August of that year 
 reaching America in November. He had in the mean- 
 time been elected a Member of the Assembly of Penn- 
 sylvania. In 1763 he made a tour through the Middle 
 and New England states as Postmaster General of the 
 Colonies. 
 
 New difficulties arose between the Assembly of Penn- 
 sylvania and the Penn family, who under the King's 
 
117 
 
 Charter were the proprietaries of all the unsold lands in 
 the Colony, and claimed various powers as to its 
 government which were denied by the Assembly. 
 Franklin wrote a pamphlet in favor of transferring the 
 Covernment from the proprietaries to the Crown, drew 
 a petition for such transfer and was chosen by the 
 Assembly as its agent to present its case in the Court of 
 Great Britain. He sailed for England in November, 
 1767. He devoted himself strenuously to the objects of 
 his mission and also to other American interests both in 
 France and in England. He was conspicuous in his 
 opposition to the Stamp Act, and added greatly to his 
 reputation by his evidence in respect to American affairs 
 upon a public examination in the House of Commons. 
 These affairs absorbed the attention of the Ministry and 
 prevented the success of his mission. He was appointed 
 the agent of Georgia in Great Britain in 1768 and of 
 New Jersey in 1769. In 1773 a new translation into 
 French and a third French edition of his philosophical 
 writings were published, and a fifth English edition was 
 printed the same year. 
 
 In December 1772, Franklin procured and sent to 
 the Chairman of the American Committee of Corres- 
 pondence in Massachusetts certain letters from Hutch- 
 inson the Royal Governor of that Province, to Mr. 
 Thomas Whately a member of Parliament. He believed 
 that the patriots of Massachusetts should be informed 
 of their contents. They were finally published in 
 America. A furious assault was made in England upon 
 Franklin. He was summoned before the Privy Council, 
 
ii8 
 
 abused and insulted by the Crown officers in a manner 
 quite unexampled in the annals of any respectable 
 court, and was dismissed from his office of Deputy 
 Postmaster General in America. This was in 1774. 
 His wife died the same year; a loss which he keenly 
 felt, although he had been much separated from her. 
 During this visit m England, Franklin was on cordial 
 terms with the statesmen, who were friendly to the 
 American cause, and by pen and conversation did much 
 to enlighten the British public in regard to the claims- 
 and the rights of the Colonists. He left England in 
 1 7 75 J o^ the 25th of March, shortly before the battle 
 of Lexington, reaching Philadelphia, May 5th, sixteen 
 days after that memorable event. 
 
 Immediately upon his arrival he was unanimousK 
 chosen to represent Pennsylvania in the Continental 
 Congress which assembled on the tenth day of May. 
 In the same year he was appointed Postmaster General 
 of the Colonies, head of the Commission for Indian 
 Affairs and a member of the Committee of Secrecy for 
 carrying on the war. He went to Cambridge and had 
 a conference with Washington, and a system for the main- 
 tenance of the army was agreed upon. He was a 
 Member of Congress and of the Pennsylvania Assembly 
 at the same time. He was one of the first to favor a 
 declaration of independence and signed it. He was 
 also, in 1776, a member of the Convention which was 
 assembled for the purpose of establishing a Constitution 
 for Pennsylvania. 
 
119 
 
 In the same year Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and 
 Arthur Lee were appointed by Congress to represent the 
 cause of the Colonies in France. In February, 1778, a 
 treaty of Alliance was effected with France, very largely if 
 not mainly by the efforts, ability and tact of Franklin, and 
 lie thereupon attended the court at Versailles on the same 
 terms as the ambassadors of the European Powers. In 
 
 1782 and 1783 he took part in the negotiation of a treaty 
 of Peace between the United States and Great Britain, a 
 treaty so successful as to demonstrate that the American 
 Envoys were entitled to rank among the most skillful 
 diplomatists of their time. The final or definite treaty 
 was signed at Paris, September 3, 1783. Franklin in 
 
 1783 also took part in negotiating a treaty with Prussia, 
 and being very infirm in health, resigned his office and 
 returned to Philadelphia September 17, 1785, at the age 
 of seventy-nine, by far the most famous in Europe of 
 any American, as a statesman, a scholar, and a 
 philosopher. In October he was elected President of 
 Pennsylvania, and retained this position by annual 
 election for three years. When eighty-two years of age 
 he was chosen a delegate to the Convention which 
 framed the present Constitution of the United States, 
 and which met in Philadelphia in May, 1787. He was 
 one of its signers, and it is not too much to say that by 
 his profound intelligence, his almost unparalleled tact, 
 and above all his unruffled serenity and ability as a 
 peace-maker, he contributed as much as any other 
 member, excepting perhaps Washington, to the adoption 
 
I20 
 
 of the Constitution by the Convention and by the 
 People. 
 
 This was his last conspicuous public act. He was 
 much broken in health ; but devoted his life to his 
 friends, to his duties as a citizen of Philadelphia, and 
 to philosophical study and research, until the seven- 
 teenth day of April, 1790, on which day, at the age 
 of eighty-four years and three months, he calmly met 
 the last event of this mortal life. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS