No.tl2-113-114, 
 
 English • Classic - Series 
 
 BENJAMIN fRAN KLIN 
 
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ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.-No 112-113-114. 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY 
 
 OP 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, 
 
 (C03IPLETE.) 
 
 Prepaked for Use in" Schools. 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND A SUPPLEMENTARY SKETCH, 
 CONCLUDING THE STORY OF FRANKLIN'S LIFE, PRE- 
 SENTED MAINLY IN HIS OWN WORDS. 
 
 J. \V. ABERNETHY, Ph.D. 
 
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 A Complete Course in the Study of English. 
 
 spelling. Language, Grammar, Composition, Literature, 
 
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 Reed & Kellogg'S One-Book Course in English. 
 KELLOGG'S Text-Book on Rhetoric. 
 
 KELLOGG'S Text-Book on English Literature. 
 
 In the preparation of this series the authors have had one object 
 clearly in view — to so develop the study of the English language as 
 to present a complete, progressive course, from the Spelling-Book to 
 the study of English Literature. The troublesome contradictions 
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 Teachers are earnestly invited to examine these books. 
 
 Effingham MayNARD & Co., Publishers, 
 
 771 Broadway, New York. 
 
 Copyright, 1892, 
 By EFFINGHAM MAYNARD & CO. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is an American 
 classic, and it is the earliest product of our national genius entitled 
 to that distinction. Its author was not a man of letters, yet he 
 wrote extensively ; and a few of his essays, the sayings of Poor 
 Richard, and the Autobiography will always give him a promi- 
 nent place in the history of American literature. He cultivated 
 letters and the art of expression because he saw their practical 
 value in the struggle for business success, and his writings are an 
 excellent illustration of the utility of the highest literary qualities 
 in the common employments of every- day life. The ease with 
 which he wielded the pen, added to the habit of observing care- 
 fully and thinking clearly, made him a leader and teacher of men. 
 
 "The perennial charm of his Autobiography is like that of 
 Robinson Crusoe," says George William Curtis ; and this charm 
 is due largely to a style that in its crystal clearness and forceful 
 simplicity is the equal of that of De Foe. Plain, idiomatic, direct, 
 with no ornament or grace except such as is native to the thought, 
 the language forms a perfect transcript of the writer's mind. One 
 is never in doubt about Franklin's meaning. But this charm is due 
 still more to the picturesque and noble personality portrayed in the 
 Autobiography. It records the career of one who from poverty 
 arose to be revered by the greatest and wisest of two continents. 
 Few men have influenced the world so widely and permanently as 
 Franklin. 
 
 "Clear rather than subtle," says Prof. Beers, "without ideality 
 or romance or fineness of emotion or poetic lift, intensely practical 
 and utilitarian, broad-minded, inventive, shrewd, versatile, Frank- 
 lin's sturdy figure became typical of his time and his people." 
 He was the first great American, and his greatness was of many 
 
 3 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 kinds. He was a distinguislied scientist and practical inventor. 
 Bancroft calls him "the greatest diplomatist of his century." He 
 was a great moral teacher, the supreme philosopher of common- 
 sense and the useful virtues. Says his latest biographer, Mr. 
 Morse: " He was one of the most, perhaps the most agreeable 
 conversationist of his age. He was a rare wit and humorist, and 
 in an age when ' American humor ' was still unborn, amid contem- 
 poraries who have left no trace of a jest, still less of the faintest 
 appreciation of humor, all which he said and wrote was brilliant 
 with both these most charming qualities of the human mind." 
 And he concludes: "By the instruction which he gave, by his 
 discoveries, by his inventions, and by his achievements in public 
 life he earns the distinction of having rendered to men varied and 
 useful services excelled by no other one man ; and thus he has 
 established a claim upon the gratitude of mankind so broad that 
 history holds few who can be his rivals." 
 
 The only complete and correct edition of the Autobiography is 
 that edited by the Hon. John Bigelow, who obtained the original 
 MS. in France and first gave it to the public in 1868. By the 
 courtesy of Mr. Bigelow and his publishers, the J. B. Lippincott 
 Co., we are permitted to use the authorized text in the preparation 
 of this edition. A few passages unsuitable for the class-room 
 have been omitted, and also the two letters mentioned on page 
 75. In order that the book may be thoroughly adapted for the 
 reading of young pupils, the spelling has been modernized and a 
 few grammatical errors corrected; otherwise the text is given just 
 as Franklin wrote it. The supplementary sketch of Franklin's 
 life from the point where the Autobiography ends will serve, it is 
 hoped, as an inducement to read more of the charming letters con- 
 tained in Mr. Bigelow's " Life of Benjamin Franklin," a work of 
 inestimable value to teachers as well as pupils. Also additional 
 reading should be encouraged in such works as Parton's " Life and 
 Times of Benjamin Franklin," Morse's "Life of Franklin" (Amer- 
 ican Statesmen Series), and Hale's " Frankliti in France." The 
 needed explanations of public events connected with Franklin's 
 career will generally be found in the text-book of United States 
 history, with which the Autobiography should always be used. 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 OF 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 TwYFORD, at the Bishop of St. AsapJi^s, 1771. 
 
 Dear Son: I have ever had pleasure in obtaining any little 
 anecdotes of my ancestors. You may remember the inquiries 
 I made among the remains of my relations when you were with 
 me in England, and the journey I undertook for that purpose. 
 Imagining it may be equally agreeable to you to know the cir- 
 cumstances of my life, many of which you are yet unacquainted 
 with, and expecting the enjoyment of a week's uninterrupted 
 leisure in my present country retirement, ' I sit down to write 
 them for you. To which I have besides some other induce- 
 ments. Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in 
 which I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some 
 degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far 
 through life with a considerable share of felicity, the conduc- 
 ing means I made use of, which with the blessing of God so 
 well succeeded, my posterity may like to know, as they may 
 find some of them suitable to their own situations, and there- 
 fore fit to be imitated. 
 
 That felicity, when I reflected on it, has induced me some- 
 times to say, that were it offered to my choice, I should have 
 
 ]. He was at Twyford, England, visiting his friend the Bishop of St. 
 Asaph, Dr. Jonathan Shipley, 'America's constant friend," as he called 
 hina. 
 
6 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, 
 only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition 
 to correct some faults of the first. So I might, besides cor- 
 recting the faults, change some sinister accidents and events 
 of it for others more favorable. But though this were denied, 
 I should still accept the offer. Since such a repetition is not to 
 be expected, the next thing most like living one's life over again 
 seems to be a recollection of that life, and to make that recol- 
 lection as durable as possible by putting it down in writing. 
 
 Hereby, too, I shall indulge the inclination so natural in old 
 men, to be talking of themselves and their own past actions; 
 and I shall indulge it without being tiresome to others, who, 
 through respect to age, might conceive themselves obliged 
 to give me a hearing, since this may be read or not as any one 
 pleases. And, lastly (I may as well confess it, since my denial 
 of it will be believed by nobody), perhaps I shall a good deal 
 gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I scarce ever heard or saw 
 the introductory words, " Without vanity, I may say,"" etc., 
 but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dis- 
 like vanity in others, whatever share they may have of it 
 themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, 
 being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the pos- 
 sessor, and to others that are within his sphere of action; and 
 therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if 
 a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other 
 comforts of life. 
 
 And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humil- 
 ity to acknowledge thati owe the mentioned happiness of my 
 past life to His kind providence, which led me to the means 
 I used and gave them success. My belief of this induces me 
 to hope, though I must not presume, that the same goodness 
 will still be exercised toward me, in continuing that happi- 
 ness, or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse, which I may ex- 
 perience as others have done; the complexion of my future 
 fortune being known to Him only in whose power it is to bless 
 to us even our afflictions. 
 
 The notes one of my uncles (who had the same kind of 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 7 
 
 curiosity in collecting family anecdotes) once put into my 
 hands, furnished me with several particulars relating to our 
 ancestors. From these notes I learned that the family had 
 lived in the same village, Ecton, in Northamptonshire, for 
 three hundred years, and how much longer he knew not (per- 
 haps from the time when the name of Franhlin, that before 
 was the name of an order of people,* was assumed by them as 
 a surname when others took surnames all over the kingdom), 
 on a freehold of about thirty acres, aided by the smith's busi- 
 ness, which had continued in the family till his time, the 
 eldest son being always bred to that business ; a custom which 
 he and my father followed as to their eldest sons. When I 
 searched the registers at Ecton, I found an account of their 
 births, marriages, and burials from the year 1555 only, there 
 being no registers kept in that parish at any time preceding. 
 By that register I perceived that 1 was the youngest son of the 
 youngest son for five generations back. My grandfather 
 Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived at Ecton till he grew 
 too old to follow business longer, when he went to live with 
 his son John, a dyer at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, with whom 
 my father served an apprenticeship. There my grandfather 
 died and lies buried. We saw his gravestone in 1758. His 
 eldest son Thomas lived in the house at Ecton, and left it with 
 the land to his only child, a daughter, who, with her husband, 
 one Fisher, of Wellingborough, sold it to Mr. Isted, now lord 
 of the manor there. My grandfather had four sons that grew 
 up, viz. : Thomas, John, Benjamin, and Josiah. I will give 
 you what account I can of them, at this distance from my 
 papers, and if these are not lost in my absence, you will 
 among them find many more particulars. 
 
 Thomas was bred a smith under his father; but, being in- 
 genious, and encouraged in learning (as all my brothers 
 were) by an Esquire Palmer, then the principal gentleman in 
 
 1. A Franklin, or Frankelein, was a freeholder or small landholder; 
 originally the son or descendant of a vilein or common laborer who had 
 become rich. Chaucer pictures the Frankelein, in his "Prologue," as the 
 representative of a class of country gentlemen. 
 
8 BEKJAMIK FRAKKLIN". 
 
 that parish, he qualified himself for the business of scrivener; 
 became a considerable man in the county; was a chief mover 
 of all public-spirited undertakings for the county or town of 
 Northampton, and his own village, of which many instances 
 were related of him; and much taken notice of and patronized 
 by the then Lord Halifax. He died in 1702, January 6, old 
 style, just four years to a day before I was born. The account 
 we received of his life and character from some old people at 
 Ecton, I remember, struck you as something extraordinary, 
 from its similarity to what you knew of mine. " Had he died 
 on the same day," you said, " one might have supposed a 
 transmigration." 
 
 John was bred a dyer, I believe, of woolens. Benjamin 
 was bred a silk-dyer, serving an apprenticeship at London. 
 He was an ingenious man. I remember him well, for when I 
 was a boy he came over to my father in Boston, and lived in 
 the house with us some years. He lived to a great age. His 
 grandson, Samuel Franklin, now lives in Boston. He left 
 behind him two quarto volumes, MS., of his own poetry, con- 
 sisting of little occasional pieces addressed to his frienrls and 
 relations, of which the following, sent to me, is a specimen.^ 
 He had formed a short-hand of his own, which he taught me, 
 but, never practicing it, I have now forgot it. I was named 
 after this uncle, there being a particular affection between 
 him and my father. He was very pious, a great attender of 
 sermons of the best preachers, which he took down in his 
 short-hand, and had with him many volumes of them. He 
 was also much of a politician; too much, perhaps, for his 
 station. There fell lately into my hands, in London, a collec- 
 tion he had made of all the principal pamphlets relating to 
 public affairs, from 1641 to 1717; many of the volumes are 
 wanting as appears by the numbering, but there still remain 
 eight volumes in folio, and twenty-four in quarto and in octavo. 
 A dealer in old books*met with them, and knowing me by my 
 sometimes buying of him, he brought them to me. It seems 
 
 1. Franklin failed to insert the poetry. 
 
BENJAMIIT FRANKLIN. 9 
 
 my uncle must have left them here when he went to America, 
 which was above fifty years since. There are many of hia 
 notes in the margins. 
 
 This obscure family of ours was early in the Reformation, 
 and continued Protestants tli rough the reign of Queen Mary, 
 when they w^ere sometimes in danger of trouble on account of 
 their zeal against popery. They had got an English Bible, 
 and to conceal and secure it, it was fastened open with tapes 
 under and within the cover of a joint-stool. When my great- 
 great-grandfather read it to his family, he turned up the 
 joint-stool upon his knees, turning over the leaves then under 
 the tapes. One of the children stood at the door to give 
 notice if he saw' the apparitor coming, who was an ofiicer of 
 the spiritual court. In that case the stool was turned down 
 again upon its feet, w^hen the Bible remained concealed under 
 it as before. This anecdote I had from my uncle Benjamin. 
 The family continued all of the Church of England till about 
 the end of Charles the Second's reign, when some of the 
 ministers that had been outed for non-conformity holding 
 conventicles in Northamptonshire, Benjamin and Josiah 
 adhered to them, and so continued all their lives : the rest of 
 the family remained with the Episcopal Church. 
 
 Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with 
 three children into New England, about 1682. The conven- 
 ticles having been forbidden by law% and frequently disturbed, 
 induced some considerable men of his acquaintance to remove 
 to that country, and he wvas prevailed with to accompany 
 them thither, where they expected to enjoy their mode of 
 religion with freedom. By the same wife he had four chil- 
 dren more born there, and by a second wife ten more, in all 
 seventeen; of which I remember thirteen sitting at one time 
 at his table, who all grew up to be men and women, and mar- 
 ried; I was the youngest son, and the youngest child but two, 
 and was born in Boston, New England.' My mother, the 
 
 1. Franklin was horn January 17 (fi, old style). 1706, in a house on MiUr 
 Street, oppusiie Old South Church, where the Boston Post huildiug now 
 stands. 
 
10 BENJAMIN FRAKKLIK. 
 
 second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, one 
 of the first settlers of New England, of whom honorable 
 mention is made by Cotton Mather, in his church history of 
 that country, entitled " Magnalia Christ! Americana," as ''a 
 godly, learned Englisliman,^^ if I remember the words 
 rightly. I have heard that he wrote sundry small occasional 
 pieces, but only one of them was printed, which I saw now 
 many years since. It was written in 1675, in the home-spun 
 verse of that time and people, and addressed to those then 
 concerned in the government there. It was in favor of 
 liberty of conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, 
 and other sectaries that had been under persecution, ascribing 
 the Indian wars, and other dislresses that had befallen the 
 country, to that persecution, as so many judgments of God to 
 punish so heinous an offense, and exhorting a repeal of those 
 uncharitable laws. The whole appeared to me as written 
 with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom. 
 The six concluding lines I remember, though I have forgotten 
 the two first of the stanza; but the purport of them was, that 
 his censures proceeded from good-will, and, therefore, he 
 would be known to be the author. 
 
 " Because to be a libeler (says he) 
 
 I hate it with my heart ; 
 From Sherburne' town, where now I dwell, 
 
 My name I do put here; 
 "Without offense your real friend, 
 
 It is Peter Folgier." 
 
 My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different 
 trades. 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. My early readiness in 
 learning to read (which must have been very early, as I do 
 not remember when I could not read), and the opinion of all 
 his friends, that I should certainly make a good scholar, en- 
 couraged him in this purpose of his. My uncle Benjamin, too, 
 
 1 . Slierburne.— The original name of the town of Nantucket. Folger 
 is still a familiar name in Nantucket. 
 
BENJAMIK FRAKKLTN. 11 
 
 approved of it, and proposed to give me all his short-hand 
 volumes of sermons, I suppose as a stock to set up with, if I 
 would learn his character.' I continued, however, at the 
 grammar-school not quite one year, though in that time I had 
 risen gradually from the middle of the class of that year to be 
 the head of it, and farther was removed into the next class 
 above it, in order to go with that into the third at the end of 
 the year. But my father in the mean time, from a view of 
 the expense of a college education, which having so large a 
 family he could not well afford, and the mean living many so 
 educated were afterwards able to obtain — reasons that he 
 gave to his friends in my hearing — altered his first intention, 
 took me from the grammar-school, and sent me to a school 
 for writing and arithmetic, kept by a then famous man, Mr. 
 George Brownell, very successful in his profession generally, 
 and that by mild, encouraging methods. Under him I 
 acquired fair writing pretty soon, but I failed in the arith- 
 metic, and made no progress in it. At ten years old I was 
 taken home to assist my father in his business, which was 
 tliat of a tallow-chandler and soap-boiler ; a business he was 
 not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in New England, 
 and on finding his dyeing trade would not maintain his 
 family, being in little request. Accordingly, I was employed 
 in cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping mold and 
 the molds for cast candles, attending the shop, going of 
 errands, etc. 
 
 I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the 
 sea, but my father declared against it ; however, living near 
 the water, I was much in and about it, learned early to swim 
 well, and to manage boats ; and when in a boat or canoe with 
 other boys I was commonly allowed to govern, especially in 
 any case of diQculty ; and upon other occasions I was gener- 
 ally a leader among the boys, and sometimes led them into 
 scrapes, of which I will mention one instance, as it shows an 
 early projecting public spirit, though not then justly conducted. 
 
 There was a salt-marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond, 
 
 1. Learn hi8 character.— That is, learn to read his short-hand. 
 
12 BENJAMIN ERANKLIN. 
 
 on the edge of which, at high-water, we used to stand to fish 
 for minnows. By much trampling we had made it a mere 
 quagmire. My proposal was to build a wharf there fit for us 
 to stand upon, and I showed my comrades a large heap of 
 stones, which were intended for a new house near the marsh, 
 and which would very well suit our purpose. Accordingly, in 
 the evening, when the workmen were gone, I assembled a 
 number of my play-fellows, and working with them diligently 
 like so many emmets, sometimes two or three to a stone, we 
 brought them all away and built our little wharf. The next 
 morning the workmen were surprised at missing the stones, 
 which were found in our wharf. Inquiry was made after the 
 removers ; we were discovered and complained of ; several of 
 us were corrected by our fathers ; and, though I pleaded the 
 usefulness of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was 
 useful which was not honest. 
 
 I think you may like to know something of his person and 
 character. He bad an excellent constitution of body, was of 
 middle stature, but well set, and very strong ; he was ingeni- 
 ous, could draw prettily, was skilled a little in music, and had 
 a clear, pleasing voice, so that when he played psalm tunes on 
 his violin and sung withal, as he sometimes did in an evening 
 after the business of the day was over, it was extremely agree- 
 able to hear. He had a mechanical genius, too, and on occa- 
 sion was very handy in the use of other tradesmen's tools ; 
 but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and 
 solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and 
 public affairs. In the latter, indeed, he was never employed, 
 the numerous family he had to educate and th« straitness of 
 his circumstances keeping him close to his trade ; but I re- 
 member well his being frequently visited by leading people, 
 who consulted him for his opinion in affairs of the town or of 
 the church he belonged to, and showed a good deal of respect 
 for his judgment and advice ; he was also much consulted by 
 private persons about their affairs when any diflficulty oc- 
 curred, and frequently chosen an arbitrator between contend- 
 ing parties. At his table he liked to have, as often as he 
 could, some sensible friend or neighbor to converse with, and 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 13 
 
 always took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for 
 discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his 
 children. By this means he turned our attention to what was 
 good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life; and little or no 
 notice was ever taken of what rehited to the victuals on the 
 table, whether it was well or ill dressed, in or out of season, 
 of good or bad flavor, preferable or inferior to this or that 
 other thing of the kind, so that I was brought up in such a 
 perfect inattention to those matters as to be quite indifferent 
 what kind of food was set before me, and so unobservant of it, 
 that to this day if I am asked I can scarce tell a few hours 
 after dinner what I dined upon. This has been a convenience 
 to me in traveling, where my companions have been some- 
 times very unhappy for want of a suitable gratification of their 
 more delicate, because better instructed, tastes and appetites. 
 My mother had likewise an excellent constitution ; she 
 suckled all her ten children. I never knew either my father 
 or mother to have any sickness but that of which they died, 
 he at 89, and she at 85 years of age. They lie buried together 
 at Boston,' where I some years since placed a marble over 
 their grave, wath this inscription : 
 
 JosiAH Franklin, 
 
 and 
 
 Abiah his wife, 
 
 lie here interred. 
 
 They lived loving:]y together in wedlock 
 
 fifty-five years. • 
 
 Without an estate, or any gainful employment, 
 By constant labor and industry, 
 with God's blessing. 
 They maintained a large family 
 
 comfortably, 
 
 and brought up thirteen cnildren 
 
 and seven giandchildren 
 
 reputably. 
 
 From this instance, reader, 
 
 Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, 
 
 And distrust not Providence. 
 
 He was a pious and prudent man ; 
 
 She, a disci-eet and virtuous Avoman. 
 
 Their j-oungest son, 
 
 In filial regard to their memory. 
 
 Places this stone. 
 
 J. F. born 1655. died 1T44, ^tat 89, 
 
 A. F. born 1667, died 175-.>, 85. 
 
 1. The grave is in the Granary burying-ground. The original stone having 
 crumbled under the ravages of time, a new monument bearing the origin;tl 
 inscription was placed upon the grave in 1827, by citizens of Boston. 
 
14 BEI^JAMIX FRAXKLIK, 
 
 By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be grown 
 old. I used to write more methodically. But one does not 
 dress for private company as for a public ball. 'Tis perhaps 
 only negligence. 
 
 To return : I continued thus employed in my father's busi- 
 ness for two years, that is, till I was twelve years old ; and 
 my brother John, who was bred to that business, having left 
 my father, married, and set up for himself at Rhode Island, 
 there was all appearance that I was destined to supply his 
 place, and become a tallow-chandler. But my dislike to the 
 trade continuing, my father was under apprehensions that if 
 he did not find one for me more agreeable, I should break 
 away and get to sea, as his son -Josiah had done, to his great 
 vexation. He therefore sometimes took me to walk with him, 
 and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their 
 work, that he might observe my inclination, and endeavor to 
 fix it on some trade or other on land. It has ever since been 
 a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools ; and 
 it has been useful to me, having learned so much by it as to be 
 able to do little jobs myself in my house when a workman 
 could not readily be got, and to construct little machines for 
 my experiments, w^hile the intention of making the experi- 
 ment was fresh and warm in my mind. My father at iast 
 fixed upon the cutler's trade, and my uncle Benjamin's son 
 Samuel, who was bred to that business in London, being about 
 that time established in Boston, I was sent to be with him 
 some time on liking. But his expectations of a fee with me 
 displeasing my father, I was taken home again. 
 
 From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money 
 that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased 
 with the Pilgrim's Progress, my first collection was of John 
 Bunyan's works in separate little volumes. I afterward sold 
 them to enable me to buy E. Burton's Historical Collections ; 
 they were small chapmen's books, and cheap, 40 or 50 in all. 
 My father's little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic 
 divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted 
 that, at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLI^r. 15 
 
 proper books had not fallen in my way, since it was now re- 
 solved I should not be a clergyman. Plutarch's Lives there 
 was in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time 
 spent to great advantage. There was also a book of De Foe's, 
 called an " Essay on Projects," and another of Dr. Mather's, 
 called "Essays to do Good," which perhaps gave me a turn of 
 thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future 
 events of my life. 
 
 This bookish inclination at length determined my father to 
 make me a printer, though he had already one son (James) of 
 that profession. In 1717 my brother James returned from 
 England with a press and letters to set up his business in Bos- 
 ton. I liked it much better than that of my father, but still 
 had a hankering for the sea. To prevent the apprehended 
 effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to have 
 me bound to my brother. I stood out some time, but at last 
 was persuaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but 
 twelve years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was 
 twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's 
 wages during the last year. In a little time I made great pro- 
 ficiency in the business, and became a useful hand to my 
 brother. I now had access to better books. An acquaintance 
 with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to 
 borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and 
 clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part 
 of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and 
 to be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed 
 or wanted. 
 
 And after some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Matthew 
 Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and who fre- 
 quented our printing-house, took notice of me, invited me to his 
 library, and very kindly lent me such books as I chose to read. 
 I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces; 
 my brother, thinking it might turn to account,' encouraged 
 
 1. The street-ballad was a popular, and almost the only means of circulat- 
 ing sensational news, and therefore a source of much profit to the printers. 
 Every public event of importance was sure to be described in doggerel 
 rhyme by some ballad-monger. 
 
16 BEXJAMIK FRANKLIN. 
 
 me, and put me on composing occasional ballads. One was 
 called " The Lighthouse Tragedy," and contained an account of 
 the drowning of Captain "Worthilake, with his two daughters; 
 the other was a sailor's song, on the taking of Teach (or Black- 
 beard) the pirate.* They were w'retched stuff, in the Grub- 
 street-ballad style; and when they were printed he sent me 
 about the town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the 
 event being recent, having made a great noise. This flattered 
 my vanity; but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my 
 performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally 
 beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very 
 bad one; but as prose wTiting has been of great use to me in 
 the course of my life, and was a principal means of my ad- 
 vancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired 
 what little ability I have in that way. 
 
 There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by 
 name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes 
 disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desir- 
 ous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the 
 way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often 
 extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that 
 is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides sour- 
 ing and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts 
 and perhaps enmities where you may have occasion for friend- 
 ship. I had caught it by reading my father's books of dispute 
 about religion. Persons of good sense, I have since observed, 
 seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and men 
 of all sorts that have been bred at Edinburgh. 
 
 A question was once, somehow or other, started between 
 Collins and me, of the propriety of educating the female sex 
 in learning, and their abilities for study. He was of opinion 
 
 1. Worthilake was the keeper of the Boston Ligcht. John Teach was a 
 pirate almost as famous as Captain Kidd. He was captured in Pamlico 
 Sound after a desperate fight, fallinpr upon the deck of his own ship covered 
 with wounds. " He was a boy's ideal of a pirate chief. His brow was low; 
 his eyes were small; his huge, shaggy beard, black as a coal, hung far down 
 upon his breast. Over his shoulders were three braces of pistols; in battle, 
 lighted matches stuck out from under his hat and protruded from behind 
 his ears. In his fits of rage he became a demon," 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 17 
 
 that it was improper, and that they were naturally unequal to 
 it. I took the contrary side, perhaps a little for dispute's sake. 
 He was naturally more eloquent, had a ready plenty of words; 
 and sometimes, as I thought, bore me down more by his flu- 
 ency than, by the strength of his reasons. As we parted with- 
 out settling the point, and were not to see one another again 
 for some time, I sat down to put my arguments in writing, 
 which I copied fair and sent to him. He answered, and I 
 replied. Three or four letters of a side had passed, when my 
 father happened to find my papers and read them. Without 
 entering into the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me 
 about the manner of my writing; observed that, though I had 
 the advantage of my antagonist in correct spelling and point- 
 ing (which I owed to the printing-house), I fell far short in 
 elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which 
 he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of 
 his remarks, and thence grew more attentive to the manner in 
 writing, and determined to endeavor at improvement. 
 
 About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator } 
 It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I 
 bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with 
 it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, 
 to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, 
 making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid 
 them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, 
 tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted 
 sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed be^ 
 fore, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then 
 I compared my Spectator v^'iih. the original, discovered some of 
 my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock 
 of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which 
 I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had 
 gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words 
 of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, 
 
 1. This "odd volume " was the third in the seven-vohinie edition into 
 which the Spectator papers of Addison and Steele were gathered after their 
 tirst appearance in periodical form. 
 
18 BENJA,MI^ FRANKLII^. 
 
 or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me 
 under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also 
 have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me 
 master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned 
 them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well for- 
 gotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes 
 jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after 
 some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, 
 before I began to form the full sentences and complete the 
 paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement 
 of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the 
 original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but 
 I sometimes had the pleasure of fancj'ing that, in certain 
 particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to im- 
 prove the method or the language, and this encouraged me to 
 think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English 
 writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My time for 
 these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or 
 before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I con- 
 trived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as 
 I could the common attendance on public worship which my 
 father used to exact of me when I was under his care, and 
 which indeed I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it 
 seemed to me, afford time to practice it. 
 
 When about 16 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 in- 
 conveniency, and I was frequently chid for my singularity. I 
 made mj^self acquainted with Tryon's manner of preparing 
 some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, making; 
 hasty-pudding, and a few others, and then proposed to my, 
 brother, that if he would give me, weekly, half the money he 
 paid for my board, I would board myself. He instantly 
 agreed to it, and I presently found that I could save half 
 what he paid me. This was an additional fund for buying 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 19 
 
 T30oks. But I had another advantage in it. My brother and 
 the rest going from the printing-house to their meals, I re- 
 mained 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 clear- 
 ness of head and quicker apprehension which usually attend 
 temperance in eating and drinking. 
 
 And now it was that, being on some occasion made ashamed 
 of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed in learn- 
 ing when at school, I took Cocker's book of Arithmetic, and 
 went through the whole by myself with great ease. I also 
 read Sellers and Shermy's books of Navigation, and became 
 acquainted with the little geometry they contain; but never 
 proceeded far in that science. And I read about this time 
 Locke " On Human Understanding," and the " Art of Think- 
 ing," 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), at the end 
 of which there were two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric 
 and logic, the latter finishing with a specimen of a dispute in 
 the Socratic method; and soon after I procured Xenophon's 
 " Memorable Things of Socrates," wherein there are many in- 
 stances of the same method. I was charmed with it, adopted 
 it, dropped my abrupt contradiction and positive argumenta- 
 tion, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter. And being 
 then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins,'' become a real 
 doubter in many points of our religious doctrine, I found this 
 method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those 
 against whom I used it; therefore I took a delight in it, prac- 
 ticed it continually, and grew very artful and expert in draw- 
 ing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the 
 
 1. Members of the Port Royal School of Philosophy, who studied and 
 wrote at the Abbey of Port Royal, near Versailles, in the seventeenth century. 
 
 8. Earl of Shaftesbury and Anthony Collins, skeptical writers whose 
 works, written in a brilliant and persuasive style, were at that time very 
 popular and influential. 
 
20 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in 
 diflBculties out of which they could not extricate themselves, 
 and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause 
 always deserved. I continued this method some few years, 
 but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing 
 myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, W'hen I ad- 
 vanced anything that may possibly be . disputed, the w'ords 
 certainly^ undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of posi- 
 tiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or appre- 
 hend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or / should 
 think it so or so, for such and such reasons; or / imagine it 
 to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit, I be- 
 lieve, 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 pro- 
 moting; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform 
 or to be informed, to please, or to persuade, I wish well- 
 meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing 
 good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to 
 disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one of 
 those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giv- 
 ing or receiving information or pleasure.* For, if you w^ould 
 inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your 
 sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid 
 attention. If you wish information and improvement from 
 the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express 
 yourself as firmly fixed in your present opinions, modest, sen- 
 sible men, w^ho do not love disputation, will probably leave 
 you undisturbed in the possession of your error. And by 
 such a manner you can seldom hope to recommend yourself 
 
 1. The truth of this passage is illustrated by the whole of Franklin's 
 remarkable diplomatic career. In this respect he was a striking contrast 
 to the "positive, assuming" John Adams, whose honest indiscretions of 
 speech often caused Franklm much trouble, while associateil with him in 
 France. Adams wrote home complainingly of his colleague: " He loves his 
 ease, hates to offend, and seldom gives any opinion till obliged to do it. . . . 
 Although he has as determined a soul as any man, yet it is his constant 
 policy never to say 'yes ' or ' no ' decidedly, but when he cannot avoid it." 
 
BENJAMIIf FRANKLIN. 21 
 
 in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose concur- 
 rence you desire. Pope says, judiciously: 
 
 " Men should be taught as if you taught them not. 
 And things unknown proposed as things forgot; '• 
 
 farther recommending to us 
 
 " To speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence." 
 
 And he might have coupled with this line that which he has 
 coupled with another, I think, less properly: 
 
 " For want of modesty is want of sense." 
 
 If you ask, Why less properly ? I must repeat the lines: 
 
 •' Immodest words admit of no defense, 
 For want of modesty is want of sense." 
 
 Now, is not want of sense (where a man is so unfortunate as 
 to want it) some apology for his wa?it of modesty f and would 
 not the lines stand more justly thus ? 
 
 " Immodest words admit but this defense, 
 That want of modesty is want of sense." 
 
 This, however, I should submit to better judgments. 
 
 My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a news- 
 paper. It was the second that appeared in America, and was 
 called the New England Courant. The only one before it 
 was the Boston News Letter ^ I remember his being dis- 
 suaded by some of his friends from the undertaking, as not 
 likely to succeed, one newspaper being, in their judgment, 
 enough for America. At this time (1771) there are not less 
 than five-and-twenty. He went on, however, with the under- 
 taking, and after having worked in composing the types and 
 printing off the sheets, I was employed to carry the papers 
 through the streets to the customers. 
 
 He had some ingenious men among his friends, who amused 
 
 3. Franklin's memory misled him here. Tiie Courant was the fourth 
 newspaper that appeared in Ameiica. The Boston News Letter appeared 
 in 1704; the Boston Gazette, in 1719; the American Mercury a.t Philadelphia, 
 and the Courant, in 1721. In 1775 there were thirty-seven newspapers in 
 circulation; at the end of the Revolution there were forty-three. 
 
22 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 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 ac- 
 counts of the approbation their papers were received with, I 
 was excited to try my hand among them; but, being still a 
 boy, and suspecting that my brother would object to printing 
 anything of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I 
 contrived to disguise my hand, and, writing an anonymous 
 paper, I put it in at night under the door of the printing- 
 house. It was found in the morning, and communicated to 
 his writing friends when they called in as usual. They read 
 it, commented on it in my hearing, and I had the exquisite 
 pleasure of finding it met with their approbation, and that, in 
 their different guesses at the author, none were named but 
 men of some character among us for learning and ingenuity. 
 I suppose now that I was rather lucky in my judges, and th;it 
 perhaps they were not really so very good ones as I then es- 
 teemed them. 
 
 Encouraged, however, by this, I wrote and conveyed in the 
 same way to the prigss several more papers, which were equally 
 approved ; and I kept my secret till my small fund of sense 
 for such performances was pretty well exhausted, and then 1 
 discovered it, when I began to be considered a little more by 
 my brother's acquaintance, and in a manner that did not 
 quite please him, as he thought, probably with reason, that it 
 tended to make me too vain. And perhaps this might be one 
 occasion of the differences that we began to have about this 
 time. Though a brother, he considered himself as my master, 
 and me as his apprentice, and accordingly expected the same 
 services from me as he would from another, while I thought 
 he demeaned me too much in some he required of me, who 
 from a brother expected more indulgence. Our disputes were 
 often brought before our father, and I fancy I was either 
 generally in the right, or else a better pleader, because the 
 judgment was generally in my favor. But my brother was 
 passionate, and had often beaten me, which I took extremely 
 amiss ; and, thinking my apprenticeship very tedious, I was 
 
BENJAMIN FRANFCLTN. 23 
 
 continually wishing for some opportunity of shortening it, 
 which at length offered in a manner unexpected.' 
 
 One of the pieces in our newspaper on some political point, 
 which I have now forgotten, gave offense to the Assembly. 
 He was taken up, censured, and imprisoned for a month, by 
 the Speaker's warrant, I suppose, because he would not dis- 
 cover his author. I too was taken up and examined before 
 the council ; but, though I did not give them any satisfaction, 
 they contented themselves with admonishing me, and dis- 
 missed 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 man- 
 agement of the paper ; and I made bold to give our rulers 
 some rubs in it, which my brother took very kindly, while 
 others began to consider me in an unfavorable light, as a 
 young genius that had a turn for libeling and satire. My 
 brother's discharge was accompanied with an order of the 
 House (a very odd one), that ""James Franklin sJwuId no 
 longer print the ])aper called the New England Courant.'''' 
 
 There was a consultation held in our printing-house among 
 his friends, what he should do in this case. Some proposed 
 to evade the order by changing the name of the paper ; but 
 my brother seeing inconveniences in that, it was finally con- 
 cluded on as a better way, to let it be printed for the future 
 under the name of Benjamin Franklin ; and to avoid the cen- 
 sure of the Assembly, that might fall on him as still printing 
 it by his apprentice, the contrivance was that my old indenture 
 should be returned to me, with a full discharge on the back 
 of it, to be shown on occasion, but to secure to him the bene- 
 fit of my service I was to sign new indentures for the re- 
 mainder of the term, which were to be kept private. A very 
 flimsy scheme it was ; however, it was immediately executed, 
 and the paper went on accordingly, under my name for 
 several months. 
 
 » Franklin here adds in a note : " I fancy his harsh and tyrannical treat- 
 ment of me might be a means of impressing me with that aversion to arbi- 
 trary power that has stuck to me through my whole life." 
 
24 BENJAMIN" FRANKLIN. 
 
 At length, a fresh difFerence arising between my brother 
 and me, I took upon me to assert my freedom, presuming that 
 lie 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 accord- 
 ingly 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 myselt' a little obnoxious to the gov- 
 erning party, and, from the arbitrary proceedings of the 
 Assembly in my brother's case, it was likely I might, if I 
 stayed, soon bring myself into scrapes; and farther, that my 
 indiscreet disputations about religion began to make me 
 pointed at with horror by good people as an infidel or atheist. 
 I determined on the point, but my father now siding with my 
 brother, I was sensible that, if I attempted to go openly, means 
 would be used to prevent me. My friend Collins, therefore, 
 undertook to manage a little forme. He agreed with the cap- 
 tain of a New York sloop for my passage, under the notion of 
 my being a young acquaintance of his, that had got [into 
 trouble], and therefore I could not appear or come away pub- 
 licly. So I sold some of my books to raise a little money, was 
 taken on board privately, and as we had a fair wind, in three 
 days I found myself in New York, near 300 miles from home, 
 a boy of but 17, without the least recommendation to, or 
 knowledge of any person in the place, and with very little 
 money in my pocket. 
 
 My inclinations for the sea were by this time worn out, or I 
 might now have gratified them. But, having a trade, and 
 supposing myself a pretty good workman, I offered my service 
 
13ENJAMIK FRAKKLIK. 25 
 
 to the printer in the place, old Mr. AVilliara Bradford, who had 
 been the first printer in Pennsylvania, but removed from 
 thence upon the quarrel of George Keith. He could give me 
 no employment, having little to do, and help enough already; 
 but says he, " My son at Philadelphia has lately lost his prin- 
 cipal hand, Aquila Rose, by death ; if you go thither, I be- 
 lieve he may employ you." Philadelphia was a 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. In our way a drunken Dutch- 
 man, who was a passenger too, fell overboard ; when he was 
 sinking, I reached through the water to his shock pate and 
 drew him up, so that we got him in again. His ducking 
 sobered him a little, and he went to sleep, taking first out of 
 his pocket a book, which he desired I would dry for him. It 
 proved to be my old favorite author, Bunyan's ''Pilgrim's 
 Progress," in Dutch, finely printed on good paper, with copper 
 cuts, a dress better than I had ever seen it wear in its own 
 language. I have since found that it has been translated into 
 most of the languages of Europe, and suppose it has been 
 more generally read than any other book, except perhaps the 
 Bible. Honest John was the first that I know of who mixed 
 narration and dialogue; a method of writing very engaging to 
 the reader, who in the most interesting parts finds himself, as 
 it were, brought into the company and present at the dis- 
 course. De Foe in his " Crusoe," his " Moll Flanders," "Re- 
 ligious Courtship," "Family Instructor," and other pieces, 
 has imitated it with success ; and Richardson has done the 
 same in his "Pamela," etc. 
 
 When we drew near the island, we found it was at a place 
 where there could be no landing, there being a great surf on 
 the stony beach. So we dropped anchor, and swung round 
 towards the shore. Some people came down to the water 
 edge and halloed to us, as we did to them ; but the wind was 
 so high, and the surf so loud, that we could not hear so as to 
 
26 BENJAMIxN" FRANKLIN-. 
 
 understand each other. There were canoes on the shore, and 
 we made signs, and halloed that they should fetch us; but 
 they either did not understand us, or thought it impractica- 
 ble, so they went away, and night coming on, we had no 
 remedy but to wait till the wind should abate; and, in the 
 meantime, the boatman and I concluded to sleep, if we could ; 
 and so crowded into the scuttle, with the Dutchman, who was 
 still wet, and the spray beating over the head of our boat, 
 leaked through to us, so that we were soon almost as wet as 
 he. In this manner we lay all night, with very little rest ; 
 but the wind abating the next day, we made a shift to reach 
 Amboy before night, having been thirty hours on the water, 
 without victuals, or any drink but a bottle of filthy rum, the 
 water we sailed on being salt. 
 
 In the evening T found myself very feverish, and went in to 
 bed ; but, having read somewhere that cold water drank 
 plentifully was good for a fever, I followed the prescription, 
 sweat plentifully most of the night, my fever left me, and in 
 the morning, crossing the ferry, I proceeded on my journey 
 on foot, having fifty miles to Burlington, where I was told I 
 should find boats that would carry me the rest of the way to 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 It rained very hard all the day; I was thoroughly soaked, 
 and by noon a good deal tired; so I stopped at a poor inn, 
 where I stayed all night, beginning now to wish that I had 
 never left home. I cut so miserable a figure, too, that I 
 found, by the questions asked me, I was suspected to be some 
 runaway servant, and in danger of being taken up on that 
 suspicion. However, T proceeded the next day, and got in 
 the evening to an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington, 
 kept by one Dr. Brown. He entered into conversation with 
 me while I took some refreshment, and, finding I had read a 
 little became very sociable and friendly. Our acquaintance 
 continued as long as he lived. He had been, I imagine, an 
 itinerant doctor, for there was no town in England, or 
 country in Europe, of whiclThe could not give a very particu- 
 lar account. He had some letters, and was ingenious but 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 27 
 
 much of an unbeliever, and wickedly undertook, some years 
 after, to travesty the Bible in doggerel verse, as Cotton had 
 done Virgil. By this means he set many of the tacts in a 
 very ridiculous light, and might have hurt weak minds if his 
 work had been published; but it never was. 
 
 At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reached 
 Burlington, but had the mortification to find that the regular 
 boats were gone a little before my coming, and no other 
 expected to go before Tuesday, this being Saturday; where- 
 fore I returned to an old woman in the town, of whom I had 
 bought gingerbread to eat on the water, and asked lier advice. 
 Slie invited me to lodge at her house till a passage by water 
 should offer; and being tired with my foot traveling, I 
 accepted the invitation. She, understanding I was a printer, 
 would have had me stay at that town and follow my business, 
 being ignorant of the stock necessary to begin with. She 
 was very hospitable, gave me a dinner of ox-cheek with great 
 good-will, accepting only of a pot of ale in return; and I 
 thought myself fixed till Tuesday should come. However, 
 walking in the evening by the side of the river, a boat came 
 by, which I found was going towards Philadelphia, with 
 several people in her. They took me in, and, as there was no 
 wind, we rowed all the way; and about midnight, not having 
 yet seen the city, some of the company were confident we 
 must have passed it, and would row no farther; the others 
 knew not where we were; so we put toward the shore, got 
 into a creek, landed wear an old fence, with the rails of which 
 we made a fire, the night being cold, in October, and there 
 we remained till daylight. Then one of the company knew 
 the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little above Philadelphia, 
 which we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and arrived 
 there about eight or nine o'clock on the Sunday morning, and 
 landed at the Market-street wharf.' 
 
 1. There were at this time but two roads between New York and Phila- 
 delphia, one of which was little more than a bridle-path; the other, which 
 Franklin followed from Amboy to Bm-lington, led for miles through an un- 
 inhabited country. The ahnanacs of the time, which served as guide-books, 
 mention but four places where the traveler could get rest and refreshment, 
 one of which was Dr. Brown's. 
 
28 BEKJAMIK FRANKLIK. 
 
 I have been the more particular in this description of my 
 journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that city, that 
 you may in your mind compare such unlikely beginnings with 
 the figure I have since made there. I was in my working 
 dress, my best clothes being to come round by sea. I was 
 dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuffed out with 
 shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to look 
 for lodging. 1 was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and 
 want of rest; I was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash 
 consisted of a Dutch dollar and about a shilling in copper. 
 The latter I gave the people of the boat for my passage, who 
 at first refused it, on account of my rowing; but I insisted on 
 their taking it. A man being sometimes more generous when 
 he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps 
 through fear of being thought to have but little. 
 
 Then I walked up the street, gazing about till near the 
 market-house I met a boy with bread. I had made many a 
 meal on bread, and, inquiring where he got it, I went 
 immediately to the baker's he directed me to, in Second 
 Street, and asked for biscuit, intending such as we had in 
 Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. 
 Then I asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had 
 none such. So not considering or knowing the difference of 
 money and the greater cheapness, nor the names of his bread, 
 I bade him give me 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 eating the other. 
 Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing 
 by the door of Mr. Eead, my future wife's father ; when she, 
 standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I cer- 
 tainly 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 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 29 
 
 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 walk- 
 ing 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 awhile and hear- 
 ing nothing said, being very drowsy through labor and want of 
 rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so 
 till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse 
 me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, 
 in Philadelphia. 
 
 Walking down again toward the river, and, looking in the 
 faces of people, I met a young Quaker man whose countenance 
 I liked, and, accosting him, requested he would tell me where 
 a stranger could get lodging. We were then near the sign of 
 the Three Mariners, " Here," says he, " is one place that en- 
 tertains strangers, but it is not a reputable house; if thee wilt 
 walk with me I'll show thee a better." He brought me to the 
 Crooked Billet,^ in Water Street. Here I got a dinner; and, 
 while I was eating it, several sly questions were asked me, as 
 it seemed to be suspected from my youth and appearance that 
 I might be some runaway. 
 
 After dinner my sleepiness returned, and being shown to a 
 bed, I lay down without undressing, and slept till six in the 
 evening, was called to supper, went to bed again very early, 
 and slept soundly till next morning. Then I made myself as 
 tidy as I could, and went to Andrew Bradford, the printer's. 
 I found in the shop the old man his father, whom I had seen 
 at New York, and who, travelling 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; 
 
 1. At this time city houses were not numbered, and the streets presented 
 a curious display of crowns, scepters, rainbows, dog:s, elephants, painted 
 Indians, horse-shoes, etc., by which houses frequented by the public were 
 individuaUzed. Just as in old London, where Milton was born "at the 
 sign of the Spread Eagle." 
 
30 BEXJAMIX FRANKLIN. 
 
 but there was another printer in town, lately set up, one 
 Keimer, who, perhaps, might employ me; if not, I should be 
 welcome to lodge at his house, and he would give me a little 
 work to do now and then till fuller business should offer. 
 
 The old gentleman said he would go with me to the new 
 printer; and when w^e found him, "Neighbor," says Bradford, 
 " I have brought to see you a young man of your business; 
 perhaps you maj^ want such a one." He asked me a few ques- 
 tions, 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 townspeople that 
 had a good will for him, entered into a conversation on his 
 present undertaking and prospects ; while Bradford, not dis- 
 covering that he was the other printer's father, on Keimer's 
 saying he expected soon to get the greatest part of the business 
 into his own hands, drew him on by artful questions, and 
 starting little doubts, to explain all his views, what interest 
 he relied on, and in what manner he intended to proceed. I, 
 who stood by and heard all, saw immediately that one of them 
 was a crafty old sophister, and the other a mere novice. 
 Bradford left me with Keimer, who was greatly surprised 
 when I told him who the old man was. 
 
 Keimer's printing-house, I found, consisted of an old shat- 
 tered prass and one small, worn-out font of English,^ which 
 he was then using himself, composing an Elegy on Aquila 
 Rose, before mentioned, an ingenious young man, of excellent 
 character, much respected in the town, clerk of the Assembly, 
 and a pretty poet. Keimer made verses too, but very indif- 
 ferently. He could not be said to write them, for his manner 
 was to compose them in the types directly out of his head. 
 So there being no copy, but one pair of cases, and the Elegy 
 likely to require all the letter, no one could help him. I en- 
 deavored to put his press (which he had not yet used, and of 
 which he understood nothing) into order fit to be worked 
 
 1. English.— A kind of type. 
 
BENJAMIN FliANKLIN. 31 
 
 with; and promising to come and print off his Elegy as soon 
 as he should have got it read}-, 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 busi- 
 ness. Bradford had not been bred to it, and was very illiter- 
 ate; and Keimer, though something of a scholar, was a mere 
 compositor, knowing nothing of presswork. He had been 
 one of the French prophets,' and could act their enthusiastic 
 agitations. At this time he did not profess any particular 
 religion, but something of all on occasion; was very ignorant 
 of the world, and had, as I afterward found, a good deal of 
 the knave in his composition. He did not like my lodging at 
 Bradford's while I worked with him. He had a house, in- 
 deed, but without furniture, so he could not lodge me; but he 
 got me a lodging at Mr. Read's, before mentioned, who was 
 the owner of his house; and, my chest and clothes being come 
 by this time, I made rather a more respectable appearance in 
 the eyes of Miss Read than I had done when she first happened 
 to see me eating my roll in the street. 
 
 I began now to have some acquaintance among the young 
 people of the town, that were lovers of reading, with whom I 
 spent my evenings very pleasantly ; and gaining money by my 
 industry and frugality, I lived very agreeably, forgetting. Bos- 
 ton as much as I could, and not desiring that any there should 
 know where I resided, except my friend Collins, who was in 
 my secret, and kept it when I wrote to him. At length an in- 
 cident happened that sent me back again much sooner than I 
 had intended. I had a brother-in-law, Robert Holmes, master 
 of a sloop that traded between Boston and Delaware. He be- 
 ing at Newcastle, forty miles below Philadelphia, heard there 
 of me, and wrote me a letter mentioning the concern of my 
 friends in Boston at my abrupt departure, assuring me of their 
 
 1. French prophets.— Probably' a sect of French Protestants known as 
 Canilsards, persecuted by Louis XlV. 
 
33 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 good-will to me, and that everything would be accommodated 
 to my mind if I would return, to which he exhorted me very 
 earnestly. I wrote an answer to his letter, thanked him for 
 his advice, but stated my reasons for quitting Boston full}', 
 and in such a light as to convince him I was not so wrong as 
 he had apprehended. 
 
 Sir William Keith, governor of the province, wa^: 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 en- 
 couraged; the printers at Philadelphia were wretched ones; 
 and, if I would set up there, he made no doubt I should suc- 
 ceed; 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 noth- 
 ing of it; when, one day, Keimer and I being at work together 
 near the window, we saw the governor and another gentleman 
 (which proved to be Colonel French, of Newcastle), finely 
 dressed, come directly across the street to our house, and 
 heard them at the door. 
 
 Keimer ran down immediately, thinking it a visit to him ; 
 but the governor inquired for me, came up, and with a con- 
 descension 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 hitn 
 when I first came to the place, and would have me away with 
 him to the tavern, where he was going with Colonel French to 
 taste, as he said, some excellent Madeira. I was not a little 
 surprised, and Keimer stared like a pig poisoned. I went, 
 however, with the governor and Colonel French to a tavern, 
 at the corner of Third Street, and over the Madeira he pro- 
 posed my setting up my business, laid before me the proba- 
 bilities of success, and both he and Colonel French assured 
 me I should have their interest and influence in procuring 
 the public business of both governments. On my doubting 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 33 
 
 whether my father would assist me in it, Sir William said he 
 would give me a letter to him, in which he would state the 
 advantages, and he did not doubt of prevailing with him. So 
 it was concluded I should return to Boston in the first vessel, 
 with the governor's letter recommending me to my father. 
 In the mean time the intention w^as to be kept a secret, and I 
 w^ent on working with Keimer as usual, the governor sending 
 for me now and then to dine with him, a very great honor I 
 thought it, and conversing with me in the most affable, 
 familiar, and friendly manner imaginable. 
 
 About the end of April, 1724, a little vessel offered for 
 Boston. I took leave of Keimer as going to see my friends. 
 The governor gave me an ample letter, saying many flattering 
 things of me to my father, and strongly recommending the 
 project of my setting up at Philadelphia as a thing that must 
 make my fortune. TVe 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 re- 
 turned, and had not written about me. My unexpected ap- 
 pearance surprised the family ; all were, however, very glad to 
 see me, and made me welcome, except my brother. I went to 
 see him at his printing-house. I was better dressed than ever 
 while in his service, having a genteel new suit from head to 
 foot, a watch, and my pockets lined with near five pounds 
 sterling in silver. He received me not very frankly, looked 
 me all over, and turned to his work again. 
 ' The journeymen were inquisitive where I had been, what 
 sort of a country it was, and how I liked it. I praised it 
 much, and the happy life I led in it, expressing strongly my 
 intention of returning to it ; and, one of them asking what 
 kind of money we had there, I produced a handful of silver, 
 and spread it before them, which was a kind of raree-show 
 they had not been used to, paper being the money of Boston. 
 Then I took an opportunity of letting them see my watch; 
 
34 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 and, lastly (my brother still grum and sullen), I gave them a 
 piece of eight * to drink, and took my leave. This visit of 
 mine offended him extremely ; for, when my mother some 
 time after spoke to him of a reconciliation, and of her wishes 
 to see us on good terms together, and that we might live for 
 the future as brothers, he said I had insulted him in such a 
 manner before his people that he could never forget or forgive 
 it. In this, however, he was mistaken. 
 
 My father received the governor's letter with some apparent 
 surprise, but said little of it to me for several days, when 
 Capt. Holmes returning he showed it to him, asked him if he 
 knew Keith, and what kind of man he was ; adding his opin- 
 ion that he must be of small discretion to think of setting a 
 boy up in business who wanted yet three years of being at 
 man's estate. Holmes said what he could in favor of the 
 project, but my father was clear in the impropriety of it, and 
 at last gave a flat denial to it. Then he wrote a civil letter to 
 Sir AVilliam, thanking him for tlie 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 man- 
 agement of a business so important, and for which the prep- 
 aration must be so expensive. 
 
 My friend and companion Collins, who was a clerk in the 
 post-office, pleased with the account I gave him of my new 
 country, determined to go thither also ; and, while I waited 
 for my father's determination, he set out before me by land 
 to Rhode Island, leaving his books, which were a pretty col- 
 lection of mathematics and natural philosophy, to come with 
 mine and me to New York, where he proposed to wait for me. 
 
 My father, though he did not approve Sir William's propo- 
 sition, was yet pleased that I had been able to obtain so 
 
 1. Piece of eight.— A Spanish dollar, or piaster, equal in value to eigrht 
 reals. All coins were of foreigrn coinage, and therefore in great variety. 
 Besides the familiar shillinp:s and sixpences, there were such coins as the 
 picayune, pistareen, joe. moidore. and pistole. Each province fixed its own 
 value for the various coins, and issti^d its own paper money. It was an 
 important part of the traininsr ju school to learn to translate the money 
 values of one province into those df another. There was no national money 
 until 1793. 
 
BEKJAMIK FRAKKLIK. 35 
 
 advantageous a character from a person of such note where I 
 had resided, and that I had been so industrious and careful 
 as to equip myself so handsomely in so short a time ; there- 
 fore, seeing no prospect of an accommodation between my 
 brother and me, he gave his consent to my returning again to 
 Philadelphia, advised me to behave respectfully to the people 
 there, endeavor to obtain the general esteem, and avoid 
 lampooning and libeling, to which he thought I had too much 
 inclination ; telling me, that by steady industry and a pru- 
 dent parsimony I might save enough by the time I was one- 
 and-twenty to set me up ; and that, if I came near the matter, 
 he would help me out with the rest. This was all I could ob- 
 tain, except some small gifts as tokens of his and my mother's 
 love, when I embarked again for New York, now Mdth their 
 approbation and their blessing. 
 
 The sloop putting in at Newport, Rhode Island, I visited 
 my brother John, who had been married and settled there 
 some years. He received me very affectionately, for he 
 always loved me. A friend of his, one Vernon, having some 
 money due to him in Pennsylvania, about thirty-five pounds 
 currency, desired I w^ould receive it for him, and keep it till I 
 had his directions what to remit it in. Accordingly, he gave 
 me an order. This afterwards occasioned me a good deal of 
 uneasiness. 
 
 At Newport we took in a number of passengers for New 
 York, among which were two young women, companions, 
 and a grave, sensible, matron-like Quaker woman, with her 
 attendants. I had shown an obliging readiness to do her 
 some little services, which impressed her I suppose with a 
 degree of good-will toward me ; therefore, when she saw a 
 daily growing familiarity between me and the two young 
 women, w^hich they appeared to encourage, she took me aside, 
 and said, " Young man, I am concerned for thee, as thou has 
 no friend with thee, and seems not to know much of the 
 world, or of the snares youth is exposed to ; depend upon it, 
 those are very bad women ; I can see it in all their actions ; 
 and if thee art not upon thy guard, they will draw thee into 
 
36 BEKJAMIK FRANKLIK. 
 
 some danger ; they are strangers to thee, and I advise thee, in 
 a friendly concern for thy welfare, to have no acquaintance 
 with them." As I seemed at first not to think so ill of them 
 as she did, she mentioned some things she had observed and 
 heard that had escaped my notice, but now convinced me she 
 was right. I thanked her for her kind advice, and promised 
 to follow it. When we arrived at New York, they told me 
 where they lived, and invited me to come and see them ; but 
 I avoided it, and it was well I did ; for the next day the cap- 
 tain missed a silver spoon and some other things, that had 
 been taken out of his cabin, and, ... he got a warrant to 
 search their lodgings, found the stolen goods, and had the 
 thieves punished. So, though we had escaped a sunken rock, 
 which we scraped upon in the passage, I thought this escape 
 of rather more importance to me. 
 
 At New York I found my friend Collins, who had arrived 
 there some time before me. We had been intimate from chil- 
 dren, and had read the same books together ; but he had the 
 advantage of more time for reading and studying, and a won- 
 derful genius for mathematical learning, in which he far out- 
 outstripped me. While I lived in Boston, most of my hours of 
 leisure for conversation were spent with him, and he contin- 
 ued a sober as well as an industrious lad ; was much respected 
 for his learning by several of the clergy and other gentlemen, 
 and seemed to promise making a good figure in life. But, 
 during my absence, he had acquired a habit of sotting with 
 brandy ; and I found by his own account, and what I heard 
 from others, that he had been drunk every day since his 
 arrival at New York, and behaved very oddly. He had 
 gamed, too, and lost his money, so that I was obliged to dis- 
 charge his lodgings, and defray his expenses to and at Phila- 
 delphia, which proved extremely inconvenient to me. 
 
 The then governor of New York, Burnet (son of Bishop 
 Burnet), hearing from the captain that a young man, one of 
 his passengers, had a great many books, desired he would 
 bring me to see him. I waited upon him accordingly, and 
 should have taken Collins with me but that he was not sober. 
 
benjami:n^ ekanklik. 37 
 
 The governor treated me with great civility, showed me his 
 library, which was a very large one, and we had a good deal 
 of conversation about books and authors. This was the sec- 
 ond governor who had done me the honor to take notice of 
 me; which, to a poor boy like me, was very pleasing. 
 
 We proceeded to Philadelphia. I received on the way Ver- 
 non's money, without which we could hardly have finished 
 our journey. Collins wished to be employed in some counting- 
 house ; but, whether they discovered his dramming by his 
 breath, or by his behavior, though he had some recommenda- 
 tions, he met with no success in any application, and contin- 
 ued lodging and boarding at the same house with me, and at 
 my expense. Knowing I had that money of Vernon's, he was 
 continually borrowing of me, still promising repayment as 
 soon as he should be in business. At length he had got so 
 much oi it that I was distressed to think what I should do in 
 ease of being called on to remit it. 
 
 His drinking continued, about which we sometimes quar- 
 reled ; for, when a little intoxicated, he was very fractious. 
 Once, in a boat on the Delaware with some other young men, 
 he refused to row in his turn. " I will be rowed home," says, 
 he. " We will not row you," says I. " You must, or stay all 
 night on the water," says he, "just as you please." The 
 others said, " Let us row ; w^hat signifies it ?" But, my mind 
 being soured with his other conduct, I continued to refuse. 
 So he swore he would make me row, or throw" me overboard; 
 and coming along, stepping on the thwarts, toward me, when 
 he came up and struck at me, I clapped my hand under his 
 crotch, and, rising, pitched him head-foremost into the river. 
 I knew he was a good swimmer, and so was under little con- 
 cern about him ; but before he could get round to lay hold of 
 the boat, we had with a few strokes pulled her out of his 
 reach ; and ever when he drew near the boat, we asked if he 
 would row, striking a few strokes to slide her away from him. 
 He was ready to die with vexation, and obstinately would not 
 promise to row. However, seeing him at last beginning to 
 tire, we lifted him in and brought him home dripping wet in 
 
38 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 the evening. We hardly exchanged a civil word afterwards, 
 and a West India captain, who had a commission to procure 
 a tutor for the sons of a gentleman at Barbadoes, happening 
 to meet with him, agreed to carry him thither. He left me 
 then, promising to remit me the first money he should receive 
 in order to discharge the debt; but I never heard of him after. 
 
 The breaking into this money of Vernon's was one of the 
 first great errata of my life ; and this affair showed that my 
 father was not much out in his judgment when he supposed 
 me too young to manage business of importance. But Sir 
 William, on reading his letter, said he was too prudent. 
 There was great difference in persons ; and discretion did not 
 always accompany years, nor was youth always without it. 
 " And since he will not set you up," says he, "I will do it my- 
 self. Give me an inventory of the things necessary to be had 
 from England, and I will send for them. You shall repay me 
 when you are able ; I am resolved to have a good printer here, 
 and I am sure you must succeed." This was spoken with such 
 an appearance of cordiality, that 1 had not the least doubt of 
 his meaning what he said. I had hitherto kept the proposi- 
 tion 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 ad- 
 vised 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 me, how could 
 I think his generous offers insincere ? I believed him one of 
 the best men in the world. 
 
 I presented him an inventory of a little printing-house, 
 amounting by my computation to about one hundred pounds 
 sterling. He liked it, but asked me if my being on the spot in 
 England to choose the types, and see that everything was 
 good of the kind, might not be of some advantage. "Then," 
 says he, "when there, you may make acquaintances, and es- 
 tablish correspondences in the bookselling and stationery way." 
 I agreed that this might be advantageous. " Then," says he, 
 "get yourself ready to go with Annis; " which was the annu^ 
 
BEJS^JAMIIs FRANKLIN. 39 
 
 ship, and the only one at that time usually passing between 
 London and Philadelphia. But it would be some months be- 
 fore Annis sailed, so I continued working with Keiraer, fret- 
 ting about the money Collins had got from me, and in daily 
 apprehensions of being called upon by Yernon, which, how- 
 ever, did not happen for some years after. 
 
 I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voy- 
 age from Boston, being becalmed off Block Island, our people 
 set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto 
 I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and 
 on this occasion I considered, with my master Tryon, the tak- 
 ing every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of 
 them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify 
 the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had 
 formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot 
 out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanced 
 some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected 
 that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out 
 of their stomachs ; then thought I, "If you eat one another, I 
 don't see wiiy we mayn't eat you." So I dined upon cod very 
 heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning 
 only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So con- 
 venient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it en- 
 ables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a 
 mind to do. 
 
 Keimer and I lived on a pretty good familiar footing, and 
 agreed tolerably well, for he suspected nothing of my setting 
 up. He retained a great deal of his old enthusiasms and 
 loved argumentation. We therefore had many disputations. 
 I used to work him so with my Socratic method, and had tre- 
 panned him so often by questions apparently so distant from 
 any point we had in hand, and yet by degrees led to the 
 point, and brought him into difficulties and contradictions, 
 that, at last he grew ridiculously cautious, and would hardly 
 answer me the most common question, without asking first : 
 " What do you intend to infer from that?'^ However, it 
 gave him so high an opinion of my abilities in the confuting 
 
40 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 way, that he seriously proposed my being his colleague in a 
 project he had of setting up a new sect. He was to preach the 
 doctrines, and I was to confound all opponents. When he 
 came to explain with me upon the doctrines, I found several 
 conundrums which I objected to, unless I might have my way 
 a little too, and introduce some of mine. 
 
 Keimer wore his beard at full length, because somewhere in 
 the Mosaic law it is said, " Thou shalt not mar the corners of 
 thy beard."" He likewise kept the Seventh day. Sabbath ; and 
 these two points were essentials with him. I disliked both ; 
 but agreed to admit them upon condition of his adopting the 
 doctrine of using no animal food. " I doubt," said he, " my 
 constitution will not bear that." I assured him it would, and 
 that he would be better for it. He was usually a great glut- 
 ton, and I promised myself some diversion in half-starving 
 him. He agreed to try the practice, if I would keep him com- 
 pany. I did so, and we held it for three months. We had our 
 victuals dressed, and brought to us regularly by a woman in 
 the neighborhood, who had from me a list of forty dishes, to 
 be prepared for us at different times, in all which there was 
 neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, and the whim suited me the bet- 
 ter at this time from the cheapness of it, not costing us above 
 eighteen pence sterling each per week. I have since kept sev- 
 eral Lents most strictly, leaving the common diet for that, 
 and that for the common, abruptly, without the least incon- 
 venience, so that I think there is little in the advice of making 
 those changes by easy gradations. I went on pleasantly, but 
 poor Keimer suffered grievously, tired of the project, longed 
 for the flesh-pots of Egypt, and ordered a roast pig. He in- 
 vited me and two women friends to dine with him ; but, it 
 being brought too soon upon the table, he could not resist the 
 temptation, and ate the whole before we came. 
 
 I had made some courtship during this time to Miss Read. 
 I had a great respect and affection for her, and had some 
 reason to believe she had the same for me ; but, as I was 
 about to take a long voyage, and we were both very young, 
 only a little above eighteen, it was thought most prudent by 
 
BEN^JAMIN FRANKLIIT. 41 
 
 her mother to prevent our going too far at present, as a mar- 
 riage, if it was to take place, would be more convenient after 
 my return, when I should be, as I expected, set up in my bus- 
 iness. Perhaps, too, she thought my expectations not so well 
 founded as I imagined them to be. 
 
 My chief acquaintances at this time were Charles Osborne, 
 Joseph Watson, and James Ralph, all lovers of reading. The 
 two first were clerks to an eminent scrivener or conveyancer in 
 the town, Charles Brogden ; the other was clerk to a merchant. 
 Watson was a pious, sensible young man, of great integrity ; 
 the others rather more lax in their principles of religion, par- 
 ticularly Ralph, who, as well as Collins, had been unsettled by 
 me, for which they both made me suffer. Osborne was sensi- 
 ble, candid, frank; sincere and affectionate to his friends ; but, 
 in literary matters, too fond of criticising. Ralph was ingen- 
 ious, genteel in his manners, and extremely eloquent ; I think 
 I never knew a prettier talker. Both of them great admirers 
 of poetry, and began to try their hands in little pieces. Many 
 pleasant walks we four had together on Sundays into the 
 woods, near Schuylkill, where we read to one another and 
 conferred on what we read. 
 
 Ralph was inclined to pursue the study of poetry, not doubt- 
 ing but he might become eminent in it, and make his fortune by 
 it, alleging that the best poets must, when they first began to 
 write, make as many faults as he did. Osborne dissuaded 
 him, assured him he had no genius for poetry, and advised 
 him to think of nothing beyond the business he was bred to ; 
 that, in the mercantile way, though he had no stock, he might, 
 by his diligence and punctuality, recommend himself to em- 
 ployment as a factor, and in time acquire wherewith to trade 
 on his own account. I approved the amusing one's self with 
 poetry now and then, so far as to improve one's language, but 
 no farther. 
 
 On this it was proposed that we should each of us, at our 
 next meeting, produce a piece of our own composing, in order 
 to improve by our mutual observations, criticisms, and cor- 
 rections. As language and expression were what we had in 
 
42 BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. 
 
 view, we excluded all considerations of invention by agreeing 
 that the task should be a version of the eighteenth Psalm, 
 which describes the descent of Deity. When the time of our 
 meeting grew nigh, Ralph called on me first, and let me know 
 his piece was ready. I told him I had been busy, and, having 
 little inclination, had done nothing. He then showed me his 
 piece for my opinion, and I much approved it, as it appeared to 
 me to have great merit. " Now," says he, " Osborne never will 
 allow the least merit in anything of mine, but makes a thou- 
 sand criticisms out of mere envy. He is not so jealous of 
 you ; I wish, therefore, you would take this piece, and produce 
 it as yours ; I will pretend not to have had time, and so produce 
 nothing. We shall then see what he will say to it." It was 
 agreed, and I immediately transcribed it, that it might appear 
 in my own hand. 
 
 We met ; Watson's performance was read ; there were some 
 beauties in it, but many defects. Osborne's was read ; it was 
 much better ; Ralph did it justice ; remarked some faults, but 
 applauded the beauties. He himself had nothing to produce. 
 I was backward ; seemed desirous of being excused ; had not 
 had sufficient time to correct, etc.; but no excuse could be 
 admitted ; produce I must. It was read and repeated ; Wat- 
 son and Osborne gave up the contest, and joined in applaud- 
 ing it. Ralph only made some criticisms, and proposed some 
 amendments ; but I defended my text. Osborne was against 
 Ralpli, and told him he was no better a critic than poet, so he 
 dropped the argument. As they two went home together, Os- 
 borne expressed himself still more strongly in favor of what he 
 thought my production ; having restrained himself before, as 
 he said, lest I should think it flattery. " But who would have 
 imagined," said he, "that Franklin had been capable of such 
 a performance ; such painting, such force, such fire ! He has 
 even improved the original. In his common conversation he 
 seems to have no choice of words ; he hesitates and blunders ; 
 and yet, good God ! how he writes !" When we next met, 
 Ralph discovered the trick we had played him, and Osborne 
 was a little laughed at. 
 
BENJAMIJS" FRANKLIIN-. 43 
 
 This transaction fixed Ralph in his resolution of becoming a 
 poet. I did all I could to dissuade him from it, but he con- 
 tinued scribbling verses till Pope cured him.^ He became, 
 however, a pretty good prose writer. More of him hereafter. 
 But, as I may not have occasion again to mention the other 
 two, I shall just remark here, that Watson died in my arms 
 a few years after, much lamented, being the best of our set. 
 Osborne went to the West Indies, where he became an 
 eminent lawyer and made money, but died young. He- and I 
 had made a serious agreement, that the one who happened 
 first to die should, if possible, make a friendly visit to the 
 other, and acquaint him how he found things in that separate 
 state. But he never fulfilled his promise. 
 
 The governor, seeming to like my company, had me fre- 
 quently to his house, and his setting me up was always 
 mentioned as a fixed thing. I was to take with me letters 
 recommendatory to a number of his friends, besides the letter 
 of credit to furnish me with the necessary money for pur- 
 chasing the press and types, paper, etc. For these letters I 
 was appointed to call at different times, when they were to be 
 ready; but a future time was still named. Thus he went on 
 till the ship, whose departure too had been several times post- 
 poned, was on the point of sailing. Then, when I called to 
 take my leave and receive the letters, his secretary. Dr. Bard, 
 came out to me and said the governor was extremely busy in 
 writing, but would be down at Newcastle before the ship, and 
 there the letters would be delivered to me. 
 
 Ealph, though married, and having one child, had deter- 
 mined to accompany me on his voyage. It was thought he 
 intended to establish a correspondence, and obtain goods to 
 
 1. This was done in Book III. of the famous satire, the "Dunciad," by 
 these lines : 
 
 '* Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls. 
 And makes Night hideous— answer him, ye owls." 
 The poet added in a note: "These lines allude to a thing of his entitled 
 ' Night, a poem.' This low writer attended his own works with panegyrics 
 in the journals, and once in particular praised himself highly above Mr. 
 Addison, He was wholly iUiterate, and knew no language, not even Frencfe," 
 
44 BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. 
 
 sell on commission; but I found afterwards, that, through 
 some discontent with his wife's relations, he proposed to leave 
 her on their hands, and never return again. Having taken 
 leave of my friends, and interchanged some promises with 
 Miss Read, I left Philadelphia in the ship, which anchored at 
 Newcastle. The governor was there; but when I went to his 
 lodging, the secretary came to me from him with the civilest 
 message in the world, that he could not then see me, being 
 engaged in business of the utmost importance, but should 
 send the letters to me on board, wished 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 famous lawyer of Philadelphia, 
 had taken passage in the same ship for himself and son, and 
 with Mr. Denham, a Quaker merchant, and Messrs. Onion 
 and Russel, masters of an iron-w^ork in Maryland, had en- 
 gaged the great cabin; so that Ealph and I were forced to 
 take up with a berth in the steerage, and none on board 
 knowing us, were considered as ordinary persons. But Mr. 
 Hamilton and his son (it was James, since governor) returned 
 from Newcastle to Philadelphia, the father being recalled by 
 a great fee to plead for a seized ship; and, just before we 
 sailed. Colonel French coming on board, and showing me 
 great respect, I was more faken notice of, and, with my 
 friend Ealph, invited by the other gentlemen to come into the 
 cabin, there being now room. Accordingly, we removed 
 thither. 
 
 Understanding that Colonel French had brought on board 
 the governor's despatches, 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 w^e 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 plenti- 
 fully. In this passage Mr, Denham contracted a friendship 
 
BENJAMI]^ FRANKLIN^. 45 
 
 for me that continued during his life. The voyage was other- 
 wise not a pleasant one, as we had a great deal of bad 
 weather. 
 
 "When we came into the Channel, the captain kept his word 
 with me, and gave me an opportunity of examining the bag 
 for the governor's letters. I found none upon which my 
 name was put as under my care. I picked out six or seven, 
 that, by the handwriting, I thought might be the promised 
 letters, especially as one of them was directed to Basket, the 
 king's printer, and another to some stationer. We arrived in 
 London the 24th of December, 1724. I waited upon the 
 stationer, who came first in my way, delivering the letter as 
 from Governor Keith. *'I don't know such a person," says 
 he; but, opening the letter, "O! this is from Riddlesden. I 
 have lately found him to be a complete rascal, and I will have 
 nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters from him." 
 So, putting the letter into my hand, he turned on his heel and 
 left me to serve some customer. I was surprised to find these 
 were not the governor's letters; and, after recollecting and 
 comparing circumstances, I began to doubt his sincerity. I 
 found my friend Denham, and opened the whole affair to 
 him. He let me into Keith's character; told me there was 
 not the least probabiUty that he had written any letters for 
 me; that no one who knew him had the smallest dependence 
 on him; and he laughed at the notion of the governor's 
 giving me a letter of credit, having, as he said, no credit to 
 give. On my expressing some concern about what I should 
 do, he advised me to endeavor getting some employment in 
 the way of my business. "Among the printers here," said 
 he, "you will improve yourself, and when you return to 
 America, you will set up to greater advantage." 
 
 We both of us happened to know, as well as the stationer, 
 that Eiddlesden, the attorney, was a very knave. He had 
 half ruined Miss Read's father by persuading him to be bound 
 for him. By this letter it appeared there was a secret scheme 
 on foot to the prejudice of Hamilton (supposed to be then 
 coming over with us); and that Keith was concerned in it 
 
46 BEXJAMIN FEANKLIN". 
 
 with Kiddlesden. Deiiham, who was a friend of Hamilton's, 
 thought he ought to be acquainted with it; so, when he 
 arrived in England, which was soon after, partly from resent- 
 ment and ill-will to Keith and Kiddlesden, and partly from 
 good-will to him, I waited on him, and gave him the letter. 
 He thanked me cordially, the information being of importance 
 TO him; and from that time he became my friend, greatly to 
 my advantage afterwards on many occasions. 
 
 But what shall we think of a governor's playing such pitiful 
 tricks, and imposing so grossly on a poor ignorant boy ! It 
 was a habit he had acquired. He wished to please everybody, 
 and, having little to give, he gave expectations. He was 
 otherwise an ingenious, sensible man, a pretty good writer, 
 and a good governor for the people, though not for his con- 
 stituents, the proprietaries, whose instructions he sometimes 
 disregarded. Several of our best laws were of his planning 
 and passed during his administration. 
 
 Ralph and I were inseparable companions. We took lodg- 
 ings together in Little Britain' at three shillings and sixpence 
 a week— as much as we could then afford. He found some 
 relations, but they were poor, and unable to assist him. He 
 now let me know his intentions of remaining in London, and 
 that he never meant to return to Philadelphia. He had 
 brought no money with him, the whole he could muster 
 having been expended in paying his passage. I had fifteen 
 pistoles ; so he borrowed occasionally of me to subsist while 
 he was looking out for business. He first endeavored to get 
 into the playhouse, believing himself qualified for an actor; 
 but Wilkes,' to whom he applied advised him candidly not to 
 think of that employment, as it was impossible he should 
 succeed in it. Then he proposed to Roberts, a publisher in 
 Paternoster Row, to write for him a weekly paper like the 
 Spectator, on certain conditions, which Roberts did not ap- 
 
 1. Little Britain.— A picturesque part of old London, bee 
 delightful description of it in the " Sketch-book." 
 , 2. Wilkes.— A comedian of tlie period. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 47 
 
 })rove. Then he endeavored to get employment as a hackney 
 writer, to copy for the stationers and hivvyers about the 
 Temple,' but could find no vacancy. 
 
 I immediately got into work at Palmer's, then a famous 
 printing-house in Bartholomew Close, and here I continued 
 near a year. I was pretty diligent, but spent with Ralph a 
 good deal of my earnings in going to plays and other places 
 of amusement. We had together consumed all my pistoles, 
 and now just rubbed on from hand to mouth. He seemed 
 quite to forget his wife and child, and I, by degrees, my en- 
 gagements with Miss Read, to whom I never wrote more than 
 one letter, and that was to let her know I was not likely soon 
 to return. This was another of the great errata of my life, 
 which I should wish to correct if I were to live it over again. 
 In fact, by our expenses, I was constantly kept unable to pay 
 my passage. 
 
 At Palmer's I was employed in composing^ for the second 
 edition of WoUaston's "Religion of Nature." Some of his 
 reasonings not appearing to me well founded, I wrote a little 
 metaphysical piece in which I made remarks on them. It 
 was entitled " Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure 
 and Pain." I inscribed it to my friend Ralph ; I printed a 
 small number. It occasioned my being more considered by 
 Mr. Palmer as a young man of some ingenuity, though he 
 seriously expostulated with me upon the principles of my 
 pamphlet, which to him appeared abominable. My printing 
 tliis pamphlet was another erratum. While I lodged in Little 
 Britain I made an acquaintance with one AVilcox, a bookseller, 
 whose shop was at the next door. He had an immense collec- 
 tion of second-hand books. Circulating libraries w^ere not 
 then in use ; but we agreed that, on certain reasonable terms, 
 which I have now forgotten, I might take, read, and return 
 any of his books. This I esteemed a great advantage, and I 
 made as much use of it as I could. 
 
 1. Temple.— A group of buildinpjs occupied by the lawyers in that part 
 of London where the Knights Templars had their headquarters. 
 
 2. Composing.— That is, setting type. 
 
48 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 My pamphlet by some means falling into the hands of one 
 Lyons, a surgeon, author of a book entitled " The Infallibility 
 of Human Judgment," it occasioned an acquaintance between 
 us. He took great notice of me, called on me often to con- 
 verse on those subjects, carried me to the Horns, a pale-ale 
 house in — — Lane, Cheapside, and introduced me to Dr. 
 Mandeville, author of the "Fable of the Bees," who had a 
 club there, of which he was the soul, being a most facetious, 
 entertaining companion. Lyons, too, introduced me to Dr. 
 Pemberton, at Batson's Coffee-house, who promised to give 
 me an opportunity, some time or other, of seeing Sir Isaac 
 Newton, of which I was extremely desirous ; but this never 
 happened. 
 
 I had brought over a few curiosities, among which the 
 principal was a purse made of the asbestos, which purifies by 
 fire. Sir Hans Sloane heard of it, came to see me, and in- 
 vited me to his house in Bloomsbury Square, where he showed 
 me all his curiosities, and persuaded me to let him add that 
 to the number, for which he paid me handsomely. 
 
 In our house there lodged a young woman, a milliner, who, 
 I think, had a shop in the Cloisters. She had been genteelly 
 bred, was sensible and lively, and of most pleasing conversa- 
 tion. Ralph read plays to her in the evenings, they grew 
 intimate, she took another lodging, and he followed her. 
 They lived together some time ; but, he being still out of 
 business, and her income not sufficient to maintain them with 
 her child, he took a resolution of going from London, to try 
 for a country school, which he thought himself well qualified 
 to undertake, as he wrote an excellent hand, and w^as a master 
 of arithmetic and accounts. This, however, he deemed a 
 business below him, and confident of future better fortune, 
 when he should be unwilling to have it known that he once 
 Avas so meanly employed, he changed his name, and did me 
 the honor to assume mine ; for I soon after had a letter from 
 him, acquainting me that he was settled in a small village 
 (in Berkshire, I think it was, where he taught reading and 
 writing to ten or a dozen boys, at sixpence each per week), 
 
BENJAMIK PllANKLIJf. 49 
 
 recommending Mrs. T to my care, and desiring me to 
 
 write to him, directing for Mr. Franklin, schoolmaster, at 
 such a place. 
 
 He continued to write frequently, sending me large speci- 
 mens of an epic poem which he w^as then composing, and 
 desiring my remarks and corrections. These I gave him from 
 time to time, but endeavored rather to discourage his pro- 
 ceeding. One of Young's Satires was then just published. 
 I copied and sent him a great part of it, which set in a strong 
 light the folly of pursuing the Muses with any hope of ad- 
 vancement by them. All was in vain ; sheets of the poem 
 continued to come by every post. In the mean time [another 
 matter which gave him offense] made a breach between us ; 
 and, when he returned again to London, he let me know he 
 thought I had canceled all the obligations he had been under 
 to me. So I found I was never to expect his repaying me 
 what I lent to him, or advanced for him. This, however, was 
 not then of much consequence, as he was totally unable ; and 
 in the loss of his friendship I found myself relieved from a 
 burthen. I now began to think of getting a little money 
 beforehand, and, expecting better work, I left Palmer's to 
 work at Watts's, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, a still greater print- 
 ing-house.' Here I continued all the rest of my stay in 
 London. 
 
 At my first admission into this printing-house I took to 
 w^orking at press, imagining I felt a want of the bodily exer- 
 cise I had been used to in America, where presswork is mixed 
 with composing. I drank only water ; the other workmen, 
 near fifty in number, w^ere great guzzlers of beer. On occa- 
 sion, 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 
 Wate7'-A7ne7Hcan, as they called me, was stro7iger than them- 
 selves, who drank stroTig beer ! We had an alehouse boy who 
 attended always in the house to supply the workmen. My 
 
 1. The prinliiig-piess used by Franklin at Watts's was exhibited at the 
 Philadelphia Exposition, 1876, and is now in the Patent Oflace at Washington. 
 
50 BENJAMIK FKAKKLIN. 
 
 companion at the press drank every day a pint before break- 
 fast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint be- 
 tween breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the 
 afternoon about six o'clock, and another when he had done 
 his day's work. I thought it a detestable custom; but it was 
 necessary, he supposed, to drink strong beer that he might be 
 strong to labor. I endeavored to convince him that the bodily 
 strength afforded by beer could only be in proportion to the 
 grain or flour of the barley dissolved in the water of which it 
 was made ; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of 
 bread ; and therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of 
 water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. 
 He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay 
 out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling 
 liquor ; an expense I was free from. And thus these poor 
 devils keep themselves always under. 
 
 Watts, after some weeks, desiring to have me in the com- 
 posing-room, I left the pressmen ; a new hien venu or sum 
 for drink, being five shillings, was demanded of me by the 
 compositors. I thought it an imposition, as I had paid below ; 
 the master thought so too, and forbade my paying it. I stood 
 out two or three weeks, was accordingly considered as an ex- 
 communicate, and had so many little pieces of private mis- 
 chief done me, by mixing my sorts, transposing my pages, 
 breaking my matter, etc., etc., if I were ever so little out of 
 the room, and all ascribed to the chapel ghost, which they 
 said ever haunted those not regularly admitted, that, notwith- 
 standing the master's protection, I found myself obliged to 
 comply and pay the money, convinced of the folly of being on 
 ill terms with those one is to live with continually. 
 
 I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon acquired 
 considerable influence. I proposed some reasonable altera- 
 tions in their chapel ^ laws, and carried them against all 
 opposition. From my example, a great part of them left their 
 
 1. " A printing-house used to be called a chapel bj' the workmen, and a 
 jouroeyman, on entering a printing-house, was accustomed to pay one or 
 more gallons of beer ' for the good of the chapel.' ''—Bigeloic. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 51 
 
 muddling breakfast of beer, and bread, and cheese, finding 
 they could with me be supplied from a neighboring house with 
 a large porringer of hot water-gruel, sprinkled with pepper, 
 crumbed with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the price of 
 a pint of beer, viz., three half -pence. This was a more com- 
 fortable as well as cheaper breakfast, and kept their heads 
 clearer. Those who continued sotting with beer all day, were 
 often, by not paying, out of credit at the alehouse, and used 
 to make interest with me to get beer ; their Uglit^ as they 
 phrased it, being out. I watched the f)ay-table on Saturday 
 night, and collected what I stood engaged for them, having 
 to pay sometimes near thirty shillings a week on their ac- 
 counts. This, and my being esteemed a pretty good Hggite^ 
 that is, a jocular verbal satirist, supported my consequence 
 in the society. My constant attendance (I never making a 
 St. Monday)^ recommended me to the master ; and my 
 uncommon quickness at composing occasioned my being put 
 upon all work of dispatch, which was generally better paid. 
 So I went on now very agreeably. 
 
 My lodging in Little Britain being too remote, I found 
 another in Duke Street, opposite to the Romish Chapel. It 
 was two pair of stairs 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, 3s. 6d. 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 Protes- 
 tant, being a clergyman's daughter, but was converted to the 
 Catholic religion by her husband, whose memory she much 
 revered ; had lived much among people of distinction, and 
 knew a thousand anecdotes of them as far back as the time of 
 Charles the Second. She was lame in her knees with the gout, 
 
 1. Making a holiday of Monday. Workmen who squandered the Satur- 
 day-night's pay in dissipation would be unfit for woi'k Monday. 
 
52 BENJAMIK TRANKLIX. 
 
 and^ therefore, seldom stirred out of her room, so sometimes 
 wanted company ; and hers was so highly amusing to me, that 
 I was sure to spend an evening with her whenever she desired 
 it. Our supper was only half an anchovy each, on a very 
 little strip of bread and butter, and half a pint of ale between 
 us; but the entertainment was in her conversation. My 
 always keeping good hours, and giving little trouble in the 
 family, made her unwilling to part with me ; so that, when I 
 talked of a lodging I had heard of, nearer my business, for 
 two shillings a week, which, intent as I now was on saving 
 money, made some difference, she bid me not think of it, for 
 she would abate me two shillings a week for the future ; so I 
 remained with her at one shilling and sixpence as long as I 
 stayed in London. 
 
 In a garret of her house there lived a maiden lady of seventy 
 in the most retired manner, of whom my landlady gave me 
 this account : that she was a Koman Catholic, had been sent 
 abroad when young, and lodged in a nunnery with an intent 
 of becoming a nun ; but, the country not agreeing with her, 
 she returned to England, where, there being no nunnery, she 
 had vowed to lead the life of a^nun, as near as might be done 
 in those circumstances. Accordingly, she had given all her 
 estate to charitable uses, reserving only twelve pounds a year 
 to live on, and out of this sum she still gave a great deal in 
 charity, living herself on water-gruel only, and using no fire 
 but to boil it. She had lived many years in that garret, being 
 permitted to remain there gratis by successive Catholic tenants 
 of the house below, as they deemed it a blessing to have her 
 there. A priest visited her to confess her every day. "I 
 have asked her," says my landlady, " how she, as she lived, 
 could possibly find so much employment for a confessor." 
 " Oh," said she, " it is impossible to avoid vain tJioughts.'" 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, 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 5^ 
 
 with the miraculous figure of Christ's bleeding face on it,' 
 which she explained to me with great seriousness. She looked 
 pale, but was never sick ; and I give it as another instance on 
 how small an income life and health may be supported. 
 
 At "Watts's printing-house I contracted an acquaintance with 
 an ingenious young man, one Wygate, who, having wealthy 
 relations, had been better educated than most printers ; was 
 a tolerable Latinist, spoke French, and loved reading. I 
 taught him and a friend of his to swim at twice going into the 
 river, and they soon became good swimmers. They intro- 
 duced me to some gentlemen from the country, who went to 
 Chelsea by water to see the College and Don Saltero's curiosi- 
 ties. In our return, at the request of the company, whose 
 curiosity Wygate had excited, I stripped and leaped into the 
 river, and swam from near Chelsea to Blackfriar's, perform- 
 ing on the way many feats of activity, both upon and under 
 the water, that surprised and pleased those to whom they 
 were novelties. 
 
 I had from a child been ever delighted with this exercise, 
 had studied and practiced all Thevenot's motions and posi- 
 tions, added some of my own, aiming at the graceful and easy 
 as well as the useful. All these I took this occasion of ex- 
 hibiting to the company, and was much flattered by their 
 admiration ; and Wygate, who was desirous of becoming a 
 master, grew more and more attached to me on that account, 
 as well as from the similarity of our studies. He at length 
 proposed to me traveling all over Europe together, support- 
 ing 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 return- 
 ing to Pennsylvania, which he was now about to do. 
 
 I must record one trait of this good man's character. He 
 
 1. According to the le^rend. Veronica met Christ while bearing: the cross 
 to Calvary; as He was sinking overpowered by fatigue, slie offered Hini her 
 veil or kerchief to wipe the sweat from His brow, and when it was returned 
 to her the divine features were miraculously impressed upon the cloth. 
 
54 BEKJAMIN FKANKLIX. 
 
 had formerly been in business at Bristol, but failed in debt to 
 a number of people, compounded and went to America. 
 There, by a close application to business as a merchant, he 
 acquired a plentiful fortune in a few years. Returning to 
 England in the ship with me, he invited his old creditors to 
 an entertainment, at which he thanked them for the easy 
 composition they had favored him with, and, when they ex- 
 pected nothing but the treat, every man at the first remove 
 found under his plate an order on a banker for the full 
 amount of the unpaid remainder, with interest. 
 
 He now told me he was about to return to Philadelphia, . 
 and should carry over a great quantity of goods, in order to 
 open a store there. He proposed to take me over as his clerk, 
 to keep his books, in which he would instruct me, copy his let- 
 ters, and attend the store. He added, that, as soon as I 
 should be acquainted with mercantile business, he would pro- 
 mote me by sending me with a cargo of flour and bread, etc., 
 to the West Indies, and procure me commissions from others 
 which would be profitable ; and, if I managed well, would 
 establish me handsomely. The thing pleased me ; for I was 
 grown tired of London, remembered with pleasure the happy 
 months I had spent in Pennsylvania, and wished again to see 
 it ; therefore I immediately agreed on the terms of fifty 
 pounds a year, Pennsylvania money ; less, indeed, than my 
 present gettings as a compositor, but affording a better pros- 
 pect. 
 
 I now took leave of printing, as I thought, for ever, and 
 was daily employed in my new business, going about with Mr. 
 Denham among the tradesmen to purchase various articles, 
 and seeing them packed up, doing errands, calling upon work- 
 men to dispatch, etc.; and, when all was on board, I had a 
 few days' leisure. On one of these days, I was, to my surprise, 
 sent for by a great man I knew only by name, a Sir William 
 Wyndham, and I waited upon him. He had heard by some 
 means or other of my swimming froi?) Chelsea to Blackfriar's, 
 and of my teaching Wygate and another young man to swim 
 in a few hours. He had two sons, about to set out ou 
 
BEI^JAMIN FRAXKLTX. .55 
 
 their travels ; he wished to have them first taught swimming, 
 and proposed to gratify me handsomely if I would teach 
 them. They were not yet come to town, and my stay was 
 uncertain, so I could not undertake it ; but from this incident 
 I thought it likely that, if I were to remain in England and 
 open a swimming-school, I might get a good deal of money ; 
 and it struck me so strongly, that, had the overture been 
 sooner made me, probably I should not so soon have returned 
 to America. After many years, you and I had something of 
 more importance to do with one of these sons of Sir William 
 Wyndham, become Earl of Egremont, which I shall mention 
 in its place. 
 
 Thus I spent about eighteen months in London ; most part 
 of the time T worked hard at my business, and spent but little 
 upon myself except in seeing plays and in books. My friend 
 Ralph had kept me poor ; he owed me about twenty-seven 
 pounds, which I was now never likely to receive ; a great sum 
 out of my small earnings ! I loved him, notwithstanding, for 
 he had many amiable qualities. I had by no means improved 
 my fortune ; but I had picked up some very ingenious ac- 
 quaintances, whose conversation was of great advantage to me; 
 and I had read considerably. 
 
 We sailed from Gravesend on the 23d of July, 1726. For 
 the incidents of the voyage, I refer you to my journal, where 
 you will find them all minutely related. Perhaps the most 
 important part of that journal is the plan to be found in it, 
 which I formed at sea, for regulating my future conduct in 
 life. It is the more remarkable, as being formed when I was 
 so young, and yet being pretty faithfully adhered to quite 
 through to old age. 
 
 We landed in Philadelphia on the 11th of October, where I 
 found sundry alterations. Keith was no longer governor, 
 being superseded by Major Gordon. I met him walking the 
 streets as a common citizen. He seemed a little ashamed at 
 seeing me, but passed without saying anything. I should 
 have been as much ashamed at seeing Miss Read, had not her 
 friends, despairing with reason of my return after the receipt 
 
56* RE^MAMIi^ FRANKLIN". 
 
 of my letter, persuaded her to marry another, one Rogers, a 
 potter, which was done in my absence. With him, however, 
 she was never happy, and soon parted from him, refusing to 
 cohabit with him or bear his name, it being now said that he 
 had another wife. He was a worthless fellow, though an 
 excellent workman, which was the temptation to her friends. 
 He got into debt, ran away in 1727 or 1738, went to the West 
 Indies, and died there. Keimer had got a better house, a 
 shop well supplied with stationery, plenty of new types, a 
 number of hands, though none good, and seemed to have a 
 great deal of business. 
 
 Mr. Denham took a store in Water Street, where we opened 
 our goods ; I attended the business diligently, studied ac- 
 counts, and grew, in a little time, expert at selling. We 
 lodged and boarded together ; he counseled rae as a father, 
 having a sincere regard for me. I respected and loved him, 
 and we might have gone on together very happy ; but in the 
 beginning of February, 172f, when I had just passed my 
 twenty-first year, we were both taken ill. My distemper was 
 a pleurisy, which very nearly carried me off. I suffered a 
 good deal, gave up the point in my own mind, and was rather 
 disappointed when I found myself recovering, regretting, in 
 some degree, that I must now, some time, or other, have all 
 that disagreeable work to do over again. I forget what his 
 distemper was ; it held him a long time, and at length car- 
 ried 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 Philadelphia, ad- 
 vised my return to my business; and Keimer tempted rae, with 
 an offer of large wages by the year, to come and take the man- 
 agement of his printing-house, that he might better attend 
 his stationer's shop. I had heard a bad character of him in 
 London from his wife and her friends, and was not fond of 
 having any more to do with him. I tried for farther employ- 
 ment as a merchant's clerk; but, not readily meeting with 
 
liEJTeTAMlN FRAXKLIN". 57 
 
 any, I closed again with Kcimer. I found in his house these 
 hands: Hugh Meredith, a Welsh Pennsylvanian, thirty years of 
 age, bred to country work; honest, sensible, had a great deal 
 of solid observation, was something of a reader, but given to 
 drink. Stephen Potts, a young countryman of full age, bred 
 to the same, of uncommon natural parts, and great wit and 
 humor, but a little idle. These he had agreed with at 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 agreement, was to 
 teach them, though he knew neither one nor t'other. John 
 , a wild Irishman, brought up to no business, whose ser- 
 vice, 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 pres- 
 ently; 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 thr )ugh me; and. as soon as 
 I had instructed them, then they 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. 
 
 It was an odd thing to find an Oxford scholar in the situ- 
 ation of a bought servant. He was not more than eighteen 
 years of age, and gave me this account of himself; that he was 
 born in Gloucester, educated at a grammar-school there, had 
 been distinguished among the scholars for some apparent su- 
 periority in performing his part, when they exhibited plays; 
 belonged to the Witty Club there, and had written some 
 pieces in prose and verse, which were printed in the Gloucester 
 newspapers; thence he was sent to Oxford; where he con- 
 
58 BENJAMIN FKAXKLIN. 
 
 tinued about a year, but not well satisfied, wishing of all things 
 to see London, and become a player. At length, receiving 
 his quarterly allowance of fifteen guineas, instead of discharg- 
 ing his debts he walked out of town, hid his gown in a furze 
 bush, and footed it to London, where, having no friends to 
 advise him, he fell into bad company, soon spent his guineas, 
 found no means of being introduced among the players, grew 
 necessitous, pawned his clothes, and wanted bread. Walking 
 the street very hungry, and not knowing what to do with him- 
 self, a crimp's bill was put into his hand, offering immediate 
 entertainment and encouragement to such as would bind them- 
 selves to serve in America. He went directly, signed the 
 indentures, was put into the ship, and came over, never writ- 
 ing a line to acquaint his friends what was become of him. 
 He was lively, witty, good-natured, and a pleasant companion, 
 but idle, thoughtless, and imprudent to the last degree. 
 
 John, the Irishman, soon ran away; with the rest I began to 
 live very agreeably, for they all respected me the more, as they 
 found Keimer incapable of instructing them, and that from 
 me they learned something daily. We never worked on Satur- 
 day, that being Keimer's Sabbath, so I had two days for read- 
 ing. My acquaintance with ingenious people in the town in- 
 creased. 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 hither- 
 to but a poor economist. He, however, kindly made no 
 demand of it. 
 
 Our printing-house often wanted sorts, and there was no 
 letter-founder in America; I had seen types cast at James's in 
 London, but without much attention to the manner; however, 
 I now contrived a mold, made use of the letters we had as 
 puncheons, struck the matrices in lead, and thus supplied in 
 a pretty tolerable way all deficiencies. I also engraved several 
 things on occasion; I made the ink; I was warehouseman, 
 and everything, and, in short, quite a factotum. 
 
 But, however serviceable I might be, I found that my ser- 
 vices became every day of less importance, as the other hands 
 
BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. 59 
 
 improved in the business; and, when Keimer paid my second 
 quarter's wages, he let me 'know that he felt them too heavy, 
 and thought I should make an abatement. He grew by degrees 
 less civil, put on more of the master, frequently found fault, 
 was captious, and seemed ready for an outbreaking. I went 
 on, nevertheless, with a good deal of patience, thinking that 
 his encumbered circumstances were partly the cause. At 
 length a trifle snapped our connections; for, a great noise hap- 
 pening near the court-house, I put my head out 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 that his wish was unnecessary, for I 
 would leave him that instant; and so, taking my hat, walked 
 out of doors, desiring Meredith, whom I saw below, to take 
 care of some things I left, and bring them to my lodgings. 
 
 Meredith came accordingly in the evening, when we talked 
 my affair over. He had conceived a great regard for me, and 
 was very unwilling that I should leave the house while he re- 
 mained in it. He dissuaded me from returning to my native 
 country, which I began to think of ; he reminded me that 
 Keimer was in debt for all he possessed ; that his creditors 
 began to be uneasy ; that he kept his shop miserably, sold 
 often without profit for ready money, and often trusted with- 
 out keeping accounts ; that he must therefore fail, which 
 would make a vacancy I might profit of. I objected my want 
 of money. He then let me know that his father had a high 
 opinion of me, and from some discourse that had passed be- 
 tween them, he was sure would advance money to set us up, 
 if 1 would enter into partnership with him. "My time," says 
 he, " will be out with Keimer in the spring ; by that time we 
 
60 BElsVAMIN FRAN^KLIX. 
 
 may have our press and types in from London. I am sensible 
 I am no workman ; if you like it, your skill in the business 
 shall be set against the stock I furnish, and we will share the 
 profits equally." 
 
 The proposal was agreeable, and I consented ; his father 
 was in town and approved of it ; the more as he saw I had 
 great influence with his son, had prevailed on him to abstain 
 long from dram-drinking, and he hoped might break him of 
 that wretched habit entirely, when we came to be so closely 
 connected. I gave an inventory to the father, who carried it 
 to a merchant ; the things were sent for, the secret was to be 
 kept till they should arrive, and in the mean time I was to get 
 work, if I could, at the other printing-house. But I found no 
 vacancy there, and so remained idle a few days, when Keimer, 
 on a prospect of being employed to print some paper money 
 in New Jersey, which would require cuts and various types 
 that I only could supply, and apprehending Bradford might 
 engage me and get the job from him, sent me a very civil mes- 
 sage, that old friends should not part for a few words, the 
 effect of sudden passion, and wishing me to return. Meredith 
 persuaded me to comply, as it would give more opportunity 
 for his improvement under my daily instructions ; so I re- 
 turned, and we went on more smoothly than for some time 
 before. The New Jersey job was obtained, I contrived a cop- 
 per-plate press for it, the first that had been seen in the coun- 
 try ; I cut several ornaments and checks for the bills. We 
 .went together to Burlington, where I executed the whole to 
 satisfaction; and he received so large a sum for the work as to 
 be enabled thereby to keep his head much longer above water. 
 
 At Burlington I made an acquaintance with many principal 
 people of the province. Several of them had been appointed 
 by the Assembly a committee to attend the press, and take 
 care that no more bills \f ere printed than the law directed. 
 They were therefore, by turns, constantly with us, and gen- 
 erally he who attended, brought with him a friend or two for 
 company. My mind having been much more improved by 
 reading than Keimer's, I suppose it was for that reason my 
 
BENJAMIK FRANKLIN*. 61 
 
 converstation seemed to be more yalued. They had mc to 
 their houses, introduced me to their friends, and showed me 
 much civility ; while he, though the master, was a little neg- 
 lected. In truth, he was an odd fish ; ignorant of common 
 life, fond of rudely opposing received opinions, slovenly to 
 extreme dirtiness, enthusiastic in some points of religion, and 
 a little knavish withal. 
 
 We continued there near three months ; and by that time I 
 could reckon among my acquired friends. Judge Allen, Samuel 
 Bustill, the secretary of the province, Isaac Pearson, Joseph 
 Cooper, and several of the Smiths, members of Assembly, and 
 Isaac Decow, the surveyor-general. The latter was a shrewd, 
 sagacious old man, who told me that he began for himself, 
 when young, by wheeling clay for the brickmakers, learned 
 to write after he was of age, carried the chain for surveyors, 
 who taught him surveying, and he had now by his industry 
 acquired a good estate ; and says he, ' ' I foresee that you will 
 soon work this man out of his business, and make a fortune in 
 it at Philadelphia." He had not then the least intimation of 
 my intention to set up there or anywhere. These friends were 
 afterwards of great use to me, as I occasionally was to some 
 of them. They all continued their regard for me as long as 
 they lived. 
 
 Before I enter upon my public appearance in business, it 
 may be well to let you know the then state of my mind with 
 regard to my principles and morals, that you may see how far 
 those influenced the future events of my life. My parents had 
 early given me religious impressions, and brought me through 
 my childhood piously in the Dissenting way. But I was 
 scarce fifteen, when, after doubting by turns of several points, 
 as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I be- 
 gan to doubt of Revelation itself. Some books against Deism 
 fell into my hands ; they were said to be the substance of ser- 
 mons preached at Boyle's Lectures. It happened that they 
 wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended 
 by them ; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted 
 to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refuta- 
 
G2 BENJAMIN" FRAiq^KLIN. 
 
 tions ; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist. My argu- 
 ments perverted some others, particularly Collins :>.nd Kalph ; 
 but, each of them having afterwards wronged me greatly 
 without the least compunction, and recollecting Keith's con- 
 duct towards me (who was another freethinker), and my own 
 towards Vernon and Miss Read, which at times gave me great 
 trouble, I began to suspect that this doctrine, though it might 
 be true, was not very useful. My London pamphlet, which 
 had for its motto these lines of Dryden : 
 
 " Whatever is, is right. 'J'hough purblind man 
 Se6o but a part o' the chain, the nearest link: 
 His eyes not cai-rying to the equal beam, 
 That poises all above ;" 
 
 and from the attributes of God, His infinite wisdom, goodness 
 and power, concluded that nothing could possibly be wrong 
 in the world, and that vice and virtue were empty distinctions, 
 no such things existing, appeared now not so clever a per- 
 formance as I once thought it; and I doubted whether some 
 error had not insinuated itself unperceived into my argument, 
 so as to infect all that followed, as is common in metaphysical 
 reasonings. 
 
 I grew convinced that truth, sincerity, and integrity in deal- 
 ings between man and man were of the utmost importance to 
 the felicity of life; and I formed written resolutions, which 
 still remain in my journal book, to practice them ever while I 
 lived. Eevelation had indeed no w^eight with me, as such; 
 but I entertained an opinion that, though certain actions 
 might not be bad because they were forbidden by it, or good 
 because it commanded them, yet probably those actions might 
 be forbidden because they were bad for us, or commanded be- 
 cause they were beneficial to us, in their own natures, all the 
 circumstances of things considered. And this persuasion, 
 with the kind hand of Providence, or some guardian angel, or 
 accidental favorable circumstances and situations, or all to- 
 gether, preserved me, through this dangerous time of youth, 
 and the hazardous situations I was sometimes in among stran- 
 gers, remote from the eye and advice of my father, without 
 
BENJAMIN FRAKKLIK". 63 
 
 any willful gross immorality or injustice, that might have been 
 expected from my want of religion. I say willful, because 
 the instances I have mentioned had something of necessity in 
 them, from my youth, inexperience, and the knavery of others. 
 I had therefore a tolerable character to begin the world with; 
 I valued it properly, and determined to preserve it. 
 
 We had not been long returned to Philadelphia before the 
 new types arrived from London. AVe settled with Keimer, 
 and left him by his consent before he heard of it. We found 
 a house to hire near the market, and took it. To lessen the 
 rent, which was then but twenty-four pounds a year, though 
 I have since known it to let for seventy, we took in Thomas 
 Godfrey, a glazier, and his family, who were to pay a con- 
 siderable part of it to us, and we to board with them. We 
 had scarce opened our letters and put our press in order, be- 
 fore George House, an acquaintance of mine, brought a coun- 
 tryman to us, whom he had met in the street inquiring for a 
 printer. All our cash was now expended in the variety of 
 particulars we had been obliged to procure, and this country- 
 man's five shillings, being our first-fruits, and coming so sea- 
 sonably, gave me more pleasure than any crown I have since 
 earned; and the gratitude I felt toward House has made me 
 often more ready than perhaps I should otherwise have been 
 to assist young beginners. 
 
 There are croakers in every country, always boding its ruin. 
 Such a one then lived in Philadelphia; a person of note, an 
 elderly man, with a wise look and a very grave manner of 
 speaking; his name was Samuel Mickle. This gentleman, a 
 stranger to me, stopped one day at my door, and asked me if 
 I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing- 
 house. Being answered in the afiirmative, he said he was 
 sorry for me, because it was an expensive undertaking, and 
 the expense would be lost; for Philadelphia was a sinking 
 place, the people already half bankrupts, or near being so; all 
 appearances to the contrary, such as new buildings and the 
 rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge fallacious; for 
 they were, in fact, among the things that would soon ruin us. 
 
64 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 And he gave me such a detail of misfortunes now existing, or 
 that were soon to exist, that he left me half melancholy. Had 
 I known him before I engaged in this business, probably I 
 never should have done it. This man continued to live in 
 this decaying place, and to declaim in the same strain, refus- 
 ing for many years to buy a house there, because all was going 
 to destruction; and at last I had the pleasure of seeing him 
 give five times as much for one as he might have bought it 
 for when he first began his croaking. 
 
 I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the 
 preceding year, I had formed most of my ingenious acquaint- 
 ance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the 
 Junto; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew 
 up required that every member, in his turn, sliould produce 
 one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natu- 
 ral Philosophy, to be discussed by the company; and once in 
 three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, 
 on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the 
 direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere 
 spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute, or 
 desire of victory; and, to prevent warmth, all expressions of 
 positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were, after 
 some time, made contraband, and prohibited under small 
 pecuniary penalties. 
 
 The first members were Joseph Breintnal, a copier of deeds 
 for the scriveners, a good-natured, friendly, middle-aged man, 
 a great lover of poetry, reading all he could meet with, and 
 writing some that was tolerable; very ingenious in many little 
 nicknackeries, 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 trifle§, to 
 the disturbance of all conversation. He soon left us. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN". 65 
 
 Nicliolas Scull, a surveyor, afterward surveyor-general, wlio 
 loved books, and sometimes made a few verses. 
 
 ^Yilliam Parsons, bred a shoemaker, but loving reading, had 
 acquired a considerable share of mathematics, which he first 
 studied with a view to astrology, that he afterwards laughed 
 at. He also became surveyor-general. 
 
 William Maugridge, a joiner, a most exquisite mechanic, 
 and a solid, sensible man. 
 
 Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb I have 
 characterized before. 
 
 Pwobert 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 inter- 
 ruption to his death, upward of forty years; and the club con- 
 tinued almost as long, and was the best school of philosophy, 
 morality, and politics that then existed in the province; for our 
 queries, which were read the week preceding their discussion, 
 put us upon reading with attention upon the several subjects, 
 that we might speak more to the purpose; and here, too, we 
 acquired better habits of conversation, everything being 
 studied in our rules which might prevent our disgusting each 
 other. From hence the long continuance of the club, which I 
 shall have frequent occasion to speak further of hereafter. 
 
 But my giving this account of it here is to show something 
 of the interest I had, every one of these exerting themselves 
 in recommending business to us. Breintnal particularly pro- 
 cured us from the Quakers the printing forty sheets of their 
 history, the rest being to be done by Keimer ; and upon this 
 we worked exceedingly hard, for the price was low. It was a 
 folio, pro patria size, in pica, with long-primer notes. I com- 
 posed of it a sheet a day, and Meredith worked it off at press ; 
 it was often eleven at night, and sometimes later, before I 
 had finished my distribution for the next day's work, for the 
 
6G BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 little jobs sent in by our other friends now and then put us 
 back. But so determined I was to continue doing a sheet a 
 day of the folio, that one night, when, having imposed my 
 forms, I thought my day's work over, one of them by accident 
 was broken, and two pages reduced to pi, I immediately dis- 
 tributed and composed it over again before I went to bed ; and 
 this industry, visible to our neighbors, began to give us char- 
 acter and credit ; particularly, I was told, that mention being 
 made of the new printing-office at the merchants' Every-night 
 club, the general opinion was that it must fail, there being 
 already two printers in the place, Keimer and Bradford ; but 
 Dr. Baird (whom you and I saw many years after at his native 
 place, St. Andrew's in Scotland) gave a contrary opinion : 
 " For the industry of that Franklin," says he, " is superior to 
 anything I ever saw of the kind ; I see him still at work 
 when I go home from club, and he is at work again before his 
 neighbors are out of bed." This struck the rest, and we soon 
 after had offers from one of them to supply us with station- 
 ery; but as yet we did not choose to engage in shop business. 
 
 I mention this industry the more particularly and the more 
 freely, though it seems to be talking in my own praise, that 
 those of my posterity, who shall read it, may know the use of 
 that virtue, when they see its effects in my favor throughout 
 this relation. 
 
 George Webb, who had found a female friend that lent him 
 wherewith to purchase his time of Keimer, now came to offer 
 himself as a journeyman to us. AVe could not then employ 
 him ; but I foolishly let him know as a secret that I soon 
 intended to begin a newspaper, and might then have work for 
 him. My hopes of success, as I told him, were founded on 
 this, that the then only newspaper, printed by Bradford, was 
 a paltry thing, wretchedly managed, no way entertaining, and 
 yet was profitable to him ; I therefore thought a good paper 
 would scarcely fail of good encouragement. I requested 
 Webb not to mention it ; but he told it to Keimer, who im- 
 mediately, to be beforehand with me, published proposals 
 for printing one himself, on which Webb was to be employed. 
 
J{ENJAMIN FKANKLTN^. G? 
 
 I resented this ; and, to counteract tliem, as I could not yet 
 begin our paper, I wrote several pieces of entertainment for 
 Bradford's paper, under the title of the Busy Body, which 
 Breintnal continued some months. By this means the atten- 
 tion of the public was fixed on that paper, and Keimer's pro- 
 posals, which were burlesqued and ridiculed, were disregarded. 
 He began his paper, however, and, after carrying it on three 
 quarters of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers, he 
 offered it to me for a trifle ; and I, having been ready some 
 time to go on with it, took it in hand directly ; and it proved 
 in a few years extremely profitable to me.^ 
 
 ■I perceive that I am ajrt to speak in the singular number, 
 though our partnership still continued ; the reason may be 
 that, in fact, the whole management of the business lay upon 
 me. Meredith was no compositor, a poor pressman, and sel- 
 dom sober. My friends lamented my connection with him, but 
 I was to make the best of it. 
 
 Our first papers made a quite different appearance from any 
 before in the province ; a better type, and better printed ; but 
 some spirited remarks of my writing, on the dispute then going 
 on between Governor Burnet and the Massachusetts Assembly, 
 struck the principal people, occasioned the paper and the man- 
 ager 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 one who 
 could also handle a pen, thought it convenient to oblige and 
 encourage me. Bradford still printed the votes, and laws, 
 and other public business. He had printed an address of the 
 House to the governor, in a coarse, blundering manner ; we 
 reprinted it elegantly and correctly, and sent one to every 
 
 1. The name of this paper was "The Universal Instructor in all Arts and 
 Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette." The instruction was piven in the 
 form of reprinted articles from Chambers' Cyclopaedia. Franklin dropped 
 this feature of the paper and with it the corresponding part of the vitle. 
 
68 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 member. They were sensible of the difference : it strength- 
 ened the hands of our friends in the House, and they voted us 
 their printers for the year ensuing. 
 
 Among my friends in the House I must not forget Mr. 
 Hamilton, before mentioned, who was then returned from 
 England, and had a seat in it. He interested himself for me 
 strongly in that instance, as he did in many others afterward, 
 continuing his patronage till his death. 
 
 Mr, Vernon, about this time, put me in mind of the debt I 
 owed him, but did not press me. I wrote him an ingenuous 
 letter of acknowledgment, craved his forbearance a little 
 longer, which he allowed me, and as soon as I was able, I paid 
 the 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 expecta- 
 tions given me, was able to advance only one hundred pounds 
 currency, which had been paid ; and a hundred more was due 
 to the merchant, who grew impatient, and sued us all. We 
 gave bail, but saw that, if the money could not be raised in 
 time, the suit must soon come to a judgment and execution, 
 and our hopeful prospects must, with us, be ruined, as the 
 press and letters must be sold for payment, perhaps at half 
 price. 
 
 In this distress two true friends, whose kindness I have never 
 forgotten, nor ever shall forget while I can remember anything, 
 came to me separately, unknown to each other, and, without 
 any application from me, offering each of them to advance 
 me all the money that should be necessary to enable me to 
 take the whole business upon myself, if that should be prac- 
 ticable ; but they did not like my continuing the partnership 
 with Meredith, who, as they said, was often seen drunk in the 
 streets, and playing at low games in alehouses, much to our 
 discredit. These two friends were William Coleman and 
 Robert Grace, I told them I* could not propose a separation 
 while any prospect remained of the Merediths' fulfilling their 
 
BEN.) A MIX FRANKLIN. GO 
 
 part of onr agreement, because I tlioiight 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 ad- 
 vance for you and me what he would for you alone. If that 
 is the case, tell me, and I will resign the whole to you, and go 
 about my business." " No," said he, " my father has really 
 been disappointed, and is really unable ; and I am unwilling 
 to distress him farther. I see this is a business I am not fit 
 for. I was bred a farmer, and it was a folly in me to come 
 to town, and put myself, at thirty years of age, an apprentice 
 to learn a new trade. Many of our Welsh people are going to 
 settle in North Carolina, where land is cheap. I am inclined 
 to go with them, and follow my old employment. You may 
 find friends to assist you. If you will take the debts of the 
 company upon you ; return to my father the hundred pound 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 pro- 
 posal ; it was drawn up in writing, signed, and sealed imme- 
 diately. I gave him what he demanded, and he went soon 
 after to Carolina, from whence he sent me next year two 
 long letters, containing the best account that had been given 
 of that country, the climate, the soil, husbandry, etc., for in 
 those matters he was very judicious. I printed them in the 
 papers, and they gave great satisfaction to the public. 
 
 As soon as he was gone, I recurred to my two friends ; and 
 because I would not give an unkind preference to either, I 
 took half of what each had offered and I wanted of one, and 
 half of the other ; paid off the company's debts, and went on 
 with the business in my own name, advertising that the part- 
 nership was dissolved. I think this was in or about the year 
 1729. 
 
70 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 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 inhabi- 
 tants opposed any addition, being against all paper currency, 
 from an apprehension that it would depreciate, as it had done 
 in New England, to the prejudice of all creditors. We had 
 discussed this point in our Junto, where I was on the side of 
 an addition, being persuaded that the first small sum struck 
 in 1723 had done much good by increasing the trade, employ- 
 ment, and number of inliabitants in the province, since I now 
 saw all the old houses inhabited, and many new ones building; 
 whereas I remembered well, that when I first walked about 
 the streets of Philadelphia, eating my roll, I saw most of the 
 houses in Walnut Street, between Second and Front Streets, 
 with bills on their doors, "To be let" ; and many likewise in 
 Chestnut Street and other streets, which made me then think 
 the inhabitants of the city were deserting it one after another. 
 
 Our debates possessed me so fully of the subject, that I 
 wrote and printed an anonymous pamphlet on it, entitled 
 "The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency." It was 
 well received by the common people in general ; but the rich 
 men disliked it, for it increased and strengthened the clamor 
 for more money, and they happening to have no writers 
 among them that were able to answer it, their opposition 
 slackened, and the point was carried by a majority in the 
 House. My friends there, who conceived I had been of some 
 service, thought fit to reward me by employing me in printing 
 the money ; a very profitable job and a great help to me. 
 This w^as another advantage gained by my being able to write. 
 
 The utility of this currency became by time and experience 
 so evident as never afterwards to be much disputed ; so that 
 it grew soon to fifty-five thousand pounds, and in 1739 to 
 eighty thousand pounds, since which it rose during war to 
 upwards of three hundred and fifty thousand pounds, trade, 
 building, and inhabitants all the while increasing, though I 
 now think there are limits beyond which the quantity may be 
 hurtful. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 71 
 
 I soon after obtained, through my friend Hamilton, the 
 printing of the Newcastle paper money, another profitable job 
 as I then thought it ; small things appearing great to those in 
 small circumstances ; and these, to me, were really great ad- 
 vantages, as they were great encouragements. He procured 
 for me, also, the printing of the laws and votes of that govern- 
 ment, 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 com- 
 positor I had known in London, an excellent workman, now 
 came to me, and worked with me constantly and diligently ; 
 and I took an apprentice, the son of Aquila Rose. 
 
 I began now gradually to pay off the debt I was under for 
 the printing-house. In order to secure my credit and char- 
 acter as a tradesman, I took, care not only to be in reality 
 industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the 
 contrary. I dressed plainly; I was seen at no places of idle 
 diversion. I never went out a fishing or shooting; a book, 
 indeed, sometimes debauched me from my work, but that was 
 seldom, snug, and gave no scandal; and to show that I was 
 not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper 
 I purchased at the stores through the streets on a wheelbarrow^ 
 Thus being esteemed an industrious, thriving young man, and 
 paying duly for what I bought, the merchants who imported 
 stationery solicited my custom; others proposed supplying me 
 with books, and I went on swimmingly. In the mean time, 
 Keimer's credit and business declining daily, he was at last 
 forced to sell his printing-house to satisfy his creditors. He 
 went to Barbadoes, and there lived some years in very poor 
 circumstances. 
 
 His apprentice, David Harry, whom I had instructed while 
 I worked with him, set up in his place at Philadelphia, having 
 bought his materials. I was at first apprehensive of a power- 
 ful rival in Harry, as his friends w^ere very able, and had a 
 
72 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 good deal of interest. I therefore proposed a partnership to 
 him, which he, fortunately for me, rejected with scorn. He 
 was very proud, dressed like a gentleman, lived expensively, 
 took much diversion and pleasure abroad, ran in debt, and 
 neglected his business; upon which all business left him ; and 
 finding nothing to do, he followed Keimer to Barbadoes, tak- 
 ing the printing-house with him. There this apprentice em- 
 ployed his former master as a journeyman; they quarreled 
 often; Harry went continually behindhand, and at length was 
 forced to sell his types and return to his country work in Penn- 
 sylvania. The person that bought them employed Keimer to 
 use them, but in a few years he died. 
 
 There remained now no competitor with me at Philadelphia 
 •but the old one, Bradford; who was rich and easy, did a little 
 printing now and then by straggling hands, but was not very 
 anxious about the business. However, as he kept the post- 
 ofifice, it was imagined he had better opportunities of obtain- 
 ing news; his paper was thought a better distributor of ad- 
 vertisements than mine, and therefore had many more, which 
 was a profitable thing to him, and a disadvantage to me; for, 
 though T did indeed receive and send papers by post, yet the 
 public opinion was otherwise, for what I did send was by 
 bribing the riders, who took them privately, Bradford being 
 unkind enough to forbid it, which occasioned some resent- 
 ment on my part; and I thought so meanly of him for it, that, 
 when I afterward came into his situation, I took care never 
 to imitate it. 
 
 I had hitherto continued to board with Godfrey, who lived 
 in part of my house with his wife and children, and had one 
 side of the shop for his glazier's business, though he worked 
 little, being always absorbed in his mathematics. Mrs, God- 
 frey projected a match for me with a relation's daughter, took 
 opportunities of bringing us often together, till a serious 
 courtship on my part ensued, the girl being in herself very 
 deserving. The old folks encouraged me by continual invita- 
 tions to supper, and by leaving us together, till at length it 
 was time to explain. Mrs. Godfrey managed our little treaty. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 73 
 
 I let her know that I expected as much money with their 
 daughter as would paj^off my remaining debt for the printing-' 
 house, whicli I believe was not then above a hundred pounds. 
 She brought me word they had no such sum to spare ; I said 
 they might mortgage their house in the loan-office. The 
 answer to this, after some days, was, that they did not ap- 
 prove the match ; that, on inquiry of Bradford, they had 
 been informed the printing business was not a profitable one ; 
 the types would soon be worn out, and more wanted ; that S. 
 Keiraer and D. Harry had failed one after the other, and I 
 should probably soon follow them ; and, Iherefore, I was for- 
 bidden the house, and the daughter shut up. 
 
 Whether this was a real change of sentiment, or only arti- 
 fice, on a supposition of our being too far engaged in affection 
 to retract, and therefore that we should steal a marriage, 
 which would leave them at liberty to give or withhold what 
 they pleased, I know not ; but I suspected the latter, resented 
 it, and went no more. Mrs. Godfrey brought me afterward 
 some more favorable accounts of their disposition, and would 
 have drawn me on again ; but I declared absolutely ray reso- 
 lution to have nothing more to do with that family. This was 
 resented by the Godfreys ; we differed, and they removed, 
 leaving me the whole house, and I resolved to take no more 
 inmates. 
 
 But this affair having turned my thoughts to marriage, I 
 looked round me and made overtures of acquaintance in other 
 places ; but soon found that, the business of a printer being 
 generally thought a poor one, I was not to expect money with 
 a wife, unless with such a one as I should not otherwise think 
 agreeable. ... A friendly correspondence as neighbors and 
 old acquaintances 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 con- 
 sulted in their affairs, wherein I sometimes was of service. I 
 pitied poor Miss Read's unfortunate situation, who was gener- 
 ally dejected, seldom cheerful, and avoided company. I con- 
 sidered my giddiness and inconstancy when in London as in a 
 
74 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 great degree the cause of her unhappiness, though the mother 
 was good enough to think the fault more her own than mine, 
 as she had prevented our marrying before I went thither, and 
 persuaded the other matcli in my absence. Our mutual affec- 
 tion was revived, but there were now great objections to our 
 union. The match was indeed looked upon as invalid, a pre- 
 ceding wife being said to be living in England ; but this could 
 not easily be proved, because of the distance ; and, though 
 there was a report of his death, it was not certain. Then, 
 though it should be true, he had left many debts, which his 
 successor might be called upon to pay. We ventured, how- 
 ever, over all these difficulties, and I took her to wife, Sep- 
 tember 1st, 1730. None of the inconveniences happened that 
 we had apprehended ; she proved a good and faithful help- 
 mate, assisted me much by attending shop ; we throve to- 
 gether, and have ever mutually endeavored to make each 
 other happy. ^ Thus I corrected that great erratum as well as 
 I could. 
 
 About this time, our club meeting, not at a tavern, but in a 
 little room of Mr. Grace's, set apart for that purpose, a prop- 
 osition 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 ex- 
 pected ; 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, 
 
 1. Mrs. Franklin served as the " faithful helpmate ■" over forty j'^ears. She 
 died Dec. 19, 1774, while her husband was in London. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 75 
 
 tluit 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 ton 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 Ameri- 
 can subscription libraries, now so numerous. It is become a 
 great thing itself, and continually increasing. These libraries 
 have improved the general conversation of the Americans, 
 made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as 
 most gentlemen from ofeher countries, and perhaps have con- 
 tributed in some degree to the stand so generally made 
 throughout the colonies in defense of their privileges. 
 
 Meni^. Thus far was written with the intention expressed 
 in the beginning, and therefore contains several little family 
 anecdotes of no importance to others. What follows was 
 written many years after in compliance with the advice con- 
 tained in these letters,' and accordingly intended for the pub- 
 lic. The affairs of the Revolution occasioned the interrup- 
 tion. 
 
 Continuation of the Account of my Life, Begun at 
 Passy, near Paris, 1784. 
 
 It is some time since I received the above letters, but I have 
 been too busy till now to think of complying with the request 
 they contain. It might, too, be much better done if I were 
 at home among my papers, which would md my memory, and 
 help to ascertain dates ; but my return being uncertain, and 
 having just now a little leisure, I will endeavor to recollect 
 and write what I can ; if I live to get home, it may there be 
 corrected and improved. 
 
 Not having any copy here of what is already written, I 
 know not whether an account is given of the means I used 
 
 1. The letters from two friends, urj^in^ him to complete the Autobi- 
 ograph}', are omitted, being of no interest in themselves. 
 
76 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 to establish the Philadelphia public library, which, from a 
 small beginning, is now become so considerable, though I 
 remember to have come down to near the time of that trans- 
 action (1730). I will therefore begin here with an account of 
 it, which may be struck out if found to have been already 
 given. 
 
 At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania, there was 
 not a good bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the 
 southward of Boston. In New York and Philadelphia the 
 printers were indeed stationers ; they sold only paper, etc., 
 almanacs, ballads, and a few common school books. Those 
 who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from 
 England ; the members of the Junto had each a few. We 
 had left the alehouse, where we first met, and hired a room to 
 hold our club in. I proposed that we should all of us bring 
 our books to that room, where they would not only be ready 
 to consult in our conferences, but become a copimon benefit, 
 each of us being at liberty to borrow such as he wished to 
 read at home, This was accordingly done, and for some time 
 contented us. 
 
 Finding the advantage of this little collection, I proposed 
 to render the benefit from books more common, by commenc- 
 ing a public subscription library. I drew a sketch of the 
 plan and rules that would be necessary, and got a skillful con- 
 veyancer, Mr. Charles Brockden, to put the whole in form of 
 articles of agreement to be subscribed, by which each sub- 
 scriber engaged to pay a certain sum down for the first pur- 
 chase of books, and an annual contribution for increasing 
 them. So few were the readers at that time in Philadelphia, 
 and the majority of us so poor, that I was not able, with great 
 industry, to find more than fifty persons, mostly young trades- 
 men, willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each, 
 and ten shillings per annum. On this little fund we began. 
 The books were imported ; the library was opened one day in 
 the week for lending to the subscribers, on their promissory 
 notes to pay double the value if not duly returned. The in- 
 stitution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other 
 
BEI^JAMIN- FRANKLIN. ^1 
 
 towns, and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented 
 by donations ; reading became fashionable ; and our people, 
 having no public amusements to divert their attention from 
 study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few 
 years were observed by strangers to be better instructed and 
 more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in 
 other countries. 
 
 When we were about to sign the above-mentioned articles, 
 which were to be binding on us, our heirs, etc., for fifty years, 
 Mr. Brockden, the scrivener, said to us: "You are young 
 men, but it is scarcely probable that any of you will live to 
 see the expiration of the term fixed in the instrument." A 
 number of us, however, are yet living; but the instrument 
 was after a few years rendered null by a charter that incor- 
 porated and gave perpetuity to the company. 
 
 The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the 
 subscriptions made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting 
 one's self as the proposer of any useful project, that might be 
 supposed to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree 
 above that of one's neighbors, when one has need of their 
 assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore put myself 
 as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of 
 a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and 
 propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this 
 way my affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after prac- 
 ticed 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 encouraged to claim it, and then 
 even envy will be disposed to do you justice by plucking those 
 assumed feathers, and restoring them to their right owner. 
 
 This library afforded me the means of improvement by con- 
 stant 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, 
 
78 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 games, or frolics of any kind; and my industry in my busi- 
 ness continued as indefatigable as it was necessary. I was 
 indebted for ray printing-house; I had a young family coming 
 on to be educated, and I had to contend with for business two 
 printers, who were established in the place before me. My 
 circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My original 
 habits of frugality continuing, and my father having, among 
 his instructions to me when a boy, frequently repeated a 
 proverb of Solomon, " Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, 
 he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean 
 men," I from thence considered industry as a means of 
 obtaining wealth and distinction, which encouraged me, 
 though I did not think that I should ever literally stand 
 before kmffs, which, however, has since happened; for I have 
 stood before ^ue, and even had the honor of sitting down with 
 one, the King of Denmark, to dinner. 
 
 We have an English proverb that says, "^e that would 
 thrive must ash his wifey 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 stitch- 
 ing pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing old linen rags for the 
 paper-makers, etc., etc. We kept no idle servants, our table 
 was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For 
 instance, my breakfast was a long time bread and milk (no 
 tea), and I ate it out of a two-penny earthen porringer, with 
 a pewter spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families, 
 and make a progress, in spite of principle: being called one 
 morning to breakfast, I found it in a China bowl, with a 
 spoon of silver! They had been bought for me without my 
 knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of 
 three-and- twenty shillings, for which she had no other excuse 
 or apology to make, but that she thought her husband 
 deserved a silver spoon and China bowl as well as any of his 
 neighbors. This was the tirst appearance of plate and China 
 in our house, which afterward, in a course of years, as our 
 wealth increased, augmented gradually to several hundred 
 pounds in value. 
 
. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 79 
 
 I liad been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and 
 though some of the dogmas of that persuasion, such as the 
 eternal decrees of God, election, rep?vbation, etc. , appeared to 
 me unintelligible, others doubtful, and I early absented 
 myself from the public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being 
 my studying day, I never was without some religious princi- 
 ples. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the 
 Deity; that He made the world, and governed it by His Provi- 
 dence; tliat the most acceptable service of God was the doing 
 good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime 
 will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or here- 
 after. These I esteemed the essentials of every religion; and, 
 being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I 
 respected them all, though with different degrees of respect, 
 as I found them more or less mixed with other articles, which, 
 without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, 
 served principally to divide us, and make us unfriendly to one 
 another. Tiiis respect to all, with an opinion that the worst 
 liad some good effects, induced me to avoid all discourse that 
 might tend to lessen tlic good opinion another might have of 
 liis own religion; and as our province increased in people, and 
 new places of worship were continually wanted, and generally 
 erected by voluntary contribution, my mite for such purpose, 
 whatever might be the sect, was never refused. 
 
 Though I seldom attended any public worship, I had still 
 an opinion of its propriety, and of its utility when rightly 
 conducted, and I regularly paid my annual subscription for 
 the .support of the only Presbyterian minister or meeting we 
 had in Philadelphia. He used to visit me sometimes as a 
 friend, and admonish me to attend his administrations, and I 
 was now and then prevailed on to do so, once for five Sundays 
 successively. Had he been in my opinion a good preacher, 
 perhaps I might have continued, notwithstanding the occasion 
 I had for the Sunday's leisure in my course of study; but his 
 discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments, or explica- 
 tions of the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me 
 very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single 
 
80 BEN"JAMIN FRAKKLIN 
 
 moral principle was inculcated or enforced, their aim seeming 
 to be rather to make us Presbyterians than good citizens. 
 
 At length he took for his text that verse of the fourth 
 chapter of Philippians : '''■Finally^ hretliren^ whatsoever 
 things are true^ honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, 
 if there he any virtue, or any praise, think on these things.'''' 
 And I imagined, in a sermon on such a text, we could not miss 
 of having some morality. But he confined himself to five 
 points only, as meant by the apostle, viz.: 1. Keeping holy 
 the Sabbath-day. 2. Being diligent in reading the holy 
 Scriptures. 3. Attending duly the public worship. 4. Par- 
 taking of the Sacrament. 5. Paying a due respect to God's 
 ministers. These might be all good things; but, as they were 
 not the kind of good things that I expected from that text, I 
 despaired of ever meeting with them from any other, was dis- 
 gusted, and attended his preaching no more. I had some 
 years before composed a little Liturgy, or form of prayer, for 
 my own private use (viz., in 1728), entitled "Articles of 
 Belief and Acts of Pieligion." I returned to the use of this, 
 and went no more to the public assemblies. My conduct 
 might be blamable, but I leave it, without attempting 
 further to excuse it; my present purpose being to relate facts, 
 and not to make apologies for them. 
 
 It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous 
 project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live 
 without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer 
 all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might 
 lead me into. As I knew, 'or thought I knew, what was right 
 and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one 
 and avoid the other. But I soon found 1 had undertaken 
 a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my 
 care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often 
 surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inatten- 
 tion; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I 
 concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction 
 that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not 
 sufiicient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary 
 
BE^^TJAMIN FRANKLIN. 81 
 
 habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and estab- 
 lished, before we can have any dependence on a steady, 
 uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose I therefore 
 contrived the following method. 
 
 In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met 
 with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less 
 numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas 
 under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by 
 some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was 
 extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, ap- 
 petite, 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 mean- 
 ing. 
 
 These names of virtues, with their precepts, were : 
 
 1. Temperance. 
 Eat not to dullness ; drink not to elevation. 
 
 3. 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 yonr 
 business have its time. 
 
 4. Eesolution. 
 
 ■Resolve to perform what you ought ; perform without fail 
 what you resolve. 
 
 5. Frugality. 
 
 Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself ; i.e., 
 waste nothing. 
 
82 BEMJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 6. Industry. 
 
 Lose no time ; be always employed in something useful ; 
 cut off all unnecessary actions. 
 
 7. Sincerity. 
 
 Use no hurtful deceit ; think innocently and justly ; and, if 
 you speak, speak accordingly. 
 
 8. Justice. 
 Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that 
 are your duty. 
 
 9. Moderation. 
 
 Avoid extremes ; forbear resenting injuries so much as you 
 think they deserve. 
 
 10. Cleanliness. 
 
 Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. 
 
 11. Tranquillity. 
 Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or un- 
 avoidable. 
 
 12. Chastity. 
 
 13. Humility. 
 Imitate Jesus and Socrates. 
 
 My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these 
 virtues, I judged it would be well not to distract my attention 
 by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them 
 at a time ; and, when I should be master of that, then to 
 proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone through 
 the thirteen ; and, as the previous acquisition of some might 
 facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arranged them 
 with that view, as they stand above. Temperance first, as it 
 tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head which is 
 so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and 
 guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient 
 
BENJAMm FRAKKLIN. 83 
 
 habits, and the force of perpetual temptations. This being 
 acquired and established, Silence would be more easy ; and 
 my desire being to gain knowledge at the same time that I 
 improved in virtue, and considering that in conversation it 
 was obtained rather by the use of the ears than of the tongue, 
 and therefore wishing to break a habit I was getting into of 
 prattling, punning, and joking, which only made me accept- 
 able to trifling company, I gave Silence the second place. 
 This and the next. Order, I expected would allow me more 
 time for attending to my project and my studies. Resolution, 
 once become habitual, would keep me firm in my endeavors 
 to obtain all the subsequent virtues ; Frugality and Industry 
 freeing me from my remaining debt, and producing affluence 
 and independence, would make more easy the practice of 
 Sincerity and Justice, etc., etc. Conceiving then, that, agree- 
 ably to the advice of Pythagoras in his Golden Verses,* daily 
 examination would be necessary, I contrived the following 
 method for conducting that examination. 
 
 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 determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the 
 
 1. A part of the verses is thus rendered from the version of HIerocles: 
 "How will our remembrance reprehend us for doing ill, or praise us for 
 doing well, unless the preceding meditation receive some laws, according 
 to which tlie whole tenor of our life should be ordered, and to which we 
 should conform the very private recesses of conscience all our lives long ? 
 He requires also that this examination be daily repeated, that by continual 
 returns of recollection we may not be deceived in our judgment. The time 
 which he recommends for this work is about even or bed-time, that we may 
 conclude the action of the day with the judgment of conscience, making 
 the examination of our conversation an evening song to God. Wherein 
 have I transgressed ? What have I done ? What duty have I omitted ? 
 So shall we measure our lives by the rules above mentioned, if to the law of 
 the mind we join the judgment of reason." 
 
84 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 virtues successively. Thus, in the first week, my great guard 
 was to avoid every the least offence against Temperance^ leav- 
 ing the other virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking 
 every evening the faults of the day. Thus, if in the first 
 week I could keep my first line, marked T, clear of spots, I 
 supposed the habit of that virtue so much strengthened, and 
 its opposite weakened, that I might venture extending my 
 attention to include the next, and for the following week keep 
 both lines clear of spots. Proceeding thus to the last, I could 
 go through a course complete in thirteen weeks, and four 
 courses in a year. And like him who, having a garden to 
 weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad herbs at once, 
 which would exceed his reach and his strength, but works on 
 
 Form of the Pages. 
 
 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 EAT NOT TO DULLNESS ; 
 DRINK NOT TO ELEVATION. 
 
 
 S. 
 
 M. 
 
 T. 
 
 W. 
 
 T. 
 
 F. 
 
 S. 
 
 T. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 S. 
 
 * 
 
 4: 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 o. 
 
 ** 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 * 
 
 R. 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 F. 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 1 
 
 I. 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 S. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 J. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 M. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 C. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 T. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 C. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 H. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
BEi^JAAUK FRANKLIN". 85 
 
 one of the beds at a time, and, having accomphshed the fn-st, 
 proceeds to a second, so I should liave, I hoped, the encourag- 
 ing pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I made in 
 virtue, by clearing successively my lines of their spots, till in 
 the end, by a number of courses, T should be happy in view- 
 ing a clean book, after a thirteen weeks' daily examination. 
 
 This my little book had for its motto these lines from Addi- 
 son's Cato : 
 
 " Here will I hold. If there's a power above us 
 (And that there is, all nature cries aloud 
 Through all her works), He must delight in virtue; 
 And that which He delights in must be happy." 
 
 Another from Cicero : 
 
 " O vitae Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque vitiorum! 
 Unus dies, bene et ex praeceptis tuis actus, peccanti immortaUtati est ante- 
 ponendus." i 
 
 Anotlier from the Proverbs of Solomon, speaking of wisdom 
 
 or virtue : 
 
 " Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honor. 
 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace," iii. IG, 17. 
 
 And conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought 
 it right and necessary to solicit His assistance for obtaining it ; 
 to this end I formed the following little prayer, which was 
 prefixed to my tables of examination, for daily use : 
 
 ^'' O potoerful Goodness ! bountiful Father ! merciful G^iide ! Increase in 
 me that wisdom which discovers mi/ truest interest. Strengthen my resolu- 
 tions to perform ivhat that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to Thy 
 other children as the only return in my poiver for thy continual favors to 
 jjte." 
 
 I used also sometimes a little prayer which I took from 
 Thomson's Poems, viz, : 
 
 " Father of light and life, thou Good Supreme! 
 O teach me what is good ; teach me Thyself 1 
 Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, 
 From every low pursuit; and fill my soul 
 With knowledge, const^ious peace, and virtue pure ; 
 Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!" 
 
 1. "O Philosophy, guide of life! O discoverer of virtues and expeller of 
 vices I one day, lived well and according to thy precepts, is to be preferred 
 tio wa. eternity of sinning." 
 
86 
 
 BEKJAMIiq^ FRANKLIN. 
 
 The precept of Order requiring that every part of my busi- 
 ness sJiould have its allotted time, one page in my little book 
 contained the following scheme of employment for the twenty- 
 four hours of a natural day: 
 
 The Morning. 
 Question. What good shall I do 
 this day ? 
 
 Noon. 
 
 Evening. 
 Question. What good have 
 done to-day ? 
 
 Night. 
 
 r 61 
 
 I 9J 
 
 rioi 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 3 
 4 
 
 Rise, wash, and address" Poiwer- 
 ful Goodness! Contrive day's 
 business, and take the resolution 
 of the day ; prosecute the present 
 study, and breakfast. 
 
 Work. 
 
 Read, or overlook my accounts, 
 and dine. 
 
 Work. 
 
 Put things in their places. Sup- 
 per. Music or diversion, or con- 
 versation. Examination of the 
 day. 
 
 Sleep. 
 
 I entered upon the execution of this plan for self-examina- 
 tion, and continued it with occasional intermissions for some 
 time. I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults 
 than I had imagined ; but I had the satisfaction of seeing 
 them diminish. To avoid the trouble of renewing now and 
 then my little book, which, by scraping out the marks on the 
 paper of old faults to make room for new ones in a new course, 
 became full of holes, I transferred my tables and precepts to 
 the ivory leaves of a memorandum-book, on which the lines 
 were drawn with red ink, that made a durable stain, and on 
 those lines I marked my faults with a black-lead pencil, which 
 marks I could easily wipe out with a wet sponge. After a 
 while I went through one course only in a year, and after- 
 ward only one in several years, till at length I omitted them 
 entirely, being employed in voyages and business abroad, 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 87 
 
 with a multiplicity of affairs that interfered ; but I always 
 carried my little book with me. 
 
 My scheme of Order gave me the most trouble ; and ■ I 
 found that, though it might be practicable where a man's 
 business was such as to leave him the disposition of his time, 
 that of a journeyman printer, for instance, it was not possi- 
 ble to be exactly observed by a master, who must mix with 
 the world, and often receive people of business at their own 
 hours. Order^ too, with regard to places for things, papers, 
 etc., I found extremely difficult to acquire. 1 had not been 
 early accustomed to it, and, having an exceeding good memory, 
 I was not so sensible of the inconvenience attending want of 
 method. This article, therefore, cost me so much painful 
 attention, and my faults in it vexed me so much, and I 
 made so little progress in amendment, and had such frequent 
 relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the attempt, and 
 content myself with a faulty character in that respect, like 
 the man who, in buying an ax of a smith, my neighbor, de- 
 sired to have the whole of its surface as bright as the edge. 
 The Smith consented to grind it bright for him if he would 
 turn the wheel ; he turned, while the smith pressed the broad 
 face of the ax hard and heavily on the stone, which made the 
 turning of it very fatiguing. The man came every now and 
 then from the wheel to see how the work went on, and at 
 length would take his ax as it was, without farther grinding. 
 "No," said the smith, "turn on, turn on; we shall have it 
 bright by and by ; as yet, it is only speckled." "Yes," says 
 the man, '■'■hut I think I like a speckled ax besty And I 
 believe this may have ^een the case with many, who, having, 
 for want of some such means as I employed, found the diffi- 
 culty of obtaining good and breaking bad habits in other 
 points of vice and virtue, have given up the struggle, and 
 concluded that "a speckled ax was best;''"' for something, 
 that pretended to be reason, was every now and then suggest- 
 ing 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 
 
88 BENJAMIK FRANKLIN. 
 
 attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated ; 
 and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in him- 
 self 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 obtain- 
 ing, 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 engraved 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 re- 
 mainder 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-continued health, and what is still left to him of a good 
 constitution ; to Industry and Frugality, the eai-ly easiness 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 confidence 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 
 
 1. When the orderly, business-like Adams joined Franklin as fellow-com- 
 missiouer in France, "he was sliocked at the confusion in wliicli he saw all 
 the papers of tlie embassy, and set vigorously about tlie task of sorting, 
 labeling, docketing, and tying up letters and accounts.'" — Morsels Life of 
 Franklin, p. 291. 
 
BENJAMIi^^ FRANKLIN^. 89 
 
 younger acquaintance. I hope, therefore, that some of my 
 descendants may follow the example and reap the benefit. 
 
 It will be remarked that, though my scheme was not wholly 
 without religion, there was in it no mark of any of the dis- 
 tinguishing tenets of any particular sect. I had purposely 
 avoided them; for, being fully persuaded of the utility and 
 excellency of my method, and that it might be serviceable to 
 people in all religions, and intending some time or other to 
 publish it, I would not have anything in it that should preju- 
 dice any one, of any sect, against it. I purposed writing a 
 little comment on each virtue, in which I would have shown 
 the advantages of possessing it, and the mischiefs attending 
 its opposite vice ; and I should have called my book The Art 
 OF Virtue, because it would have shown the means and man- 
 ner of obtaining virtue, which would have distinguished it 
 from the mere exhortation to be good, that does not instruct 
 and indicate the means, but is like the apostle's man of verbal 
 charity, who only without showing to the naked and hungry 
 how or where they might get clothes or victuals, exhorted 
 them to be fed and clothed.— James ii. 15, 16. 
 
 But it so happened that my intention of writing and pub- 
 lishing this comment was never fulfilled. I did, indeed, from 
 time to time put down short hints of the sentiments, reason- 
 ings, etc., to be made use of in it, some of which I have still 
 by me; but the necessary close attention to private business in 
 the earlier part of my life, and public business since, have oc- 
 casioned my postponing it; for, it being connected in my mind 
 with a great and extensive project, that required the whole 
 man to execute, and which an unforeseen succession of em- 
 ploys prevented my attending to, it has hitherto remained 
 unfinished. ^ 
 
 1. The " Art of Virtue " was first suggested in one of Franklin's " Busy- 
 Body" papers, in 17'^8, which begins thus: "It is said that the Peisians, in 
 their ancient constitution, had public schools in which virtue was taught as 
 a Uberal art or science.''' This practical method of propagating virtue was 
 a favorite scheme, as shown by his frequently recurring to it until extreme 
 old age. In 17()0 he discusses it in a letter to Lord Karnes, insisting that 
 "To acquire those [virtues] that are wanting, and secure what we acquire, 
 as well as those we have naturally, is the subject of an art. It is as prop- 
 erly an art as painting, navigation, or architecture." A year later lie 
 
90 BEN^JAMIK FRANKLIiq", 
 
 In this piece it was my design to explain and enforce this 
 doctrine, that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are 
 forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful, the nature 
 of man alone considered; that it was, therefore, every one's 
 interest to be virtuous who wished to be happy even in this 
 world; and I should, from this circumstance (there being 
 always in the world a number of rich merchants, nobility, 
 states, and princes, who have need of honest instruments for 
 the management of their affairs, and such being so rare), have 
 endeavored to convince young persons that no qualities were 
 so likely to make a poor man's fortune as those of probity and 
 integrity. 
 
 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 discuss- 
 ing any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent, of 
 which he convinced me by mentioning several instances; I de- 
 termined endeavoring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice 
 or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my list, giv- 
 ing 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 appear- 
 ance 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, 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, undoiihtedly , 
 etc., and I adopted, instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, 
 or I 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, T denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him 
 abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his 
 proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in 
 
 writes: " Yon will not doubt my being serious in the intention of finisliing 
 my 'Art of Virtue.' It is not a mere ideal work. I planned it first in 1732. 
 . . . The materials have been growing ever since. The forni only is now 
 to be given." 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 91 
 
 certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but 
 ill the present case there apjjeared or seemed to me some dif- 
 ference, 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 opin- 
 ions procured 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 mis- 
 takes 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 habit- 
 ual to me, that perhaps for these fifty years past 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, sub- 
 ject to 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 as jy^'wZe. Disguise it, struggle with it, 
 beat it down, 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 completely overcome it, 
 I should probably be proud of my humility. 
 
 I AM NOW ABOUT TO WRITE AT HOME, AUGUST, 1788, BUT CAN- 
 NOT HAVE THE HELP EXPECTED FROM MY PAPERS, MANY OF 
 THEM BEING LOST IN THE WAR. I HAVE, HOWEVER, FOUND 
 THE FOLLOWING. 
 
 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 pre- 
 served, viz.; 
 
92 BENJAMIN FRANKLIiq-. 
 
 Observations on my reading history, in Library, May 19th, 
 1731. 
 
 " That the great affairs of the world, the wars, revolutions, 
 etc. , are carried on and effected by parties. 
 
 "That the view of these parties is their present general 
 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 interest ; which, 
 thwarting others, breaks that party into divisions, and occa- 
 sions more confusion. 
 
 "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 inter- 
 est was united, and did not act from a principle of benevo- 
 lence. 
 
 "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 gov- 
 erned by suitable good and wise rules, which good and wise 
 men may probably be more unanimous 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. B. F." 
 
 Revolving this project in my mind, as to be undertaken 
 hereafter, when my circumstances should afford me the nec- 
 essary leisure, I put down from time to time, on pieces of 
 paper, such thoughts as occurred to me respecting it. Most 
 of these ^re lost ; but I find one purporting to be the sub- 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 93 
 
 Stance of an intended creed, containing, as I thought, the 
 essentials of every known religion, and being free of every- 
 thing that might shock the professors of any religion. It is 
 expressed in these words, viz. : 
 
 *' That there is one God, w^ho made all things. 
 
 " That He governs the world by His providence. 
 
 ''That He ought to be worshiped 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 exercised 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 whom, 
 with prudent caution, the scheme should be gradually com- 
 municated ; that the members should engage to afford their 
 advice, assistance, and support to each other in promothig one 
 another's interests, business, 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. 
 
 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 cir- 
 cumstances, and the necessity I was under of sticking close to 
 
94 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 m}^ business, occasioned my postponing the further prosecu- 
 tion of it at that time ; and my multifarious occupations, 
 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 such 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 1 have always thought that one man of toler- 
 able abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great 
 affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, 
 cutting off all amusements 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 Almanac, under the name of 
 Richard Saunders ; it was continued by me about twenty-five 
 years, commonly called Poor Richard^s Almanac. I endeav- 
 ored to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accord- 
 ingly came to be in such demand, that I reaped considerable 
 profit from it, vending 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 people, 
 who bought scarcely any other books ; I therefore filled all 
 the little spaces that occurred between the remarkable days in 
 the calendar with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as incul- 
 cated 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, it is hard for an empty sack to stand up- 
 right. 
 
 1. " Mr. Saunders became a personagre as well known in that age as Josh 
 Billings and Mrs. Partington in ours. He became a type, and more than one 
 piece of wisdom he never was guilty of writing owed its currency to the 
 words, ' As Poor Kichard says.' His sayings passed into the daily speech of 
 the people, were quoted in sermons, were printed on the title-pages of 
 pamphlets and used as mottoes by the newspaper moralists of the d.iy, and 
 continued down even to the Revolution to be read with avidity."— Mc- 
 Master''s Life of Franklin. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 95 
 
 These proverbs, which contahied the wisdom of many ages 
 and nations, I assembled and formed into a connected dis- 
 course prefixed to the Almanac of 1757, as the harangue of a 
 wise old man to the people attending an auction.' The bring- 
 ing all these scattered counsels thus into a focus enabled them 
 to make greater impression. The piece, being universally 
 approved, was copied in all the newspapers of the Continent ; 
 reprinted in Britain on a broadside, to be stuck up in houses ; 
 two translations were made of it in French, 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 grow- 
 ing plenty of money which was observable for several years 
 after its publication. 
 
 I considered my newspaper, also, as another means of com- 
 municating 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 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 inclinations. 
 These may be found in the papers about the beginning of 
 1735. 
 
 In the conduct of my newspaper, I carefully excluded all 
 libeling and personal abuse, which is of late years become so 
 
 1. This discourse is known as " Father Abraham's Speech.'' It has been 
 many times repubhshed under the title "The Way to Wealth." "Since 
 that day," says McMaster, " it has spread over the whole of Europe, and 
 may now be read in French, in German, in Spanish, in Italian, in Russian,- 
 in the language of Holland, in the language of Bohemia, in modern Greek, 
 in Gaelic, and in Portuguese." Under the title "La Science du Bonhomme 
 Richard," it has been thirty times printed in French, and twice in Italian. 
 Among the familiar proverbs of the speech are these: " Little strokes fell 
 great oaks," "Three removes are as bad as a fire." " Fools make feasts 
 and wise men eat them," " He that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing," 
 "One to-day is worth two to-morrows," "Early to bed and eaily to rise, 
 makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise," " Experience keeps a dear school, 
 but fools will learn in no other, as Poor Richard says." 
 
96 BEKJAMIK FHANKLIK. 
 
 disgraceful to our country. Whenever I was solicited to insert 
 anything of (hat kind, and the writers pleaded, as they gen- 
 erally 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 
 I^apers with private altercation, in which they had no concern, 
 without doing them manifest injustice. Now, many of our 
 printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individ- 
 uals by false accusations of the fairest characters among our- 
 selves, augmenting animosity even to the producing of duels ; 
 and are, moreover, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous reflec- 
 tions on the government of neighboring states, and even on 
 the conduct of our best national allies, which may be attended 
 with the most pernicious consequences. These things I men- 
 tion 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 which 
 I was to receive one third of the profits of the business, paying 
 one third of the expense. He was a man of learning, and 
 honest but ignorant in matters of account ; and, though he 
 sometimes 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 state as she 
 could find of the transactions past, but continued to account 
 
BENJAMTT^ FRANKLIIT. 07 
 
 with the greatest reguhirity and exactness every quarter after- 
 wards, and managed the business with such success, that she 
 not only brought up i;ei)utably a family 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 recommending 
 that branch of education for our young females, as likely to 
 be of more use to them and their children, in case of widow- 
 hood, than either music or dancing, by preserving them from 
 losses by imposition of crafty men, and enabling them to con- 
 tinue, 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. 
 
 About the year 1734 there arrived among us from Ireland a 
 young Presbyterian preacher, named Hemphill, who delivered 
 with a good voice, and apparently extempore, most excellent 
 discourses, which drew together considerable numbers of dif- 
 ferent persuasions, who joined in admiring them. Among 
 the rest, I became one of his constant hearers, his sermons 
 pleasing me, as they had little of the dogmatical kind, but in- 
 culcated strongly the practice of virtue, or what in the religious 
 style are called good works. Those, however, of our congre- 
 gation who considered themselves as orthodox Presbyterians 
 disapproved his doctrine, and were joined by most of the old 
 clergy, who arraigned him of heterodoxy before the synod, in 
 order to have him silenced. I became his zealous partisan, 
 and contributed all I could to raise a party in his favor, and 
 we combated for him awhile with some hopes of success. 
 There was much scribbling pro and con upon the occasion ; 
 and finding that, though an elegant preacher, he was but a 
 poor writer, I lent him my pen and wrote for him two or 
 three pamphlets, and one piece in the Gazette of April, 1735. 
 Those pamphlets, as is generally the case with controversial 
 writings, though eagerly read at the time, were soon out of 
 vogue, and I question whether a single copy of them now 
 exists. 
 
98 . BENJAMIN^ FRANKLIN. 
 
 During the contest an unlucky occurrence hurt his cause 
 exceedingly. One of our adversaries having heard him preach 
 a sermon that was much admired, thought he had somewhere 
 read the sermon before, or at least a part of it. On search, he 
 found that part quoted at length, in one of the British Ke- 
 views, from a discourse of Dr. Foster's. This detection gave 
 many of our party disgust, who accordingly abandoned his 
 cause, and occasioned our more speedy discomfiture in the 
 synod. I stuck by him, however, as I rather approved his 
 giving us good sermons composed by others, than bad ones of 
 his own manufacture, though the latter was the practice of 
 common teachers. He afterward acknowledged to me that 
 none of those he preached were his own ; adding, that his 
 memory was such as enabled him to retain and repeat any 
 sermon after one reading only. On our defeat, he left us in 
 search elsewhere of better fortune, and I quitted the congrega- 
 tion, never joining it after, though I continued many years my 
 subscription for the support of its ministers. 
 
 I had begun in 1733 to study languages ; I soon made my- 
 self so much a master of the French as to be able to read the 
 books with ease. I then undertook the Italian. An acquaint- 
 ance, who was also learning it, used often to toujpt 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, etc., which 
 tasks the vanquished was to perform on honor, before our 
 next meeting. As we played pretty equally, we thus beat one 
 another into that language. I afterwards with a little pains- 
 taking acquired as much of the Spanish as to read their books 
 also. 
 
 I have already mentioned that I had only one year's instruc- 
 tion 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 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 90 
 
 understood so much more of that language than I had imag- 
 ined, which encouraged me to apply myself again to the study 
 of it, and I met with more success, as those preceding lan- 
 guages had greatly smoothed my way. 
 
 From these circumstances, I have thought that there is some 
 inconsistency in our common mode of teacliing languages. 
 We are told that it is proper to begin first with the Latin, and, 
 having acquired that, it will be more easy to attain those mod- 
 ern languages which are derived from it; and yet we do not 
 begin with the Greek, in order more easily to acquire the 
 Latin. It is true that, if you can clamber and get to the top 
 of a staircase without using the steps, you will more easily 
 gain them in descending ; but, certainly, if you begin with 
 the lowest you will with more ease ascend to the top ; and I 
 would therefore offer it to the consideration of those who sup- 
 erintend the education of our youth, whethef, since many of 
 those who begin with the Latin quit the same after spending 
 some years without having made any great proficiency, and 
 what they have learned becomes almost useless, so that their 
 time has been lost, it would not have been better to have 
 begun with the French, proceeding to the Italian, etc.; for, 
 though, after spending the same time, they should quit the 
 study of languages and never arrive at the Latin, they would, 
 however, have acquired another tongue or two, that, being 
 in modern use, might be serviceable to them in common life. 
 
 After ten years' absence from Boston, and having become 
 easy m my circumstances, I made a journey tiiither to visit 
 my relations, which I could not sooner well afford. In re- 
 turning, I called at Newport to see my brother, 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 per- 
 formed, sending him a few years to school before I took him 
 into the office. His mother carried on the business till he was 
 
100 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 grown up, when I assisted him with an assortment of new 
 types, those of iiis 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. 
 
 In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, 
 by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted 
 bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by in- 
 oculation.' This I mention for the sake of parents who omit 
 that operation, on the supposition that they should never for- 
 give themselves if a child died under it ; my example show- 
 ing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, 
 therefore, the safer should be chosen. 
 
 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 what we had settled as a convenient num- 
 ber, viz., twelve. We had from the beginning made it a rule 
 to keep our institution a secret, which was pretty well ob- 
 served ; the intention was to avoid applications of improper 
 persons for admittance, some of whom, perhaps, we might 
 find it diflBcult to refuse. I was one of those who were against 
 any addition to our number, but, instead of it, made in writ- 
 ing a proposal, that every member separately should endeavor 
 to form a subordinate club, with the same rules respecting 
 queries, etc., and without informing them of the connection 
 with the Junto. The advantages proposed were, the improve- 
 ment of so many more young citizens by the use of our insti- 
 tutions ; 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 pro- 
 motion of our particular interests in business by more exten- 
 sive recommendation, and the increase of our influence in 
 
 1. Jenner's method of vaccination was not known until 1798. Persons 
 were often inoculated with the disease when in good health, so as to escajte 
 it in more violent form during epidemics. Such, however, was the prejudice 
 against this practice that it was believed by many to be attended by divine 
 punishment. 
 
BENJAMIN' FKANKLIN. lUl 
 
 public affairs, and oui" power of doing good by spreading 
 through the several clubs the sentiments of the Junto. 
 
 The project was approved, and every member undertook 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, etc. They were useful to them- 
 selves, and afforded us a good deal of amusement, informa- 
 tion, and instruction, besides answering, in some considerable 
 degree, our views of influencing the public opinion on partic- 
 ular 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 with- 
 out opposition ; but the year following, when I was again pro- 
 posed (the choice, like that of the members, being annual), a 
 new member made a long speech against me, in order to favor 
 some other candidate. I was, however, chosen, which was 
 the more agreeable to me, as, besides the pay for the imme- 
 diate service as clerk, the place gave me a better opportunity 
 of keeping up an niterest among the members, which secured 
 to me the business of printing the votes, laws, paper money, 
 and other 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 were likely to give him, in time, great influence in the 
 House, which, indeed, afterwards happened. I did not, how- 
 ever, 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 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, express- 
 ing 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 
 
102 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 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 once done you a kindness will he more 
 ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have 
 ohligedP And it shows how much more profitable it is pru- 
 dently to remove, than to resent, return, and continue inimi- 
 cal proceedings. 
 
 In 1737, Colonel Spots wood, late governor of Virginia, and 
 then postmaster-general, being dissatisfied with the conduct 
 of his deputy at Pliiladelphia, respecting some negligence in 
 rendering, and inexactitude of 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 
 newspaper, 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 newspaper declined 
 proportionably, and I was satisfied without retaliating his re- 
 fusal, 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 remittances, 
 with great clearness and punctuality. The character of ob- 
 serving such a conduct is the most powerful of all recommen- 
 dations to new employments and increase of business. 
 
 I began now to turn my thoughts a little to jDublic 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. Those who chose never to attend, 
 paid him six shillings a year to be excused, which was supposed 
 to be for hiring substitutes, but was, in reality, much more 
 than was necessary for that purpose, and made the constable- 
 ship a place of profit ; and the constable, for a little drink, 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 103 
 
 often got such ragamuffins about him as a watch, that re- 
 spectable housekeepers did not choose to mix with. Walking 
 the rounds, too, was often neglected, and most of the nights 
 spent in tippling. I thereupon w'rote a paper to be read in 
 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' w^orth 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 people 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. 
 
 About this time I wrote a paper (first to be read in Junto, 
 but it was afterward published) on the different accidents and 
 carelessnesses by which houses were set on fire, with cautions 
 against them, and means proposed of avoiding them. This 
 was much spoken of as a useful piece, and gave rise to a 
 project, which soon followed it, of forming a company for the 
 more ready extinguishing 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 w^e agreed to meet once a month and spend a social 
 evening together, in discoursing and communicating such 
 
104 BENJAMii^ frankli:n-. 
 
 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 ac- 
 cordingly done ; and this went on, one new company being 
 formed after another, till they became so numerous as to in- 
 clude 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 establishment, that which I first formed, called 
 the Union Fire Company, still subsists and flourishes, though 
 the first members are all deceased but myself and one, who is 
 older by a year than I am. The small fines that have been 
 paid by members for absence at the monthly meetings have 
 been 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 provided 
 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 before the house in which they 
 began has been half consumed. 
 
 In 1739 arrived among us from Ireland the Reverend Mr. 
 "Whitefield, who had made himself remarkable there as an itin- 
 erant preacher. He was at first permitted to preach in some of 
 our churches ; but the clergy, taking a dislike to him, soon re- 
 fused him their pulpits, and he was obliged to preach in the 
 fields. The multitudes of all sects and denominations that 
 attended his sermons were enormous, and it was matter of 
 speculation to me, who was one of the number, to observe the 
 extraordinary influence of his oratory on his hearers, and how 
 much they admired and respected him, notwithstanding his 
 common abuse of them, by assuring them they were naturally 
 lialf beasts and half devils. It was wonderful to gee the 
 change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From 
 being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as 
 if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not 
 
BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. 105 
 
 walk through the town in an evening without hearing psahns 
 sung in different families of every street. 
 
 And it being found inconvenient to assemble in the open 
 air, subject to its inclemencies, the building of a house to 
 meet in was no sooner proposed, and persons appointed to 
 receive contributions, but sufficient sums were soon received 
 to procure thfe ground and erect the building, which was one 
 hundred feet long and seventy broad, about the size of West- 
 minster Hall ;' and the work was carried on with such spirit 
 as to be finished in a much shorter time than could have been 
 expected. Both house and ground w^ere vested in trustees, 
 expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persua- 
 sion w^ho might desire to say something to the people of Phila- 
 delphia ; the design in building not being to accommodate 
 any particular sect, but the inhabitants in general ; so that 
 even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary 
 to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at 
 his service. 
 
 Mr. Whitefield, in leaving us, went preaching all the way 
 through the colonies to Georgia. The settlement of that 
 province had lately been begun, but, instead of being made 
 with hardy, industrious husbandmen, accustomed to labor, 
 the only people fit for such an enterprise, it was with families 
 of broken shop-keepers and other insolvent debtors, many of 
 indolent and idle habits, taken out of the jails, who, being set 
 down in the woods, unqualified for clearing land, and unable 
 to endure the hardships of a new settlement, perished in num- 
 bers, leaving many helpless children unprovided for. The 
 sight of their miserable situation inspired the benevolent 
 heart of Mr. Whitetield with the idea of building an Orphan 
 House there, in which they might be supported and educated. 
 Returning northward, he preached up this charity, and made 
 large collections, for his eloquence had a wonderful power 
 over the hearts and purses of his hearers, of which I myself 
 was an instance. 
 — • . 
 
 1. A celebrated hall in London, adjoining the Parliament buildings. 
 
106 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 I did not disapprove of the design, but, as Georgia was then 
 destitute of materials and workmen, and it was proposed to 
 send them from Philadelphia at a great expense, I thought it 
 would have been better to have built the house here, and 
 brought the children to it. This I advised ; but he was reso- 
 lute in his first project, rejected my counsel, and I therefore 
 refused to contribute. I happened soon after to attend one of 
 his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to 
 finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get 
 nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper 
 money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. 
 As he proseeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the 
 coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of 
 that, and determined me to give the silver ; and he finished so 
 admirably, that I emptied my pockets wholly into the collector's 
 dish, gold and all. At this sermon there w\as also one of our 
 club, who, being of my sentiments respecting the building in 
 Georgia, and suspecting a collection might be intended, had, 
 by precaution, emptied his pockets before he came from home. 
 Towards the conclusion of the discourse, however, he felt a 
 strong desire to give, and applied to a neighbor, who stood 
 near him, to borrow some money for the purpose. The appli- 
 cation was unfortunately [made] to perliaps the only man in 
 the company who had the firmness not to be affected by the 
 preacher. His answer was: ''At any other time, Friend 
 HopJiinson, I icould lend to thee freely ; hut not now, for thee 
 seems to he otit of thy right senses.'''' 
 
 Some of Mr. "Whitefield's enemies affected to suppose that 
 he would apply these collections to his own private emolu- 
 ment ; but I, who was intimately acquainted with him (being 
 employed in printing his Sermons and Journals, etc.), never 
 had the least suspicion of his integrity, but am to this day 
 decidedly of opinion that he was in all his conduct a perfectly 
 honest man; and methinks my testimony in his favor ought 
 to have the more weight, as we had no religious connection. 
 He used, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but he 
 never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 107 
 
 heard. Ours was a mere civil friendship, sincere on both 
 sides, and lasted to his death. 
 
 The following instance will show something of the terms 
 on which we stood. Upon one of his arrivals from England 
 at Boston, he wrote to me that he should come soon to Phila- 
 delphia, but knew not where he could lodge when there, as he 
 understood his old friend and host, Mr. Benezet, was removed 
 to Germantown. My answer was: "You know my house; 
 if you can make shift with its scanty accommodations, you 
 will be most heartily welcome." He replied, that if I made 
 that kind offer for Christ's sake, I should not miss of a re- 
 ward. And I returned : '•'■ DonHlet me he mistaken; it was 
 not for ClirisVs sake^ but for your sake.'''' One of our 
 common acquaintance jocosely remarked, that, knowing it to 
 be the custom of the saints, when they received any favor, to 
 shift the burden of the obligation from off their own shoul- 
 ders, and place it in heaven, T had contrived to fix it on earth. 
 
 The last time I saw Mr. Whitefield was in London, when he 
 consulted me about his Orphan House concern, and his pur- 
 pose of appropriating it to the establishment of a college. 
 
 He had a loud and clear voice, and articulated his words 
 and sentences so perfectly, that he might be heard and under- 
 stood at a great distance, especially as his auditories, however 
 numerous, observed the most exact silence. He preached one 
 evening from the top of the Court-house steps, which are in 
 the middle of Market Street, and on the west side of Second 
 Street, which crosses it at right angles. Both streets were 
 filled with his hearers to a considerable distance. Being 
 among the hindmost in Market Street, I had the curiosity to 
 learn how far he could be heard, by retiring backwards down 
 the street towards the river ; and I found his voice distinct 
 till I came near Front Street, when some noise in that street 
 obscured it. Imagining then a semicircle, of which my dis- 
 tance should be the radius, and that it were filled with audi- 
 tors, to each of whom I allowed two square feet, I computed 
 that he might well be heard by more than thirty thousand. 
 This reconciled me to the newspaper accounts of his having 
 
108 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 preached to twenty-five thousand people in the fields, and to 
 the ancient histories of generals haranguing whole armies, of 
 which 1 had sometimes doubted. 
 
 By hearing him often, I came to distinguish easily between 
 sermons newly composed, and those which he had often 
 preached in the course of his travels. His delivery of the 
 latter was so improved by frequent repetitions that every 
 accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so 
 perfectly well turned and well placed, that, without being in- 
 terested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with 
 the discourse ; a pleasure of much the same kind with that 
 received from an excellent piece of music. This is an advan- 
 tage itinerant preachers have over those who are stationary, 
 as the latter cannot well improve their delivery of a sermon 
 by so many rehearsals. 
 
 His writing and printing from time to time gave great ad- 
 vantage to his enemies ; unguarded expressions, and even 
 erroneous opinions, delivered in preaching, might have been 
 afterwards explained or qualified by supposing others that might 
 have accompanied them, or they might have been denied ; but 
 *litera scripta manet.^ Critics attacked his writings violently, 
 and with so much appearance of reason as to diminish the 
 number of his votaries and prevent their increase ; so that I 
 am of opinion if he had never written anything, he would 
 have left behind him a much more numerous and important 
 sect, and his reputation might in that case have been still 
 growing, even after his death, as there being nothing of his 
 writing on which to found a censure and give him a lower 
 character, his proselytes would be left at liberty to feign for 
 him as great a variety of excellences as their enthusiastic ad- 
 miration might wish him to have possessed.^ 
 
 My business was now continually augmenting, and my cir- 
 cumstances growing daily easier, my newspaper having be- 
 come very profitable, as being for a time almost the only one 
 
 1. That which is written remains. 
 
 2. For a good account of Whitefield's character and labors, see Leeky's 
 History of Enr'and in the Eighteenth Century,''' vol. ii. ch. 9, 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 109 
 
 in this and tlie neighboring provinces. I experienced, too, the 
 truth of the observation, " that after getting the first hun- 
 dred pound, it is more easy to get the second,''' money itself 
 being of a prolific nature. 
 
 The partnership at Carolina having succeeded, I was en- 
 couraged to engage in others, and to promote several of my 
 workmen, who had behaved well, by establishing them with 
 printing-houses in different colonies, on the same terms as 
 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 themselves, 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, everything 
 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 partnership ; 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 
 business, etc., which are attended often with breach of friend- 
 ship 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 which I regretted, there being no provision for 
 defense, 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 Mr. 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 undertaking ; 
 and, not knowing another at that time suitable for such a 
 trust, I let the scheme lie a while dormant. I succeeded bet- 
 ter the next year, 1744, in proposing and establishing a Philo- 
 
110 BENJAMIK FRANKLIN. 
 
 sophical Society. The paper I wrote for that purpose will be 
 found among my writings, when collected/ 
 
 With respect to defense, Spain having been several years at 
 war against Great Britain, and being at length joined by 
 France, which brought us into great danger ; 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 determined to try what might be done by 
 a voluntary association of the people. To promote this, I 
 first wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled Plain Truth, 
 in which I stated our defenseless situation in strong lights, 
 with the necessity of union and discipline for our defense, 
 and promised to propose in a few days an association, to be 
 generally signed for that purpose. The pamphlet had a sud- 
 den and surprising effect.^ I was called upon for the instru- 
 ment 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, and explained it, and then dis- 
 tributed the copies, which were eagerly signed, not the least 
 objection being made. 
 
 When the company separated, and the papers were col- 
 lected, we found above twelve hundred hands; and, other 
 copies being dispersed in the country, the subscribers 
 amounted at length to upward of ten thousand. These all 
 
 1. This paper was entitled '' A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge 
 among the British Plantations in America." The society still exists, as the 
 American Philosophical Society. 
 
 2. The pamphlet was announced in Franklin's newspaper. Nov. 1-2, 1747, 
 as follows: "Next Saturday will be published 'Plain Truth: or, Serious 
 Considerations on the Present State of the City of Philadelphia and Province 
 of Pennsylvania, by a tradesman of Philadelphia.' " On the title-page was 
 a rude cut representing the wagoner beseeching Hercules for aid. The 
 emergency was an important one; already French and Spanisli privateers 
 had appeared in the Delaware, and two houses had been plundered. Franlc- 
 lin's paniphl"t was answered by one called "' Necessary- Truth," and a bitter 
 controversy followed, which in the course of the year brought forth several 
 pamphlets and sermons on the lawfulness of defending what is one's own. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIK. Ill 
 
 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 subscriptions 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 Philadelphia 
 regiment, being met, chose me for their colonel; but, conceiv- 
 ing myself unfit, I declined that station, and recommended 
 Mr. Lawrence, a fine person, and man of influence, who was 
 accordingly ap'pointed. I then proposed a lottery to defray 
 the expense of building a battery below the town, and fur- 
 nishing 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 wTote to England 
 for more, soliciting, at the same time, our proprietaries for 
 some assistance, though without much expectation of obtain- 
 ing it. 
 
 Meanwhile, Colonel Lawrence, William Allen, Abram Tay- 
 lor, Esq., and myself were sent to New York by the associ- 
 ators, commissioned to borrow some cannon of Governor 
 Clinton. He at first refused us peremptorily; but at dinner 
 with his council, where there was great drinking of Madeira 
 wine, as the custom of that place then was, he softened by 
 degrees, and said he would lend us six. After a few more 
 bumpers he advanced to ten; and at length he very good- 
 naturedly conceded eighteen. They were fine cannon, eighteen- 
 pounders, with their carriages, which we soon transported 
 and mounted on our battery, where the associators kept a 
 
 1. Lotteries were resorted to for carrying on public and philanthropic 
 enterprises almost as conimonlj' as the churcli-fairs of to-day. '" Whenever 
 a clumsy bridge was to be thrown across a little stream, a public building 
 enlarpe;), a school-house built, a street paved, a road repaired, a manufac- 
 turing company to be aided, a church assisted, or a college treasury Vf- 
 pienished, u loiiery bill was passed by the Legislature, a wheel procured, a 
 notice ))Ut in the papers, and often in a few weeks the needed monev was 
 raised."— See McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., vol. i. p. 588. 
 
112 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN". 
 
 nightly guard while the war lasted, and among the rest I 
 regularly took my turn of duty there as a common soldier/ 
 
 My activity in these operations was agreeable to the gov- 
 ernor and council; they took me into confidence, and I was 
 consulted by them in every measure wherein their concurrence 
 was thought useful to the association. Calling in the aid of 
 religion, I proposed to them the proclaiming a fast, to pro- 
 mote reformation, and implore the blessing of Heaven on 'our 
 undertaking. They embraced the motion; but, as it was the 
 first fast ever thought of in the province, the secretary had no 
 precedent from which to draw the proclamation. My educa- 
 tion 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 lan- 
 guages, and divulged 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 bat 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 gentleman who had like- 
 wise some friends in the House, and wished to succeed me as 
 their clerk, acquainted me that it was decided to displace me 
 at the next election; and he, therefore, in good will, advised 
 me to resign, as more consistent with my honor than being 
 turned out. My answer to him was, that I had read or heard 
 of some public 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 his rule, and will practice it with a 
 small addition: I shall never a.s-A', 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 
 
 1. Peace was broufjht about in Europe by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 
 1748, thus eudiug the trouble in the colonies. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 113 
 
 reprisals on my adversaries." I heard, however, no more of 
 this; I was chosen again unanimously as usual 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 wliich 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. 
 
 Indeed I had some cause to believe that the defense of the 
 country was not disagreeable to any of them, provided they 
 were not required to assist in it. And I found that a much 
 greater number of them than I could have imagined, though 
 against offensive war, were clearly for the defensive. Many 
 pamphlets pro and con were published on the subject, and 
 some by good Quakers, in favor of defense, which I believe 
 convinced most of their younger people. 
 
 A transaction in our fire company, gave me some insight 
 into their prevailing sentiments. It had been proposed that 
 we should encourage the scheme for building a battery by 
 laying out the present stock, then about sixty pounds, in 
 tickets of the lottery. By our rules, no money could be dis- 
 posed of till the next meeting after the proposal. The com- 
 pany consisted of thirty niembers, of which twenty-two were 
 Quakers, and eight only of other persuasions. We eight 
 punctually attended the meeting ; but, though we thought that 
 some of the Quakers would join us, we were by no means sure 
 of a majority. Only one Quaker, Mr. James Morris, appeared 
 to oppose the measure. He expressed much sorrow that it 
 had ever been proposed, as he said Friends were all against 
 it, and it would create such discord as might break up the 
 company. We told him that we saw no reason for that ; we 
 were the minority, and if Friends were against the measure, 
 and outvoted us, we must and should, agreeably to the usage 
 of all societies, submit. When the hour for business arrived it 
 was moved to put the vote ; he allowed we might then do it 
 by the rules, but, as he could assure us that a number of 
 
114 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 members intended to be present for the purpose of opposing 
 it, it would be but candid to allow a little time for their ap- 
 pearing. 
 
 While we were disputing this, a waiter came to tell me two 
 gentlemen below desired to speak with me. I went down, 
 and found they were two of our Quaker members. They told 
 me there were eight of them assembled at a tavern just by ; 
 that they were determined to come and vote with us if there 
 should be occasion, which they hoped would not be the case, 
 and desired we would not call for their assistance if we could 
 do without it, as their voting for such a measure might em- 
 broil them with their elders and friends. Being thus secure 
 of a majority, I went up, and after a little seeming hesitation, 
 agreed to a delay of another hour. This Mr. Morris allowed 
 to be extremely fair. Not one of his opposing friends ap- 
 peared, at which he expressed great surprise ; and, at the 
 expiration of the hour, we carried the resolution eight to 
 one ; and as, of the twenty-two Quakers, eight were ready 
 to vote with us, and thirteen, by their absence, manifested 
 that they were not inclined to oppose the measure, I after- 
 ward estimated the proportion of Quakers sincerely against 
 defense as one to twenty-one only ; for these were all regular 
 members of that society, and in good reputation among them, 
 and had due notice of what was proposed at that meeting. 
 
 The honorable and learned Mr. Logan, who had always 
 been of that sect, was one who wrote an address to them, 
 declaring his approbation of defensive war, and supporting 
 his opinion by many strong arguments. He put into my 
 hands sixty pounds to be laid out in lottery tickets for the 
 battery, with directions to apply what prizes might be drawn 
 wholly to that service. He told me the following anecdote of 
 his old master, William Penn, respecting defense. He came 
 over from England, when a young man, with that proprietary, 
 and as his secretary. It was war-time, and their ship was 
 chased by an armed vessel, supposed to be an enemy. Their 
 captain prepared for defense ; but told William Penn, and his 
 company of Quakers, that he did not expect tlieir assistance, 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 115 
 
 and they might retire into the cabin, which they did, except 
 James Logan, who chose to stay upon deck, and was quartered 
 to a gun. The supposed enemy proved a friend, so there 
 was no lighting ; but when the secretary went down to com- 
 municate the intelligence, William Penn rebuked him severely 
 for staying upon deck, and undertaking to assist in defending 
 the vessel, contrary to the principles of Friends, especially 
 as it had not been required by the captain. This reproof, 
 being before all the company, piqued the secretary, who 
 answered : " / being thy servant, why did thee not order me 
 to come down ? But thee was willing enough that 1 shoidd 
 stay and help to fight the ship when thee thought there was 
 danger.'''' 
 
 My being many years in the Assembly, the majority of 
 which were constantly Quakers, gave me frequent opportuni- 
 ties of seeing the embarrassment given them by their prin- 
 ciple against war, whenever application was made to them, 
 by order of the crown, to grant aids for military purposes. 
 They were unwilling to offend government, on the one hand, 
 by a direct refusal ; and their friends, the body of the 
 Quakers, on the other, by a compliance contrary to their 
 principles ; hence a variety of evasions to avoid complying, 
 and modes of disguising the compliance when it became un- 
 avoidable. The common mode at last was, to grant money 
 under the phrase of its being '■'■for the king''s use,'''' and never 
 to inquire how it was applied. 
 
 But, if the demand was not directly from the crown, that 
 phrase was found not so proper, and some other was to be 
 invented. As, when powder was wanting (I think it was for 
 the garrison at Louisburg), and the government of New Eng- 
 land solicited a grant of some from Pennsylvania, which was 
 much urged on the House by Governor Thomas, they could 
 not grant money to buy powder, because that was an in- 
 gredient of war ; but they voted an aid to New England of 
 three thousand pounds, to be put into the hands of the 
 governor, and appropriated it for the purchasing of bread, 
 flour, wheat, or other grain. Some of the council, desirous 
 
116 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 of giving the House still further embarrassment, advised the 
 governor not to accept provision, as not being the thing he had 
 demanded ; but he replied : " I shall take the money, for I 
 understand very well their meaning ; other grain is gun- 
 powder," which he accordingly bought, and they never ob- 
 jected to it. 
 
 It was in allusion to this fact that, when in our fire com- 
 pany we feared the success of our proposal in favor of the 
 lottery, and I had said to my friend Mr. Syng, one of our 
 members: "If we fail, let us move the purchase of a fire- 
 engine with the money ; the Quakers can have no objection to 
 that ; and then, if you nominate me and I you as a committee 
 for that purpose, we will buy a great gun, which is certainly 
 2i fire-enginey "I see," says he, "you have improved by 
 being so long in the Assembly ; your equivocal project would 
 be just a match for their wheat or other grain.'''' 
 
 These embarrassments that the Quakers suffered from hav- 
 ing established and published it as one of their principles that 
 no kind of war was lawful, and which, being once published, 
 they could not afterwards, however they might change their 
 minds, easily get rid of, reminds me of what I think a more 
 prudent conduct in another sect among us, that of the Bun- 
 kers. I was acquainted with one of its founders, Michael 
 Welfare, soon after it appeared. He complained to me that 
 they were griveously calumniated by the zealots of other 
 persuasions, and charged with abominable principles and 
 practices, to which they were utter strangers. I told him 
 this had always been the case with new sects, and that, to 
 put a stop to such abuse, I imagined it might be well to pub- 
 lish the articles of their belief, and the rules of their disci- 
 pline. He said that it had been proposed among them, but 
 not agreed to, for this reason : " When we were first drawn 
 together as a society," says he, "it had pleased God to en- 
 lighten our minds so far as to see that some doctrines, w^hich 
 we once esteemed truths, were errors ; and that others, which 
 we had esteemed errors, were real truths. From time to time 
 He has been pleased to afford us farther light, and our prin- 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 117 
 
 ciples have been improving, and our errors diminishing. Now 
 we are not sure that we are arrived at the end of this pro- 
 gression, and at the perfection of spiritual or theological 
 knowledge ; and we fear that, if we should once print our 
 confession of faith, we should feel ourselves as if bound and 
 confined by it, and perhaps be unwilling to receive farther 
 improvement, and our successors still more so, as conceiving 
 what we their elders and founders had done, to be something 
 sacred, never to be departed from." 
 
 This modesty in a sect is perhaps a singular instance in the 
 history of mankind, every other sect supposing itself in pos- 
 session of all truth, and that those who differ are so far in the 
 wrong ; like a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some 
 distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the 
 fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the 
 fields on each side, but near him all appears clear, though in 
 truth he is as much in the fog as any of them. To avoid this 
 kind of embarrassment, the Quakers have of late years been 
 gradually declining the public service in the Assembly and in 
 the magistracy, choosing rather to quit their power than their 
 principle. 
 
 In order of time, I should have mentioned before, that 
 having, in 1742, invented an open stove^ for the better warm- 
 ing of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel, as the fresh 
 air admitted was warmed in entering, 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 de- 
 mand. To promote that demand, I wrote and published a 
 pamphlet, entitled ^^ An Account of the new-invented Penn- 
 sylvania Fi7-ej)laces ; wherein their Construction and Manner 
 of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages 
 above every other Method of warmiiig Rooms demonstrated ; 
 and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of 
 
 1. Universally known as the " Franklin Stove," and still in very general 
 use. Mr. Parton describes it as the beginning: of " the American stove sys- 
 tem, one of the wonders of the industrial world," 
 
118 BElfJAMIN FRAKKLIN. 
 
 them answered and ohciated,''' etc. This pamphlet had a 
 good effect. Governor Thomas was so pleased with the con- 
 struction 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 enjoy 
 great advantages from the inventions of others, we should he 
 glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of 
 ours ; and this ive shoidd 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 inventions by others, though not 
 always with the same success, which 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 colonies, has been, and is, a 
 great saving of wood to the inhabitants. 
 
 Peace being concluded, and the association business there- 
 fore at an end, I turned my thoughts again to the affair of 
 establishing an academy. The first step I took was to asso- 
 ciate in the design a number of active friends, of whom the 
 Junto furnished a good part ; the next was to write and pub- 
 lish a pamphlet, entitled Proposals relating to the Educa- 
 tion of Youth in Pennsylvania. This I distributed among 
 the principal inhabitants gratis ; and as soon as I could sup- 
 pose their minds a little prepared by the perusal of it, I set on 
 foot a subscription for opening and supporting an academy : 
 it was to be paid in quotas yearly for five years ; by so divid- 
 ing 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 publica- 
 tion, not as an act of mine, but of ^ome jmblic-spirited geiHle- 
 men, avoiding as much ?is I could, according to my usual 
 
BENJAMIN^ FRANKLIN. 119 
 
 rule/ the presenting myself to the public as the author of any 
 scheme for their benefit. 
 
 The subscribers, to carry the project into immediate exe- 
 cution, chose out of their number twenty-four trustees, 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, prop- 
 erly situated, with intention to build, when Providence threw 
 into our way a large house ready built, which, with a few 
 alterations, might well serve our purpose. This was the build- 
 ing before mentioned, erected by the hearers of Mr. White- 
 field, and was obtained for us in the following manner. 
 
 It is to be noted that the contributions to this building 
 being made by people of different sects, care was taken in the 
 nomination of trustees, in whom the building and ground 
 was to be vested, that a predominancy should not be given to 
 any sect, lest in time that predominancy might be a means of 
 appropriating the whole to the use of such sect, contrary to 
 the original intention. It was therefore that one of each sect 
 was appointed, viz., one Church-of-England man, one Pres- 
 byterian, one Baptist, one Moravian, etc.; those, in case of 
 vacancy by death, were to fill it by election from among the 
 contributors. The Moravian happened not to please his col- 
 leagues, and on his death they resolved to have no other of 
 that sect. The difficulty then was, how to avoid having two 
 of some other sect, Ly means of the new choice. 
 
 Several persons were named, and for that reason not agreed 
 to. At length one mentioned me, with the observation that 
 I was merely an honest man, and of no sect at all, which pre- 
 vailed with them to choose me. The enthusiasm which existed 
 when the house was built had long since abated, and its 
 
 1. See p. 77 Franklin rarely signed hiis name to his writings, using some 
 assumed name, as " A Tradesman," or none at all. 
 
120 BEKJAMm FRANKLIN". - 
 
 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 now 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 dis- 
 charge the debt, to keep forever open in the building a large 
 hall for occasional preachers, according to the original inten- 
 tion, 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 building. The care and trouble of agreeing with the 
 w^orkmen, 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, industrious, 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 printing-office, paying me punctually my share 
 of the profits. This partnership continued eighteen years, 
 successfully for us both. 
 
 The trustees of the academy, after a while, were incor- 
 porated 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 con- 
 siderable addition ; and thus was established the present 
 University of Philadelphia. 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 
 
 1. Proprietaries.— The sons of William Penn, Thomas and Richard Penn, 
 who still held extensive possessions in Pennsylvania. 
 
BENJAMIN^ FRAl^KLm. 121 
 
 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, as above mentioned, 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 
 amusements. I purchased all Dr. Spence's apparatus, who 
 had come from England to lecture here, 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 gov- 
 ernor put me into the commission of the peace,' the corpora- 
 tion 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 debates, in which, as clerk, I could take 
 no part, and which were often so unentertaining 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, insinuate 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 testi- 
 monies of the public good opinion, and by me entirely un- 
 solicited. 
 
 The office of justice of the peace I tried a little, by attend- 
 ing 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 
 
 1. Commission of the Peace.— Office of justice of the peace. 
 
122 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 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 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, because they could get no liquor, 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 tlie form of a square, just without the town. In the 
 evening, hearing a great noise among them, the commis- 
 sioners walked out 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 fight- 
 ing. 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. 
 
 The next day, sensible they had misbehaved in giving us 
 
BEN^JAMIN FRANKLIN. 123 
 
 that disturbance, tbey sent three of their old counselors to 
 make their apology. The orator acknowledged the fault, but 
 laid it upon the rum ; and then endeavored to excuse the 
 rum by saying: "-The Great Spirit, who made all things, 
 made everything for some use, and whatever use he designed 
 anything for, that use it should always he put to. Now, 
 when he made rtim, he said, ' Let this be for the Indians to 
 get drunk with,' and it must be so.'''' And, indeed, if it be 
 the design of Providence to extirpate these savages in order 
 to make room for 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 1751, 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 sub- 
 scriptions for it, but the proposal being a novelty in America, 
 and at first not well understood, he met with but 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 of it ? ' And when I tell them that I have 
 not (supposing it rather out of your line), they do not sub- 
 scribe, but say they will consider of it." I inquired into the 
 nature and probable utility of his scheme, and receiving from 
 him a very satisfactory explanation, I not only subscribed to 
 it myself, but engaged heartily in the design of procuring 
 subscriptions from others. Previously, how^ever, to the solici- 
 tation, 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 wiiich he had omitted. 
 
124: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN". 
 
 The subscriptions afterwards were more free and generous ; 
 but, beginning to flag, I saw they would be insufficient with- 
 out some assistance from the Assembly, and therefore pro- 
 posed to petition for it, which was done. The country mem- 
 bers 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 citizens themselves generally approved of it. 
 My allegation on the contrary, that it met with such approba- 
 tion as to leave no doubt of our being able to raise two thou- 
 sand 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 according 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 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 
 managers and treasurer, and shall have raised by their con- 
 tributions a capital stock of value (the yearly interest 
 
 of which is to be applied to the accommodating of the sick 
 poor ift the said hospital, free of charge for diet, attendance, 
 advice, and medicines), and shall make the same appear to 
 the satisfaction 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 conceived 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 
 
BENJAMIK FRANKLIN. 125 
 
 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 enabled us to 
 carry the design into execution. A convenient and handsome 
 building w^as soon erected; the institution has, by constant 
 experience, been found useful, and flourishes to this day; 
 and I do not remember any of my political maneuvers, 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. 
 
 It was about this time that another projector, the Rev. 
 Gilbert Tennent, came to me with a request that I would assist 
 him in procuring a subscription for erecting a new meeting- 
 house. It was to be for the use of a congregation he had 
 gathered among the Presbyterians, who were originally dis- 
 ciples of Mr. Whitefleld. Unwilling to make myself disagree- 
 able to my fellow-citizens by too frequently soliciting their 
 contributions, I absolutely refused. He then desired I would 
 furnish him with a list of the names of persons I knew by ex- 
 perience to be generous and public-spirited. I thought it 
 would be unbecoming in rae, after their kind compliance with 
 my solicitations, to mark them out to be worried by other 
 beggars, and therefore refused also to give such a list. He 
 then desired I would at least give him my advice. '' That I 
 will readily do," said I; "and, in the first place, I advise you 
 to apply to all those whom you know will give something; 
 next, to those whom you are uncertain whether they will give 
 anything or not, and show them the list of those who have 
 given; and, lastly, do not neglect those who you are sure will 
 give nothing, for in some of them you may be mistaken." 
 He laughed and thanked me, and said he would take my ad- 
 vice. He did so, ^r he asked of everyhodij, and he obtained 
 a much larger sum than he expected, with which he erected 
 the capacious and very elegant meeting-house that stands in 
 Arch Street. 
 
 Our city, though laid out with a beautiful regularity, the 
 
126 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 streets large, straight, and crossing each other at right 
 angles, had the disgrace of suffering those streets to remain 
 long nnpaved, and in wet weather the wheels of heavy car- 
 riages 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 therBo 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 re- 
 moved, 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 sixpence per month, to be 
 paid by each house. I then wrote and printed a paper set- 
 ting 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, etc., 
 etc., 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 agree- 
 ment to pay these sixpences; it was unanimously signed, and 
 for a time well executed. All the inhabitants 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 
 
y BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 127 
 
 general desire to have all the streets paved, and made tlie 
 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 light- 
 ing as well as paving the streets, which was a great improve- 
 ment. It w^as 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 
 enlighting all the city. The honor of this public benefit has 
 also been ascribed to me, but it belongs truly to that gentle-- 
 man. I did but follow his example, and have 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 w^e found inconvenient 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 stix^ke on one of them Avould de- 
 molish 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. 
 
 I have sometimes wondered that the Londoners did not, 
 from the effect holes in the bottom of the globe lajjips used at 
 VauxhalP have in keeping them clean, learn to nave such 
 holes in their street lamps. But, these holes being made for 
 
 1. Vauxhall.— A celebrated public prarden in London, where cheap 
 amusements were presented to the public in great variety. Its charac- 
 teristics are well described iu Thackeray's Vanity Fair. 
 
128 BENJAMIIf FRAl^KLIN^. 
 
 another purpose, viz., to communicate flame more suddenly 
 to the wick by a little flax hanging down through them, the 
 other use, of letting in air, seems not to have been thought of; 
 and therefore, after the lamps have been lit a few hours, the 
 streets of London are very poorly illuminated. 
 
 The mention of these improvements puts me in mind of one 
 I proposed, when in London, to Dr. Fothergill, who was 
 among the best men I have known, and a great promoter of 
 useful projects. I had observed that the streets, when dry, 
 were never swept, and the light dust carried away; but it 
 was suffered to accumulate till wet weather reduced it to mud, 
 and then, after lying some days so deep on the pavement that 
 there was no crossing but in paths kept clean by poor people 
 with brooms, it was with great labor raked together and 
 thrown up into carts open above, the sides of which suffered 
 some of the slush at every jolt on the pavement to shake out 
 and fall, sometimes to the annoyance of foot-passengers. The 
 reason given for not sweeping the dusty streets was, that the 
 dust would fly into the windows of shops and houses. 
 
 An accidental occurrence had instructed me how much 
 sweeping might be done in a little time. I found at my door 
 in Craven Street^ one morning, a poor woman sweeping my 
 pavement with a birch broom ; she appeared very pale and 
 feeble, as just come out of a fit of sickness. I asked who em- 
 ployed her to sweep there; she said: "Nobody; but I am 
 very poor and in distress, and I sweeps before gentlefolkses 
 doors, and hopes they will give me something." I bid her 
 sweep the whole street clean, and I would give her a shilling ; 
 this was at nine o'clock ; at twelve she came for the shilling. 
 From the slowness I saw at first in her working, I could 
 scarce believe that the work was done so soon, and sent my 
 servant to examine it, who reported that the whole street was 
 swept perfectly clean, and all the dust placed in the gutter, 
 which was in the middle ; and the next rain washed it quite 
 
 1. American visitors in London will find a tablet, properly inscribed, upon 
 the house occupied by Franklin, No. 7 Craven Street, a few steps off the 
 Strand, near Charing Cross. It was kept by Mrs. Stevenson, whose daughter 
 Mary became Frankhn's life-long friend. 
 
BENJAMIN FHANKLIN. 129 
 
 away, so that the pavement and even the kennel were per- 
 fect! j^ clean. 
 
 I then judged that, if that feeble woman conld sweep such 
 a street in three hours, a strong, active man might have done 
 it in half the time. And here let me remark the convenience 
 of having but one gutter in such a narrow street, running 
 down its middle, instead of two, one on each side, near the 
 footway ; for where all the rain that falls on a street runs 
 from the sides and meets in the middle, it forms there a cur- 
 rent strong enough to wash away all the mud it meets with ; 
 but when divided into two channels, it is often too weak to 
 cleanse either, and only makes the mud it finds more fluid, so 
 that the wheels of carriages and feet of horses throw and 
 dash it upon the foot-pavement, which is thereby rendered 
 foul and slippery, and sometimes splash it upon those who are 
 walking. My proposal, communicated to the good doctor, 
 was as follows : 
 
 "For the more effectual cleaning and keeping clean the 
 streets of London and Westminster, it is proposed that the 
 several watchmen be contracted with to have the dust swept 
 up in dry seasons, and the mud raked up at other times, each 
 in the several streets and lanes of liis round ; that they be 
 furnished with brooms and other proper instruments for these 
 purposes, to be kept at their respective stands, ready to fur- 
 nish the poor people they may employ in the service. 
 
 " That in the dry summer months the dust be all swept up 
 into heaps at proper distances, before the shops and windows 
 of houses are usually opened, when the scavengers, with 
 close-covered carts, shall also carry it all away. 
 
 "That the mud, when raked up, be not left in heaps to be 
 spread abroad again by the wheels of carriages and trampling 
 of horses, but that the scavengers be provided with bodies of 
 carts, not placed high upon wheels, but low upon sliders, 
 with lattice bottoms, which, being covered with straw, will 
 retain the mud thrown into them, and permit the water to 
 drain from it, M'hereby it will become much lighter, water 
 making the greatest part of its weight ; these bodies of carts 
 
130 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 to be placed at convenient distances, and the mud brought to 
 them in wheelbarrows ; they remaining where placed till the 
 mud is drained, and then horses brought to draw them away.'* 
 
 I have since had doubts of the practicability of the latter 
 part of this proposal, on account of the narrowness of some 
 streets, and the difficulty of placing the draining-sleds so as 
 not to encumber too much the passage ; but I am still of 
 opinion that the former, requiring the dust to be swept up 
 and carried away before the shops are open, is very practi- 
 cable in summer, when the days are long ; for, in walking 
 through the Strand and Fleet Street one morning at seven 
 o'clock, I observed there was not one shop open, though it 
 had been daylight and the sun up above three hours ; the in- 
 habitants of London choosing voluntarily to live much by 
 candle-light, and sleep by sunshine, and yet often complain, a 
 little absurdly, of the duty on candles, and the high price of 
 tallow. 
 
 Some may think these trifling matters not worth minding 
 or relating ; but when they consider that though dust blown 
 into the eyes of a single person, or into a single shop on a 
 windy day, is but of small importance, yet the great number 
 of the instances in a populous city, and its frequent repeti- 
 tions give it weight and consequence, perhaps they will not 
 censure very severely those who bestow some attention to 
 affairs of this seemingly low nature. Human felicity is pro- 
 duced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that 
 seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. 
 Thus, if you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and 
 keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the 
 happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. 
 The money may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of 
 having foolishly consumed it ; but in the other case, he es- 
 capes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of 
 their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull 
 razors ; he shaves when most convenient to him, and enjoys 
 daily the pleasure of its being done with a good instrument. 
 With these sentiments I have hazarded the few preceding 
 
BENJAMIX FRAXKLTN". 131 
 
 pages, hoping they may afford liiiits whioh some time or other 
 may be useful to a city I love, having lived many years in it 
 very happily, and perhaps to some of our towns in America. 
 
 Having been for some time employed by the postmaster- 
 general of America as his controller in regulating several 
 offices, and bringing the officers to account, 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 Great Britain. We were to have six hun- 
 dred pounds a year between us, if we could make that sum 
 out of the profits of the office. To do this, a variety of im- 
 provements were necessary ; some of these were inevitably at 
 first expensive, so that in the first four years the office be- 
 came 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, of which I shall speak hereafter, we 
 had brought it to yield three times as much clear revenue to 
 the crown as the post-office of H-eland. Since that imprudent 
 transaction, they have received from it— not one farthing ! 
 
 The business of the post-office occasioned my taking a jour- 
 ney this year to New England, where the College of Cam- 
 bridge, of their own motion, presented me with the degree of 
 Master of Arts. Yale College, in Connecticut, 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 discover- 
 ies in the electric branch of natural philosophy. 
 
 In 1754, war with France being again apprehended, a con- 
 gress of commissioners from the different colonies was, by an 
 
 1. He cut down postapre. included newspapers in the mail, established the 
 penny-post in large towns, advertised unclaimed letters, increased the pace 
 of the post-riders, and sent three mails a week where one had been sent 
 before. Yet in 1775 this notice appeared in the " Gazette:" " This is to give 
 notice, that the New England mail will henceforth go once a week the year 
 round; when a correspondence may he carried on. and answers obtained to 
 letters between Philadelphia and Boston in three weeks, which used in the 
 winter to require six weeks." At the present tin)e more letters are delivered 
 in New York City every twenty-four hours than Franklin distributed in the 
 thirteen colonies in a whole year. 
 
132 BEX.TAMIN^ FRANKLIN. 
 
 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 commis- 
 sioners at Albany about the middle of June. 
 
 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 defense, and other important 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, be- 
 ing fortified by their approbation, I ventured to lay it before 
 the Congress. It then appeared that several of the commis- 
 sioners had formed plans of the same kind. A previous 
 question was first taken, whether a union should be estab- 
 lished, which passed in the affirmative unanimously. A com- 
 mittee was then appointed, one member from each colony, to 
 consider the several plans and report. Mine happened to be 
 preferred, and, with a few amendments, was accordingly re- 
 ported. 
 
 By this plan the general government was to be administered 
 by a president-general, appointed and supported by the crown, 
 and a grand council was to be chosen by 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 
 
 1. liords of trade.— The Board of Trade in England, a part of the Home 
 
 Government. 
 
 2. Six Nations — The several tribes of Iroquois Indians in Central New 
 York, forming a powerful confederacy. 
 
 3. Secretary of the Assembly of Pennsylvania. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 133 
 
 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 assem- 
 blies did not adopt it, as they all thought there was too much 
 prerogatice in it, and in England it was judged to have too 
 much of the democratic. The Board of Trade therefore did 
 not approve of it, nor recommend it for the approbation of 
 his majesty; but another scheme was formed, supposed to an- 
 svN'er the same purpose better, whereby the governors of the 
 provinces, with some members of their respective councils, 
 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. 
 
 Being the winter following in Boston, I had much conversa- 
 tion with Governor Shirley upon both the plans. Part of 
 what passed between us on the occasion may also be seen 
 among those papers. The different and contrary reasons of 
 dislike to my plan make me suspect that it was really the true 
 medium ; and I am still of opinion it would have been happy 
 for both sides the water if it had been adopted. The colo- 
 nies, so united, would have been sufficiently strong to have 
 defended themselves ; there would then have been no need of 
 troops from England ; of course, the subsequent pretense for 
 taxing America, and the bloody contest it occasioned, would 
 have been avoided. But such mistakes are not new : history 
 is full of the errors of states and princes. 
 
 " Look round the habitable world, how few 
 Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue!" 
 
 Those who govern, having much business on their hands, 
 do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and 
 carrying into execution new projects. The best public meas- 
 ures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, hat 
 forced by the occasion. 
 
134 BENJAMIiq^ FRANKLI2s^. 
 
 The Governor of Pennsylvania, in sending it down to the 
 Assembly, expressed his approbation of the plan, "as appear- 
 ing to him to be drawn up with great clearness and strength 
 of judgment, and therefore recommended it as well worthy of 
 their closest and most serious attention." The House, how- 
 ever, by the management of a certain member, took it up 
 when I happened to be absent, which I thought not very fair, 
 and reprobated it without paying any attention to it at all, to 
 my no small mortification. ^ 
 
 In my journey to Boston this year, I met at New York wdth 
 our new governor, Mr, Morris, just arrived there from Eng- 
 land, with whom I had been before intimately acquainted. 
 He brought a commission to supersede Mr. Hamilton, who, 
 tired with the disputes his proprietary instructions subjected 
 him to, had resigned. Mr. Morris asked me if I thought he 
 must expect as uncomfortable an administration. I said : 
 "No; you may, on the contrary, have a very comfortable 
 one, if you will only take care not to enter into any dispute 
 with the Assembly." "My dear friend," says he, pleasantly, 
 "how can you advise my avoiding disputes? You know I 
 love disputing ; it is one of my greatest pleasures ; however, 
 to show the regard I have for your counsel, I promise you I 
 will, if possible, avoid them." He had some reason for lov- 
 ing to dispute, being eloquent, an acute sophister, and, there- 
 fore, generally successful in argumentative conversation. He 
 had been brought up to it from a boy, his father, as I have 
 heard, accustoming his children to dispute with one another 
 for his diversion, while sitting at table after dinner ; but I 
 think the practice was not wise ; for, in the course of my ob- 
 
 ]. Franklin not only susr^ested thus early, in this "Albany Plan," the 
 national idea that was soon to produce a new nation, but also in the same 
 year (1754) presented in a newspaper letter the principles that twenty years 
 later brought on the Revolution. He said: 
 
 "That it is supposed an undoubted right of Englishmen not to be taxed 
 but by their own consent, given through their representatives. 
 
 "That the colonists have no representatives in Parliament. 
 
 "That compelling the colonists to pay money without their consent 
 would be rather like raising contributions in an enemy's country, than 
 taxing of Englishmen for their own public benefit. 
 
 " That it would be treating them as a conquered people, and not as true 
 British subjects. ' ' 
 
BENJAMIN" FRAXKTJN. 135 
 
 servation, these disputing, contradicting, and confuting peo- 
 ple are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get 
 victory sometimes, but they never get good-will, which would 
 be of more use to them. We parted, he going to Philadel- 
 phia, and I to Boston. 
 
 In returning, I met at New York with the votes of the As- 
 sembly, by which it appeared that, notwithstanding his prom- 
 ise to me, he and tho House were already in high contention ; 
 and it was a continual battle between them as long as he 
 retained the government. I had my share of it ; for, as soon 
 as I got back to my seat in the Assembly, I was put on every 
 committee for answering his speeches and messages, and by 
 the committees always desired to make the drafts. Our an- 
 swers, as well as his messages, were often tart, and sometimes 
 indecently abusive ; and, as he knew I wrote for the Assem- 
 bly, one might have imagined that, when we met, we could 
 hardly avoid cutting throats ; but he was so good-natured a 
 man that no personal difference between him and me was 
 occasioned by the contest, and we often dined together. 
 
 One afternoon, in the height of this public quarrel, we met 
 in the street. "Franklin," says he, "you must go home 
 with me and spend the evening ; I am to have some company 
 that you will like ;" and, taking me by the arm, he led me to 
 his house. In gay conversation over our wine, after supper, 
 he told us. Jokingly, that he much admired the idea of Sancho 
 Panza, who, when it was proposed to give him a government, 
 requested it might be a government of blacks, as then, if he 
 could not agree with his people, he might sell them. One of 
 his friends, who sat next to me, says: "Franklin, why do 
 you continue to side with these damned Quakers ? Had not 
 you better sell them ? The proprietor would give you a good 
 price." "The governor," says I, " has not y^i blacked them 
 enough." He, indeed, had labored hard to blacken the As- 
 sembly in all his messages, but they wiped off his coloring as 
 fast as he laid it on, and placed it, in return, thick upon his 
 own face ; so that, finding he was likely to be negrofied him- 
 
136 BEN^JAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 self, he, as well as Mr. Hamilton, grew tired of the contest, 
 and quitted ths government. 
 
 These public quarrels were all at bottom owing to the pro- 
 prietaries, our hereditary governors, who, when any expense 
 was to be incurred for the defense of their province, with in- 
 credible meanness instructed their deputies to pass no act for 
 levying the necessary taxes, unless their vast estates were in 
 the same act expressly excused ; and they had even taken 
 bonds of these deputies to observe such instructions. The 
 Assemblies for three years held out against this injustice, 
 though constrained to bend at last. At length Captain Denny, 
 who was Governor Morris's successor, ventured to disobey 
 those instructions : how that was brought about I will show 
 hereafter. 
 
 But I am got forward too fast with my story : there are 
 still some transactions to be mentioned that happened during 
 the administration of Governor Morris. 
 
 War being in a manner commenced with France, the gov- 
 ernment of Massachusetts Bay projected an attack upon 
 Crown Point, and sent Mr. Quincy to Pennsylvania, 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 influ- 
 ence 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 in- 
 serted exempting the proprietary estate from bearing any part 
 of the tax that would be necessary, the Assembly, though 
 very desirous of making 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. 
 
 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 was, indeed, little or no money at that time in the office, 
 
BENJAMIN" FRANKLIN". 137 
 
 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 Assembly, with very little hesitation, adopted the pro- 
 posal. 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 cur- 
 rency 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 instant credit, and were 
 not only received 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 on any occasion be used 
 as money ; so that they were eagerly all bought up, and in a 
 few weeks none of them were to be seen. Thus this important 
 affair was by my 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 defense, lest they should thereby grow too military, 
 and feel their own strength, suspicions and jealousies at this 
 time being entertained of them, sent over General Braddock 
 witli two regiments of regular English troops for that purpose. 
 He lauded at Alexandria, in Virginia, and thence marched to 
 Frederictown, in Maryland, where he halted for carriages. 
 Our Assembly apprehending, from some information, 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. 
 
138 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 We found the general at Frederietovvn, waiting impatiently 
 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 . opportu- 
 nity of removing all his prejudices, by the information of 
 what the Assembly had before his arrival actually done, and 
 were still willing to do, to facilitate his operations. When I 
 was about to depart, the returns of wagons to be obtained 
 were brought in, by which it appeared that they amounted 
 only to twenty-five, and not all of those were in serviceable 
 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 landing 
 them in a country 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 pity they had not 
 been landed rather in Pennsylvania, as in that country almost 
 every farmer had his wagon. The general eagerly laid hold 
 of my words, and said: "Then you, sir, who are a man of 
 interest there, can probably 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 appeared to me necessary. This I did, and 
 they were agreed to, and a commission and instructions ac- 
 cordingly prepared immediately. What those terms were 
 will appear in the advertisement I published as soon as I ar- 
 rived at Lancaster, which being, from the great and sudden 
 effect it produced, a piece of some curiosity, I shall insert it 
 at length, as follows: 
 
 "Advertisement. 
 
 " Lancaster, April -26, 1755, 
 
 " Whereas, one hundred and fifty wagons, with four horses 
 to each wagon, and fifteen hundred saddle or pack horses, 
 are wanted for the service of his majesty's forces now about 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 139 
 
 to rendezvous at AVill's Creek, and his excellency General 
 Braddock, having been pleased to empower me to contract for 
 the hire of the same, I hereby give notice that I shall attend 
 for that purpose at Lancaster from this day to next Wednes- 
 day evening, and at York from next Thursday morning till 
 Friday evening, where I shall be ready to agree for wagons 
 and teams, or single horses, on the following terms, viz.: 1. 
 That there shall be paid for each wagon, with four good horses 
 and a driver, fifteen shillings per diem; and for each able horse 
 with a pack-saddle, or other saddle and furniture, two shillings 
 per diem; and for each able horse without a saddle, eighteen 
 pence per diem. 2. That the pay commence from the time 
 of their joining the forces at Will's Creek, which must be on 
 or before the 20th of May ensuing, and that a reasonable al- 
 lowance be paid over and above for the time necessary for 
 their traveling to Will's Creek and home again after their 
 discharge. 3. Each wagon and team, and every saddle cr 
 pack-horse, is to be valued by indifferent persons chosen be- 
 tween me and the owner; and in case of the loss of any wagon, 
 team, or other horse in the service, the price according to such 
 valuation is to be allowed and paid. 4. Seven days' pay is to 
 be advanced and paid in hand by me to the owner of each 
 wagon and team, or horse, at the time of contracting, if re- 
 quired, and the remainder to be paid by General Braddock, or 
 by the paymaster of the army, at the time of their discharge, 
 or from time to time, as it shall be demanded. 5. No drivers 
 of wagons, or persons taking care of the hired horses, are on 
 any account to be called upon to do the duty of soldiers, or be 
 otherwise employed than in conducting or taking care of their 
 carriages or horses. 6. All oats, Indian corn, or other forage 
 that wagons or horses bring to the camp, more than is neces- 
 sary for the subsistence of the horses, is to be taken for the 
 use of the army, and a reasonable price paid for the same. 
 
 "Note. — My son, William Franklin, is empowered to enter 
 into like contracts with any person in Cumberland county. 
 
 ** B.Franklin." 
 
140 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 " To the Inhabitants of the Counties of Lancaster, York, ami 
 Cii7nherland. 
 
 " Friends and Countrymen: 
 
 "Being occasionally at the camp at Frederic a few days 
 since, I found the general and officers extremely exasperated 
 on account of their not being supplied with horses and car- 
 riages, which had been expected from this province, as most 
 able to furnish them; but, through the dissensions between 
 our. governor and Assembly, money had not been provided, 
 nor any steps taken for that purpose. 
 
 " It was proposed to send an armed force immediately into 
 these counties, to seize as many of the best carriages and 
 horses as should be wanted, and compel as many persons into 
 the service as would be necessary to drive and take care of 
 them. 
 
 " I apprehended that the progress of British soldiers through 
 these counties on such an occasion, especially considering the 
 temper they are in, and their resentment against us, would 
 be attended with many and great inconveniences to the in- 
 habitants, and therefore more willingly took the trouble of 
 trying first what might be done by fair and equitable means. 
 The people of these back counties have lately complained to 
 the Assembly that a sufficient currency w^as wanting; you 
 have an opportunity of receiving and dividing among you a 
 very considerable sum; for, if the service of this expedition 
 should continue, as it is more than probable it will, for one 
 hundred and twenty days, the hire of these wagons and horses 
 will amount to upward of thirty thousand pounds, which will 
 be paid you in silver and gold of the king's money. 
 
 " The service will be light and easy, for the army will scarce 
 march above twelve miles per day, and the wagons and bag- 
 gage-horses, as they carry those things that are absolutely 
 necessary to the welfare of the army, must march with the 
 army, and no faster; and are, for the army's sake, always 
 placed where they can be most secure, whether in a march or 
 in a camp. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 141 
 
 " If you are really, as I believe you are, good and loyal sub- 
 jects to his majesty, you may now do a most acceptable ser- 
 vice, and make it easy to yourselves; for three or four of such 
 as cannot separately spare from the business of their planta- 
 tions a wagon and four horses and a driver, may do it to- 
 gether, one furnishing the wagon, another one or two horses, 
 and another the driver, and divide the pay proportionably 
 between yoii; but if you do not this service to your king and 
 country voluntarily, when such good pay and reasonable 
 terms are offered to you, your loyalty will be strongly sus- 
 pected. The king's business must be done; so many brave 
 troops, come so far for your defense, must not stand idle 
 through your backw^ardness to do what may be reasonably 
 expected from you; wagons and horses must be had; violent 
 measures will probably be used, and you will be left to seek 
 for a recompense where you can find it, and your case, per- 
 haps, be little pitied or regarded. 
 
 *' I have no particular interest in this affair, as, except the 
 satisfaction of endeavoring to do good, I shall have only my 
 labor for my pains. If this method of obtaining the wagons 
 and horses is not likely to succeed, I am obliged to send word 
 to the general in fourteen days; and I suppose Sir John St. 
 Clair, the hussar, with a body of soldiers, will immediately 
 enter the province for the purpose, which I shall be sorry to 
 hear, becmise I am very sincerely and truly your friend and 
 well-wisher, 
 
 "B. Franklin." 
 
 I received of the general about eight hundred pounds, to be 
 disbursed in advance-money to the wagon owners, etc.; but 
 that sum being insufficient, I advanced upward of two hun- 
 dred 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 prom- 
 ised 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 
 
142 BENJAMTX FRANKLTK. 
 
 be had on his promise, insisted on my bond for the perform- 
 ance, which T accordingly gave them. 
 
 While I was at the camp, supping one evening with the 
 officers of Colonel Dunbar's regiment, he represented to me 
 his concern for the subalterns, who, he 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 procur- 
 ing 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 con- 
 sideration, and proposing tliat a present should be sent them 
 of necessaries and refreshments. My son, who had some ex- 
 perience 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, each containing 
 
 6 lbs. loaf sugar. 1 Gloucester cheese. 
 
 6 lbs. good Muscovado do. 1 keg containing 20 lbs. good butter. 
 
 1 lb. good green tea. 2 doz. old Madeira wine. 
 
 1 lb. good bohea do. 2 gallons Jamaica spirits. 
 
 6 lbs. good ground coffee. 1 bottle flour of mustard. 
 
 6 lbs. chocolate. 2 well -cured hams. 
 
 i cwt. best white biscuit. J dozen dried tongues. 
 
 i lb. pepper. 6 lbs. rice. 
 
 1 quart best white wine vinegar. 6 lbs. raisins. 
 
 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, etc., and readily paid my account of disburse- 
 ments, thanking me repeatedly, and requesting my farther 
 assistance in sending provisions after him. I undertook this 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 143 
 
 also, and was busily employed in it till we heard of his defeat, 
 advancing for the service of my own money, upwards of one 
 thousand pounds sterling, of which 1 sent him an 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 b^en 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 in- 
 terpreter, joined him on his march with one hundred of those 
 people, who might have been of great use to his army as 
 guides, scouts, etc. , 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 Du- 
 quesne," 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 Iroquois country, I liad 
 conceived some doubts and some fears for the event of the 
 campaign. 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, that place, not yet completely 
 fortified, and as we hear with no very strong garrison, can 
 probably make but a short resistance. The only danger I 
 apprehend of obstruction to your march is from ambuscades 
 of Indians, who, by constant practice, are dexterous in laying 
 
144 BEKJAMIN FRANKLINo 
 
 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, cannot 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 wath a 
 military man in matters of his profession, 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 interruption 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 had 
 come over), and in a more open part of the woods than any 
 it had passed, attacked its advance guard by a heavy fire from 
 behind trees and bushes, which was the first intelligence the 
 general had of an enemy's being near him. This guard being 
 disordered, the general hurried the troops up to their assist- 
 ance, which w'as done in great confusion, through w^agons, 
 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 were 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 w^agoners took each a horse out of his team and scam- 
 pered; their example was immediately followed by others; so 
 that all the wagons, provisions, artillery, and stores were left 
 to the enemy. The general, being w^ounded, was brought off 
 with difficulty; his secretary, Mr. Shirley, was killed by his 
 side; and out of eighty-six officers, sixty-three were killed or 
 wounded, and seven hundned and fourteen men killed out of 
 eleven hundred. These eleven hundred had been picked men 
 
BENJAMIjq^ iniAXKLIN". 14^^ 
 
 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 fliers, 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 endeavoring 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 settle- 
 ments, and less lumber to remove. He was there met with 
 requests from the governors of Virginia, Maryland, and Penn- 
 sylvania, 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 insult- 
 ing, 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 Vir- 
 ginia, near seven hundred miles, occasioned 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 aids-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 the first day, 
 and at night only said: " Who would have thought it f That 
 he was silent again the following day, saying only at last: 
 
146 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 " We shall better know how to deal with them another tityie''^; 
 and died in a few minutes after/ 
 
 The secretary's papers, with all the general's orders, instruc- 
 tions, and correspondence, falling into the enemy'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 
 recommending me to their notice. David Hume, too, who 
 was some years after secretary to Lord Hertford, when minis- 
 ter in France, and afterward to General Conway, when secre- 
 tary 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. Dunbar, when the command devolved on him, 
 was not so generous. He being at Philadelphia, on his 
 retreat, or rather flight, I applied to him for the discharge of 
 the servants of three poor farmers of Lancaster County that 
 he had enlisted, reminding him of the late general's orders on 
 that head. He promised me that, if the masters would come 
 to him at Trenton, w^here he should be in a few days on his 
 march to New York, he would there deliver their men to 
 them. They accordingly were at the expense and trouble of 
 going to Trenton, and there he refused to perform his promise, 
 to their great loss and disappointment. 
 
 As soon as the loss of the wagons and horses was gener- 
 
 1 Compare the account of Braddock's defeat in the various biographies 
 of Washingrton. who played an important part in the affair. See particu- 
 arly Irving's Life of Washington, chs. xv., xvi. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 147 
 
 ally known, all the owners came upon me for the valuation 
 which I had given bond to pay. Their demands gave me a 
 great deal of trouble, my acquainting them that the money 
 was ready in the paymaster's hands, but that orders for pay- 
 ing it must first be obtained from General Shirley, and my 
 assuring them that I had applied to that general by letter ; 
 but, he being at a distance, an answer could not soon be re- 
 ceived, and they must have patience, all this was not sufficient 
 to satisfy, and some began to sue me. General Shirley at 
 length relieved me from this terrible situation by appointing 
 commissioners to examine the claims, and ordering payment. 
 They amounted to near twenty thousand pound, which to pay 
 would have ruined me. 
 
 Before w^e had' the news of this defeat, the tw^o Doctors Bond 
 came to me with a subscription paper for raising money to 
 defray the expense of a grand firework, which it was intended 
 to exhibit at a rejoicing on receipt of the news of our taking 
 Fort Duquesne. I looked grave, and said it would, I thought, 
 be time enough to prepare for the rejoicing w^hen we knew we 
 should have occasion to rejoice. They seemed surprised that 
 I did not immediately comply with their proposal. "Why 
 the d — 1 ! " says one of them, " you surely don't suppose that 
 the fort will not be taken?" " I don't know that it will not 
 be taken, but I know that the events of war are subject to 
 great uncertainty." T gave them the reasons of my doubting; 
 the subscription was dropped, and the projectors thereby 
 missed the mortification they would have undergone if the 
 firework had been prepared. Doctor Bond, on some other 
 occasion afterward, said that he did not like Franklin's fore- 
 bodings. 
 
 Governor Morris, w^ho had continually worried the Assembly 
 with message after message before the defeat of Braddock, to 
 beat them into the making of acts to raise money for the de- 
 fense of the province, without taxing, among others, the pro- 
 prietary estates, and had rejected all their bills for not having 
 such an exempting clause, now redoubled his attacks with 
 more hope of success, tlie danger and necessity being greater. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN". 
 
 'he Assembly, however, continued firm, believing they had 
 justice on their side, and that it would be giving up an essen- 
 tial right if they suffered the governor to amend their money- 
 bills. In one of the last, indeed, which was for granting fifty 
 thousand pounds, his proposed amendment was only of a 
 single word. The bill expressed "that all estates, real and 
 personal, were to be taxed, those of the proprietaries not ex- 
 cepted." His amendment was, for not read only: a small, but 
 very material alteration. However, when the news of this 
 disaster reached England, our friends there, whom we had 
 taken care to furnish with all the Assembly's answers to the 
 governor's messages, raised a clamor against the proprietaries 
 for their meanness and injustice in giving their governor such 
 instructions ; some going so far as to say that, by obstructing 
 the defense of their province, they forfeited their right to it. 
 They were intimidated by this, and sent orders to their re- 
 ceiver-general to add five thousand pounds of their money to 
 whatever sum might be given by the Assembly for such pur- 
 pose. 
 
 This, being notified to the House, was accepted in lieu of 
 their share of a general tax, and a new bill was formed, with 
 an exempting clause, which passed accordingly. By this act 
 I was appointed one of the commissioners for disposing of the 
 money, sixty thousand pounds. I had been active in model- 
 ing the bill and procuring its passage, and had, at the same 
 time, drawn a bill for establishing and disciplining a volun- 
 tary militia, which I carried through the House without much 
 difficulty, as care was taken in it to leave the Quakers at their 
 liberty. ^ To promote the association necessary to form the 
 militia, I wrote a dialogue, stating and answering all the ob- 
 jections I could think of to such a militia, which was printed, 
 and had, as I thought, great effect. 
 
 1. The preamble of the bill exempted Quakers from bearing arms. For 
 this reason many refused to enlist. To shame them, Franklin wrote "A 
 Dialogue between X. Y, and Z concerning the present State of Affairs in 
 Pennsylvania," which ends with these words: "O my friends, the glory of 
 serving and saving others is superior to the advantage of being served "and 
 secured. Let us resolutely and generously unite in our country's cause, in 
 which to die is the sweetest of all deaths; and may the God of armies bless 
 our honest endeavors." 
 
BENJAMIN" FRANKLIN". 149 
 
 While the several companies in the city and^ country were 
 forming, and learning their exercise, the governor prevailed 
 with me to take charge of our North-western frontier, which 
 was infested by the enemy, and provide for the defense of the 
 inhabitants by raising troops and building a line of forts. I 
 undertook this military business, though I did not conceive 
 myself well qualified for it. He gave me a. commission with 
 full powers, and a parcel of blank commissions for officers, to 
 be given to whom I thought fit. I had but little difficulty in 
 raising men, having soon five hundred and sixty under my 
 command. My son, who had in the preceding war been an 
 officer in the army raised against Canada, was my aid-de- 
 camp, and of great use to me. The Indians had burned 
 Gnadenhut, a village settled by the Moravians, and massacred 
 the inhabitants ; but the place was thought a good situation 
 for one of the forts. 
 
 In order to march thither, I assembled the companies at 
 Bethlehem, the chief establishment of those people. I was 
 surprised to find it in so good a posture of defense ; the de- 
 struction of Gnadenhut had made them apprehend danger. 
 The principal buildings were defended by a stockade ; they 
 had purchased a quantity of arms and ammunition from 'New 
 York, and had even placed quantities of small paving-stones 
 between the windows of their high stone houses, for their 
 women to throw down upon the heads of any Indians that 
 should attempt to force into them. The armed brethren, too, 
 kept watch, and relieved as methodically as in any garrison 
 town. In conversation with the bishop, Spangenberg, I 
 mentioned this my surprise ; for, knowing they had obtained 
 an act of Parliament exempting them from military duties in 
 the colonies, I had supposed they were conscientiously scru- 
 pulous of bearing arms. He answered me that it was not one 
 of their established principles, but that, at the time of their 
 obtaining that act, it was thought to be a principle with many 
 of their people. On this occasion, however, they, to their 
 surprise, found it adopted by but a few. It seems they were 
 either deceived in themselves, or deceived the Parliament ; 
 
150 BEKJAMIX FRAls^KLIN". 
 
 but common sense, aided by present danger, will sometimes 
 be too strong for whimsical opinions. 
 
 It was the beginning of January when we set out upon this 
 business of building forts. I sent one detachment toward the 
 Minisink, with instructions to erect one for the security of 
 that upper part of the country, and another to the lower part, 
 with similar instructions ; and I concluded to go myself with 
 the rest of my force to Gnadenhut, where a fort was thought 
 more immediately necessary. The Moravians procured me 
 five wagons for our tools, stores, baggage, etc. 
 
 Just before we left Bethlehem, eleven farmers, who had 
 been driven from their plantations by the Indians, came to 
 me requesting a supply of firearms, that they might go back 
 and fetch off their cattle. I gave them each a gun with suitable 
 ammunition. We had not marched many miles before it be- 
 gan to rain, and it continued raining all day ; there were no 
 habitations on the road to shelter us, till we arrived near 
 night at the house of a German, where, and in his barn, we 
 were all huddled together, as wet as water could make us. It 
 was well we w^ere not attacked in our march, for our arms 
 were of the most ordinary sort, and our men could not 
 keep their gun-locks dry. The Indians are dexterous in con- 
 trivances for that purpose, which we had not. They met that 
 day the eleven poor farmers above mentioned, and killed ten 
 of them. The one who escaped informed that his and his 
 companions' guns would not go off, the priming being wet 
 with the rain. 
 
 The next day being fair, we continued our march, and ar- 
 rived at the desolated Gnadenhut. There was a saw-mill near, 
 round whith were left several piles of boards, with which 
 we soon hutted ourselves ; an operation the more necessary 
 at that inclement season, as we had no tents. Our first work 
 was to bury more effectually the dead we found there, who 
 had been half interred by the country people. 
 
 The next morning our fort was planned and marked out, 
 the circumference measuring four hundred and fifty-five feet, 
 which would require as many palisades to be made of trees. 
 
BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. 151 
 
 one with another, of a foot diameter each. Our axes, of 
 which we had seventy, were immediately set to work to cut 
 down trees, and, our men being dexterous in the use of them, 
 great despatch was made. Seeing the trees fall so fast, I had 
 the curiosity to look at my watch when tw^o men began to cut 
 at a pine ; in six minutes they had it upon the ground, and I 
 found it of fourteen inches diameter. Each pine made three 
 palisades of eighteen feet long, pointed at one end. While 
 these were preparing, our other men dug a trench all round, 
 of three feet deep, in which the palisades were to be planted ; 
 and, our wagons, the bodies being taken off, and the fore and 
 hind wheels separated by taking out the pin which united the 
 two parts of the perch, we had ten carriages, with two horses 
 each, to bring the palisades from the woods to the spot. When 
 they were set up. our carpenters built a stage of boards all 
 round within, about six feet high, for the men to stand on 
 when to fire through the loopholes. We had one swivel gun, 
 which we mounted on one of the angles, and fired it as soon 
 as fixed, to let the Indians know-, if any w^ere within hearing, 
 that w'e had such pieces ; and thus our fort, if such a magnifi- 
 cent name may be given to so miserable a stockade, was fin- 
 ished in a week, though it rained so hard every other day that 
 the men could not work. 
 
 This gave me occasion to observe, that, when men are em- 
 ployed, they are best contented ; for on the days they worked 
 they were good-natured and cheerful, and, with the con- 
 sciousness of having done a good day's work, they spent the 
 evening jollily ; but on our idle days they were mutinous and 
 quarrelsome, finding fault with their pork, the bread, etc., 
 and in continual ill-humor, which put me in mind of a sea- 
 captain, whose rule it was to keep his men constantly at work; 
 and, when his mate once told him that they had done every- 
 thing, and there was nothing further to employ them about, 
 " Oh,'' says he, " make them scour the anchor y 
 
 This kind of fort, however contemptible, is a sufficient de- 
 fense against Indians, who have no cannon. Finding our- 
 selves now posted securely, and having a place to retreat to 
 
152 BEN JAM IK FRANKLIN. 
 
 on occasion, we ventured out in parties to scour the adjacent 
 country. We met with no Indians, but we found the places 
 on the neighboring hills where they had lain to watch our 
 proceedings. There was an art in their contrivance of those 
 places that seems worth mention. It being winter, a lire was 
 necessary for them ; but a common fire on the surface of the 
 ground would by its light have discovered their position at a 
 distance. They had therefore dug holes in the ground about 
 three feet diameter, and somewhat deeper ; we saw where 
 they had with their hatchets cut off the charcoal from the 
 sides of burnt logs lying in the woods. With these coals they 
 had made small fires in the bottom of the holes, and we ob- 
 served among the weeds and grass the prints of their bodies, 
 made by their lying all round, with their legs hanging down 
 in the holes to keep their feet warm, which, with them, is an 
 essential point. This kind of fire, so managed, could not dis- 
 cover them, either by its light, flame, sparks, or even smoke; 
 it appeared that their number was not great, and it seems 
 they saw we were too many to be attacked by them with pros- 
 pect of advantage. 
 
 We had for our chaplain a zealous Presbyterian minister, 
 Mr. Beatty, who complained to me that the men did not gen- 
 erally attend his prayers and exhortations. When they en- 
 listed, they were promised, besides pay and provisions, a gill of 
 rum a day, which was punctually served out to them, half in 
 the morning, and the other half in the' evening; and I ob- 
 served they were as punctual in attending to receive it ; upon 
 which I said to Mr. Beatty : " It is, perhaps, below the dig- 
 nity of your profession to act as steward of the rum, but if 
 you were to deal it out and only just after prayers, you would 
 have them all about you." He liked the thought, undertook 
 the office, and, with the help of a few hands to measure out 
 the liquor, executed it to satisfaction, and never were prayers 
 more generally and more punctually attended ; so that I 
 thought this method preferable to the punishment inflicted by 
 some military laws for non-attendance on divine service. 
 
 I had hardly finished this business, and got my fort well 
 
BENJAMIN^ FRANKLIIS". 153 
 
 stored with provisions, when I received a letter from the gov- 
 ernor, acquainting me that he had called the Assembly, and 
 wished my attendance there, if the posture of affairs on the 
 frontiers was such that my remaining there was no longer 
 necessary. My friends, too, of the Assembly, pressing me by 
 their letters to be, if possible, at the meeting, and my three 
 intended forts being now completed, and the inhabitants con- 
 tented to remain on their farms under that protection, I re- 
 solved to return ; the more willingly, as a New England officer, 
 Colonel Clapham, experienced in Indian war, being on a visit 
 to our establishment, consented to accept the command. I 
 gave him a commission, and, parading the garrison, had it 
 read before them, and introduced him to them as an otficer 
 who, from his skill in military affairs, was much more fit to 
 command them than myself ; and, giving them a little exhor- 
 tation, took my leave. I was escorted as far as Bethlehem, 
 where I rested a few days to recover from the fatigue I had 
 undergone. The first night, being in a good bed, I could 
 hardly sleep, it was so different from my hard lodging on the 
 floor of our hut at Gnaden wrapped only in a blanket or two. 
 While at Bethlehem, I inquired a little into the practice of 
 the Moravians : some of them had accompanied me, and all 
 were very kind to me. I found they worked for a common 
 stock, eat at common tables, and slept in common dormitories, 
 great numbers together. In the dormitories I observed loop- 
 holes, at certain distances all along just under the ceiling, 
 which I thought judiciously placed for change of air. I was 
 at their church, where I was entertained with good music, 
 the organ being accompanied with violins, hautboys, flutes, 
 clarinets, etc. I understood that their sermons were not 
 usually preached to mixed congregations of men, women, and 
 children, as is our common practice, but that they assembled 
 sometimes the married men, at other times their wives, then 
 the young men, the young women, and the little children, each 
 division by itself. The sermon I heard was to the latter, who 
 came in and were placed in rows on benches ; the boys under 
 the conduct of a young man, their tutor, and the girls con- 
 
154 BENJAMIX FRANKLII^. 
 
 ducted by a young woman. The discourse seemed well 
 adapted to their capacities, and was delivered in a pleasing, 
 familiar manner, coaxing them, as it were, to be good. They 
 behaved very orderly, but looked pale and unhealthy, which 
 made me suspect they were kept too much within doors, or 
 not allowed sufficient exercise. 
 
 I inquired concerning the Moravian marriages, whether the 
 report was true that they were by lot. I was told that lots 
 were used only in particular cases ; that generally, when a 
 young man found himself disposed to marry, he informed the 
 elders of his class, who consulted the elder ladies that gov- 
 erned the young women. As these elders of the diflPerent 
 sexes were well acquainted with the tempers and dispositions 
 of their respective pupils, they could best judge what matches 
 were suitable, and their judgments were generally acquiesced 
 in ; but if, foi example, it should happen that two or three 
 young women were found to be equally proper for the young 
 man, the lot was then recurred to. I objected, if the matches 
 are not made by the mutual choice of tlie parties, some of 
 them may chance to be very unhappy. " And so they may," 
 answered my informer, "if you let the parties choose for 
 themselves ;" which, indeed, I could not deny. 
 
 Being returned to Philadelphia, I found the association 
 went on swimmingly, the inhabitants that were not Quakers 
 having pretty generally come into it, formed th 3mselves into 
 companies, and chose their captains, lieutenants, and ensigns, 
 according to the new law. Dr. B. visited me, and gave me an 
 account of the pains he had taken to spread a general good 
 liking to the law, and ascribed much to those endeavors. I 
 had liad the vanity to ascribe all to my Dialogue ; however, 
 not knowing but that he might be in the right, I let him enjoy 
 his opinion, which I take to be generally the best way in such 
 cases. The officers, meeting, chose me to be colonel of the 
 regiment, which I this time accepted. I forget how many 
 companies we had, but we paraded about twelve hundred 
 well-looking men, with a company of artillery, who had been 
 furnished with six brass field-pieces, which thoy4iad become 
 
BENJAMIN FRANK LIX. 155 
 
 SO expert in the use of as to fire twelve times in a minute. 
 The first time I reviewed my regiment they accompanied me to 
 my house, and would salute me with some rounds fired before 
 my door, which shook down and broke several glasses of my 
 electrical apparatus. And my new honor proved not much 
 less brittle ; for all our commissions were soon after broken 
 by a repeal of the law' in England. 
 
 During this short time of my colonelship, being about to set 
 out on a journey to Virginia, the officers of my regiment took 
 it into their lieads that it would be proper for them to escort 
 me out of towm, as far as the Lower Ferry. Just as I was 
 getting on horseback they came to my door, between thirty 
 and forty, mounted, and all in their uniforms. I had not 
 been previously acquainted with the project, or I should have 
 prevented it, being naturally averse to the assuming of state 
 on any occasion ; and I was a good deal chagrined at their 
 appearance, as I could not avoid their accompanying me. 
 What made it worse was, that, as soon as we began to move, 
 they drew their swords and rode with them naked all the way. 
 Somebody wrote an account of this to the proprietor, and it 
 gave him great offense. No such honor had been paid him 
 when in the province, nor to any of his governors ; and he 
 said it was only proper to princes of the blood- royal, which 
 may be true for aught I know, who was, and still am, ignorant 
 of the etiquette in such cases. 
 
 This silly affair, however, greatly increased his rancor 
 against me, which w'as before not a little, on account of my 
 conduct in the Assembly respecting the exemption of his 
 estate from taxation, which I had always opposed very warmly, 
 and not without severe reflections on his meanness and injus- 
 tice of contending for it. He accused me to the ministry as 
 being the great obstacle to the king's service, preventing, by 
 my influence in the House, the proper form of the bills for 
 raising money, and he instanced this parade with my officers 
 as a proof of my having an intention to take the government 
 of the province out of his hands by force. He also applied to 
 Bir Everard Fawkener, the postmaster-general, to deprive 
 
156 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN". 
 
 me of my oifice ;' but it had no other effect than to procure 
 from Sir Everard a gentle admonition. 
 
 Notwithstanding the continual wrangle between the gover- 
 nor and the House, in which I, as a member, had so large a 
 share, there still subsisted a civil intercourse between that 
 gentleman and myself, and we never had any personal differ- 
 ence. I have sometimes since thought that his little or no 
 resentment against me, for the answers it was known I drew 
 up to his messages, might be the effect of professional 
 habit, and that, being bred a law^-er, he might consider us 
 both as merely advocates for contending clients in a suit, he 
 for the proprietaries and I for the Assembly. He w^ould, 
 therefore, sometimes call in a friendly way to advise with me 
 on difficult points, and sometimes, though not often, take my 
 advice. 
 
 We acted in concert to supply Braddock's army with pro- 
 visions ; and, when the shocking news arrived of his defeat, 
 the governor sent in haste for me, to consult with him on 
 measures for preventing tlie desertion of the back counties. 
 I forget now the advice I gave ; but I think it was, that 
 Dunbar should be written to, and prevailed with, if possible, 
 to post his troops on the frontiers for their protection, till, by 
 reinforcements from the colonies, he might be able to proceed 
 on the expedition. And, after my return from the frontier, 
 he would have had me undertake the conduct of such an 
 expedition with provincial troops, for the reduction of Fort 
 Duquesne, Dunbar and his men being otherwise emploj^ed ; 
 and he proposed to commission me as general. I had not so 
 good an opinion of my military abilities as he professed to 
 have, and I believe his professions must have exceeded his 
 real sentiments ; but probably he might think that my popu- 
 larity would facilitate the raising of the men, and my influence 
 in Assembly, the grant of money to pay them, and that, per- 
 haps, without taxing the proprietary estate. Finding me not 
 so forw^ard to engage as he expected, the project was dropped, 
 
 1. That is, the office of postmaster-general of the colonies. See p.13l 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 15? 
 
 and he soon after left the government, being superseded by 
 Captain Denny. 
 
 Before I proceed in relating the part I bad in i)ublic affairs 
 nnder this new governor's administration, it may not be amiss 
 here to give some account of the rise and progress of my 
 philosophical reputation. 
 
 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 imperfectly performed, as he 
 was not very expert ; but, being on a subject quite new to me, 
 they equally surprised and pleased me. Soon after my return 
 to Philadelphia, 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 repeat- 
 ing what I had seen at Boston ; and, by much practice, ac- 
 quired great readiness in performing 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 at our glass- 
 house, with which they furnished themselves, so that we had 
 at length several performers. Among these, 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 nicely 
 formed by instrument- makers. His lectures were well at- 
 tended, 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, 
 
158 BEITJAMIK FKANKLIN". 
 
 indeed, it was with diflBculty the experiments could be made, 
 from the general moisture of the air. 
 
 Obliged as we were to Mr. Collinson for his present of the 
 tube, etc., I thought it right he should be informed 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 light- 
 ning 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 connoisseurs. 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. Collinson then gave 
 them to Cave for publication in his Gentleman'' 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 after- 
 ward, 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. Dalibard to translate them 
 into French, and they were printed at Paris. The publication 
 offended the Abbe Nollet, 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 gen- 
 eral vogue. He could not at first believe that such a work 
 came from America, and said it must have been fabricated by 
 
 1. The celebrated paper in which Franklin suggested the lightning-rod, 
 written in 1750. was entitled: ''Opinions and Conjectures concerning the 
 Properties and Effects of the Electrical Matter, and the Means of Preserving 
 Buildings, Ships, etc., from Lightning, arising from Experiments and Obser- 
 vations made at Philadelphia. 1749." Two years later he flew the famous 
 kite, and made good his "conjecture " that lightning and electricity are the 
 same. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 159 
 
 his enemies at Paris, to decry his system. Afterwards, hav- 
 ing been assured that there really existed 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 experi- 
 ments, and of the positions deduced from them. 
 
 I once purposed answering the abbe, and actually began the 
 answer ; but, on consideration that my writings contained a 
 description of experiments which any one might repeat and 
 verify, and if not to be verified, could not be defended ; or 
 of observations offered as conjectures, and not delivered dog- 
 matically, therefore not laying me under any obligation to 
 defend them ; and reflecting that a dispute between two per- 
 sons, writing 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 concluded 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. Nollet, 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 contained w^as by de- 
 grees 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 experiments, made by 
 Messrs. Dalibard and De Lor at Marly, for drawing lightning 
 from the clouds. This engaged the public attention every- 
 where. M. de Lor, who had an apparatus for experimental 
 philosophy, and lectured in that branch of science, undertook 
 
 1, Elfive.— French for pupil or scholar. 
 
160 SENJAMIN^ FRANKLIN. 
 
 to repeat what he called the PhiladelpJiia Experiments; and, 
 after they were performed before the king and court, all the 
 curious of Paris flocked to see them. I will not swell this nar- 
 rative with an account of that capital experiment, 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, wTote 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 no- 
 ticed in England. The society, on this, resumed the consid- 
 eration 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, particularly the very in- 
 genious Mr. Canton, having verified the experiment of procur- 
 ing lightning from the clouds by a pointed rod, and acquainting 
 them with the success, they soon made me more than amends 
 for the slight with which they had before treated me. With- 
 out my having made any application for that honor, they 
 chose me a member, and voted that I 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 Copley for the year 1753, the delivery of which was 
 accompanied by a very handsome 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 Society, 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 custom- 
 ary at that time, were engaged in drinking, he took me aside 
 
BBifJAMIif FRANKLtSr. 161 
 
 into another room, and acquainted me that he had been ad- 
 vised by bis friends in England to cultivate a friendship with 
 me, as one who was capable of giving him the best advice, 
 and of contributing most effectually to the making his admin- 
 istration easy ; that he therefore desired of all things to have 
 a good understanding with me, and he begged me to be as- 
 sured of his readiness on all occasions 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 par- 
 ticular, 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 recompenses, etc., etc. 
 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 proportion became more profuse 
 of his solicitations and promises. 
 
 My answers were to this purpose : that my circumstances, 
 thanks to God, were such as to make proprietary favors un- 
 necessary 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 professions of regard to 
 me, and that he might rely on everything in my power to 
 make his administration as easy as possible, hoping at the 
 same time that he had not brought with him the same unfor- 
 tunate instruction his predecessor had been hampered with. 
 
 On this he did not then explain himself ; but when he af- 
 terwards came to do business with the Assembly, they ap- 
 
162 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN". 
 
 peared 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 the Historical Review I afterward pub- 
 lished. But between us personally no enmity arose ; we were 
 often together ; he was a man of letters, had seen much of 
 the world, and was very entertaining and pleasing in conver- 
 sation. He gave me the first information that my old friend 
 Jas. Ralph was still alive ; that he was esteemed one of the 
 best political writers in England ; had been employed in the 
 dispute between Prince Frederic and the king, and had ob- 
 tained a pension of three hundred a year ; that his reputation 
 was indeed small as a poet. Pope having damned his poetry in 
 the Dunciad ; but his prose was thought as good as any man's. 
 
 The Assembly finally finding the proprietary obstinately 
 persisted in manacling their deputies with instructions incon- 
 sistent 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. The House had sent up a 
 bill to the governor, granting a sum of sixty thousand pounds 
 for the king's use (ten thousand pounds of which was sub- 
 jected to the orders of the then general. Lord Loudon),* 
 which the governor absolutely refused to pass, in compliance 
 with his instructions. 
 
 I had agreed with Captain Morris, of the packet at New 
 York', for my passage, and my stores were put on board, when 
 Lord Loudon arrived at Philadelphia, expressly, as he told 
 me, to endeavor an accommodation between the governor and 
 Assembly, that his majesty's service might not be obstructed 
 by their dissensions. Accordingly, he desired the governor 
 and myself to meet him, that he might hear what was to be 
 said on both sides. We met and discussed the business. In 
 
 1. Lord Loudon was the newly-appointed grovernor of New York, and "a 
 sort of military over-lord over all the governors, assemblies, and people of 
 the American provinces." 
 
BEKJAMIiq- FRAKKLIN". 163 
 
 behalf of the Assembly, I urged all the various arguments 
 that may be found in the public papers of that time, which 
 were of my writing, and are printed with the minutes of the 
 Assembly ; and the governor pleaded his instructions ; the 
 bond he had given to observe them, and his ruin if he dis- 
 .obeyed, yet seemed not unwilling to hazard himself if Lord 
 Loudon would advise it. This his lordship did not choose to 
 do, though I once thought I had nearly prevailed with him 
 to do it ; but finally he rather chose to urge the compliance 
 of the Assembly ; and he entreated me to use my endeavors 
 with them for that purpose, declaring that he would spare 
 none of the king's troops for the defense of our frontiers, and 
 that, if we did not continue to provide for that defense our- 
 selves, they must remain exposed to the enemy. 
 
 I acquainted the House with what had passed, and, present- 
 ing them with a set of resolutions I had draw^n up, declaring 
 our rights, and that w^e did not relinquish our claims to those 
 rights, but only suspended the exercise of them on this occa- 
 sion through /o7-ce, against which we protested, they at length 
 agreed to drop that bill, and frame another conformable to the 
 proprietary instructions. This of course the governor passed, 
 and T was then at liberty to proceed on my voyage. But, in 
 the mean time, the packet had sailed with my sea-stores, w^hich 
 was some loss to me, and my only recompense was his lord- 
 ship's thanks for my service, all the ci'edit of obtaining the 
 accommodation falling to his share. 
 
 He set out for New York before me ; and, as the time for 
 dispatching the packet-boats was at his disposition, and there 
 were two then remaining there, one of which, he said, w^as to 
 sail very soon, I requested to know the precise time, that I 
 might not miss her by any delay of mine. His answer was : 
 " I have given out that she is to sail on Saturday next ; but I 
 may let you know^, entre iioiis, that if you are there by Mon- 
 day morning, you wall be in time, but do not delay longer." 
 By some accidental hindrance at a ferry, it was Monday noon 
 before I arrived, and I was much afraid she might have sailed, 
 as the wind was fair ; but I was soon made easy by the infor- 
 
164 BENJAMIN PBANKLIN. 
 
 mation that she was still in the harbor, and would not move 
 till the next day. One would imagine that I was now on the 
 very point of departing for Europe. I thought so ; but I was 
 not then so well acquainted with his lordship's character, of 
 which indecision was one of the strongest features. I shall 
 give some instances. 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. There were then two of the packet-boats, 
 which had been long in port, but were detained for the gen- 
 eral's letters, which were always to be ready to-morrow. 
 Another packet arrived ; she too was detained ; and, before 
 we sailed, a fourth was expected. Ours was the first to be 
 dispatched, as having been there longest. Passengers were 
 engaged in all, and some extremely impatient to be gone, and 
 the merchants uneasy about their letters, and the orders they 
 had given for insurance (it being war lime) for fall goods ; but 
 their anxiety availed nothing ; his lordship's letters were not 
 ready ; and yet whoever waited on him found him always at 
 his desk, pen in hand, and concluded he must needs write 
 abundantly. 
 
 Going myself one morning to pay my respects, I found in 
 his antechamber one Innis, a messenger of Philadelphia, who 
 had come from thence express with a packet from Governor 
 Denny for the General. He delivered to me some letters from 
 my friends there, which occasioned my inquiry when he was 
 to return, and where he lodged, that I might send some letters 
 by him. He told me he was ordered to call to-morrow at nine 
 for the General's answer to the governor, and should set off 
 immediately. I put my letters into his hands the same day. 
 A fortnight after I met him again in the same place. "So, 
 you are soon returned, Innis?" '■'•Returned ! no, I am not 
 gone yet." *' How so ? " ''I have called here by order every 
 morning these two weeks past for his lordship's letter, and it 
 is not yet ready." *' Is it possible, when he is so great a 
 writer? fori see him constantly at his escritoire." "Yes," 
 says Innis, " but he is like St. George on the signs, ahvays on 
 ho7'sef)ack, and never rides on.'''' This obsei'vation of the mes- 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 165 
 
 seiiger was, ii seems, well founded ; for, when in England, I 
 understood that Mr. Pitt gave it as one reason for removing 
 this general, and sending Generals Amherst and Wolfe, that 
 the minister never heard from him , and could not know what 
 he was doing. 
 
 This daily expectation of sailing, and all the three packets 
 going down to Sandy Hook, to join the fleet there, the passen- 
 gers thought it best to be on board, lest by a sudden order the 
 ships should sail, and they be left behind. There, if I remem- 
 ber right, we were about six weeks, consuming our sea-stores, 
 and obliged to procure more. At length the fleet sailed, the 
 General and all his army on board, bound to Louisburg, with 
 intent to besiege and take that fortress ; all the packet-boats 
 in company ordered to attend the General's ship, ready to 
 receive his dispatches when they should be ready. "We were 
 out five days before we got a letter with leave to part, and 
 then our ship quitted the fleet and steered for England. The 
 other two packets he still detained, carried them with him to 
 Halifax, where he stayed some time to exercise the men in sham 
 attacks upon sham forts, then altered his mind as to besieging 
 Louisburg, and returned to New York, with all his troops, 
 together with the two packets above mentioned, and all their 
 passengers ! During his absence the French and savages had 
 taken Fort George, on the frontier of that province, and the 
 savages had massacred many of the garrison after capitulation. 
 
 I saw afterwards in London Captain Bonnell, who com- 
 manded one of those packets. He told me that, when he had 
 been detained a month, he acquainted his lordship that his 
 ship was grown foul, to a degree that must necessarily hinder 
 her fast sailing, a point of consequence for a packet-boat, and 
 requested an allowance of time to heave her down and clean 
 her bottom. He was asked how long time that would require. 
 He answered, three days. The General replied: " If you can 
 do it in one day, I give leave; otherwise not; for you must 
 certainly sail the day after to-morrow." So he never obtained 
 leave, though detained afterwards from day to day during full 
 three months. 
 
166 BEiq^JAMIN FRANKLIN". 
 
 I saw also in London one of Bonnell's passengers, who was 
 so enraged against his lordship for deceiving and detaining 
 him so long at New York, and then carrying him to Halifax 
 and back again, that he swore he would sue him for damages. 
 Whether he did or not, I never heard; but, as he represented 
 the injury to his affairs, it was very considerable. 
 
 On the whole, I wondered much how such a man came to 
 be intrusted with so important a business as the conduct of a 
 great army; but, having since seen more of the great world, 
 and the means of obtaining and motives for giving places, my 
 wonder is diminished. General Shirley, on whom the com- 
 mand of the army devolved upon the death of Braddock, 
 would, in my opinion, if continued in place, have made a 
 much better campaign than that of Loudon in 1757, which 
 was frivolous, expensive, and disgraceful to our nation be- 
 yond conception; for, though Shirley was not a bred soldier, 
 he was sensible and sagacious in himself, and attentive to 
 good advice from others, capable of forming judicious plans, 
 and quick and active in carrying them into execution. Lou- 
 don, instead of defending the colonies with his great army, 
 left them totally exposed, while he paraded idly at Halifax, 
 by which means Fort George was lost; besides, he deranged 
 all our mercantile operations, and distressed our trade, by a 
 long embargo on the exportation of provisions, on pretense of 
 keeping supplies from being obtained by the enemy, but in 
 reality for beating down their price in favor of the con- 
 tractors, in whose profits, it was said, perhaps from suspicion 
 only, he had a share. And, when at length the embargo was 
 taken off, by neglecting to send notice of it to Charlestown, 
 the Carolina fleet was detained near three months longer, 
 whereby their bottoms were so much damaged by the worm 
 that a great part of them foundered in their passage home.* 
 
 Shirley was, I believe, sincerely glad of being relieved from 
 so burdensome a charge as the conduct of an army must be to 
 a man unacquainted with military business. I was at the 
 
 1. See Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. ii. p. 462. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 167 
 
 entertainment given by the city of New York to Lord Lou- 
 don, on his taking upon him the command. Shirley, though 
 thereby superseded, was present also. There was a great 
 company of officers, citizens, and strangers, and, some chairs 
 having been borrowed in the neighborhood, there was one 
 among them very low, which fell to the lot of Mr. Shirley. 
 Perceiving it as I sat by him, I said: "They have given you, 
 sir, too low a seat." "No matter," says he, "Mr. Franklin, 
 I find a low seat the easiest." 
 
 While I was, as afore mentioned, detained at New York, I 
 received all the accounts of the provisions, etc., that I had 
 furnished to Braddock, some of which accounts could not 
 sooner be obtained from the different persons I had employed 
 to assist in the business. I presented them to Lord Loudon, 
 desiring to be paid the balance. He caused them to be regu- 
 larly examined by the proper officer, who, after comparing 
 every article with its voucher, certified them to be right; and 
 the balance due for which his lordship promised to give me 
 an order on the paymaster. This was, however, put off from 
 time to time; and, though I called often for it by appointment, 
 I did not get it. At length, just before my departure, he told 
 me he had, on better consideration, concluded not to mix his 
 accounts with those of his predecessors. "And you," says 
 he, " when in England, have only to exhibit your accounts at 
 the treasury, and you will be paid immediately." 
 
 I mentioned, but without effect, the great and unexpected 
 expense I had been put to by being detained so long at New 
 York, as a reason for my desiring to be presently paid; and 
 on my observing that it was not right I should be put to any 
 further trouble or delay in obtaining the money I had ad- 
 vanced, as I charged no commission for my service, " O, sir," 
 says he, "you must not think of persuading us that you are 
 no gainer; we understand better those affairs, and know that 
 every one concerned in supplying the army finds means, in 
 the doing it, to fill his own pockets." I assured him that was 
 not my case, and that I had not pocketed a farthing; but he 
 appeared clearly not to believe me ; and, indeed, I have since 
 
168 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN". 
 
 learned that immense fortunes are often made in such em- 
 ployments. As to my balance, I am not paid it to this day, 
 of which more hereafter. 
 
 Our captain of the packet had boasted much, before we 
 sailed, of the swiftness of his ship; unfortunately, when we 
 came to sea, she proved the dullest of ninety-six sail, to his 
 no small mortification. After many conjectures respecting 
 the cause, when we were near another ship almost as dull as 
 ours, which, however, gained upon us, the captain ordered all 
 hands to come aft, and stand as near the ensign staff as pos- 
 sible. We were, passengers included, about forty persons. 
 While we stood there, the ship mended her pace, and soon 
 left her neighbor far behind, which proved clearly what our 
 captain suspected, that she was loaded too much by the head. 
 The casks of water, it seems, had been all placed forward; 
 these he therefore ordered to be moved further aft, on which 
 the ship recovered her character, and proved the best sailer in 
 the fleet. 
 
 The captain said she had once gone at the rate of thirteen 
 knots, which is accounted thirteen miles per hour. We had 
 on board, as a passenger, Captain Kennedy, of the Navy, who 
 contended that it was impossible, and that no ship ever sailed 
 so fast, and that there must have been some error in the 
 division of the log-line, or some mistake in heaving the log. 
 A wager ensued between the two captains, to be decided when 
 there should be sufficient wind. Kennedy thereupon exam- 
 ined rigorously the log-line, and, being satisfied with that, he 
 determined to throw the log himself. Accordingly some days 
 after, when the wind blew very fair and fresh, and the cap- 
 tain of the packet, Lutwidge, said he believed she then went 
 at the rate of thirteen knots, Kennedy made the experiment, 
 and owned his wager lost. 
 
 The above fact I give for the sake of the following observa- 
 tion. It has been remarked, as an imperfection in the art of 
 shipbuilding, that it can never be known, till she is tried, 
 whether a new ship will or will not be a good sailer; for that 
 the model of a good-sailing ship has been exactly followed in 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 169 
 
 a new one, which has proved, on the contrary, remarkably 
 dull. I apprehend that this may partly be occasioned by the 
 different opinions of seamen] respecting the modes of lading, 
 rigging, and sailing of a ship; each has his system; and the 
 same vessel, laden by the judgment and orders of one cap- 
 tain, shall sail better or worse than when by the orders of 
 another. Besides, it scarce ever happens that a ship is 
 formed, fitted for the sea, and sailed by the same person. 
 One man builds the hull, another rigs her, a third lades and 
 sails her. No one of these has the advantage of knowing 
 all the ideas and experience of the others, and, therefore, 
 cannot draw just conclusions from a combination of the 
 whole. 
 
 Even in the simple operation of sailing when at sea, I have 
 often observed different judgments in the officers who com- 
 manded the successive watches, the wind being the same. 
 One would have the sails trimmed sharper or flatter than 
 another, so that they seemed to have no certain rule to govern 
 by. Yet I think a set of experiments might be instituted, 
 first, to determine the most proper form of the hull for swift 
 sailing ; next, the best dimensions and properest place for the 
 masts ; then the form and quantity of sails, and their posi- 
 tion, as the wind may be ; and, lastly, the disposition of the 
 lading. This is an age of experiments, and I think a set ac- 
 curately made and combined would be of great use. I am 
 persuaded, therefore, that ere long some ingenious philoso- 
 pher will undertake it, to whom I wish success. 
 
 "We were several times chased in our passage, but outsailed 
 everything, and in thirty days had soundings. We had a 
 good observation, and the captain judged himself so near our 
 port, Falmouth, that, if we made a good run in the night, we 
 might be off the mouth of that harbor in the morning, and by 
 running in the night might escape the notice of the enemy's 
 privateers, who often cruised near the entrance of the chan- 
 nel. Accordingly, all the sail was set that we could possibly 
 make, and the wind being very fresh and fair, we went right 
 before it, and made great way. The captain, after his obser- 
 
170 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 vation, shaped his course, as he thought, so as to pass wide of 
 the Scilly Isles ; but it seems there is sometimes a strong in- 
 draught setting up St. George's Channel, which deceives sea- 
 men and caused the loss of Sir Cloudesley ShovePs squadron. 
 This indraught was probably the cause of what happened 
 tons. 
 
 We had a w^atchman placed in the bow, to whom they often 
 called, '''■Look well out before tJiere,^^ a,nd he as often answered, 
 ^' Ay, ay;'''' but perhaps had his eyes shut, and was half 
 asleep at the time, they sometimes answering, as is said, 
 mechanically ; for he did not see a light just before us, w^hich 
 had been hid by the studding-sails from the man at the helm, 
 and from the rest of the watch, but by an accidental yaw of 
 the ship was discovered, and occasioned a great alarm, we 
 being very near it, the light appearing to me as big as a cart- 
 W'heel. It was midnight, and our captain fast asleep ; but 
 Captain Kennedy, jumping upon deck, and seeing the danger, 
 ordered the ship to wear round, all sails standing ; an opera- 
 tion dangerous to the masts, but it carried us clear, and we 
 escaped shipwreck, for we were running right upon the rocks 
 on which the light-house was erected. This deliverance im- 
 pressed me strongly with the utility of light-houses, and 
 made me resolve to encourage the building of more of them 
 in America, if I should live to return there. 
 
 In the morning it was found by the soundings, etc., that 
 we were near our port, but a thick fog hid the land from our 
 sight. About nine o'clock the fog began to rise, and seemed 
 to be lifted up from the water like the curtain at a play-house, 
 discovering underneath the town of Falmouth, the vessels in 
 its harbor, and the fields that surrounded it. This was a 
 most pleasing spectacle to those who had been so long with- 
 out any other prospects than the uniform view of a vacant 
 ocean, and it gave us the more pleasure as we were now free 
 from the anxieties which the state of war occasioned. 
 
 I set out immediately, with my son, for London, and we 
 only stopped a little by the way to view Stonehenge on Salis- 
 bury Plain, and Lord Pembroke's house and gardens, with his 
 
BEKJAMIN FRAKKLIN. 171 
 
 very curious antiquities at Wilton. W« arrived in London the 
 27th of July, 1757.^ 
 
 As soon as I was settled in a lodging Mr. Charles had pro- 
 vided for me, I went to visit Dr. Fothergill, to whom I was 
 strongly recommended, and whose counsel respecting my pro- 
 ceedings I was advised to obtain. He was against an imme- 
 diate complaint to government, and thought the proprietaries 
 should first be personally applied to, who might possibly be 
 induced by the interposition and persuasion of some private 
 friends, to accommodate matters amicably. I then waited on 
 my old friend and correspondent, Mr. Peter Collinson, who 
 told me that John Han bury, the great Virginia merchant, 
 had requested to be informed when I should arrive, that he 
 might carry me to Lord Granville's, who was then President 
 of the Council and wished to see me as soon as possible. I 
 agreed to go with him the next morning. Accordingly Mr. 
 Hanbury called for me and took me in his carriage to that 
 nobleman's, who received me with great civility ; and after 
 some questions respecting the present state of affairs in 
 America and discourse thereupon, he said to me: "You 
 Americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitu- 
 tion ; you contend that the king's instructions to his gover- 
 nors are not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to regard 
 or disregard them at your own discretion. But'those instruc- 
 tions are not like the pocket instructions given to a minister 
 going abroad, for regulating his conduct in some trifling point 
 of ceremony. They are first drawn up by judges learned in 
 the laws ; they are then considered, debated, and perhaps 
 amended in Council, after which they are signed by the king. 
 They are then, so far as they relate to you, the Jaiv of the 
 land, for the king is the Legislator of the Colonies." I 
 told his lordship this was new doctrine to me. I had always 
 
 1. " Here terminates the Autobiograph}^, as published by Wm. Temple 
 Franklin and his successors. What follows was written the last year of Dr. 
 Franklin's life, and was never before printed in Knglish.'"—Bigelow's AutO' 
 biography of Franklin, 1868, p. 350, note. 
 
172 BEKJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 understood from our charters that our laws were to be made 
 by our Assemblies, to be presented indeed to the king for his 
 royal assent, but that being once given the king could not 
 repeal or alter them. And as the Assemblies could not make 
 permanent laws without his assent, so neither could he make 
 a law for them without theirs. He assured me I was totally 
 mistaken. I did not think so, however, and his lordship's 
 conversation having a little alarmed me as to what might be 
 the sentiments of the court concerning us, I wrote it down as 
 soon as I returned to my lodgings. I recollected that about 
 twenty years before, a clause in a bill brought into Parliament 
 by the ministry had proposed to make the king's instructions 
 laws in the colonies, but the clause was thrown out by the 
 Commons, for which we adored them as our friends and 
 friends of liberty, till by their conduct ^ towards us in 1765 
 it seemed that they had refused that point of sovereignty to 
 the king only that they might reserve it for themselves. 
 
 After some days. Dr. Fothergill having spoken to the pro- 
 prietaries, they agreed to a meeting with me at Mr. T. Penn's 
 house in Spring Garden. The conversation at first consisted 
 of mutual declarations of disposition to reasonable accommo- 
 dations, but I suppose each party had its own ideas of what 
 should be meant by reasonable. We then went into consider- 
 ation of our several points of complaint, which I enumerated. 
 The proprietaries justified their conduct as well as they could, 
 and I the Assembly's. We now appeared very wide, and so 
 far from each other in our opinions as to discourage all hope 
 of agreement. However, it was concluded that I should give 
 them the heads of our complaints in writing, and they prom- 
 ised then to consider them. I did so soon after, but they put 
 the paper into the hands of their solicitor, Ferdinand John 
 Paris, who managed for them all their law business in their 
 great suit with the neighboring proprietary of Maryland, 
 Lord Baltimore, which had subsisted seventy years, and wrote 
 for them all their papers and messages in their dispute with the 
 
 1. That is, hy proclaiming the Stamp Act. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 173 
 
 Assembly. He was a proud, angry man, and as I had occa- 
 sionally, in the answers of the Assembly, treated his papers 
 with some severity, they being really wetik in point of argu- 
 ment, and haughty in expression, he had conceived a mortal 
 enmity to me, which discovering itself whenever we met, I 
 declined the proprietary's proposal that he and I should dis- 
 cuss the heads of complaint between our two selves, and re- 
 fused treating with any one but them. They then by his 
 advice put the paper into the hands of the Attorney and So- 
 licitor-General for their opinion and counsel upon it, where it 
 lay unanswered a year wanting eight days, during which 
 time I made frequent demands of an answer from the pro- 
 prietaries, but without obtaining any other than that they 
 had not yet received the opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor- 
 General. What it was when they did receive it I never 
 learned, for they did not communicate it to me, but sent a long 
 message to the Assembly drawn and signed by Paris, reciting 
 my paper, complaining of its want of formality, as a rudeness 
 on my part, and giving a flimsy justification of their conduct, 
 adding that they should be willing to accommodate matters if 
 the Assembly would send out some person of candor to treat 
 with them for that purpose, intimating thereby that I was 
 not such. 
 
 The want of formality or rudeness was, probably, my not 
 having addressed the paper to them with their assumed titles 
 of True and Absolute Proprietaries of the Province of Penn- 
 sylvania, which I omitted as not thinking it necessary in a 
 paper, the intention of which was only to reduce to a certainty 
 by writing, what in conversation I had delivered viva voce. 
 
 But during this delay, the Assembly having prevailed with 
 Governor Denny to pass an act taxing the proprietary estate 
 in common with the estates of the people, which was the grand 
 point in dispute, they omitted answering the message. 
 
 When this act, however, came over, the proprietaries, coun- 
 selled by Paris, determined to oppose its receiving the royal 
 assent. Accordingly they petitioned the king in council, and 
 a hearing was appointed in which two lawyers were employed 
 
174 BEN^JAMIK FRAKKLIN. 
 
 by them against tlie act, and two by me in support of it. 
 They alleged that the act was intended to load the proprietary 
 estate in order to spare those of the people, and that if it 
 were suffered to continue in force, and the proprietaries who 
 were in odium with the people, left to their mercy in propor- 
 tioning the taxes, they would inevitably be ruined. We re- 
 plied that the act had no such intention, and would have no 
 such effect. That the assessors were honest and discreet men 
 under an oath to assess fairly and equitably, and that any ad- 
 vantage each of them might expect in lessening his own tax 
 by augmenting that of the proprietaries was too trifling to in- 
 duce them to perjure themselves. This is the purport of what 
 I remember as urged by both sides, except that we insisted 
 strongly on the mischievous consequences that must attend a 
 repeal, for that the money, £100,000, being printed and given 
 to the king's use, expended in his service, and now spread 
 among the people, the repeal would strike it dead in their 
 hands to the ruin of many, and the total discouragement of 
 future grants, and the selfishness of the proprietors in solic- 
 iting such a general catastrophe, merely from a groundless 
 fear of their estate being taxed too highly, was insisted on in 
 the strongest terms. On this Lord Mansfield, one of the 
 counsel, rose, and beckoning me, took me into the clerk's 
 chamber, while the lawyers were pleading, and asked me if I 
 was really of opinion that no injury would be done the pro- 
 prietary estate in the execution of the act. I said certainly. 
 *' Then," says he, "you can have little objection to enter into 
 an engagement to assure that poii^t. " I answered, ' ' None at 
 all." He then called in Paris, and after some discourse, his 
 lordship's proposition was accepted on both sides; a paper to 
 the purpose was drawn up by the clerk .of the Council, which 
 I signed with Mr. Charles, who was also an agent of the Prov- 
 ince for their ordinary affairs, when Lord Mansfield returned 
 to the council chamber, where finally the law was allowed to 
 pass. Some changes were, however, recommended, and we 
 also engaged they should be made by a subsequent law, but 
 the Assembly did not think them necessary; for one year's 
 
BEN^JAMIN FRAKKLIIsr. 175 
 
 tax having been levied by the act before the order of Council 
 arrived, they appointed a committee to examine the proceed- 
 ings of the assessors, and on this committee they put several 
 particuUir friends of the proprietaries. After a full inquiry, 
 they unanimously signed a report that they found the tax 
 had been assessed with perfect equity. 
 
 The Assembly looked into my entering into the first part of 
 the engagement, as an essential service to the Province, since • 
 it secured the credit of the paper money then spread over all 
 the country. They gave me their thanks in form when I re- 
 turned. But the proprietaries were enraged at Governor 
 Denny for having passed the act, and turned him out with 
 threats of suing him for breach of instructions which he had 
 given bond to observe. He, however, having done it at the 
 instance of the General, and for His Majesty's service, and 
 having some powerful interest at court, despised the threats 
 and they were never put in execution. 
 
 Continuation" of the Life of Franklin. 
 
 PRESENTED MAINLY IN HIS OWN WORDS. 
 
 On August 17, 1763, Franklin wrote from Portsmouth to 
 his friend Lord Kames : ' I am now waiting here only for 
 a wind to waft me to America ; but cannot leave this happy 
 island and my friends in it without extreme regret, though I 
 am going to a country and a people that I love. I am going 
 from the old world to the new ; and I fancy I feel like those 
 who are leaving this world for the next : grief at the parting ; 
 fear of the passage ; hope of the future. These different pas- 
 sions all affect their minds at once ; and these have tendei^ed 
 me down exceedingly." 
 
 Life in England had been very pleasant for Franklin, in 
 spite of the prolonged annoyances of the business upon which 
 he had been sent. His fame as a scientist had preceded him, 
 and he was welcomed as an associate and friend by many of 
 the most distinguished men in science and literature. He 
 
176 BEi^JAMIK FRAi^KLlK. 
 
 was entertained at the fine country-seats, and at the univer- 
 sities ; both Oxford and St. Andrews conferred on him the 
 degree of Doctor of Laws. He enjoyed the old-world leisure, 
 and its opportunities for study, for travel, and for social 
 pleasures. His ready wit and homely, though profound wis- 
 dom brought him into familiar companionship with the most 
 brilliant and cultivated people in London society. "As to 
 my situation here," he wrote, "nothing can be more agree- 
 able. Learned and ingenious foreigners that come to Eng- 
 land almost all make a point of visiting me ; for my reputa- 
 tion is still higher abroad than here. Several of the foreign 
 ambassadors have assiduously cultivated my acquaintance, 
 treating me as one of their corps. " England w^as at war with 
 France, and, with the fall of Quebec, Canada was within her 
 grasp. Franklin wrote many letters and an able pamphlet 
 urging the government to add Canada to the British posses- 
 sions in America. Writing prophetically of the future great- 
 ness of his own country, he said: "I have long been of 
 opinion that the foundations of the future grandeur and 
 stability of the British empire lie in America. ... I am 
 therefore by no means for restoring Canada. If we keep it, 
 all the country from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi will 
 in another century be filled with British people. Britain itself 
 will become vastly more populous by the immense increase to 
 its commerce ; the Atlantic sea will be covered with your 
 trading ships ; and your naval power, thence continually in- 
 creasing, will extend your influence round the whole globe, 
 and awe the world." 
 
 But Franklin found quite as much pleasure in assisting his 
 young friend Mary Stevenson with her studies as in giving 
 advice to His Majesty's ministers. He accompanies a parcel 
 of books with this helpful advice: "I would advise you to 
 read with a pen in your hand, and enter in a little book short 
 hints of what you find that is curious, or that may be useful ; 
 for this will be the best method of imprinting such particulars 
 in your memory, where they will be ready, either for practice 
 on same future occasion, if they are matters of utility, or at 
 
BEKJAMIN^ FRANKLIK. 177 
 
 least to adorn and improve your conversation, if they are 
 rather points of curiosity. 
 
 " And as many of the terms of science are such as you can- 
 not have met with in your common reading, and may there- 
 fore be unacquainted with, I think it would be well for you 
 to have a good dictionary at hand, to consult immediately 
 when you meet with a word you do not comprehend the pre- 
 cise meaning of. This may at first seem troublesome and 
 Interrupting ; but it is a trouble that will daily diminish, as 
 you will daily find less and less occasion for your dictionary, 
 as you become more and more acquainted with the terms ; 
 and in the mean time you will read with more satisfaction, 
 because with more understanding. 
 
 " When any point occurs in which you would be glad to 
 have further information than your book affords you, I beg 
 you would not in the least apprehend that I should think it 
 a trouble to receive and answer your questions. It will be a 
 pleasure, and no trouble. For though I may not be able, out 
 of my own little stock of knowledge, to afford you what you 
 require, I can easily direct you to the books where it may 
 most readily be found." 
 
 His mission was at last successfully performed, and duty 
 called Franklin back to his home in Philadelphia. He was 
 now fifty-six years old, and he counted upon spending the 
 remainder of his days in the enjoyable leisure of private life, 
 with science as his chief occupation. But this was not to be ; 
 his services were necessary for the public welfare. "Busi- 
 ness, public and private, consumes all my time ; I must return 
 to England for repose. With such thoughts I flatter myself, 
 and need some kind friend to put me often in mind that old 
 trees cannot safely be transplanted." Thus he wrote to Mary 
 Stevenson, and very soon, indeed, he was on his way to Eng- 
 land, not to find the repose of an English home which he had 
 dreamed about, but to act a second time as the busy and 
 responsible agent of the colony of Pennsylvania. Early in 
 December, 1764, he was once more settled in his familiar 
 rooms in Craven Street, and when the news of his safe arrival 
 
178 BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. 
 
 reached Philadelphia, the bells were kept ringing until mid- 
 night. Soon after he reached London, he wrote the following 
 letter to an English friend, describing the events of the inter- 
 val of two years : 
 
 "You require my history from the time I set sail for Amer- 
 ica. I left England about the end of August, 1762, in com- 
 pany with ten sail of merchant -ships, under a convoy of a 
 man-of-war. We had a pleasant passage to Madeira, where 
 we were kindly received and entertained, our nation being 
 then in high honor with the Portuguese, on account of the 
 protection we were then affording them against the united 
 invasions of France and Spain. It is a fertile island, and the 
 different heights and situations among its mountains afford 
 such temperaments of air, that all the fruits of northern and 
 southern countries are produced there, — corn, grapes, apples, 
 peaches, oranges, lemons, plantains, bananas, etc. Here we 
 furnished ourselves with fresh provisions, and refreshments 
 of all kinds ; and, after a few days, proceeded on our voyage, 
 running southward until we got into the trade- winds, and 
 then with them westward, till we drew near the coast of 
 America. The weather was so favorable that there were few 
 days in which we could not visit from ship to ship, dining 
 with each other, and on board of the man-of-war, which made 
 the time pass agreeably, much more so than when one goes 
 in a single ship ; for this was like traveling in a moving vil- 
 lage, with all one's neighbors ajDOut one. 
 
 "On the 1st of November I arrived safe and well at my 
 own home, after an absence of near six years; found my wife 
 and daughter well, the latter grown quite a woman, with 
 many amiable accomplishments acquired in my absence; and 
 my friends as hearty and affectionate as ever, with whom my 
 house was filled for many days, to congratulate me on my 
 return. T had been chosen yearly during my absence to rep- 
 resent the city of Philadelphia in our Provincial Assembly ; 
 and, on my appearance in the House, they voted me three 
 thousand pounds sterling for my services in England, and 
 their thanks, delivered by the Speaker. In February follow- 
 
BEXJAMIif FRAKKLIN. 170 
 
 ing, my son arrived with my new daughter ; for with my 
 consent and approbation he married, soon after I left Eng- 
 land, a very agreeable West India lady, with whom he is very 
 happy. I accompanied him to his government, where he met 
 with the kindest reception from the people of all ranks, and 
 has lived with them ever since in the greatest harmony. A 
 river only parts that province and ours, and his residence is 
 within seventeen miles of me, so that we frequently see each 
 other. ^ 
 
 " In the spring of 1763 I set out on a tour through all the 
 northern colonies to inspect and regulate the post-offices in 
 the several provinces. In this journey I spent the summer, 
 traveled about sixteen hundred miles, and did not get home 
 till the beginning of November. The Assembly sitting through 
 the following winter, and warm disputes arising between them 
 and the governor, I became wholly engaged in public affairs ; 
 for, besides my duty as an Assemblyman, I had another trust 
 to execute — that of being one of the commissioners appointed 
 by law to dispose of the public money appropriated to the 
 raising and paying an army to act against the Indians, and 
 defend the frontiers. And then, in December, we had two 
 insurrections of the back inhabitants of our province, by 
 whom twenty poor Indians were murdered, that had, from 
 the first settlement of the province, lived among us, under the 
 protection of our government. This gave me a good deal of 
 employment ; for, as the rioters threatened further mischief, 
 and their actions seemed to be approved by an ever-acting 
 party, I wrote a pamphlet entitled A Narrative, etc. (which I 
 think I sent to you), to strengthen the hands of our weak 
 government, by rendering the proceedings of the rioters un- 
 popular and odious.^ This had a good effect; and afterwards, 
 
 1. The English Government made his son William governor of New Jersey, 
 hoping thus to secure the father's loyalty, The son became a royalist and 
 finally a Tory refugee, but the father's patriotism was not affected in the 
 least. 
 
 2. The full title of the pamphlet was " A Narrative of the Late Massacres." 
 The event is known in history as tlie " Paxton Massacre," the leadei's being 
 the "Paxtou Boys," lawless frontiersmen, from a settlement bearing that 
 name. 
 
180 BENJAMIN FRANKLIIS-. 
 
 when a great body of them, with arms, marched toward the 
 capital, in defiance of the government, with an avowed resolu- 
 tion to put to death one hundred and forty Indian converts 
 then under its protection, I formed an association, at the 
 governor's request, for his and their defense, we having no 
 militia. Nearly one thousand of the citizens accordingly took 
 arms. Governor Penn ^ made my house for some time his 
 headquarters, and did everything by my advice ; so that f-or 
 about forty-eight hours I was a very great man, as I had been 
 once some years before, in a time of public danger.^ 
 
 "But the fighting face we put on, and the reasonings we 
 used with the insurgents (for I went, at the request of the 
 governor and council, with three others, to meet and discourse 
 with them), having turned them back and restored quiet to 
 the city, I became a less man than ever ; for I had, by this 
 transaction, made myself many enemies among the populace ; 
 and the governor (with whose family our public disputes had 
 long placed me in an unfriendly light, and the services I had 
 lately rendered him not being of the kind that make a man 
 acceptable), thinking it a favorable opportunity, joined the 
 whole weight of the proprietary interest to get me out of the 
 Assembly, which was accordingly effected at the last election, 
 by a majority of about twenty-five in four thousand votei-s. 
 
 " The House, however, when they met in October, approved 
 of the resolutions taken, while I was speaker, of petitioning 
 the crown for a change of government, and requested me to 
 return to England to prosecute that petition ; which service I 
 accordingly undertook, and embarked at the beginning of 
 November last, being accompanied to the ship, sixteen miles, 
 by a cavalcade of three hundred of my friends, who filled our 
 sails with their good wishes, and I arrived in thirty days at 
 London. Here I have been ever since, engaged in that and 
 other public affairs relating to America, which are like to con- 
 tinue some time longer upon my hands ; but I promise you 
 tliat when I am quit of these I will engage in no other ; and 
 
 1. The son of one of the proprietaries. 
 
 2. When he assisted General Braddock. See p. 155. 
 
BEi^-JAMIN FRAI^KLIlir. 181 
 
 that, as soon as I have recovered the ease and leisure I hope 
 for, the task you require of me, of finishing my Art of Virtue, 
 shall be performed." 
 
 The ease and leisure that Franklin hoped for never came. 
 He thought that his business would keep him in England 
 about ten months at most, but he did not return for ten years. 
 He worked faithfully for his petition, but the attention of the 
 government was occupied with more important matters. The 
 war with France had left a heavy burden of debt, and Eng- 
 land had determined to make the colonies bear the larger 
 part of this burden. The colonists were to be forced to buy 
 all their goods in England, and not to be permitted to make 
 for themselves those articles which England had to sell to 
 them. Finally, the fatal Stamp Act was passed, and Franklin 
 wrote to a friend in America: "Depend upon it, my good 
 neighbor, I took every step in my power to prevent the passing 
 of the Stamp Act, Nobody could be more concerned and in- 
 terested than myself to oppose it sincerely and heartily. But 
 the tide was too strong against us. The nation was provoked 
 by American claims of independence, and all parties joined in 
 resolving by this act to settle the point. We might as well have 
 hindered the sun's setting. That we could not do. But since 
 it is down, my friend, and it may be long before it rises again, 
 let us make as good a night of it as we can. We can still light 
 candles. Frugality and industry will go a great way towards 
 indemnifying us. Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand 
 than kings and parliaments. If we can get rid of the former 
 we may easily bear the latter." 
 
 It is evident from these words that Franklin, at first, saw 
 no course left to the colonists but patient endurance. Sur- 
 rounded as he was daily with evidences of the might and 
 majesty of England, it seemed to him that successful resist- 
 ance would be impossible. He believed that the act would be- 
 enforced, and being invited by the government to mention 
 some " honest and responsible" man in Philadelphia to serve 
 as stamp-distributer, he named Mr. Hughes, one of his ac- 
 quaintances. When the news of these events reached Phila- 
 
183 BEifJAMIK FEAlSKLII^f. 
 
 delpliia, the people rose in a wild frenzy of indignation, not 
 only denouncing the odious acts of Parliament, but also revil- 
 ing Franklin in bitterest terms, as having been in some way 
 responsible for the unjust laws. It was known that attempts 
 had been made to bribe him, and now it was believed that he 
 had been won over to the royalists. But they soon had reason 
 to be ashamed of their suspicions. Franklin's patriotism was 
 above question. When he fully learned the state of feeling 
 throughout the colonies, he became the most sturdy champion 
 of the rights claimed by his countrymen, and in explaining 
 and defending the views of the colonists he performed a ser- 
 vice that no other American then living could have rendered ; 
 for so extensive and accurate was his knowledge of American 
 affairs, and so general was the respect paid to his authority 
 and opinions in England, that the repeal of the hated acts was 
 due in large measure to his untiring efforts. He was sum- 
 moned before the House of Com.mons to give testimony con- 
 cerning the colonies, and when asked whether the colonists 
 "would submit to the Stamp Act, if it were modified, the 
 obnoxious parts taken out, and the duty reduced to some 
 particulars of small moment," he replied with forcible brevity: 
 "!N'o, they will never submit to it." When asked whether 
 they could do without British goods, he said: "The goods 
 they take from Britain are either necessaries, mere conveni- 
 ences, or superfluities. The first, as cloth, etc., with a little 
 industry they can make at home ; the second they can do 
 without until they are able to provide them among themselves; 
 and the last, which are much the greatest part, they will strike 
 off immediately." The truth of this statement was soon real- 
 ized by the British merchants. He was asked whether the 
 people would not use the stamps, if without them they would 
 be "unable to obtain any right or recover by law any debt," 
 and replied : " It is hard to say what they would do. I can 
 only judge what other people will think, and how they will 
 act, by what I feel within myself. I have a great many debts 
 due to me in America, and I would rather they should remain 
 unrecoverable by any law than submit to the Stamp Act." 
 
BEJ^JAMIN" FRANKLIN". 183 
 
 The Stamp Act was repealed March 18, 1766, and the good 
 news was received with shouts of joy in the colonies. The 
 citizens of Philadelphia celebrated the event with a grand 
 procession, of which the principal feature was "a barge, forty 
 feet long, named Franklin, from which salutes were fired as 
 it passed along the streets." The recent distrust of their 
 great representative was changed to enthusiastic devotion. 
 Franklin's pleasant method of celebrating the event is shown 
 by the following letter to his wife : 
 
 " As the Stamp Act is at length repealed, I am willing you 
 should have a new gown, which you may suppose I did not 
 send sooner, as I knew you would not like to be finer than 
 your neighbors, unless in a gown of your own spinning. Had 
 the trade between the two countries totally ceased, it was a 
 comfort to me to recollect that I had once been clothed from 
 head to foot in woolen and linen of my wife's manufacture, 
 that I never was prouder of any dress in my life, and that 
 she and her daughter might do it again if it was necessary. 
 I told the Parliament that it was my opinion, before the old 
 clothes of the Americans were worn out they might have 
 new ones of their own making. I have sent you a fine piece 
 of Pompadour satin, fourteen yards, cost eleven shillings a 
 yard ; a silk negligee and a petticoat of brocaded lutestring 
 for my dear Sally ; with two dozen gloves, four bottles of 
 lavender water, and two little reels. The reels are to screw 
 on the edge of the table, when she would wind silk or thread. 
 The skein is to be put over them, and winds better than if 
 held in two hands. There is also a gimcrack corkscrew, 
 which you must get some brother gimcrack to show you the 
 use of. In the chest is a parcel of books for my friend 
 Mr. Coleman, and another for Cousin Colbert. Pray, did he 
 receive those I sent him before? I send you also a box 
 with three fine cheeses. Perhaps a bit of them may be left 
 when I come home. Mrs. Stevenson has been very diligent 
 and serviceable in getting these things together for you, and 
 presents her best respects, as does her daughter, to both you 
 and Sally." 
 
184 BEI^JAMIN FRANKLIN". 
 
 Franklin's valuable services were generally recognized 
 throughout the colonies, and he was appointed agent also for 
 Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. In reality he was 
 the representative of all America, and was so regarded in 
 England. For several years he continued to labor earnestly 
 to bring about a reconciliation between the colonies and the 
 mother country. But it proved to be an impossible task. 
 The feeling of hostility was becoming each year more intense 
 and bitter on both sides. The Stamp Act had been repealed, 
 not because it was unjust, but because it was injuring English 
 trade, and the government continued busily to devise new 
 measures of oppression that could be successfully enforced. 
 Franklin's spirit was always hopeful, and he believed, almost 
 to the last, that the object so near his heart, the restoration 
 of peace and harmony, would be accomplished. Yet in 1768 
 he wrote sadly : " Being born and bred in one of the countries, 
 and having lived long and made many agreeable connections 
 of friendship in the other, I wish all prosperity to both ; but 
 I have talked and written so much and so long on the sub- 
 ject, that my acquaintances are weary of hearing and the 
 public of reading any more of it, which begins to make me 
 weary of talking and writing ; especially as I do not find 
 that I have gained any point in either country, except that of 
 rendering myself suspected by my impartiality ; in England 
 of being too much an American, and in America of being too 
 much an Englishman. " 
 
 The position of Franklin became more and more difficult as 
 the spirit of resistance increased in America. His opinion 
 was still sought by English statesmen upon all questions 
 pertaining to the colonies. But finally, when they saw that 
 his sympathies were entirely enlisted upon the American 
 side, and that he could not be flattered or bribed into a 
 change of conviction, they turned against him with the 
 spirit of bitterest enmity and hatred. The office of post- 
 master was taken from him ; he was attacked by the news- 
 papers, and threatened Avith arrest for treason ; Lord Sand- 
 wich denounced him in the House of Lords as " one of the 
 
BENJAMI:N- FRANKLIl?". 185 
 
 bitterest and most mischievous enemies this country has ever 
 known." His friends warned him of the danger of remaining 
 longer in England, but he did not leave until it was certain 
 that he could do nothing more for the colonies. 
 
 To friends at home he wrote: "My situation here is 
 thought by many to be a little hazardous ; for if by some 
 accident the troops and people of New England should come 
 to blows, I should probably be taken up ; the ministerial 
 people affecting everywhere to represent me as the cause of 
 all the misunderstanding. And I have been frequently 
 cautioned to secure all my papers, and by some advised to 
 withdraw. But I venture to stay, in compliance with the 
 wish of others, till the result of the Congress arrives, since 
 they suppose my being here might on that occasion be of 
 use. And I confide in my innocence, that the worst that can 
 happen to me will be an imprisonment upon suspicion ; though 
 that is a thing I should much desire to avoid, as it may be 
 expensive and vexatious, as well as dangerous to my health." 
 His last official act was to place in the hands of the ministry 
 the Declaration of Rights. His last day in London was spent 
 with his friend Dr. Priestley, who says that much of the 
 time " he was looking over a number of American news- 
 papers, directing me what to extract from them for the Eng- 
 lish ones ; and in reading them he was frequently not able 
 to proceed for the tears literally running down his cheeks." 
 His departure signified that all hope of reconciliation and 
 peace was gone forever. 
 
 He reached Philadelphia May 5, 1775, and found things 
 strangely changed. His wife had died during his absence, 
 his son was alienated by politics, his daughter had grown to 
 womanhood and was married to a man whom he had never 
 seen. The country was in a turmoil of excitement ; war 
 had already begun, the battles of Lexington and Concord 
 having occurred while he was on the ocean. The effect of 
 these events upon Franklin's feelings is shown by the letter 
 he wrote, a few weeks later, to one of his closest friends in 
 England ; 
 
186 BENJAMIX FKANKLIN. 
 
 ^^ Mr. StraJian :— You are a member of Parliament, and 
 one of that majority wliich has doomed my country to de- 
 struction. You have begun to burn our towns and murder 
 our people. Look upon your hands ; they are stained with 
 the blood of your relations ! You and I were long friends ; 
 you are now my enemy, and I am yours. 
 
 "B. Franklin." 
 
 In a letter to his friend Dr. Priestley he wrote : " Tell our 
 dear, good friend Dr. Price, who sometimes has his doubts 
 and despondencies about our firmness, that America is deter- 
 mined and unanimous, a very few Tories and placemen ex- 
 cepted, who will probably soon export themselves. Britain, 
 at the expense of three millions, has killed one hundred and 
 fifty Yankees, this campaign, which is twenty thousand 
 pounds a head ; and at Bunker's Hill she gained a mile of 
 ground, half of which she lost again by our taking post at 
 Ploughed Hill. During the same time sixty thousand children 
 have been born in America. From these data his mathemat- 
 ical head will easily calculate the time and expense necessary 
 to kill us all, and conquer our whole territory." 
 
 On the day after his landing Franklin was elected a dele- 
 gate to the Continental Congress, of which he was a member 
 fourteen months. He was appointed to all the important com- 
 mittees, and presented the "first sketch of a plan of confed- 
 eration " which is known to have been presented to Congress. 
 He was made postmaster-general, was sent to Cambridge to 
 confer with Washington upon military affairs, and to Montreal 
 to consult with General Arnold in regard to possible aid from 
 Canada. This last was almost a cruel task to put upon one 
 so old, but he answered cheerfully every demand made upon 
 him for his country's good. On reaching Saratoga he wrote : 
 " I begin to apprehend that I have undertaken a fatigue that 
 at my time of life may prove too much for me ; so I sit down 
 to write to a few friends by way of farewell." From this 
 perilous and fruitless undertaking he returned to be at once 
 made presiding oflacer of a convention to frame a constitution 
 
BEN'JAMIN^ FRANKLIX. 187 
 
 for the independent State of Pennsylvania. As the war ad- 
 vanced it became important to establish commercial relations 
 with the friendly nations of Europe, and especially to obtain 
 loans of money for the support of the armies. France par- 
 ticularly, it was believed, would aid the new nation, being 
 herself an enemy of England. Accordingly Congress, by a 
 unanimous vote, sent Franklin to test the good-will of the 
 French people and. the generosity of their king. When the 
 vote was announced, he whispered to a friend : " I am old 
 and good for nothing^ but, as the store-keepers say of their 
 remnants of cloth, ' I am but a fag-end, and you may have me 
 for what you please.'" He was now seventy years old, and 
 was about to undertake the most difficult and responsible 
 mission of his whole public career. He did not set out, how- 
 ever, until he had signed his name to that remarkable docu- 
 ment, the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 During the discussion of the Declaration, Jefferson, its chief 
 author, was much annoyed by the criticisms of the members, 
 and Franklin, sitting near him at the time, consoled him in 
 the following manner : " I have made it a rule, whenever in 
 my power, to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be 
 reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an inci- 
 dent which I will relate to you. When I was a journeyman 
 printer, one of my companions, an apprenticed hatter, hav- 
 ing served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. 
 His first concern was to have a handsome sign-board, with 
 a proper inscription. He composed it in these words : John 
 Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money, 
 with a figure of a hat subjoined. But he thought he would 
 submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he 
 showed it to thought the word hatter tautologous, because 
 followed by the words makes hats, which showed he was a 
 hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word 
 makes might as well be omitted, because his customers would 
 not care who made the hats ; if good, and to their mind, 
 they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A 
 third said he thought the words for ready money were use- 
 
188 BENJAMIN- FRANKLIN". 
 
 less, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. 
 Every one who purchased expected to pay. They were parted 
 with, and the inscription now stood, John Thompson sells 
 hats. ' Sells hats ' ? says his next friend ; ' why, nobody 
 will expect you to give them away. What, then, is the 
 use of that word ? ' It was stricken out, and hats followed, 
 the rather as there was one painted on the board. So his 
 inscription was ultimately reduced to John Thompson^ with 
 the figure of a hat subjoined." 
 
 Franklin sailed late in October, 1776, and reached France 
 in safety, although the passage was stormy and the little ship 
 Reprisal was several times chased by English cruisers. Soon 
 after landing he wrote good-naturedly to a lady friend in 
 England : " You are too early, hussy, as well as too saucy, in 
 calling me rebel ; you should wait for the event which will 
 determine whether it is a rebellion or only a revolution .... I 
 know you wish you could see me ; but, as you cannot, I will 
 describe myself to you. Figure me in your mind as jolly as 
 formerly, and as strong and hearty, only a few years older ; 
 very plainly dressed, wearing my thin, gray, straight hair, 
 that peeps out under my only coiffure, a fine fur cap, which 
 comes down over my forehead almost to my spectacles. Think 
 how this must appear among the powdered heads of Paris ! " 
 The French people received this "plainly dressed" represent- 
 ative of the new republic with enthusiasm and even extrava- 
 gant demonstrations of delight. Crowds filled the streets to 
 see him pass ; nobles and statesmen, philosophers and men of 
 fashion, all united in welcoming the American Solon ; his face 
 was seen in every print-shop, and on finger-rings, bracelets, 
 and snuff-boxes. Poets wrote sonnets upon him ; women of 
 rank and fashion placed Franklin portraits upon their man- 
 tles and Franklin stoves in their chambers. The jokes and 
 wise sayings of " Bonhomme Richard" were circulated by the 
 newspapers throughout the kingdom. The " Way to Wealth" 
 was translated and used in the schools. His fame, said John 
 Adams, seemed "more universal than that of Leibnitz or 
 I^ewton, Frederic or Voltaire." To on^ who wa§ lamenting 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN". 189 
 
 with him the suffering of Washington's army at Valley Forge 
 he remarked, "^a ira, Qa. ira" (It will all come right in the 
 end); these words were treasured in the memory of the people, 
 and became the national cry in their own great revolution. 
 
 Franklin's duties in France not only involved great respon- 
 sibility, but were often exceedingly trying and burdensome, 
 yet he always performed them cheerfully and with remarkable 
 skill and success. The financial difficulties with which he was 
 constantly harassed are suggested by a passage in a letter to 
 one of his countrymen who was urging him for money : " The 
 continental vessels of war which come to France have like- 
 wise required great sums of us to furnish and refit them, and 
 supply the men with necessaries. The prisoners, too, who 
 escape from England claim a very expensive assistance from 
 us, and are much dissatisfied with the scanty allowance we are 
 able to afford them. The interest bills above mentioned, of the 
 drawing of which we have received notice, amount to two mil- 
 lion five hundred thousand dollars, and we have not a fifth part 
 of the sum in our banker's hands to answer them ; and large 
 orders to us from Congress for supplies of clothing, arms, and 
 ammunition remain uncomplied with for want of money. In 
 this situation of our affairs we hope you will not insist on our 
 giving you a farther credit with our banker, with whom we are 
 in daily danger of having no farther credit ourselves. " Once 
 when several ships loaded with American products for sale in 
 France fell into the hands of the enemy, he remarked reso- 
 lutely : "The destroying of our ships by the English is only 
 like shaving our beards, that will grow again. Their loss of 
 provinces is like the loss of a limb, which can never again be 
 united to their body." His persistent patience and skillful 
 diplomacy overcame all obstacles, and he obtained many and 
 large sums of money, both as gifts and loans, without which 
 the war could not have been continued. 
 
 Finally, the war was ended, and the last important act of 
 Franklin's long and illustrious diplomatic career was signing 
 the articles of peace with England. To his friend Mary Ste- 
 venson he wrote : " At length we are at peace. God be praised, 
 
190 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 and long, very long, may it continue. All wars are follies, very 
 expensive, and very mischievous ones. "When will mankind 
 be convinced of this, and agree to settle their differences by 
 arbitration ? Were they to do it, even by the cast of a die, it 
 would be better than by fighting and destroying each other." 
 
 Franklin now loved France as he had once loved England, 
 and his friends urged him to spend the rest of his days among 
 them, warning him of the danger of an ocean voj^age at his 
 advanced age. But he replied : ' ' The desire of spending the 
 little remainder of life with my family is so strong as to deter- 
 mine me to try at least whether I can bear the motion of the 
 ship. If not, I must get them to set me ashore somewhere in 
 the Channel and content myself to die in Europe." He was 
 seventy-nine years old, and to the usual infirmities of age 
 were added frequent and painful attacks of the gout. When 
 the time of his departure came, the queen sent him her own 
 litter, that he might reach his ship with as little pain as possi- 
 ble, and from the king he received a portrait of his Royal 
 Majesty, framed in a double circle of four hundred and eight 
 diamonds. 
 
 On the morning of September 13, 1785, Franklin found 
 himself " in full view of dear Philadelphia." His arrival was 
 announced by a discharge of cannon and the ringing of all the 
 church-bells. Crowds of his fellow-citizens greeted him at the 
 wharf and escorted him to his home. He was immediately 
 elected a member of the city council, and the council and as- 
 sembly then made him president of the commonwealth of 
 Pennsylvania. "I had not firmness enough," he says, "to 
 resist the unanimous desire of my countryfolks; and I find 
 myself harnessed again in their service for another year. 
 They engrossed the prime of my life. They have eaten my 
 flesh, and seem resolved now to pick my bones." 
 
 When the convention met to frame the Constitution, " the 
 venerable Dr. Franklin," as people now called him, was the 
 most conspicuous member. Madison tells us that while the 
 last members were signing the important document, "Dr. 
 Franklin, looking toward the president's chair, at the back of 
 
BENTJAMIN FKANKLT^. 191 
 
 which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few 
 members near him that painters had found it difficult to dis- 
 tinguish, in their art, a rising from a setting sun. ' I have,' 
 he said, ' often and often in the course of the session, and the 
 vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at 
 that behind the president without being able to tell whether 
 it was rising or setting ; but now at length I have the happi- 
 ness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.' " 
 
 His last years were filled with suffering, but he was always 
 cheerful, and while his body was racked with pain his mental 
 faculties remained clear and vigorous. In 1788 he wrote : 
 "You kindly inquire after my health. I have not of late 
 much reason to boast of it. People that will live a long life 
 and drink to the bottom of the cup must expect to meet with 
 some of the dregs. However, when I consider how many 
 more terrible maladies the human body is liable to, I think 
 myself well off that I have only three incurable ones : the 
 gout, the stone, and old age ; and, those notwithstanding, I 
 enjoy many comfortable intervals, in which I forget all my 
 ills, and amuse myself in reading or writing, or in conversa- 
 tion with friends, joking, laughing, and telling merry stories, 
 as when you first knew me, a young man about fifty." He 
 once said : "I often hear persons whom I knew when chil- 
 dren called old Mr. Such-a-one, to distinguish them from 
 their sons, now men grown and in business ; so that by living 
 twelve years beyond David's period I seem to have intruded 
 myself into the company of posterity, when I ought to have 
 been abed and asleep." 
 
 It was a boon of providence that Franklin was permitted 
 to live to see the new government established, and his hopes 
 for the new nation realized. When Washington became 
 president, he wrote to the great chieftain : " My malady ren- 
 ders my sitting up to write rather painful to me ; but I cannot 
 let my son-in-law, Mr. Bache, depart for New York without 
 congratulating you by him on the recovery of your health, so 
 precious to us all, and in the growing strength of our new 
 government under your administration. For my own per- 
 
192 BENJAMIK FRANKLIN. 
 
 sonal ease, I should have died two years ago ; but though 
 those years have been spent in excruciating pain, I am pleased 
 that I have lived them, since they have brought me to see our 
 present situation. I am now finishing my eighty-fourth year, 
 and probably with it my career in this life ; but whatever 
 state of existence I am placed in hereafter, if I retain my 
 memory of what has passed here, I shall with it retain the 
 esteem, respect, and affection with which I have long been, 
 my dear friend, yours most sincerely." The end came a few 
 months later, April 17, 1790. It was fitting that these words 
 of farewell should be addressed to one with whom he divided 
 the highest honors of the Revolution, for no other one of the 
 builders of our nation approaches Washington and Franklin 
 in greatness of achievement and nobility of fame. 
 
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