 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, INTRODUCTION We Americans devour eagerly any piece of writing that purports to tell us the secret of success in life, yet how often we are disappointed to find nothing but commonplace statements or recipes that we know by heart but never follow. Most of the life stories of our famous and successful men fail to inspire us because they lack the human element that makes the story record real and brings the story within our grasp. While we are searching far and near for some Aladdin's lamp to give coveted fortune, there is, ready at our hand, if we will only reach out and take it, like the charm in Milton's comas, unknown and like esteemed and dull swain, treads on it daily with his clouted shoon. The interesting human and vividly told story of one of the wisest and most useful lives in our history, and perhaps in any history, in Franklin's autobiography, is offered not so much already made formula for success as the companionship of a real flesh-and-blood man of extraordinary mind and quality, whose daily walk and conversation will help us to meet our own difficulties, much as does the example of a wise and strong friend. While we are fascinated by the story, we absorb the human experience through which a strong and helpful character is building. The thing that makes Franklin's autobiography different from every other life story of a great and successful man is just this human aspect of the account. Franklin told the story of his life as he himself says for the benefit of his posterity, he wanted to help them by the relation of his own rise from obscurity and poverty to eminence and wealth. He is not unmindful of the importance of his public services and their recognition, yet his accounts of these achievements are given only as a part of the story, and the vanity displayed is incidental and in keeping with the honesty of the recital. There is nothing of the impossible in the method and practice of Franklin as he sets them forth. The youth who reads the fascinating story is astonished to find that Franklin in his early years struggled with the same everyday passions and difficulties that he himself experiences, and he loses the sense of discouragement that comes from a realization of his own shortcomings and inability to attain. There are other reasons why the autobiography should be an intimate friend of American young people. Here they may establish a close relationship with one of the foremost Americans as well as one of the wisest men of his age. The life of Benjamin Franklin is of importance to every American primarily because of the party played in securing the independence of the United States and in establishing it as a nation. Franklin shares with Washington the honors of the revolution and the events leading to the birth of the new nation. While Washington was the animating spirit of the struggle in the colonies, Franklin was its ableist champion abroad. To Franklin's cogent reasoning and keen satire, we owe the clear and forcible presentation of the American case in England and France, while to his personality and diplomacy as well as his facile pen, we are indebted for the foreign alliance and the funds without which Washington's work must have failed. His patience, fortitude, and practical wisdom, coupled with self-sacrificing devotion to the cause of his country, are hardly less noticeable than similar qualities displayed by Washington. In fact, Franklin as a public man was much like Washington, especially in the entire disinterestedness of his public service. Franklin is also interesting to us because by his life and teachings, he has done more than any other American to advance the material prosperity of his countrymen. It is said that his widely and faithfully read maxims made Philadelphia and Pennsylvania wealthy, while poor Richard's pithy sayings translated into many languages have had a worldwide influence. Franklin is a good type of our American manhood, although not the wealthiest or the most powerful, he is undoubtedly in the versatility of his genius and achievements the greatest of our self-made men. The simple yet graphic story in the autobiography of his steady rise from humble boyhood in a tallow-chandler shop by industry, economy, and perseverance in self-improvement to eminence is the most remarkable of all the remarkable histories of our self-made men. It is in itself a wonderful illustration of the results possible to be attained in a land of unequaled opportunity by following Franklin's maxims. Franklin's fame, however, was not confined to his own country, although he lived in a century notable for the rapid evolution of scientific and political thought and activity, yet no less a keen judge and critic than Lord Jeffrey, the famous editor of the Edinburgh Review a century ago, said that, in one point of view, the name of Franklin must be considered as standing higher than any of the others which illustrated the eighteenth century. Distinguished as a statesman, he was equally great as a philosopher, thus uniting in himself a rare degree of excellence in both these pursuits to excel in either of which is deemed the highest praise. Franklin has indeed been aptly called many-sighted. He was eminent in science and public service, in diplomacy and in literature. He was the Edison of his day, turning his scientific discoveries to the benefit of his fellow men. He perceived the identity of lightning and electricity and set up the lightning rod. He invented the Franklin stove, still widely used, and refused to patent it. He possessed a masterly shrewdness in business and practical affairs. Carlisle called him the father of all the Yankees. He founded a fire company, assisted in founding a hospital, and improved the cleaning and lighting of streets. He developed journalism, established the American Philosophical Society, the Public Library in Philadelphia, and the University of Pennsylvania. He organized a postal system for the colonies, which was the basis of the present United States Post Office. Bancroft, the eminent historian, called him the greatest diplomat of his century. He perfected the Albany Plan of Union for the colonies. He is the only statesman who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Peace with England, and the Constitution. As a writer, he has produced, in his autobiography, and in poor Richard's almanac, two works that are not surpassed by similar writing. He received honorary degrees from Harvard and Yale, from Oxford and St. Andrews, and was made a fellow of the Royal Society, which awarded him the Copley Gold Medal for improving natural knowledge. He was one of the eight foreign associates of the French Academy of Science. The careful study of the autobiography is also valuable because of the style in which it is written. If Robert Louis Stevenson is right in believing that his remarkable style was acquired by imitation, then the youth who would gain the power to express his ideas clearly, forcibly, and interestingly cannot do better than to study Franklin's method. Franklin's fame in the scientific world was due almost as much to his modest, simple, and sincere manner of presenting his discoveries and to the precision and clearness of the style in which he described his experiments, as to the results he was able to announce. Sir David Humphrey, the celebrated English chemist, himself an excellent literary critic, as well as a great scientist said, a singular felicity guided all Franklin's researches, and by very small means he established very grand truths. The style and manner of his publication on electricity are almost as worthy of admiration as the doctrine it contains. Franklin's place in literature is hard to determine because he was not primarily a literary man. His aim in his writings as in his life work was to be helpful to his fellow men. For him writing was never an end in itself, but always means to an end. Yet his success as a scientist, a statesman, and a diplomat, as well as socially, was in no little part due to his ability as a writer. His letters charmed all and made his correspondence eerily sought. His political arguments were the joy of his party and the dread of his opponents. His scientific discoveries were explained in language at once so simple and so clear that plowboy and exquisite could follow his thought or his experiment to its conclusion. As far as American literature is concerned, Franklin has no contemporaries. Before the autobiography, only one literary work of importance had been produced in this country. Cotton Mathers Magnalia, a church history of New England in a ponderous, stiff style. Franklin was the first American author to gain wide and permanent reputation in Europe. The autobiography, poor Richard, Father Abraham's speech, or The Way to Wealth, as well as some of the bagatelles, are as widely known abroad as any American writings. Franklin must also be classed as the first American humorist. English literature of the 18th century was characterized by the development of prose. Periodical literature reached its perfection early in the century in The Tatler and The Spectator of Addison and Steel. Pamphleteer's flurries throughout the period, the homelier prose of Bunyan and Defoe, gradually gave place to the more elegant and artificial language of Samuel Johnson, who set the standard for prose writing from 1745 onward. This century saw the beginnings of the modern novel in Fielding's Tom Jones, Richardson's Clarissa Harlow, Stern's Tristum Shanti, and Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. Gibbon wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Hume his History of England, and Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations. In the simplicity and vigor of his style, Franklin more nearly resembles the earlier group of writers. In his first essay, he was not an inferior imitator of Addison. In his numerous parables, moral allegories, and apologies, he showed Bunyan's influence. But Franklin was essentially a journalist. In his swift, terse style, he is most like Defoe, who was the first great English journalist and master of the newspaper narrative. The style of both writers is marked by homely, vigorous expression, satire, burlesque, repartee. Here the comparison must end. Defoe and his contemporaries were authors, their vocation was writing, and their success rests on the imaginative or creative powers they displayed. To authorship, Franklin laid no claim. He wrote no work of the imagination. He developed only incidentally a style in many respects as remarkable as that of his English contemporaries. He wrote the best autobiography in existence, one of the most widely known collections of maxims, and an unsurpassed series of political and social satires. Because he was a man of unusual scope of power and usefulness, who knew how to tell his fellow men the secrets of that power and usefulness. The Story of the Autobiography The account of how Franklin's autobiography came to be written and the adventures of the original manuscript forms in itself an interesting story. The autobiography is Franklin's longest work, and yet it is only a fragment. The first part, written as a letter to his son, William Franklin, was not intended for publication, and the composition is more informal and the narrative more personal than in the second part. From 1730 on, which was written with a view to publication, the entire manuscript shows little evidence of revision. In fact, the expression is so homely and natural that his grandson William Temple Franklin, in editing the work, changed some of the phrases because he thought them inelegant and vulgar. Franklin began the story of his life while on a visit to his friend Bishop Shipley at Twyford in Hampshire, Southern England, in 1771. He took the manuscript, completed to 1731, with him when he returned to Philadelphia in 1775. It was left there with his other papers when he went to France in the following year, and disappeared during the confusion incident to the Revolution. Twenty-three pages of closely written manuscript fell into the hands of Abel James, an old friend who sent a copy to Franklin at Passet near Paris, urging him to complete the story. Franklin took up the work at Passet in 1784 and carried the narrative forward a few months. He changed the plan to meet his new purpose of writing to benefit the younger reader. His work was soon interrupted and was not resumed until 1788 when he was at home in Philadelphia. He was now old, infirm, and suffering, and was still engaged in public service. Under these discouraging conditions, the work progressed slowly. It finally stopped when the narrative reached the year 1757. Copies of the manuscript were sent to friends of Franklin in England and France, among others to mature Levelyard at Paris. The first edition of the autobiography was published in French at Paris in 1791. It was clumsily and carelessly translated, and was imperfect and unfinished. Where the translator got the manuscript is not known. Levelyard disclaimed any knowledge of the publication. From this faulty French edition, many others were printed, some in Germany, two in England, and another in France. So great was the demand for the work. In the meantime, the original manuscript of the autobiography had started on a varied and adventurous career. It was left by Franklin with his other works to his grandson, William Temple Franklin, whom Franklin designated as his literary executioner. When Temple Franklin came to publish his grandfather's works in 1817, he sent the original manuscript of the autobiography to the daughter of Levelyard in exchange for her father's copy, probably thinking the clearer transcript would make better printers copy. The original manuscript thus found its way to the Levelyard family and connections where it remained until sold in 1867 to Mr. John Bigelow, United States Minister to France. By him it was later sold to Mr. E. Dwight Church of New York, and passed with the rest of Mr. Church's library into the possession of Mr. Henry E. Huntington. The original manuscript of Franklin's autobiography now rests in the vault in Mr. Huntington's residence at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, New York City. When Mr. Bigelow came to examine his purchase, he was astonished to find what people had been reading for years as the authentic life of Benjamin Franklin by himself was only a garbled and incomplete version of the real autobiography. Temple Franklin had taken unwarranted liberties with the original. Mr. Bigelow says he found more than 1200 changes in the text. In 1868, therefore, Mr. Bigelow published the standard edition of Franklin's autobiography. It corrected errors in the previous editions and was the first English edition to contain the short fourth part, comprising the last few pages of the manuscript written during the last year of Franklin's life. Mr. Bigelow republished the autobiography with additional interesting matter in three volumes in 1875, in 1905, and in 1910. The text in this volume is that of Mr. Bigelow's editions. For the divisions into chapters and the chapter titles, however, the present editor is responsible. The autobiography has been reprinted in the United States many scores of times and translated into all the languages of Europe. It has never lost its popularity and is still in constant demand at circulating libraries. The reason for this popularity is not far to seek, for in this work Franklin told in a remarkable manner the story of a remarkable life. He displayed hard common sense and a practical knowledge of the art of living. He selected and arranged his material, perhaps unconsciously, with an unerring instinct of the journalist for the best effects. His success is not a little due to his plain, clear, vigorous English. He used short sentences and words, homely expressions, apt illustrations, and pointed allusions. Franklin had a most interesting, varied, and unusual life. He was one of the greatest conversationalists of his time. His book is the record of that unusual life told in Franklin's own unexcelled conversational style. It is said that the best parts of Boswell's famous biography of Samuel Johnson are those parts where Boswell permits Johnson to tell his own story. In the autobiography, a no less remarkable man and talker than Samuel Johnson is telling his own story throughout. F. W. P. The Gilman Country School, Baltimore, September, 1916. END OF INTRODUCTION THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLAND, CHAPTER I This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLAND, EDITED BY FRANK WOODWOOD PAIN, CHAPTER I ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH IN BOSTON TWIFERD AT THE BISHOP OF ST. ASSEFTS, 1771. BEGIN FOOTNOAT TWIFERD IS A SMALL VILLAGE NOT FAR FROM WINCHESTER IN HAMPSHURE, SOUTHERN INGLAND. THERE WAS THE COUNTY SEAT OF THE BISHOP OF ST. ASSEF, DR. JOHNETHAN SHIPLEY, THE GOOD BISHOP AS DR. FRANKLAND USED TO STYLE HIM. THEIR RELATIONS WERE INTERMIT AND CONFIDENTIAL, IN HIS PULPOT, AND IN THE HOUSE OF LORD'S AS WELL AS IN SOCIETY, THE BISHOP ALWAYS APPOSED THE HARCH MEASURES OF THE CROWN TOWARDS THE COLONIES. END FOOTNOAT DEAR SON, I HAVE EVER HAD PLEASURE IN OBTAINING ANY LITTLE ANICTOTES OF MY ANCESTORS. YOU MAY REMEMBER THE INQUARIES I MADE AMONG THE REMAINS OF MY RELATIONS WHEN YOU WERE WITH ME IN INGLAND, AND THE JOURNEY I UNDERTOOK FOR THAT PURPOSE. Imagining it may be equally agreeable to you to know the circumstances of my life, many of which you are yet unacquainted with, and expecting the enjoyment of a week's uninterrupted leisure in my present country retirement, I sit down to write them to you, for which I have besides some other inducements. Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity, the conducting 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 for their own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated. That felicity, when I reflect on it, has induced me sometimes to say, that were it offered to my choice, I would have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in second addition to correct some faults of the first. So I might, besides correcting the faults, change some sinister accidents and events of it for others more favorable. But though this were denied, I should still accept the offer. Since such a reputation 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 recollection as durable as possible by putting it down in writing. Hereby too I shall indulge the inclination so natural in old men, to be talking of themselves and their own past actions, and I shall indulge it without being tiresome to others, who, through respect to age, might conceive themselves obliged to give me a hearing, since this may be read or not as anyone 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. Begin footnote, in this connection Woodrow Wilson says, and yet the surprising and delightful thing about this book is, that take it all in all, it has not the low tone of conceit, but is a staunch man's sober and unaffected assessment of himself and the circumstances of his career. Gibbon and Hume, the great British historians, who were contemporaries of Franklin, express in their autobiographies the same feeling about the propriety of just self-praise. End footnote. Indeed, I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, without vanity I may say, etc., with some vain thing immediately following. Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves, but I give it fair quarter whenever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive to the good possessor, and to others that are within his sphere of action, and therefore in many cases it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life. And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to acknowledge that I owe the mentioned happiness of my past life to his kind providence which led me to the means I used and gave them success. My belief of this induces me to hope, though I must not presume, that the same goodness will still be exercised toward me in continuing that happiness, or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse which I may experience as others have done, the complexion of my future fortune being known to him only in whose power it is to bless to us even our afflictions. The notes one of my uncles, who had the same kind of curiosity in collecting family anecdotes, once put into my hands, furnished me with several particulars relating to our ancestors. From these notes I learned that the family had lived in the same village, Ecton, in Northamptonshire, for three hundred years, and how much longer he knew not, perhaps from the time when the name of Franklin, that before was the name of an order of people, begin footnote, a small landowner end footnote, was assumed by then as a surname when others took surnames all over the kingdom. On a freehold of about thirty acres aided by the Smith's business, which had continued in the family till his time, the eldest son being always bred to that business, a custom which he and my father followed as to their eldest sons. When I searched the registers at Ecton I found an account of their births, marriages, and burials from the year 1555 only, and there being no registers kept in that parish at any time preceding. By that register I perceived that I was the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back. My grandfather Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived in Ecton until he grew too old to follow business longer. When he went to live with his son John, a dire at Brambury in Oxfordshire, and whom my father served as an apprentice. 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, these Thomas, John, Benjamin, and Josiah. I will give you what account I can of them at this distance from my papers, and if these are not lost in my absence, you will among them find many more particulars. Thomas was bred a smith under his father, but being ingenious and encouraged in learning, as all my brothers were, by an Esquire Palmer, then the principal gentleman in 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 are related of him, and which taken notice of and patronized by the then lord Halifax. He died in 1702, January 6th, old style, just four years to the day before I was born. Begin footnote, January 17th, new style. This change in the calendar was made in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, and adopted in England in 1752. Every year whose number in the common reckoning since Christ is not divisible by four, as well as every year whose number is divisible by one hundred, but not by four, shall have 365 days, and all other years shall have 366 days. In the eighteenth century there was a difference of eleven days between the old and new style of reckoning, which the English parliament cancelled by making the third of September 1752 the fourteenth. The Julian calendar, or old style, is still retained in Russia and Greece, whose dates consequently are now thirteen days behind those of other Christian countries. End footnote, 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 trans migration. John was bred a dire, I believe, of woolens. Benjamin was bred a silk dire, 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 quattro volumes manuscripts of his own poetry consisting of little occasional pieces addressed to his friends and relations of which the following sent me is a specimen. He had formed a shorthand of his own which he taught me but never practiced. 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 attendee of sermons of the best preachers, which he took down in his shorthand and had with him many volumes of them. He was also much of a politician, too much perhaps for his station. There fell lately into my hands in London a collection he 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 quattro 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 my uncle must have left them here when he went to America, which was about fifty years since. There are many of his notes in the margins. The obscure family of ours was early in the Reformation and continued Protestants through the reign of Queen Mary when they were sometimes in danger of trouble on account of their zeal against potpourri. 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 aparator coming, who was an officer of the spiritual court. In that case the stool was turned down again upon its feet when the Bible remained concealed under it as before. This anecdote I had from my uncle Benjamin. The family continued all of the Church of England till about the end of Charles II's reign, when some of the ministers had been outed for non-conformity, holding convectacles in North Hampshire, Benjamin, and Joshua, adhered to them, and so continued all their lives the rest of the family remained with the Episcopal Church. Convectacles were secret gatherings of dissenters from the established Church. Joshua my father married young and carried his wife and three children into England, about 1682. The convectacles having been forbidden by law and frequently disturbed induced some considerable men of his acquaintance to remove to that country, and he was prevailed with them to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy their mode of religion with freedom. By the same wife he had four children more born there, and by a second wife ten more, in all seventeen, of which I remember thirteen sitting at one time at his table, who all grew up to be men and women, and married. I was the youngest son, and the youngest child but two, and was born in Boston, New England. My mother, the second wife, was Abeth 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 Cristi Americana as a godly learned Englishman. If I remember the words rightly, I have heard that he wrote sundry small occasional pieces, but only one of them was printed, which I saw now many years since. It was written in 1675, in the homespun verse of that time and people, and addressed to those then concerned in the government there. It was in favor of liberty of conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other sectaries that had been under persecution ascribing the Indian wars and other distresses that had befallen the country to that persecution, as so many judgments of God to punish so heinous and offense, and exhorting a repeal of those unterritable 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 firsts of the stanza, but the purport of them was that his censures proceeded from Goodwill, and therefore he would be known to be the author. Because to be a libeler, says he, I hate it with my heart. From Sherburn town where now I dwell, my name I do put here, without offense your real friend, it is Peter Folger. Franklin was born on Sunday, January 6, old style, 1706, in a house on Milk Street, opposite the Old South Meeting House, where he was baptized on the day of his birth, during a snowstorm. The house where he was born was burned in 1810. Cotton Mather, 1663-1728, Clegeman, author, and scholar, pastor of the North Church Boston, he took an active part in the persecution of witchcraft. My elder brothers were all 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, encouraged him in this purpose of his. My uncle Benjamin, too, approved of it, and proposed to give me all his shorthand volumes of sermons. I suppose a stock to be 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 to 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 meantime, 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 an arithmetic, kept by a then famous man, Mr. George Browell. Very successful in his profession generally, and by mild, encouraging methods under him I acquired fair writing pretty soon, but I failed in the arithmetic and made no progress in it. At ten years old I was taken home to assist my father in his business, which was that of a tallow chandler and soap boiler, a business he had not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in New England, and on finding his dying 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 difficulty, and upon other occasions I was generally a leader among the boys, and sometimes led them into scrapes, of which I will mention one instance, as it shows an early projecting public spirit, though not then justly conducted. There was a salt marsh that bounded part of the mill pond, on the edge of which, at high water, we used to stand to fish for minnows. By much tramping 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 emits, 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. In quarry was made, after the removers, we were discovered and complained of. Several of us were corrected by our fathers, and, though I pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful, which was not honest. I think you may like to know something of his person and character. He had an excellent constitution of body, was of middle stature, but well-set, and very strong. He was ingenious, could draw prettily, was skilled a little in music, and had a clear pleasing voice, so that when he played psalm tunes on his violin, and sung with all, as he sometimes did in an evening after the business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a mechanical genius, too, and on occasion was very handy in the use of other tradesmen's tools, but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and solid judgment in prudent matters, both in private and public affairs. In the latter, indeed, he was never employed. The numerous family he had to educate, and the straightness of his circumstances, kept him close to his trade, but I remember well his being frequently visited by leading people who consulted him for his opinion in affairs of the town or of the church he belonged to, and showed a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice. He was also much consulted by private persons about their affairs when any difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an arbiter between contending parties. At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbor to converse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his children. By this means, he turned our attention to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life, and little or no notice was ever taken of what related to the victuals on the table. Whether it was well or ill-dressed, in or out of season, of good or bad flavor, preferable or inferior to this or that other thing of the kind, so that was how I was brought up, in such a perfect inattention to those matters as to be quite indifferent what kind of food was set before me, and so unobservant of it, that to this day, if I am asked, I can scarce tell a few hours after dinner what I dined upon. This has been a convenience to me in traveling, where my companions have been sometimes very unhappy for want of a suitable gratification of their more delicate, because better instructed, tastes and appetites. My mother had likewise an excellent constitution. She suckled all her ten children. I never knew whether my father or mother to have any sickness but that of which they died. He at eighty-nine, and she at eighty-five years of age. They lie buried together at Boston. I, some years since, placed a marble over their grave with this inscription, Josiah Franklin and Abeth his wife, lie here in turn. They lived lovingly together in wedlock fifty-five years. Without an estate or any gainful employment, by constant labor and industry, with God s blessing, they maintained a large family comfortably, and brought up thirteen children and seven grandchildren reputably. From this instance, reader, be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, and distrust not providence. He was a pious and prudent man, she a discreet and virtuous woman. Their youngest son, in fiefel regard to their memory, places this stone. J. F. born sixteen fifty-five died seventeen forty-four at eighty-nine. A. F. born sixteen sixty-seven died seventeen fifty-two eighty-five. This marble having decayed, the citizens of Boston in eighteen twenty-seven erected in its place a granite obelisk, twenty-one feet high, burying the original inscription, quoted in the text, and another explaining the erection of the monument. 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, his perhaps only negligence. To return I continued thus employed in my father s business for two years, that is till I was twelve years old and my brother John, who was bred to that business, having left my father, married and set up for himself at Rhode Island. There was all appearance that I was destined to supply his place and become a tallow chandler, but my dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under apprehensions that if he did not find one for me more agreeable, I should break away and go to sea, as his son Joshua had done, to his great vexation. He therefore sometimes took me to walk with him and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, brazers, 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 learnt so much by it as to be able to do little jobs myself in my house, when a workman could not readily be God, and to construct little machines for my experiments, while the intention of making the experiment was fresh and warm in my mind. My father at last fixed upon the Cutler's trade, and my Uncle Benjamin's son Samuel, who was bred to that business in London, being about that time established in Boston, I was sent to be with him some time on liking, but his expectations of a fee with me displeased my father. I was taken home again. CHAPTER II When I was 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 our Burton's historical collections. They were small Chapman's books, and cheap, forty or fifty in all. My father's little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way. Since it was now resolved, I should not be a clergyman. Plutarch's lives there was in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of defoes called an essay on projects, and another of Dr. Mathers called Essays to Do Good, which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life. This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already one son, James, of that profession. In 1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and letters to set up his business in Boston. I liked it much better than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to have me bound to my brother. I stood out some time, but at last was persuaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages during the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency in the business and became a useful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books, and acquaintance with the apprentice 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, least it should be missed or wanted. After some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books and who frequented our printing house, took notice of me, invited me to his library, and very kindly lent me such books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces. My brother, thinking it might turn to account, encouraged me and put me on composing occasional ballads. One was called The Lighthouse Tragedy, and contained an account of the drowning of Captain Worthy Lake. With his two daughters the other was a sailor's song on the taking of Teach, or Blackbeard, the pirate. They were wretched stuff in the grub-street ballad style, and when they were printed he sent me out to the town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the event being recent, having made a great noise. This flattered my vanity, but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one, but as prose writing had been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement. I shall now 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 in very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, with 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 hence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, perhaps, enmities where you may have occasion for friendship. I had caught it by reading my father's books of dispute about religion. Persons of good sense I have sense 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 the opinion that it was improper, and that they were naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary side, perhaps a little for the dispute's sake. He was naturally more eloquent, and had already plenty of words, and sometimes, as I thought, bore me down more by his fluency than by the strength of his reasons. As we parted without settling the point, and were not to see 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 pointing, which I owed to the printing house, I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method, and in persecutity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remarks, and hence 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 before, in any subtle words which should come to hand. Then I compared my spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time, if I had gone on making verses, since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound, for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into and after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks, endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and complete the paper. This was a 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 fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method of the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work, or before it began, in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on pulpit worship, which my father used to extract 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. A Daily London Journal comprising satirical essays on social subjects, published by Addison and Steele in 1711 and 1712, The Spectator and its predecessor, The Tatler, 1709, marked the beginning of periodical literature. When about sixteen years of age, I happened to meet with a book written by one try-on, 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 inconvenience, and I was frequently chided for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Chiron'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 of what he paid me. This was an additional fund for buying books. But I had another advantage in it. My brother and the rest going from the printing house to their meals, I remained there alone and, dispatching presently my light repast, which often was no more than a biscuit or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins or a tart from the pastry cooks and a glass of water, had the rest of the time tell their return for study, in which I made the greatest progress, for that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually attended temperance in eating and drinking. And now it was being on some occasion made ashamed of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed in learning when at school, I took Crocker's Book of Arithmetic, and went through the hole by myself with great ease. I also read Seller and Schemi's Book of Navigation, and became acquainted with the little geometry they contained, but never proceeded farther in that science. And I read about this time Locke on Human Understanding and the Art of Thinking by Meshur Dupont Royal. John Locke, 1632 to 1704, a celebrated English philosopher, founder of the so-called Common Sense School of Philosophers, he drew up a constitution for the colonists of Carolina, a noted society of scholarly and devout men occupying the abbey of Port Royal near Paris, who published learned books among the one here referred to better known as the Port Royal Logic. While I was intended 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 with the Socratic method, and soon after I procured Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method. I was charmed with it, adopted it, dropped my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter, and being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine. I found this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it, therefore I took a delight in it, practiced it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequence of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. I continued this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence, never using when I advanced anything that may possibly be disputed the words, certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that gave an air of positiveness to an opinion, but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so. It appears to me, or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons, or I imagine it to be so or it is so if I am not mistaken. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engaged in promoting, and as the chief ends of conversation are to inform, or to be informed, to please, or to persuade, I wish well-meaning sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat everyone of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to it, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For if you would inform a positive and dogmatical manner, in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fixed in your present opinion, modest, sensible men who do not love disputation will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error. And by such a manner you can sell them hope to recommend yourself in pleasing. Pope says judiciously, men should be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown prospered as things forgot. Further recommending to us to speak those 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 wherein a man is so unfortunate as to want it, some apology for his want of modesty, and would not the lines stand more justly thus. Immodest words admit, but this defense, the want of modesty, is want of sense. This, however, I submit to better judgments. Socrates confuted his opponents in an argument by asking questions so skillfully devised that the answers would confirm the questioner's position or show the error of the opponent. Alexander Pope, 1688 to 1744, the greatest English poet of the first half of the 18th century. My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a newspaper. It was the second that appeared in America, and was called the New England Current. The only one before it was the Boston Newsletter. I remember his being dissuaded by some of his friends from the undertaking as not likely to succeed, one newspaper being in their judgment enough for America. At this time, 1771, there were not less than five and twenty. He went on, however, with the undertaking, and after having worked in composing the types and printing off the sheets, I was employed to carry the papers through the streets to the customers. Franklin's memory does not serve him correctly here. The Current was really the fifth newspaper established in America, although generally called the fourth because the first, Public Occurrences, published in Boston in 1690, was suppressed after the first issue. Following is the order in which the other four papers were published. Boston Newsletter, 1704, Boston Gazette, December 21st, 1719, the American Weekly Mercury, Philadelphia, December 22nd, 1719, the New England Current, 1721. He had some ingenious men among his friends who amused themselves by writing little pieces for this paper, which gained it credit and made it more in demand, and these gentlemen often visited us. Hearing their conversations and their account 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 can try 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 their different guesses at the author none were named but men of some character among us for learning and ingenuity. I suppose now that I was rather lucky in my judges, and that perhaps they were not really so very good ones as I then esteemed them. Encouraged, however, by this I wrote and conveyed in the same way to the press several more papers which were equally approved, and I kept my secret till my small fund of sense for such performances was pretty well exhausted, and then I discovered it, when I began to be considered a little more by my brother's acquaintances, 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 deemed me too much in some he required of me, who, from a brother, expected more indulgence. Our disputes were often brought before our father, and I fancy I was either generally in the right, or else a better pleader, because the judgment was generally in my favor. But my brother was passionate, and had often beaten me, which I took extremely amiss, and, thinking my apprenticeship very tedious, I was continually wishing for some opportunity of shortening it, which at length offered in a manner unexpected. One of the pieces in our newspaper on some political point, which I have now forgotten, gave offense to the assembly. He was taken up, censured, and imprisoned for a month by the speaker's warrant. I suppose because he would not discover his author, I too was taken up and examined before the council, but though I did not give them any satisfaction, they contended themselves with admonishing me and dismissed me, considering age, perhaps, as an apprentice, who was bound to keep his master's secrets. During my brother's confinement, which I resented a good deal notwithstanding our private differences, I had the management of the paper, and I made bold to give our rulers some rubs in it, which my brother took very kindly, while others began to consider me in an unfavorable light, as a young genius that had a turn for libeling and satire. My brother's discharge was accompanied with an order of the house, a very odd one, that James Franklin could no longer print the paper called the New England Courant. There was a consultation held in our printing house, among his friends, what should be done in this case. Some proposed to evade the order by changing the name of the paper, but my brother, seeing inconveniences in that, it was finally concluded on as a better way, to let it be printed for the future under the name of Benjamin Franklin, and to avoid the censure of the assembly that might fall on him as still printing it by his apprentice, the contrivance was that my old indenture should be returned to me with a full discharge on the back of it. To be shown on occasion, but to secure to him the benefits of my service, I was to sign new indentures for the remainder of the term, which were to be kept private. A very flimsy scheme it was, however, it was immediately executed, and the paper went on accordingly under my name for several months. At length, a fresh difference arising between my brother and me, I took upon me to assert my freedom, presuming that he would not venture to produce the new indentures. It was not fair in me to take this advantage, and this I therefore reckoned one of the first errata of my life, but the unfairness of it weighed little with me, when under the impressions of resentment for the blows his passion too often urged him to bestow upon me, though he was otherwise not an ill-natured man, perhaps I was too saucy and provoking. When he found I would leave him, he took care to prevent my getting employment in any other printing house of the town, by going round and speaking to every master who accordingly refused to give me work. I then thought of going to New York as the nearest place where there was a printer, and I was rather inclined to leave Boston when I reflected that I had already made myself a little obnoxious to the governing party, and from the arbitrary proceedings of the assembly in my brother's case, it was likely I might, 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 for me. He agreed with the captain of a New York sloop for my passage, under the notion of my being a young acquaintance of his, 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 seventeen without the least recommendation to, or knowledge of, any person in the place, and with very little money in my pocket. CHAPTER III. Arrival in Philadelphia My inclinations for the sea were by this time worn out, or I might now have gratified them. But having a trade, and supposing myself a pretty good workman, I offered my service to the printer in the place, old Mr. William Bradford, who had been the first printer in Pennsylvania, but removed from fence upon the quarrel of George Keith. He could give me no employment having little to do, and help enough already, but says he, my son at Philadelphia, has lately lost his principal hand, Aquila Rose, by death. If you go thither, I believe he may employ you. Philadelphia was a hundred miles 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, preventing our getting into the kill, and drove us upon Long Island. In our way, a drunken Dutchman, who was a passenger too, fell overboard. When he was sinking, I reached through the water to his shock-pate, and drew him up, so that we got him in again. His ducking sobered him a little, and he went to sleep, taking first out of his pocket a book, which he desired I would dry for him. It proved to be my old favorite author, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, in Dutch, finally 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 supposed 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 discourse. Defoe in his Crusoe, his small Flanders, religious courtship, family instructor, and other pieces has imitated it with success, and Richardson has done the same in his Pamela, etc. Kilvan Kil, the channel separating Staten Island from New Jersey on the North. Samuel Richardson, the father of the English novel, wrote Pamela, Clarissa Harlow, and The History of Sir Charles Grandison, novels published in the form of letters. 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 hallowed to us, as we did to them, but the wind was so high and the surf so loud that we could not hear so as to understand each other. There were canoes on the shore, and we made signs, and hallowed, that they should fetch us. But they either did not understand us, or thought it impracticable. So they went away, and night coming on, we had no remedy, but to wait till the wind should abate, 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'd sailed on being salt. In the evening I found myself very feverish and went to bed, but having read somewhere that cold water drank plentifully was good for a fever, I followed the prescription, 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 could find boats that would carry me the rest of the way to Philadelphia. It rained very hard that 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 some questions asked me, I was suspected to be some runaway servant, and in danger of being taken up on that suspicion. However I proceeded the next day, and got in the evening to an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept by one Dr. Brown. He entered into conversation with me, while I took some refreshment, and, finding I had read a little, became very sociable and friendly. Our acquaintance continued as long as he lived. He had been, I imagine, an itinerant doctor, for there was no town in England, or country in Europe, of which he could not give a very particular account. He had some letters, and was ingenious, but much of an unbeliever, and wickedly undertook, some years after, to travesty the Bible in a dog-roll verse, as Cotton had done Virgil. By this means, he set many of the facts in a very ridiculous light, and might have hurt weak minds if his work had been published, but it never was. At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reached Burlington, but had the mortification to find the regular boats were gone a little before my coming, and no other expected to go before Tuesday, this being Saturday, wherefore I returned to an old woman in the town, of whom I had brought gingerbread to eat on the water, and asked her advice. She invited me to lodge at her house until a passage by water could 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, and great good will, accepting only 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 rode 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 further. The others knew not where we were, so we were put toward the shore, got into a creek, landed near an old fence, with the rails of which we made a fire, that night being cold, in October, and there we remained till daylight. Then one of the company knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little above Philadelphia, which we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and arrived there about eight or nine o'clock on the Sunday morning, and landed at the Market Street wharf. I have been the most particular in this description of my journey, and shall be so, if my first entry into that city, that you may in your mind compare such unlikely beginnings with the future I have since made there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come round by sea. I was dirty from my journey, my pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to look for lodging. I was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest. I was very hungry, and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar and about a shilling in copper. 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 there taking it, a man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money, than when he has plenty. Perhaps, though, fear of being thought of, 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 bakers 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-printy 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 made up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Reed, my future wife's father. When she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street, and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and coming round I found myself again a Market Street wharf. Near the boat I came in. To which I went for a draft of river water, and being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther. Thus refreshed I walked again up the street, which by this time had many clean-dressed people in it, and who were all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led to the great meeting-house of the Quakers near the Market. I sat down among them, and, after looking round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labor, and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia. Walking down again toward the street, and looking in the faces of people, I met a young Quaker man, whose Continents I liked, and accosted him, requesting he would tell me where a stranger could get lodging. We were then near the sign of the three mariners. Here, says he, is one place that entertains strangers, but it is not a reputable house. If thee wilt walk with me, I'll show thee a better. He brought me to the crooked billet in Water Street, where 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 sound till next morning. Then I made myself as tidy as I could, and went to Andrew Bradford, the printers. I found in the shop the old man, his father, whom I had seen in New York, and who, traveling on horseback, had got to Philadelphia before me. He introduced me to his son, who received me civilly, gave me a breakfast, but told me he did not at present want a hand, being lately supplied with one. But there was another printer in town, lately set up, one Chimer, who, perhaps, might employ me, if not, I should be welcomed to lodge at his house, and he would give me a little work to do now and then tell fuller business should offer. The old gentleman said he would go with me to the new printer, and when we found him, neighbor, says Bradford, I have brought to see you a young man of your business, perhaps you may want such a one. He asked me a few questions, put a composing stick in my hand, to see how I worked, and then said he would employ me soon, though he had just then nothing for me to do, and, taking old Bradford, whom he had never seen before, to be one of the town's people that had a good will for him, entered into a conversation on his present undertaking and prospects, while Bradford not discovering that he was the other printer's father, on Chimer'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 Chimer, who was greatly surprised when I told him who the old man was. Chimer's printing-house I found consisted of an old shattered press and one small worn-out font of English, which he was using himself, composing an elegy on Aquila Rose, before mentioned, an ingenious young man of excellent character, much respected in the town, clerk of the assembly, and a pretty poet. Chimer made verses two, but very indifferently. He could not be said to write them, for his manner was to compose them in the types directly out of his head. So there being no copy, but one pair of cases, and the elegy likely to require all the letter, no one could help him. I endeavored to put his press, which he had not yet used, and of which he understood nothing, into order fit to be worked with, and promised to come and print off his elegy as soon as he should have got it ready. I returned to Bradford's, who gave me a little job to do for the present, and there I lodged and dieted. A few days after, Chimer sent for me to print off the elegy, and now he had got another pair of cases, and a pamphlet to reprint, on which he set me to work. These two printers I found poorly qualified for their business. Bradford had not been bred to it, and was very illiterate. And Chimer, though, something of a scholar, was a mere compositor, knowing nothing of press work. He had been one of the French prophets, and could act their enthusiastic agitations. At the 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 nave in his composition. He did not like my lodging at Bradford's while I worked with him. He had a house, indeed, but without furniture, so he could not lodge me. But he got me a lodging at Mr. Reed's before mentioned, who was the owner of this house, and my chest and clothes being come by this time. I made rather a more respectable appearance in the eyes of Miss Reed than I had done when she first happened to see me eating my roll in the street. Protestants of the south of France, who became fanatical under the persecutions of Louis XIV, and though they had the gift of prophecy, as they had mothos, no taxes, and liberty of conscience. I began 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 gained money by my industry and frugality. I lived very agreeably for getting Boston as much as I could, and not desiring that any there should know where I resided except my friend Collins, who was in my street, and kept it when I wrote to him. At length an incident happened that sent me back again much sooner than I had intended. I had a brother-in-law, Robert Holmes, master of a sloop, that traded between Boston and Delaware. He being at Newcastle, forty miles below Philadelphia, heard thereof me and wrote me a letter mentioning the concerns of my friends in Boston at my abrupt departure, assuring me of their goodwill 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 this letter, thanked him for his advice, but stated that my reasons for quitting Boston fully and in such a light as to convince him I was not so wrong as he had apprehended. Sir William Keith, Governor of the Province, was then at Newcastle and Captain Holmes, happening to be in company with him when my letter came to hand, spoke to him of me, and showed him the letter. The Governor read it, and seemed surprised when he was told my age. He said I appeared a young man of promising parts, and therefore should be encouraged. The printers of Philadelphia were wretched ones, and if I could set up there he made no doubt I should succeed. For his part he would procure me the public business and do me every other service in his power. This my brother-in-law afterwards told me in Boston, but I knew as yet nothing of it when, one day, Chimer and I, being at work together near the window, we saw the Governor and another gentleman, which proved to be Colonel French of Newcastle, finally dressed, come directly across the street to our house and heard them at the door. Chimer ran down immediately, thinking it a visit to him, but the Governor inquired for me, came up, and with a condescension and politeness I had been quite unused to, made me many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me, blamed me kindly for not having made myself known to him when I first came to the place, and would have me away with him to the tavern, where he was going with Colonel French, to taste, as he said, some excellent Madeira. I was not a little surprised, and Chimer stared like a pig poisoned. I went, however, with the Governor and Colonel French to a tavern, at the corner of Third Street, and over the Madeira he proposed my setting up my business, laid before me the probabilities of success, and both he and Colonel French assured me I should have their interest and influence in procuring the public business of both governments. On my doubting whether my father would assist me in it, Sir William said he would give me a letter to him, in which he would state the advantages, and he did not doubt of prevailing with him. So it was concluded I should return to Boston in the first vessel, with the Governor's letter recommending me to my father. In the meantime, the intention was to keep a secret, and I went on working with Chimer as usual. The Governor is 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 Chimer, 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 in Philadelphia as a thing that must make my fortune. We struck on a shoal in going down the bay, and sprung a leak. We had a blistering time at sea, and were obliged to pump almost continuously, at which I took my turn. We arrived safe, however, at Boston, in about a fortnight. I had been absent seven months, and my friends had heard nothing of me, for my brother Holmes was not yet returned, and had not written about me. My unexpected appearance surprised the family, all were, however, very glad to see me, and made me welcome, except my brother. I went to see him at his printing-house. I was better dressed than ever while in his service, having a gentile 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, the happy life I led in it, expressing strongly my intention of returning to it, and one of them asked what kind of money we had there. I produced a handful of silver, and spread it before them, which was a kind of rary show, a peep show in a box. They had not been used to, paper money being the money of Boston. Begin footnote, there were no mints in the colonies, so the metal money was of foreign coinage, and not nearly so common as paper money, which was printed in large quantities in America, even in small denominations. End footnote. Then I took the opportunity of letting them see my watch, and lastly, my brother still grumb and sullen, I gave them a piece of eight, Spanish dollar about equivalent to our dollar, to drink, and took my leave. This visit of mine offended him extremely, for when my mother some time after spoke to him of a 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 some days. When Captain Holmes returned, he showed it to him and asked him if he knew Keith and what kind of man he was, adding his opinion that he must be of small discretion to think of setting a boy up in a business who wanted yet three years of being a man's estate. Holmes said what he could in favor of the project, but my father was clear in the impropriety of it, and at last gave a flat denial to it. Then he wrote a civil letter to Sir William, thanking him for the patronage he had so kindly offered me, but declining to assist me as yet in setting up, I being, in his opinion, too young to be trusted with the management of a business so important, and for which the preparation must be so expensive. My friend and companion Collins, who was a clerk in the post office, pleased with the account I gave him of my new country, determined to go further also, and while I waited for my father's determination, he set out before me by land to Rhode Island, leaving his books, which were a pretty collection of mathematics and natural philosophy, to come with mine and me to New York, where he proposed to wait for me. My father, though he did not approve Sir William's proposition, was yet pleased that I had been able to obtain so advantageous a character from a person of such note where I had resided, and that I had been so industrious and careful as to equip myself so handsomely in so short a time. Therefore, seeing no prospect of an accommodation between my brother and me, he gave his consent to my returning again to Philadelphia, advised me to behave respectfully to the people there, endeavoring to obtain the general esteem and avoid lampooning and libeling, to which he thought I had too much inclination, telling me that by steady industry and a prudent parsimony I might save enough by the time I was twenty and one to set me up, and that if I came near the matter he would help me out with the rest. This was all I could obtain except some small gifts as tokens of his and my mother's love, when I embarked again for New York, now with their approbation and their blessing. The sloop putting in at Newport Rhode Island, I visited my brother, John, who had been married and settled there some years. He received me very affectionately, for he always loved me. A friend of his, one Vernon, having some money do him in Philadelphia, about thirty-five pounds currency, desired that I would receive it for him, and keep it till I had his directions what to remit it in. Accordingly he gave me an order, this afterwards occasioned me a good deal of uneasiness. At Newport we took a number of passengers for New York, among which were two young women, companions and a grave, sensible, matron-like Quaker woman, with her attendance. I had shown an obliging readiness to do her some little services, which impressed her, I suppose, with a degree of goodwill toward me. Therefore, when she saw a daily growing familiarity between me and the two young women, which they appeared to encourage, she took me aside and said, Young man, I am concerned for thee, as thou hast no friend in thee, and seems not to know much of the world, or of the snares youth is exposed to. Depend upon it, those are very bad women. I can see it in all their actions, and if thee art not upon thy guard they will draw thee into some danger. They are strangers to thee, and I advise thee, in a friendly concern for thy welfare, to have no acquaintance with them. As I seemed at first not to think so ill of them as she did, she mentioned some things she had observed, and heard that had escaped my notice, but now convinced me she was right. I thanked her for her kind advice, and promised to follow it. When we arrived at New York, they told me where they lived, and invited me to come and see them, but I avoided it, and it was well I did. For the next day the captain missed a silver spoon and some other things that had been taken out of his cabin. And knowing that these were a couple of strumpets, 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 escapade of rather more importance to me. At New York I found my friend Collins, who had arrived there some time before me. We had been intimate from children, and had read the same books together, but he had the advantage of more time for reading and studying, and a wonderful genius for mathematical learning, in which he far outstripped me. While I lived in Boston, most of my hours of leisure for conversation were spent with him, and he continued as 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 sorting 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 in New York, and behaved very oddly. He had gained, too, and lost his money so that I was obliged to discharge his lodgings and defray his expenses to and at Philadelphia, which proved extremely inconvenient to me. The governor of New York, Bernet, son of Bishop Bernet, 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, awaited upon him accordingly, and should have taken Collins with me, but that he was not sober. The governor treated me with great civility, showed me his library, which was a very large one, and we had a good deal of conversation about books and authors. This was the second governor who had done me the honor to take notice of me, which to a poor boy like me was very pleasing. We proceeded to Philadelphia. I received, on the way, Vernon's money, without which we could hardly have finished our journey. Collins wished to be employed in some counting-house, but whether they discovered his drumming by his breath or by his behavior, though he had some recommendations, he met with no success in any application, and continued lodging and boarding at the same house with me and at my expense. Knowing I had that money of Vernon's, he was continually borrowing of me, still promising repayment as soon as he should be in business. At length he had got so much of it that I was distressed to think what I should do in case of being called on to remit it. His drinking continued about which we sometimes quarreled for when a little intoxicated he was very fractious. Once in a boat on the Delaware with some other young men he refused to row in his turn. I will be rode home, says he. We will not row for you, says I. You must or stay all night on the water, says he, just as you please. The others said, Let us row. What signifies it? But my mind being soured with his other conduct I continued to refuse. So he swore he would make me row and throw me overboard, and coming along, stepping on the torch towards me, when he came up and struck at me, I clapped my hand under his crutch, and, rising, pitched him head foremost into the river. I knew he was a good swimmer, and so was under little concern about him. But before he could get round to lay hold of the boat, we had 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 and brought him home, dripping wet in the evening. We hardly exchanged a civil word afterward, and a West Indian captain, who had a commission to procure a tutor for the sons of a gentleman at Barbados, happening to meet with him, agreed to carry him thither. He left me then, promising to remit the first money he should receive in order to discharge the debt, but I never heard of him after. Breaking into this money of vernance was one of the first great irate of my life, and this affair showed that my father was not much out in his judgment when he supposed me too young to manage business of importance. But Sir William, on reading his letter, said he was too prudent. There was great difference in persons, and discretion did not always accompany years, nor was youth always without it. And since he will not set you up, says he, I will do it myself. Give me an inventory of the things necessary to be had from England, and I will send for them. You shall repay me when you are able. I am resolved to have a good printer here, and I am sure you must succeed. This was spoken with such an appearance of cordiality that I had not the least doubt of his meaning, and what he said I had hitherto kept the proposition of my setting up a secret in Philadelphia, and I still kept it. Had it been known that I depended on the Governor, probably some friend that knew him better would have advised me not to rely on him, as I afterwards heard it was 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 offer insincere? I believed him one of the best men of the world. I presented him an inventory of a little print house amounting to my computing to about one hundred pounds sterling. He liked it, but asked me, if my being on the spot in England, to choose the types and see that everything was good of the kind might not be of some advantage. Then says he, when there you may make acquaintances and establish correspondence in the bookselling and stationary way. I agreed that this might be advantageous. Then says he, get yourself ready to go with Annas, which was the annual ship and the only one at that time usually passing between London and Philadelphia. But it would be some months before Annas sailed, so I continued working with Chimer. Fretting about the money Collins had got from me, and in daily apprehension of being called upon by Vernon, which however did not happen for some years after. I believe I have omitted mentioning that in my first voyage from Boston being calmed 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 it with my master Tyrone, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed to be reasonable, but I had formerly been a great lover of fish and, when this came hot out of the frying pan, it smelled admirably well. I balanced some time between principle and inclination till I reckoned that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs. Then thought I, if you eat one another, I don't see why we may not eat you. So I dined upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat, with other people, returning now only and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do. CHAPTER V. EARLY FRIENDS IN PHILIDELPHIA. Kimer 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 enthousiasms and loved argumentation. We, therefore, had many disputations. I used to work him so with my Socratic method, and I had treponed him so often by questions apparently so distant from any point he 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 make from that. However, it gave him so high an opinion of my abilities in the computing way that he seriously proposed my being his colleague in the 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. Chimer 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 essential to him. I disliked both, but agreed to admit them upon condition of his adopting the doctrine of using no animal food. I doubt, said he, my constitution will not bear that. I assured him it would, and that he would be better for it. He was usually a great glutton, and I promised myself some diversion in half-starving him. He agreed to try the practice if I would keep him company. I did so, and we held it for three months. We had our victuals dressed and brought to us regularly by a woman in the neighborhood who had from me a list of forty dishes to be prepared for us at different times. In all which there were neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, the whim suited me the better at this time from the cheapness of it, not costing us above a teen-pen sterling each week. I have since kept several lengths, most strictly, leaving the common diet for that, and that for the common, abruptly, without the least in convenience, so that I think there is a little in the advice of making those changes by easy gradations. I went on pleasantly, but poor Kemer suffered grievously, tired of the project, longed for the flesh-pots of Egypt, and ordered a roast pig. He invited me and two women friends to dine with him, but it being brought too soon upon table, he could not resist the temptation and ate the whole before we came. I made some courtship during this time to misread. I had a great respect and affection for her, and had some reason to believe she had the same for me. But, as I was about to take a long voyage, and we were both very young, only a little above eighteen, it was thought most prudent by her mother to prevent our going too far at present, as a marriage, if it was to take place, would be more convenient after my return, when I should be, as I expected, set up in my business. Perhaps, too, she thought my expectations not so well founded, as I imagined them to be. My chief acquaintances at this time were Charles Osborne, Joseph Watson, and James Ralph, all lovers of reading. The two first were clerks in an eminent scrivener or conveyancer in the town, Charles Brockton. The other was clerked to a merchant. Watson was a pious, sensible young man of great integrity, the other's rather more lax in their principles of religion, particularly Ralph, who, as well as Collins, had been unsettled by me, for which they both made me suffer. Osborne was sensible, candid, frank, sincere, and affectionate to his friends, but, in literary matters, too fond of criticizing. Ralph was ingenious, genteel in his manners, and extremely eloquent. I think I never knew a prettier talker. Both of them were great admirers of poetry, and began to try their hands in little pieces. Any pleasant walks we forehad together on Sundays into the woods near Shookill, where we read to one another and conferred on what we read. Ralph was inclined to pursue the study of poetry, not doubting, but he might become eminent in it and make his fortune by it, alleging that the best poets must, when they first begin to write, make as many faults as he did. Osborne dissuaded him, assured him he had no genius for poetry, and advised him to think of nothing beyond the business he was bred to, that in the mercantile way, though he had no stock, he might by his diligence and punctuality recommend himself to employment as a factor, and in time acquire wherewith to trade on his own account. I approved the amusing one's self with poetry now and then, so far as to improve one's language, but no farther. On this it was proposed that we should each of us, at our next meeting, produce a piece of our own composing, in order to improve by our mutual observations, criticisms, and corrections. As language and expression were what we had in view, we excluded all considerations of invention by agreeing that the task should be a version of the eighteenth Psalm, which describes the descent of a deity. When the time of our meeting drew 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 one thousand criticisms out of mere envy. He is not so jealous of you. I wish, therefore, you would take this piece and produce it as yours. I will pretend not to have had time, and so produce nothing. We shall then see what he will say to it. It was agreed, and I immediately transcribed it, that it might appear to be in my own hand. We met, Watson's performance was read, there was 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, and had not sufficient time to correct, etc. But no excuse could be admitted. Produce, I must. I was read and repeated. Watson and Osborne gave up the contest, and joined in applauding it. Ralph only made some criticism and proposed some amendments, but I defended my text. Osborne was against Ralph, and told him he was no better a critic than poet. So he dropped the argument. As they, too, went home together, Osborne expressed himself still more strongly in favor of what he thought, my production. Having restrained himself before, as he said, least I should think it flattery. But who would have imagined, said he, that Franklin had been capable of such a performance, such panting, 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 on him, and Osborne was a little laughed at. This transaction fixed Ralph in his resolution of becoming a poet. I did all that I could to dissuade him from it, but he continued scribbling verses till Pope cured him. Again, footnote. In one of the later editions of the Duncanade occur the following lines. Silent ye wolves, where Ralph to Cynthia howls, and makes night hideous, answer him, ye owls. To this the poet adds the following note. James Ralph, a name inserted after the first editions, not known until he writ a swearing piece called Sweeney, very abusive of Dr. Swift, Mr. Gay, and myself. End footnote. He became, however, a pretty good prose writer. More of him hereafter. But as I may not have occasioned again to mention the other two, I shall just remark here that Watson died in my arms a few years after, much lamented the being of the best of our set. Osborne went to the West Indies, where he became an imminent lawyer, and made money but died young. He and I 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 of how he found things in that separate state. But he never fulfilled his promise. CHAPTER VI. THE FIRST VISIT TO LONDON The Governor, seeming to like my company, had me frequently to his house, and his setting me up always mentioned as a fixed thing. I was to take with me letters, recommendery, to a number of his friends, besides the letter of credit, to furnish me with the necessary money, for purchasing the press and types, paper, et cetera. For these letters I was appointed to call at different times when they were to be ready, but a future time was still named. Thus we went on till the ship, whose departure too had been several times postponed, 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 New Castle before the ship, and there the letters would be delivered to me. Ralph, though married and having one child, had determined to accompany me in this voyage. It was thought he intended to establish a correspondence and obtain goods to sell on commission, but I found afterward that, through some discontent with his wife's relations, he proposed to leave her on their hands and never return again. Having taken leave of my friends, and interchanged some promises with Miss Reed, I left Philadelphia in the ship which anchored at New Castle. The Governor was there, but when I went to his lodgings the secretary came to me from him with the civilest message in the world that he could not then see me being engaged in business of the utmost importance, but should send the letters to me on board and wished me heartily a good voyage and a speedy return, etc. I returned on board a little puzzled, but still not doubting. 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 messures Orion and Russell, masters of an ironwork in Maryland, had engaged the great cabin so that Ralph and I were forced to take up with a berth in the steerage, and none on board knowing us were considered as ordinary persons. But Mr. Hamilton and his son, it was James, since Governor, returned from New Castle to Philadelphia, the father being recalled by a great fee to plead for a seized ship and, just before we sailed, Colonel French, coming on board and showing me great respect, I was more taken notice of, and with my friend Ralph, invited by other gentlemen to come into the cabin, there being now room. Accordingly we removed thither. Understanding that Colonel French had brought on board the Governor's dispatches, I asked the Captain for those letters, that were to be under my care. He said all were put in the bag together, and he could not then come at them, but before we landed in England I should have an opportunity of picking them out, so I was satisfied for the present, and we proceeded on our voyage. We had a sociable company in the cabin, and lived uncommonly well, having the addition of all Mr. Hamilton's stores, who had laid in plentifully. In this passage Mr. Denham contracted a friendship for me that continued during his life. The voyage was otherwise not a pleasant one, as we had a great deal of bad weather. When we came to the Channel the Captain kept his word with me, and gave me an opportunity of examining the bag for the Governor's letters. I found none upon which my name was put as under my care. I picked out six or seven, that by the handwriting I thought might be the promised letters, especially as one of them was directed to basket the King's printer and another to some stationer. We arrived in London the 24th of December 1724. I waited upon the stationer, who came first in my way, delivering the letter as from Governor Keith. I don't know such a person, says he, but opening the letter, oh, this is from Riddleson Den. I have lately found him to be a complete rascal, and I will have nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters from him. So, putting the letter into my hands, he turned on his heel and left me to serve some customer. I was surprised to find that 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 in the least probability that he had written any letters for me, that no one who knew him had the smallest dependence on him, and he laughed at the notion of the Governor's giving me a letter of credit, having, 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 Riddleson Den, the attorney, was a very naive. He had half-ruined Miss Reed'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 with Riddleson Den. Denham, who was a friend of Hamilton's, thought he ought to be acquainted with it. So, when he arrived in England, which was soon after, partly from resentment and ill-will to Keith and Riddleson Den, 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 constituents, the proprieties whose instructions he sometimes disregarded. Several of our best laws were of his planning and past during his administration. Ralph and I were inseparable companions. We took lodgings 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 paying his passage. I had fifteen pistols, 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 approve. Then he endeavored to get employment as a Hackney writer, to copy for the stationers and lawyers 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 there 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 of my epistoles, and now just rubbed on from hand to mouth. He seemed quite to forget his wife and child, and I, by degrees, my engagements with Miss Reed, to whom I never wrote more than one letter, and that was to let her know I was not likely soon to return. That was another of the great irata 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 and composing for the second edition of Walliston'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, A Dissention on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain. I inscribed it to my friend Ralph. I printed a small number. It occasioned my being more considered by Mr. Palmer as a young man of some ingenuity, though he seriously expostulated with me upon the principles of my pamphlet, which to him appeared abominable. My printing this pamphlet was another erratum. While I lodged in Little Britain, I made an acquaintance with one Wilcox, a bookseller, whose shop was at the next door. He had an immense collection of secondhand books. Circulating libraries were not then in use, but we agreed that, on certain reasonable terms, which I have now forgotten, I might take, read, and return any of his books. This I esteemed a great advantage, and I made as much use of it as I could. My pamphlet, by some means falling into the hands of one lion's, a surgeon, author of a book entitled The Infallibility of Human Judgment. It occasioned an acquaintance between us. He took great notice of me, called on me often to converse on those subjects, carried me to the house, a pale alehouse in a lane, cheapside, and introduced me to Mr. Manderville, author of The Fable of the Bees, who had clubbed there, of which he was the soul, being a most facetious man, entertaining companion. Lions, too, introduced me to Dr. Pemberton at Bastion'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 principle was a purse made of the asbestos which purifies by fire. Sir Hans Sloan, heard of it, came to see me, and invited me to his house in Bloomsbury Square, where he showed me all his curiosities, and persuaded me to let him add that to the number, for which he paid me handsomely. In our house there lodged a young woman, a millner, who, I think, had a shop in the cloisters. She had been gentilely bred, was sensible and lively, and of most pleasing conversation. Ralph read plays to her in the evenings. They grew intimate. She took another lodging, and he followed her. They lived together for some time, but he being still out of business, and her income not sufficient to maintain them with her child, he took a resolution of going from London to try for a country school, which he thought himself well qualified to undertake, as he wrote an excellent hand, and was a master of arithmetic and accounts. This, however, he deemed a business below him, and confident of future better fortune when he should be unwilling to have it known that he was once so meanly employed. He changed his name, and did me the honour 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 per week, recommending Mrs. T. to my care, and desiring me to write to him, directing for Mr. Franklin, schoolmaster, at such a place. He continued to write frequently, sending me large specimens of an epic poem which he was then composing, and desiring my remarks and corrections. These I gave him from time to time, but endeavored rather to discourage his proceeding. One of Young's satires was just then published. I copied and sent him a great part of it, which set in a strong light the folly of pursuing the muses with any hope of advancement by them. All this was in vain. Sheets of the poem continued to come by every post. In the meantime Mrs. T., having on his account lost her friends in business, was often in distress, and used to send for me, and borrow what I could spare to help her out of them. I grew fond of her company, and being at that time under no religious restraint, and presuming upon my importance to her, I attempted familiarities—another erratum—which she repulsed with a proper resentment, and acquainted him with my behaviour. This made a breach between us, and when he returned again to London he let me know he thought I had cancelled 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 to him. This, however, was not then of much consequence, as he was totally unable, and in the loss of his friendship I found myself relieved from a burden. I now began to think of getting a little money beforehand, and expecting better work. I left Palmer's to work at Watts, near Lincoln's infield, a still greater printing-house. Here I continued all the rest of my stay in London. At my first admission into this printing-house, I took to working at Press, imagining I felt a want of the bodily exercise I had been used to in America, where Press work is mixed with composing. I drank only water, and the other workmen near Fifty and Number were great guzzlers of beer. On occasion I carried up and down the 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, what the water-American, as they called me, was stronger than themselves, who drank strong beer. We had an ale-house boy who attended always in the house to supply the workmen. My companion at the Press drank every day a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at 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 labour. I endeavored to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in proportion to the grain or flour in the barley, dissolved in the water of which it was made, that there was more flour in a penny worth 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 and expense I was free from, and thus these poor devils kept themselves always under. Watts, after some weeks, desiring to have me in the composing-room, I left the pressmen a new bienvenue, or some 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 it too, and forbade my paying it. I stood about two or three weeks, was accordingly considered as an excommunicate, and had so many little pieces of private mischief done me, by mixing my sorts, 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 notwithstanding the master's protection I found myself obliged to comply and pay the money. Convinced of the folly of being on ill terms with those one is to live with continually. Begin footnote. Franklin now left the work of operating the printing presses, which was largely a matter of manual labor, and began setting type, which required more skill and intelligence. End footnote. I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon acquired considerable influence. I proposed some reasonable alterations in their chapel-laws, and carried them against all opposition. From my example a great part of them left their middling breakfast of beer, and bread, and cheese, finding they could with me be supplied from a neighboring house, with a large pourager 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. These three havens. This was a more comfortable as well as cheaper breakfast, and keep their heads clearer. Those who continued sautting with beer all day were often, by not paying, out of credit at the ale house, and used to make interest with me to get beer. Their light, as they phased it, being out. I watched the pay table on Saturday night, and collected what I stood engaged for them, having to pay sometimes near thirty shillings a week on their accounts. Thus and my being esteemed a pretty good rigite, 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 now very agreeably. Begin footnote. A printing house is called a chapel, because Caxton, the first English printer, did his printing in a chapel connected with Westminster Abbey. St. Monday is a holy day taken to prolong the dissipation of Saturday's wages. End of footnotes. By lodging in Little Britain, being too remote, I found another in Duke Street opposite the Roman Chapel. It was two pairs 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 had last lodged, she agreed to take me at the same rate, three shilling sixpence per week, cheaper, as she said, from the protection she expected in having a man lodge in the house. She was a widow, an elderly woman, and had been bread or protestant, being a clergyman's daughter, but was converted to the Catholic religion by her husband, whose memory she much revered. Had lived much among people of distinction, and knew a thousand anecdotes of them as far back as the times of Charles II. She was lame in her knees with the gout, and therefore seldom stirred out of her room, so sometimes wanted company, and hers was so highly amusing to me that I was sure to spend an evening with her whenever she desired it. Our supper was only half an inch over 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 meant I was now 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 in six months 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 which my landlady gave me this account, that she, being a Roman Catholic, had been set abroad when young and lodged in a nunnery with the 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 a 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 to 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, said my landlady, how she, as she lived, could possibly find so much employment for a confessor. Oh, she said, it is impossible to avoid vain thoughts. I was permitted once to visit her. She was cheerful and polite, and conversed pleasantly. The room was clean, but had no other furniture than a maltus, a table with a crucifix and a book, a stool which she gave me to sit on, and a picture over the chimney of St. Veronica, displaying her handkerchief with the miraculous figure of Christ bleeding face on it, which she explained to me with great seriousness. She looked pale, but was never sick, and I gave it as another instance on how small an income, life and health, may be supported. At Watt's printing house I contracted an acquaintance with an ingenious young man, one Wygate, who, having healthy relations, had been better educated than most printers, was a tolerable latinist, spoke French, and loved reading. I taught him and a friend of his to swim at twice going into the river, and they soon became good swimmers. They introduced me to some gentleman from the country who went to Chelsea by water to see the college and Don Saltero's curiosities. In our return at the request of the company whose curiosity Wygate had excited, I stripped and leapt into the river and swam from near Chelsea to Black Fires, performing on the way many feats of activity, both upon and underwater, that surprised and pleased those to whom they were novelties. Begin footnote. The story is that she met Christ on his way to crucifixion and offered him her handkerchief to wipe the blood from his face, after which the handkerchief always bore the image of Christ's bleeding face. James Salter, a former servant of Hans Sloane, lived in Shaney Walk, Chelsea. His house, a barbershop, was known as Don Salato's Coffee House. The curiosities were in glass cases and constituted an amazing and motley collection, a petrified crab from China, a liquefied hog, Job's tears, Madagascar lances, William the Conqueror's flaming sword, and Henry VIII's coat of mail. The swim was of about three miles. End of footnote. I had, from a child, been ever delighted in this exercise, had studied and practiced all Trevner's motions and positions, added some of my own, aiming at the graceful and easy as well as the useful. All these I took this occasion of exhibiting to the company and was much flattered by their admiration. And Wygate, who was desirous of becoming a master, grew more and more attached to me on that account, as well as from the similarity of our studies. He had length-proposed to me traveling all over Europe together, supporting ourselves everywhere by working at our business. I was once inclined to it, but mentioned it to my good friend Mr. Denham, with whom I often spent an hour when I had he dissuaded me from it, advising me to think only of returning to Pennsylvania, which he was now about to do. I must record one trait of this good man's character. He had formerly been in business at Bristol, but failed in debt to a number of people, compounded and went to America. Thereby 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 with him, and when they expected nothing but to treat every man at the first remove found under his plate an order on a banker for the full amount of the unpaid remainder with interest. He now told me he was about to return to Philadelphia and should carry over a great quantity of goods in order to open a store there. He proposed to take me over as his clerk to keep his books in which he would instruct me, copy his letters, and attend the store. He added that as soon as I should be acquainted with mercantile business he would promote me by sending me with a cargo of flour and bread, etc., to the West Indies, and procure me commission 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, remembering 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, about one hundred sixty-seven dollars, Pennsylvania money, less indeed than my present get-ings as a compositor but affording a better prospect. I took leave of printing as though forever, and was daily employed in the new business, going about it with Mr. Denim among the tradesmen to purchase various articles and seeing them packed up, doing errands, calling upon workmen to dispatch, etc., and when all was on board I had a few days leisure. On one of these days I was, to my surprise, sent for by a great man. I knew only by name a Sir William Wyndham, and I waited upon him. He had heard by some means or other of my swimming from Chelsea to Blackfriars, and my teaching, Wygate, and another young man to swim in a few hours. He had two sons about to set out on their travels. He wished to have them first taught swimming, and proposed to gratify 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 the overture seemed sooner made me, perhaps 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 Edgmont, which I shall mention in its place. Thus I spent about eighteen months in London most part of the time, I worked hard at my business, and spent but little upon myself, except in seeing plays and in books. My friend Ralph had kept me poor, he owed me about twenty-seven pounds, which I was now never likely to receive, a great sum out of my small earnings. I loved him, notwithstanding, for he had many admirable qualities. I had by no means improved my fortune, but I had picked up some very ingenious acquaintance, whose conversation was of great advantage to me, and I had read considerably. PINE CHAPTER VII BEGINNING BUSINESS IN PHILIDELPHIA We sailed from Graves End on the twenty-third of July, seventeen twenty-six. 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. FOOT NOTE The journal is not found in the manuscript journal, which was left among Franklin's papers. End of FOOT NOTE We landed in Philadelphia on the eleventh of October, where I found sundry alterations. Keith was no longer governor, being superseded by Mayor 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 Reed, had not her friends, despairing with reason of my return after the receipt of my letter, persuaded her to marry another, one Rogers, a Potter, which was done in my absence. With him, however, she was never happy, and soon parted from him, refusing to cohabit with him or bear his name. Yet being now said that he had another wife, he was a worthless fellow, though an excellent workman, which was the temptation to her friends. She got into debt, ran away in 1727 or 1728, went to the West Indies, and died there. Chimer had got a better house, a shop well supplied with stationery, plenty of new types, a number of hands, though none good, and seemed to have a great deal of business. Mr. Denham took a store in Water Street, where we opened our goods. I attended the business diligently, studied accounts, and grew in a little time expert at selling. We lodged and boarded together. He counseled me, as a father, having a sincere regard for me. I respected and loved him, and we might have gone on together very happy, but in the beginning of February 1726, 1727, when I had just passed my 21st year, we both were taken ill. My distemper was a pleurisy, which very nearly carried me off. I suffered a good deal, gave up the point in my own mind, and was 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 forgot what his distemper was, it held him a long time, and at length carried him off. He left me a small legacy in a nun-coupative will, as a token for 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 in Philadelphia, advised my return to my business, and Keimer tempted me with an offer of large wages by the year to come and take the management of his printing-house that he might better attend his stationer's shop. I had heard a bad character of him in London from his wife, and her friends, and was not fond of having any more to do with him. I tried for further employment as a merchant's clerk, but not readily meeting with any, I closed again with Keimer. I found in his house these hands, Hugh Meredith, a Welsh-Pennsylvanian, thirty years of age, bred to country work, honest, sensible, had a great deal of solid observation, with 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 book-binding, 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 service for four years Keimer had purchased from the captain of a ship, he too was to be made a pressman. George Webb, an Oxford scholar, whose time for four years he had likewise bought, intending him for a compositor, of whom more presently, and David Harry, a country boy, whom he had taken apprentice. I soon perceived that the intention of engaging me at wages so much higher than he had been used to give, was to have these raw, cheap hands formed through me, and as soon as I had instructed them, then they being all article 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 degree to mind their business and to do it better. It was an odd thing to find an Oxford scholar in the situation of a bought servant. He was not more than eighteen years of age, and gave me this account of himself, that he was born in Gloucester, educated at grammar school there, had been distinguished among the scholars, for some apparent superiority in performing his part, when they exhibited plays, belonged to the Whitty Club there, and had written some pieces in prose and verse, which were printed in the Gloucester newspaper. Thence he was sent to Oxford, where he continued about a year, but not well satisfied, wishing of all things to see London, and become a player. At length, receiving his quarterly allowance of fifteen guineas, instead of discharging his debts, he walked out of town, hid his gown in a fruze bush, and footed it to London, where, having no friend to advise him, he fell into bad company, soon spent his guineas, found no means of being introduced among the players, grew necessitous, wanded his clothes, and wanted bread. Walking the street very hungry and not knowing what to do with himself, a crimps bill was put into his hand. Begin footnote. A crimp was the agent of a shipping company. Crimps were sometimes employed to decoy men into such a service, as is here mentioned. End of footnote. Offering immediate entertainment and encouragement to such as would bind themselves to serve in America, he went directly, signed the indenture, was put into the ship, and came over, never writing a line to acquaint his friends, what was become of him. He was lively, witty, good-natured, and a pleasant companion, but idle, thoughtless, and imprudent to the last degree. John the Irishman soon ran away, with the rest I began to live very agreeably, for they all respected me the more, as they found Chimer incapable of instructing them, and that from me they learned to something daily. We never worked on Saturday, that being Chimer Sabbath, so I had two days for reading. My acquaintance with the ingenious people in the town increased. Chimer himself treated me with great civility and apparent regard, and nothing now made me uneasy but my debt to Vernon, which I was yet unable to pay, being hitherto but a poor economist. He, however, kindly made no demand of it. Our printing-house often wanted sorts, and there was no letter-founder in America. I had seen types cast at James in London, but without much attention to the matter. However, I now contrived a mold, made use of the letters we had as punch-ons, struck the matrices in lead, and thus supplied, in a pretty tolerable way, all the 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 services became every day of less importance, as the other hands improved in the business, and when Chimer 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 degree less civil, put on more of the master frequently found fault, was captious, and seemed ready for an outbreak. 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 connection. For the great noise happening near the courthouse, I put my head out of the window to see what was the matter. Chimer, 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 netted me the more for their publicity, all of the neighbors, who were looking out on the same occasion, being witness how I was treated. He came up immediately into the printing house, continued the quarrel high words passed on both sides. He gave me a quarter's warning. We had stipulated, expressing a wish that he had not been obliged so long a warning. I told him 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 to my affair over. He had conceived great regard for me, and was very unwilling that I should leave the house, while he remained in it. He dissuaded me from returning to my native country, which I began to think of. He reminded me that Chimer was in debt for all he possessed, that his creditors began to be uneasy, that he kept his shop miserably, sold often without profit for ready money, and often trusted without keeping accounts. That he must therefore fail, which would make a vacancy I might profit of. I objected my want of money. He then let me know how his father had a high opinion of me, and from some discourse that had passed between them, he was sure he would advance money to set me up, if I would enter into partnership with him. My time, says he, will be out with Chimer in the spring. By that time we may have our present 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 provision 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 until they should arrive, and in the meantime I was to get work, if I could, at the other printing house. But I found no vacancy there, and so remained idle a few days, while Chimer, on a prospect of being employed to print some paper money in New Jersey, which would require cuts in various types, that I only could supply an apprehending Bradford might engage me and get the job from him, sent me a very civil message, that old friend 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 instruction. So I returned, and we went on more smoothly than for some time before. The New Jersey job was obtained. I contrived a copper plate pressed for it, the first that had been seen in the country. I cut several ornaments and checks for the bills. We went together to Burlington, where I executed the holes 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's committee to attend the press, and take care that no more bills were printed than the law directed. They were, therefore, by turns, constantly with us, and generally he who attended, brought with him a friend or two for company. My mind, having been much more improved by reading than Chimers, I supposed it was for that reason my conversation seemed to be more valued. They had me to their houses, introduced me to their friends, and showed me much civility. While he, though, the master, was a little neglected, in truth he was an odd fish, ignorant of the common life, fond of rudely opposing, received opinions, slovenly too extreme dirtiness, enthusiastic in some points of religion, and a little navish with all. We continued there near three months, and by the 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 the Assembly, and Isaac DeKow, the surveyor general. The latter was a shrewd, sagacious old man who told me that he began for himself when young, by willing clay for brickmakers, learned to write after he was of age, carried the chain for surveyors who taught him surveying, and he 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 began to doubt of revelation itself. Some books against deism fell into my hands. They were said to be the substance of sermons preached by Boyle's lecturers. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them, for the arguments of the deists which were quoted to be refuted appeared to me much stronger than the refutations. In short, I soon became a thorough deist. My arguments perverted some others, particularly Collins and Routh, but each of them having afterwards wronged me greatly without the least compunction and recollecting keysed conduct toward me. Who was another free thinker? 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, though her blind man sees but a part of the chain, the nearest link his eyes not carried to the equal beam that poses 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 existed, appeared now not so clever a performance as I once thought it, and I doubted whether some error had not insinuated itself unperceived into my argument, so as to inflict all that follows as is common in metaphysical reasonings. I grew convinced that truth, sincerity, and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life, and I formed written resolutions which still remain in my journal book, to practice them ever while I lived. Revelation had indeed no weight with me, as such, but I entertained an opinion that, though certain actions might not be bad because they were forbidden by it, or good because it commanded them, yet probably these actions might be forbidden because they were bad for us, or commanded because they were beneficial to us, in their own natures. All the circumstances of things being considered, and this persuasion with the kind hand of Providence, or some other guardian angel, or accidental favorable circumstances and situations, are altogether preserved me through this dangerous time of youth, and the hazardous situations I was sometimes in among strangers, remote from the eye, and advance of my father, without my willful, gross immorality, or injustice that might have been expected from my want of religion. I say willfully because the instances I have mentioned had something of necessity in them, from my youth, inexperience, and the naivety of others. I had, therefore, a tolerable character to begin the world with. I valued it properly, and determined to perceive it. We had not been long returned to Philadelphia before the new types arrived from London. We settled with Chimer, 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 twenty-four pounds a year, though I have since known it to let for seventy. We took in Thomas Godfrey, a glazier and his family, who were to pay a considerable part of it to us, and we bored with them. We had scarce opened our letters and put our press in order, before George House, an acquaintance of mine, brought a countryman to us whom he had met in the street inquiring for a printer. All our cash was now expended in the variety of particulars. We had been obliged to procure, and this countryman's five shillings, being our first fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any crown I have ever 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, that are croakers in every country, always boating 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 Mickel. This gentleman, a stranger to me, stopped one day at my door and asked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing house. Being answered in the affirmative, he said he was sorry for me, because it was an expensive undertaking, and the expense would be lost, for Philadelphia was a sinking place, that people already half bankrupt or near being so, all appearances to the contrary, such as new buildings and the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge fallacious, for they were in fact among the things that would soon ruin us. And he gave me 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 should never have done it. This man continued to live in this decaying place, and to decline in the same strain, refusing for many years to buy a house there, because all was going to destruction. And at last I had the pleasure of seeing him give five times as much for one, as he might have bought it for when he first began his croaking. I should have mentioned before, that in the autumn of the preceding year I had farmed most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which was called the junto. We met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of morals, politics, or natural philosophy, to be discussed by the company, and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory, and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions or direct contradictions were after some time made contraband and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties. The first members were Joseph Brynthnoll, a copier of deeds for the scrivener, 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 of the little nick-a-naves and of sensible conversation. Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great in his way and afterwards inventor of what is now called Hadley's Quadrant. But he knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion, as like most great mathematicians I have met with he expected universal precision in everything said, or was forever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation. He soon left us. Nicholas Skull, a surveyor, afterwards a surveyor general who loved books and sometimes made a few verse. William Parsons bred a shoemaker, but loving reader had acquired a considerable share of mathematics which he first studied with a view to astrology that he afterwards laughed at it. He also became surveyor general. William Mogridge, a joiner, a most exquisite mechanic and a solid sensible man. Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb I have characterized before. Robert Grace, the 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 and best heart and the exactest morals of almost any man I ever met with. He became afterwards a merchant of great note and one of our provincial judges. Our friendship continued without interruption to his death, upwards of forty years, and the club continued almost as long and was the best school of philosophy, morality, and politics that then existed in the province for our queries, which were read the week preceding their discussions, put us upon reading with attention upon the several subjects that we might speak more to the purpose, and there too we acquired better habits of conversation, everything being studied in our rules, which might prevent our distinguishing each other. From hence the long continuance of the club I shall have frequent occasions to speak further of hereafter. But by 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. Barenthal particularly procured us from the Quakers the printing forty sheets of their history, the rest being to be done by Chimer, and upon this we worked exceedingly hard, for the price was low, it was a folio pro patria size in pica with long printer notes. I composed of it a sheet a day and Meredith worked it off at press, and it was often eleven at night and sometimes later, before I had finished my distribution for the next day's work. For the little jobs set 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 days work over, one of them by accident was broken and two pages reduced to pi. I immediately distributed and composited all over again before I went to bed, and this industry, visible to our neighbors began to give us character and credit. Particularly I was told that mention being made of the new printing office at the merchants every night club. The general opinion was that it must fail, there being already two printers in the place. Chimer and Bradford, Dr. Baird, whom you and I saw many years after at his native place, St. Andrews 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 had offers from one of them to supply us with stationery, but as yet we did not choose to engage in shop business. I mentioned this industry, and more particularly, and the more freely though, it seems to be talking in my own praise, but 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 Chimer, now came to offer himself as a journeyman to us. We could not then employ him, but I foolishly let him know, as a secret, that I soon intended to be in a newspaper, and might then have worked 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 Chimer, who immediately, to be beforehand with me, published proposals for printing one himself on which Webb was to be employed. I resented this, and to counteract them, as I could not yet begin our paper. I wrote several pieces of entertainment for Bradford's paper under the title of The Busy Body, which Brentonall continued some months. But this means the attention of the public was fixed on that paper, and Chimer's proposals, which we burlesque 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 perceived that I am apt to speak in the singular number, though our partnership still continued. The reason may be that, in fact, the whole management of the business lay upon me. Meredith was no compositor, a poor pressman, and seldom sober. My friends lamented my connection with him, but I was to make the best of it. Our first papers made a quite different appearance from any before in the province, a better type and better printed, but some spirited remarks of my writing, on the dispute then going on between Governor Burnett and the Massachusetts Assembly, struck the principal people, occasioned the paper, and the manager of it to be talked of, and in a few weeks brought them all to be our subscribers. The example was followed by many, and our number went on growing continually. This was one of the first good effects of my having learnt a little 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. Radford 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 correct and sent out to every member. They were sensible to the difference. It strengthened the hands of our friends in the House, and they voted us their printers for the year ensuing. Among my friends in the House, I must not forget Mr. Hamilton, before mentioned, who was then returned from England, and had a seat in it. He interested himself for me strongly in that instance, as he did in many others afterwards, continuing his patronage until 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 ingenious letter of acknowledgement, 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. Marra's father, who was to have paid for our printing house, according to the expectations given me, was able to advance only one hundred pounds of 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 judgment and execution, and our hopeful prospects must with us be ruined, as the press and letters must be sold for payment, perhaps at half price. In this distress, two true friends, whose kindness I have never forgotten, nor ever shall forget while I can remember anything, came to me separately, unknown to each other, and without any application from me, offering each of them to advance me all the money that should be necessary to enable me to take the whole business upon myself, if that should be practicable. But they did not like my continuing the partnership with Meredith, who, as they said, was often seen drunk in the streets, and playing at low games and ale houses, much to our discredit. These two friends were William Coleman and Robert Grace. I told them I could not propose a separation, while any prospect remained of the Meredith's fulfilling their part of our agreement, because I thought myself under great obligation to them, for what they had done, and would do, if they could. But if they finally failed in their performance and our partnership must be dissolved, I should then think myself at liberty to accept the assistance of my friends. Thus the matter rested for some time. When I said to my partner, perhaps your father is dissatisfied at the part you have undertaken in this affair of ours, and is unwilling to advance for you and me, what he would for you alone. If that is the case, tell me, and I will resign the holes to you and go about my business. No, said he. My father has really been disappointed, and is really unable, and I am unwilling to distress him further. I see this is a business, I am not fit for it. I was bred a farmer, and it was a folly in me to come to town, and put myself at 30 years of age and apprentice to learn a new trade. Many of our Welch people are going to settle in North Carolina, where land is cheap. I am inclined to go with them and follow my old employment. But you may find friends to assist you, if you will take the debts of the company upon you, return to my father the hundred pounds he has advanced, pay my little personal debts, and give me thirty pounds and a new saddle. I will relinquish the partnership and leave the hole in your hands. I agreed to this proposal. It was drawn up in writing, signed and sealed immediately. I gave him what he demanded, and he went soon after to Carolina, from which 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 a business in my own name, advertising that the partnership was dissolved. I think it was in or about the year seventeen twenty-nine. Chapter 8 Business Success and First Public Service About this time there was a cry among the people for more paper money, only fifteen thousand pounds being extant in the province, and that soon to be sunk. The wealthy inhabitants opposed any addition being against all paper currency, from an apprehension that it would depreciate as it had done in New England to the prejudice of all creditors. We had discussed this point in our junta, where I was on the side of an addition being persuaded that the first small sum struck in seventeen twenty-three had done much good by increasing the trade, employment, and number of inhabitants in the province. Since I now saw all the old houses inhabited, and many new ones building, whereas I remembered well that when I first walked about the streets of Philadelphia eating my roll, I saw most of the houses on Walnut Street between second and front streets with bills on their doors to be let, and many likewise in Chestnut Street, and other streets which made me think the inhabitants of the city were deserting it one after another. Our debates possessed me so fully of the subject that I wrote and printed an anonymous pamphlet on it entitled The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency. It was well received by the common people in general, but the rich men disliked it, for it increased and strengthened the clamor for more money, and they, happening to have no writers among them that were able to answer it, their opposition slackened, and the point was carried by a majority in the house. My friends there, who conceived I had been of some service, thought fit to reward me by employing me in printing the money, a very profitable job, and a great help to me. This was another advantage gained by my being able to write. The utility of this currency became by time and experience so evident as never afterward to be much disputed, so that it grew soon to fifty-five thousand pounds, and in seventeen thirty-nine 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 increased, though I now think there are limits beyond which the quantity may be hurtful. Begin footnote. Paper money is a promise to pay its face value in gold or silver, when a state or nation issues more such promises than there is likelihood of its being able to redeem the paper representing the promises depreciates in value. Before the success of the colonies and the revolution was assured, it took hundreds of dollars of their paper money to buy a pair of boots. End footnote. I soon after obtained, through my friend Hamilton, the printing of the Newcastle paper money, another profitable job, as I then thought it, small things appearing great to those in small circumstances. And these, to me, were really great advantages, as they were great encouragements. He procured for me also the printing of the laws and votes of the government, which continued in my hand as long as I followed the business. I now opened a little stationery shop. I had in it blanks of all sorts. The correctest that ever appeared among us, being assisted in that by my friend, Breneth Nall. I had also paper, parchment, chapman's books, etc. One White Marsh, a compositor I had known in London, an excellent workman, now came to me and worked with me continuously and diligently, and I took an apprentice, the son of Aquila Rose. I began gradually to pay off the debt I was under for the printing house. In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I dressed plainly. I was seen in 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. Snugged and gave no scandal. And to show 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 as 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. I went on swimmingly. In the meantime, Kheimer's credit and business declining daily. He was at last forced to sell his printing house to satisfy his creditors. He went to Barbados and there lived some years in very poor circumstances. His apprentice, David Harry, whom I had instructed while I worked with him, set up in his place at Philadelphia, having bought his materials. I was at first apprehensive of a powerful rival in Harry, as his friends were very able and had a good deal of interest. I therefore proposed a partnership to him, which he fortunately, for me, rejected with scorn. He was very proud, dressed like a gentleman, lived expensively, took much diversion and pleasure abroad, ran in debt, and neglected his business, upon which all business left him, and finding nothing to do, he followed Kheimer to Barbados, taking the printing house with him. There this apprentice employed his former master as a journeyman, they quarreled often. Harry went continually behind hand, and at length was forced to sell his types and return to his country work in Pennsylvania. The person that bought them employed Kheimer to use them, but in a few years he died. There remained now no competitor with me in 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, he kept the post office, it was imagined he had better opportunities of obtaining news. His paper was thought a better distributor of advertisements than mine, and therefore had many more, which was a profitable thing to him, and a disadvantage to me, for though I did indeed receive and send papers by the post, yet the public opinion was otherwise, for what I did send was by bribing the writers, who took them privately, Bradford being unkind enough to forbid it, which occasioned some resentment on my part, and I thought so meanly of him for it, that when I afterward came into his situation I took care never to imitate it. I had Heather to continue 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 glazers business, though he worked little, being always absorbed in his mathematics. Mrs. Godfrey 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 invitations to supper, and by leaving us together, till at length it was time to explain. Mrs. Godfrey managed our little treaty. I let her know that I expected as much money with their daughter as would pay off my remaining debt for the printing house, which 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 approve the match, that on inquiry of Bradford they had been informed the printing business was not a profitable one. The types would soon be worn out, and more wanted, that S. Kimer and D. Harry had failed one after the other, and I should probably soon follow them, and therefore I was forbidden the house, and the daughter shut up. Whether this was a real change of sentiment, or only artifice, on a supposition of our being too far engaged in affection to retract, and therefore that we should steal a marriage, which would leave them at liberty to give or withhold what they pleased, I know not, but I suspect the latter, resented it, and went no more— Mrs. Godfrey brought me afterwards some more favorable accounts of their disposition, and would have drawn me on again, but I declared absolutely my resolution to have nothing more to do with that family. This was resented by the Godfrey's. 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 acquaintances 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. Reed's family, who all had a regard for me from the time of my first lodging in their house. I was often invited there, and consulted in their affairs, wherein I sometimes was of service. I pitied poor Miss Reed's unfortunate situation, who was generally dejected, seldom cheerful, and avoided company. I considered my giddiness and inconsistency when in London, as a great degree the cause of her unhappiness, though the mother was good enough to thank the fault more her own than mine, as she had prevented our marrying before I went thither, and persuaded the other match in my absence. Our mutual affection was revived, but there was now great objections to our union. The match was indeed looked upon as invalid, a preceding wife being said to be living in England, but this could not easily be proved because of the distance, and though there was a report of his death, it was not certain. Then, though it should be true, he had left many debts, which his successor might be called upon to pay. We ventured, however, over all these difficulties. And I took her to wife. September 1, 1730 None of the inconveniences happened that we had apprehended. She proved a good and faithful helpmate. Assisted me much by attending the shop. We throve together, and have ever mutually endeavored to make each other happy. Thus I corrected that great erratum as well as I could. Begin footnote. Mrs. Franklin survived her marriage over forty years. Franklin's correspondence abounds with evidence that their union was a happy one. We are grown old together, and if she has any faults I am so used to them that I don't perceive them. The following is a stanza from one of Franklin's own songs written for the junta. Of their clois and phyllises, poets may I sing my plain country Joan. These twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life, blessed day that I made her my own. End of footnote. About this time our club meeting, not at a tavern, but in a little room of Mr. Grace's, set apart for that purpose, a proposition was made by me that, since our books were often referred to in our discotations upon the queries, it might be convenient for us to have them 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 like 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 we each owned the whole. It was liked and agreed to, and we filled one end of the room with such books as we could best spare. The number was not so great as we expected, and though they had been of great use, yet some inconveniences occurring for want of due care of them. The collection, after about a year, was separated, and each took his books home again. And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up the proposals, got them put into the form by our great scrivener, Brockton, and, by the help of my friends in the Junta, procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with, and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue. We afterwards obtained a charter, the company being increased to one hundred, thus the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous. It has 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, and most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made through the colonies in defense of their privileges. Thus far was written with the intention expressed in the beginning, and therefore contains several little family anecdotes of no importance to others. What follows was written many years after, in compliance with the advice contained in these letters, and accordingly intends for the public. The affairs of the revolution occasioned the interruption. Begin footnote. Here the first part of the autobiography written at Twyford in 1771 ends. The second part, which follows, was written in passing in 1784. After this memorandum, Franklin inserted letters from Abel James and Benjamin Vaughn, urging him to continue his autobiography. End of footnote. It is sometimes since I received the above letters, but I have been too busy till now to think of complying with the requests they contain. It might too be much better done. If I were at home among my papers, which would aid my memory, and help to ascertain dates, but my return being uncertain, and having just now a little leisure, I will endeavor to recollect and write what I can. If I live to get home, it may be corrected and improved. Not having any copy here of what is already written, I know not whether an account is given of the means I used to establish the Philadelphia Public Library, which, from a small beginning, is now become so considerable, though I remember to have come down to near the time of that transaction. I will therefore begin here an account of it which may be struck out if found to have been already given. At the time I established myself in Philadelphia. 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, and members of the Junta had each a few. We had left the alehouse where we first met and hired a room to hold our club in. I proposed that we should all of us bring our books to that room where they would not only be ready to consult in our conferences, but become a common benefit each of us being at liberty to borrow, such as he wished to read at home. This was accordingly done, and for some time contended us. Finding the advantage of this little collection, I proposed to render the benefit from books more common by commencing a public subscription library. I drew a sketch from the plan and rules that would be necessary, and got a skillful conveyancer, Mr. Charles Brockton, to put the whole in form of articles of agreement to be subscribed, by which each subscriber engaged to pay a certain sum down for the first purchase of books in an annual contribution for increasing them. So few were the readers at that time in Philadelphia, and the majority of us so poor that I was not able, with great industry, to find more than fifty persons, mostly young tradesmen, willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each, and ten shillings per annum. On this little fund we began. The books were imported, the library was opened one day in the week for lending to the subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned. The institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations, reading became fashionable, and our people, having no public amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observed by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries. When we were about to sign the above mentioned articles, which were to be binding on us, our heirs, etc., for fifty years, Mr. Brockton 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 this instrument. A number of us however are yet living, but the instrument was after a few years rendered null by a charter that incorporated and gave perpetuity to the company. The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the subscriptions made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting oneself 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 was a scheme of a number of friends who requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after practiced it on such occasions, and from my frequent successes can heartily recommend it. The present little sacrifice of your vanity will afterward be amply repaid if it remains a while uncertain to whom the merit belongs. Someone more vain than yourself will be encouraged to claim it, and then even envy will be disposed to you justice by plucking those assumed feathers and restoring them to their right owner. The library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two each day, and thus repaired in some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended for me. Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind, and my industry and my business continued as indefatagable as it was necessary. I was indebted for my printing house, I had a young family coming on to be educated, and I had to contend with for business two printers who were established in the place before me. My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continued, and my father having among his instructions to me when a boy frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon. Seeest, though 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 kings. Which, however, has since happened, for I have stood before five and even had the honor of sitting down with one, the king of Denmark, to dinner. We have an English proverb that says, he that would thrive must ask his wife. It was lucky for me that I had one as much disposed to industry and frugality as myself. She assisted me cheerfully, in my business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing old linen rags for the paper-makers, etc., 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 break and milk, no tea. And I ate it out of a tupini-earthen porager with a pewter spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families and make progress in spite of principle being called one morning to breakfast I founded in a china bowl with a spoon of silver. They had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, and it cost her the enormous sum of three and twenty shillings, for which she had no excuse or apology to make, but that she thought her husband deserved a silver spoon and a china bowl as well as any of his neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and china in our house, which afterward, in a course of years, as our wealth increased, augmented it gradually to several hundred pounds in value. I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian and thought some of the dogmas of that persuasion, such as the eternal decrees of God, election, reprobation, etc., appeared to me unintelligible, others doubtful, and I early absented myself from the public assemblies of the sect. Sunday being my study day, I never was without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the deity that he made the world and governed it by his providence. That the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man, that our souls are immortal, and that all crime will be punished and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteemed the essentials of every religion, and being to be found in all the religions we had in our country. I respected them all, though with different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mixed with other articles, which without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality served principally to divide us and made us unfriendly to each other. This respect to all, with an opinion that the worst had some good effects, induced me to avoid all discourse that might tend to lessen the good opinion another might have of his own religion, and as our providence increased in people and new places of worship were continually wanted, and generally erected by voluntary contribution, my might 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 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 admonished me to attend his administrations, and I was now and then prevailed on to do so, once for five Sundays successfully. Had he been, in my opinion, a good preacher, perhaps I might have continued, notwithstanding the occasion I had for this Sunday's leisure in my course of study, but his discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments or explanations of the particular doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was inculcated or enforced, their aim seeming to be rather to make us Presbyterians than good citizens. At length he took for his text that verse of the fourth chapter of Philippians, finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, if there be any virtue or any praise, think on these things. And I imagined in a sermon on such a text, he would not miss of having some morality, but he confined himself to the five points only, as meant by the apostle, Vs. 1, keeping hold of the Sabbath day, 2, being diligent in reading the holy scriptures, 3, attending duly the public worship, 4, partaking of the sacrament, 5, paying a due respect to God's ministers. These might be all good things, but as they were not the kind of good things that I expected from that text, I disparate of ever meeting with them from any other, was disgusted and attended his preaching no more. I had some years before composed a little liturgy or form of prayer for my own private use, Vs. 1728, entitled Articles of Belief and Active Religion. I returned to the use of this and went no more to the public assemblies. My conduct might be blamable, but I leave it without attempting further to excuse it, my present purpose being to relate facts and not to make apologies for them. End of Chapter 8. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Chapter 9. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Frank Woodward Pine, Chapter 9. Plan for Attaining Moral Perfection. 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 that I had undertaken a task more difficult than I had imagined. While my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another. Habit took the advantage of inattention. Inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I concluded at length that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to prevent our slipping, and that the contrary habits must be broken and good ones acquired and established before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform, resistitude 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 catalog more or less numerous as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarious and ambition. I proposed to myself for the sake of clearness to use rather more names and 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 I annexed to each a short precept which fully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning. These names of virtues with their precepts were one, temperance, eat not to dullness, drink not to elevation, two, silence, speak not but what may benefit others or yourself, avoid trifling conversation, three, order, let all your things have their place, let each part of your business have its time, four, resolution, resolve to perform what you ought, perform without fail what you resolve, five, frugality, make no expense but to do good to others or yourself, i.e. waste nothing, six, industry, lose no time, be always employed in something useful, cut off all unnecessary actions, seven, sincerity, use no hurtful deceit, think innocently and justly, and if you speak, speak accordingly, eight, justice, wrong done by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty, nine, moderation, avoid extremes for bear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve, ten, cleanliness, tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation, eleven, tranquility, be not disturbed at trifles or at accidents common or unavoidable, twelve, chastity, thirteen, humility, imitate Jesus and Socrates. My intention being to acquire the attitude 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 arrange them with that in view as they stand above. Temperance first as it tends to produce that coolness and clearness of head which is so necessary when constant vigilance has to be kept up and guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits and the force of perpetual temptations. This being acquired and established, silence would be more easy and my desire being to gain knowledge at the same time that I improved in virtue and considering that in conversation it was obtained rather by the use of the ears than of the tongue and therefore wishing to break the habit I was getting into of prattling, punning and joking which only made me acceptable to trifling company I gave silence the second place this and the next order I expected would allow me more time for attending to my project and my studies resolution once become habitual would keep me firm in my endeavors to obtain all the subsequent virtues frugality and industry freeing me from my remaining debt and producing affluence and independence would make more easily the practice of sincerity and justice etc etc conceiving then that agreeably 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 13 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 footnote Pythagoras was a famous Greek philosopher who lived about 582 to 500 BC the golden verses here ascribed to him are probably of later origin the time which he recommends for this work is about even or bedtime that we may conclude the action of the day with the judgment of conscience making the examination of our convention an evening song to God and a footnote I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues successively thus in the first week my great guard was to avoid every the least offense against temperance leaving the other virtues to their ordinary chance only marking every evening the faults of the day thus if in the first week I could keep my first line marked T clear of spots I supposed the habit of that virtue so much strengthened and its opposite weakened that I might venture extending my attention to include the next and for the following week keep both lines clear of spots proceeding thus to the last I would go through a course complete in 13 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 one of the beds at a time and having accomplished the first proceeds to a second so I should have I hoped the encouraging pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I made in virtue by clearing successively my lines of their spots till at the end by a number of courses I should be happy in viewing a clean book after a 13 weeks daily examination this my little book had for its motto these lines from Addison's cattle here will I hold if there is a power above us and that there is all nature cries allowed through all her works he must delight in virtue and that which he delights in must be happy another from Cicero oh philosophy guide of life oh searcher out of virtue and exterminator of vice one day spent well and in accordance with thy precepts is worth any mortality of sin Tusculean inquiries book five another of 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 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 oh powerful goodness bountiful father merciful guide increasing me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest strengthen my resolution to perform what that wisdom dictates except my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favors to me I used also sometimes a little prayer which I took from Thompson's poems peace father of light and life thou good supreme oh teach me what is good teach me thyself save me from folly vanity and vice from every low pursuit and fill my soul with knowledge conscious peace and virtue pure sacred substantial never fading bliss the precept of order requiring that every part of my business should have its allotted time one page of my little book contained the following scheme employed for the 24 hours of a natural day five rise wash and address six powerful goodness contrive day's business and take the resolution of the day seven prosecute the present study and breakfast the morning question what good shall I do this day nine work twelve noon read or overlook my accounts and at dying three work evening six put things in their places supper music or diversion or conversation evening question what good have I done today nine examination of the day night ten sleep I entered upon the execution of this plan for self-examination and continued it with occasional intermissions for some time I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish to avoid the trouble of renewing now and then my little book which by scraping out the marks on the paper of old faults to make room for new ones in a new course became full of holes I transferred my tables and precepts to the ivory leaves of a memorandum book on which the lines were drawn with red ink that made a durable stain and on those lines I marked my faults with a black lead pencil which marks I could easily wipe out with a wet sponge after a while I went through one course only in a year and afterward only one in several years till at length I omitted them entirely being employed in voyages and business abroad with the 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 or a man's business was such as to leave him the disposition of his time that of a German printer for instance it was not possible to be exactly observed by a master who must mix with the world and often receive people of business at their own hour order to with regard to places for things papers etc. I found extremely difficult to acquire I had not been early accustomed to it and having an exceeding good memory I was not so sensible of the inconvenience attending want of method this article therefore cost me so much painful attention and my faults in it vexed me so much and I made so little progress in amendment and had such frequent relapses that I was almost ready to give up the attempt and content myself with a faulty character in that respect like the man who in buying an axe for a smith my neighbor desired to have the whole of its surface as bright as the edge the smith consented to grind it bright for him if he would turn the wheel he turned while the smith pressed the broad face of the axe 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 axe as it was without further grinding no said the smith turn on turn on we shall have it right by and by as yet it is only speckled yes says the man but I think I like a speckled axe best and I believe this may have been the case with many who having for one of some such means as I employed found the difficulty of obtaining good and breaking bad habits in other points of vice and virtue have given up the struggle and concluded that a speckled axe was best for something that pretended to be reason was every now and then suggested to me that such extreme nicety as I exacted of myself might be a kind of fulpery in morals which if it were known it would make me ridiculous that a perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself to keep his friends in continents footnote professor McMaster tells us that when Franklin was American agent in France his lack of business order was a source of annoyance to his colleagues and friends strangers who came to see him were amazed to behold papers of the greatest importance scattered in the most careless way over the table and floor and footnote 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 obtaining but fell far short of it yet I was by the endeavor a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the engraved copies though they never reached the wished for excellence of those copies their hand is mended by the endeavor and is tolerable while it continues fair and legible it may be well my posterity should be informed that to this little artifice with the blessing of God their ancestor owed the constant felicity of his life down to his seventy ninth year in which this is written what reverses may attend the remainder is in the hand of providence but if they arrive the reflection on past happiness enjoyed ought to help his bearing them with more resignation to temperance he ascribes his long continued health and what is still left to him of a good constitution to industry and frugality the early 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 sincerity and justice the confidence of his country and the honorable employees 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 younger acquaintance i hope therefore that some of my descendants may follow the example and reap the benefit footnote while there can be no question that franklin's moral improvement and happiness were due to the practice of these virtues yet most people will agree that we shall have to go back of his plan for the impelling motive to a virtuous life franklin's own suggestion that the scheme smacks of folpery in morals seems justified woodrow wilson well puts it men do not take fire from such thoughts unless something deeper which is missing here shines through them what may have seemed to the 18th century a system of morals seems to us nothing more vital than a collection of the precepts of good sense and sound conduct what redeems it from pettiness in this book is the scope of power and of usefulness to be seen in franklin himself who set these standards up in all seriousness and candor for his own life sigalations chapter five for the christian plan of moral perfection end footnote it will be remarked that though my scheme was not holy without religion there was in it no mark of any of the distinguishing tenants 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 prejudice anyone of any sect against it i proposed writing a little comment on each virtue in which i would have shown the advantages of possessing it and the mischiefs attending to its opposite vice and i should have called my little book the art of virtue because it would have shown the means and manner 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 apostles man of verbal charity who only without showing to the naked and hungry how or where they might clothe or victual extorted them to be fed and clothed james chapter two verses fifteen and sixteen footnote nothing so likely to make a man's fortune as virtue and footnote but it so happened that my intention of writing and publishing this comment was never fulfilled i did indeed from time to time put down short hints of the sentiments reasonings 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 sense have occasioned my postponing it for it being connected to my mind with a great and extensive project that required the whole man to execute and which an unforeseen succession of employees prevented my attending to it has hitherto remained unfinished 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 everyone's interest to be virtuous who wished to be happy even in this world and i should from this circumstance they're 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 quicker friend having kindly informed me that i was generally thought proud that my pride showed itself frequently in conversation that i was not content in being in the right when discussing any point but was overbearing and rather insolent of which he convinced me by mentioning several instances i determined endeavoring to cure myself if i could of this vice or folly among the rest and i added humility to my list giving an extensive meaning to the word i cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue but i had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it i made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of others and all positive assertion of my own i even forbid myself agreeably to the old laws of arjun to the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion such as certainly undoubtedly etc and i adopted instead of them i conceive i apprehend or i imagine a thing to be so and so or it so appears to me at present when another asserted something that i thought an error i 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 certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right but in the present case there appeared or seemed to me some differences etc i soon found the advantage of this change in my manner the conversations i engaged in went more pleasantly the modest way in which i proposed my opinions procured them a reddier exception and less contradictions i had less mortifications when i was found to be in the wrong and i more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when i happened to be in the right and this mode which i am first put on with some violence to natural inclination became at length so easy and so habitual to me that perhaps for these 50 years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression escaped 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 no institutions or alterations in the old and so much influence in public councils when i became a member for i was but a bad speaker never eloquent subject to 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 pride 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 thus far written at passe 1784 footnote i am now about to ride at home august 1788 but cannot have the help expected from my papers many of them being lost in the war i have however found the following this is a marginal memorandum end of footnote having mentioned a great and extensive project which i had conceived it seemed proper that some account should be here given of that project and its object its first rise in my mind appeared in the following little paper accidentally preserved these 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 affected 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 carried 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 occasions more confusion that few in public affairs act from a mere view of good of their country whatever they may pretend and though their actions bring real good to their country yet men primarily considered that their own and their country's interest was united and did not act from a principle of benevolence that few still in public affairs act with a view to the good of mankind there seems to me at present to be great occasion for raising a united party for virtue by forming the virtuous and good men of all nations into a regular body to be governed by suitable good and wise rules which good and wise men may probably be more unanimous in their obedience to than common people are to common laws i at present think that whoever attempts this a right and is well qualified cannot fail a pleasing god and of meeting with success bf revolving this project in my mind as to be undertaken here after when my circumstances should afford me the necessary leisure i put down from time to time on pieces of paper such thoughts as occurred to me respecting it most of these are lost but i found one purporting to be the substance of an intended creed containing as i thought the essentials of every known religion and being free of everything that might shock the professors of any religion i expressed in these words fees that there is one god who 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 acquaintances for ingenious well-disposed use to whom with prudent caution the scheme should be gradually communicated that the members should engage to afford their advice assistance and support to each other in promoting one another's interests businesses 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 parts to two young men who adopted it with some enthusiasm but my then narrow circumstances and the necessity I was under of sticking close to my business occasioned my postponing the further prosecution of it at that time and my multifarious 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 I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes and accomplish great affairs among mankind if he first forms a good plan and cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention makes the execution of that same plan his soul study and business end of chapter nine the autobiography of benjamin franklin chapter 10 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the autobiography of benjamin franklin edited by frank woodworth pine chapter 10 poor richards almanac and other activities in 1732 I first published my almanac under the name of Richard Saunders it was continued by me about 25 years commonly called poor richards almanac I endeavored to make it both entertaining and useful and it accordingly came to be in such demand that I reaped considerable profit from it 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 inculcated industry and frugality as the means of procuring wealth and thereby securing virtue it being more difficult for a man in want to act always honestly as to use here one of those proverbs it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright begin footnote the almanac at that time was a kind of periodical as well as a guide to natural phenomena and the weather franklin took his title from poor robin a famous English almanac and from Richard Saunders a well-known almanac publisher and a footnote these proverbs which contained the wisdom of many ages and nations I assembled and formed into a connected discourse prefixed to the almanac of 1757 as the harangue of a wise old man to the people attending an auction the bringing all these scattered councils thus into a focus enabled them to make greater impression the peace being universally approved was copied in all the newspapers of the continent reprinted in britain on a broad side to be struck up in houses two translations were made of it in french and great numbers watched by the clergy and gentry to distribute gratis among their poor parishioners and tenants in pennsylvania as it discouraged useless expense in foreign superfluities some thought it had its share of influence in producing that growing plenty of money which was observable for several years after its publication I considered my newspaper also as another means of communicating instruction and in that view frequently reprinted in it extracts from the spectator and other moral writers and sometimes published little pieces of my own which had been first composed for reading in our junto of these are a socratic dialogue tending to prove that whatever might be is 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 habit 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 disgraceful to our country whenever I was solicited to insert anything of that kind and the writers pleaded as they generally did the liberty of the press and that a newspaper was like a stagecoach in which anyone who could pay had a right to a place my answer was that I would print the piece separately if desired and the author might have as many copies as he pleased to distribute himself but that I would not take upon me to spread his detraction and that having contracted with my subscribers to furnish them with what might be either useful or entertaining I could not fill their papers with private altercations in which they had no concern without doing them manifest injustice now many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusations of the fairest characters among ourselves augmenting animosity even to the producing of duels and are moreover so indiscreet as to print scruilless reflections 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 mentioned 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 the 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 with the greatest regularity and exactness every quarter afterwards and manage the business with such success that she not only brought up reputably a family of children but as the expiration of the term was able to purchase of me the printing house and establish her son in it I mentioned 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 widowhood then either music or dancing by preserving them from losses by imposition of crafty men and enabling them to continue perhaps a profitable mercantile house with established correspondence till a son has 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 extemporar most excellent discourses which drew together considerable numbers of different persuasions who joined in admiring them among the rest I became one of his constant herers his sermons pleasing me as they had little of the dog medical kind but inculcated strongly the practice of virtue or what in the religious style are called good works those however of our congregation 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 combatted for him a while with such 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 questioned whether a single copy of them now exists 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 the part quoted at length and one of the British reviews 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 discomforture in the Synod I stuck by him however as I rather approved his giving us good sermons composed by others and bad ones of his own manufacture though the latter was the practice of our 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 congregation 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 myself so much a master of the French as to be able to read the books with ease I then undertook the Italian an acquaintance who was also learning it used often to tempt me to play chess with him finding this took up too much of the time I had to spare for study I had length refused to play anymore 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 a heart or in translations etc which tasks the vanquished was to perform upon honor before our next meeting as we played to pretty equally with us beat one another into that language I afterwards with a little painstaking acquired as much of the Spanish as to read their books also I have already mentioned that I had only one year's instruction in a latin school and that when very young after which I neglected that language entirely but when I had attained an acquaintance with the French Italian and Spanish I was surprised to find on looking over a latin testament that I understood so much more of that language than I had imagined which encouraged me to apply myself again to the study of it and I met with more success as those preceding languages had greatly smoothed my way from these circumstances I have thought that there is some inconsistency in our common mode of teaching languages we are told that it is proper to begin first with latin and having acquired that it will be more easy to attain those modern 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 more easily ascend to the top and I would therefore offer it to the consideration of those who superintend the education of our youth whether 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 become 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 of 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 the common life begin footnote the authority of franklin the most eminently practical man of his age in favor of reversing the study of the dead languages till the mind has reached a certain maturity is confirmed by the confession of one of the most eminent scholars of any age our seminaries of learning says given do not exactly correspond with the precept of a spartan king that the child should be instructed in the arts which will be useful to the man since a finished scholar may emerge from the head of west minster or eaten in total ignorance of the business and conversation of english gentlemen in the latter end of the eighteenth century but these schools may assume the merit of teaching all that they pretend to teach the latin and greek languages into footnote after ten years absence from boston and having become easy in my circumstances i made a journey thither to visit my relations which i could not sooner well afford in returning i called at newport to see my brother 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 it not far distant i would take home his son then but ten years of age and bring him up to the printing business this i accordingly performed sending him a few years to school before i took him into the office his mother carried on the business till he was grown up when i assisted him with an assortment of new types those of his father's 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 smallpox taken in the common way i long regretted bitterly and still regret that i had not given it to him by inoculation this i mentioned for the sake of parents who omit that operation on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it my example showing that the regret may be the same either way and that therefore the safer should be chosen our club the hyunto 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 number v's 12 we had from the beginning made it a rule to keep our institution a secret which was pretty well observed the intention was to avoid applications of improper persons for admittance some of whom perhaps we might find it difficult to refuse i was one of those who were against any addition to our number but instead of it made in writing a proposal that every member separately should endeavor to form a subordinate club with the same rules respecting queries etc and without informing them of the connection to the hyunto the advantages proposed were the improvement of so many more young citizens by the use of our institutions our better acquaintance with the general statements of the inhabitants on any occasion as the hyunto member might propose what queries we should desire and was to report that the hyunto what passed in his separate club the promotion of our particular interest in business by more extensive recommendation and the increase of our influence in public affairs and our power of doing good by spreading through the several clubs the sentiment of the hyunto this project was approved and every member undertooks 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 themselves and afforded us a good deal of amusement information and instruction besides answering in some considerable degree our views of influencing the public opinion on particular occasions of which I shall give some instances in course of time as they happen my first promotion was my being chosen in 1736 clerk of the general assembly this choice was made that year without opposition but the year following when I was again proposed the choice like that of the members being annual a new member made a long speech against me in order to favor some other candidate I was however chosen which was the most agreeable to me as besides the pay for the immediate services clerk the place gave me a better opportunity of keeping up an interest among the members which secured to me the business of printing the votes laws 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 however aim at gaining his favor by paying any servile respect to him but after some time took this other method having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book I wrote a note to him expressing my desire of perusing that book and requesting he would do me the favor of lending it to me for a few days he sent it immediately and I returned it in about a week with another note expressing strongly my sense of the favor when we next met in the house he spoke to me which he had never done before and with great civility and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions so that we became great friends and our friendship continued to his death this is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned which says he that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged and it shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove than to resent return and continue immacable proceeding in 1737 colonel spotwood late governor of Virginia and then postmaster general being dissatisfied with the conduct of his deputy in philadelphia respecting some negligence in rendering and in exactitude of his accounts took from him the commission and offered it to me I accepted it readily and found it a 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 competitors newspaper declined proportionately and I was satisfied without retaliating his refusal while postmaster to permit my papers being carried by the writers thus he suffered greatly from his neglect in new accounting and I mentioned 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 observing such a conduct is the most powerful of all recommendations to new employments and increase of business end of chapter 10 the autobiography of benjamin franklin chapter 11 this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org the autobiography of benjamin franklin edited by frank woodworth pine chapter 11 interest in public affairs I began now to turn my thoughts a little to public affairs beginning however with small matters the city watch was one of the first things that I conceived to want regulation it was managed by the constables of the respective wards in turn the constable warned a number of housekeepers to attend him for the night 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 often got such ragamuffins about him as a watch that respectable housekeepers did not choose to mix with walking the rounds too was often neglected and most of the nights spent in tippling I there upon wrote a paper to be read in tuto representing these irregularities but insisting more particularly on the inequality of the six shillings tax of the constables respecting the circumstances of those who paid it since a poor widow housekeeper all whose property to be guarded by the watch did not perhaps exceed the value of fifty pounds paid as much as the wealthiest merchant who had thousands of pounds worth of goods in his stores on the whole I proposed as a more effectual watch the hiring of proper men to serve constantly in that business and as a more equitable way of supporting the charge the levying of attacks that should be proportioned to the property this idea being approved by the junta was communicated to the other clubs but as a rising 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 junta 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 to 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 readily extinguishing of fires and mutual assistance in removing and securing of goods when in danger associates in this scheme were presently found amounting to 30 our articles of agreement obliged every member to keep always in good order and fit for use a certain number of leather buckets with strong bags and baskets for packing and transporting of goods which were to be brought to every fire and we agreed to meet once a month and spend the social evening together in discoursing and communicating such ideas as occurred to us upon the subjects of fires as might be useful in our conduct on such occasions the utility of this institution soon appeared and many more desiring to be admitted than we thought convenient for one company they were advised to form another which was accordingly done and this went on one new company being formed after another till they became so numerous as to include most of the inhabitants who were men of property and now at the time of my writing this though upwards of 50 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 a monthly meeting have been applied to the purchase of fire engines ladders firehooks 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 the 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 consumed in 1739 arriving among us from Ireland the Reverend Mr. Whitfield who had made himself remarkable there as an itinerant preacher he was at first permitted to preach in some of our churches but the clergy taking a dislike to him soon refused 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 not withstanding his common abuse of them by assuring them that they were naturally half beast and half devils it was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants first being thoughtless or indifferent about religion it seemed as if all the world were going religious so that one could not walk through the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street begin footnote george whitfield 1714 to 1770 a celebrated english clergyman and pulpit orator one of the founders of methodism and footnote and it being found inconvenient to assemble in the open air subject to its inclemancies the building of a house to meet in was no sooner proposed and persons appointed it to receive contributions but sufficient sums were soon received to procure the ground and erect the building which was 100 feet long and 70 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 and could have been expected both house and grounds were vested in trustees expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion who might desire to say something to the people at philadelphia the design in building not being to accommodate any particular sect but the inhabitants in general so that even if the mufti of constant noble were to send a missionary to preach muhammadism to us he would find a pulpit at his service begin footnote a part of the palace of west minster now forming the vestibule to the houses of parliament in london and footnote mr. whitfield 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 husband men accustomed to labor the only people fit for such an enterprise it was with families of broken shopkeepers 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 numbers leaving many helpless children unprovided for the site of their miserable situation inspired the benevolent heart of mr. whitfield 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 heroes of which i myself was an instant i did not disapprove of the design but as georgia was then destitute of materials and workmen and was proposed to send them from philadelphia at a great expense i thought it would have been better to have built the houses here and brought the children to it thus i advised but he was resolute in his first project rejected my council 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 pistols in gold as he proceeded i began to soften and concluded to give the coppers another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that and determined to give the silver and he finished so admirably that i emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish gold and all at this sermon there was 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 toward 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 application was unfortunately made to perhaps 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 hopkins and i would lend it the freely but not now for these seems to be out of thy right senses some of mr. woodfield's enemies affected it to support that he would apply these collections to his own private emilient 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 me thinks 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 never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were 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 philadelphia but knew not where he could lodge when there as he understood his old friend and host mr. bennesey 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 the kind offer for christ's sake i should not miss a reward and i returned don't let me be mistaken it was not for christ's sake but for your sake one of our common acquaintances to cautiously remarked that knowing it to be the custom of the saints when they receive any favor to shift the burden of the obligation from off their shoulders and place it in heaven i was contrived to fix it on earth the last time i saw mr. whitfield was in london when he consulted me about his orphan house concern and his purpose of appropriating 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 understood at a great distance especially as his auditors however numerous observed the most exact silence he preached one evening from the top of the courthouse 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 amongst 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 until i came near front street where some noise in that street obscured it imagining then a semicircle of which my distance would be the radius and that it were filled with auditors to each of whom i allowed two square feet i computed that he might well be heard by more than 30 000 thus reconciled me to the newspaper accounts of his having preached to 25 000 people in the fields and to the ancient histories of generals haranguing whole armies of which i 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 interested 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 advantage 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 advantage to his enemies unguarded expressions and even erroneous opinions delivered in preaching might have been afterward explained or qualified by supposing others that might have accompanied them or they might have been denied but littera scripta men a critics attacked his writing violently and with so much appearance of reason as to diminish the number of his vote trees 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 excellence as their enthusiastic admiration might wish him to have possessed my business it was now continually augmenting and my circumstances growing daily easier my newspaper having become very profitable as being for a time almost the only one in this and the neighboring provinces i experienced to the truth of the observation that after getting the first hundred pound it is more easy to get the second money itself being of a profitable nature the partnership at carolina having succeeded i was encouraged to engage in others and to promote several of my workmen who had behaved well by establishing them with printing houses in different colonies on the same terms with that in carolina most of them did well being enabled at the end of our term six years to purchase the types of me and go on working for themselves by which meant several families were raised partnerships often finishing quarrel 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 partnerships for whatever esteem partners may have for and confidence in each other at the time of the contract little jealousies and disgusts may arise with ideas of inequality in the care and burden of the business etc which are attended often with breach of friendship and of connection perhaps with lawsuits and other disagreeable consequences end of chapter 11 the autobiography of benjamin franklin chapter 12 this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org the autobiography of benjamin franklin edited by frank woodworth pine chapter 12 defense of the province i had on the whole abundant reason to be satisfied with my being established in pennsylvania there were however two things that i regretted there being no provision for defense nor for a complete education of youth no militia or 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 wild dormant i succeeded better than next year 1744 in proposing and establishing a philosophical 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 to us great danger and the labored and long continued endeavor of our governor thomas to prevail with our quicker 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 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 sudden and surprising effect i was called upon for the instrument of association and having settled the draft of it with a few friends i appointed a meeting of the citizens in the large building before mentioned the house was pretty full i had prepared a number of printed copies and provided pins and ink dispersed all over the room i harangued them a little on the subject read the paper and explained it and then distributed the copies which were eagerly signed not the least objection being made when the company separated and the papers were collected we found about 1200 hands and other copies being dispersed in the country the subscribers amounted at length to upwards of 10 000 these all furnished themselves as soon as they could with arms formed themselves into companies and regiments chose their officers and met every week to be instructed in the manual exercise and other parts of military discipline the women by subscription among themselves provided silk colors which they presented to the companies painted with different devices and mottos which i supplied the officers of the companies composing the philadelphia regiment being met chose me for their colonel but conceiving myself unfit i declined that station and recommended mr. laurence a fine person and a man of influence who was accordingly appointed i then proposed a lottery to defray the expense of building a battery below the town and furnishing it with canon it filled expeditiously and the battery was soon erected with merlin's being framed of logs and filled with earth we bought some old canon from boston but these not being sufficient we wrote to england for more soliciting at the same time our proprietaries for the assistance though without much expectation of obtaining it meanwhile colonel laurence william ellen ellen taylor esquire and myself were sent to new york by the associators commissioned to borrow some canon of governor clinton he first refused us preemptorily but at dinner with his council where there was great drinking of madera 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 naturally conceded 18 they were fine canon 18 pounders with their carriages which were soon transported and mounted on our battery where the associators kept a 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 governor and council they took me into confidence and i was consulted by them in every measure where in their concurrence was thought useful to the association calling in the aid of religion i proposed to them the proclaiming a fast to promote reformation and implore the blessing of heaven on our undertaking they 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 education in new england where a fast is proclaimed every year was here of some advantage i drew it in the accustomed to style it was translated into german printed in both languages and divulged through the province this gave the clergy of the different sex an opportunity of influencing their congregation to join in the association and it would probably have been general among all but quakers if the peace had not soon intervened begin footnote william penn's agents sought recruits for the colony of pennsylvania in the low countries of germany and there are still in eastern pennsylvania many germans inaccurately called pennsylvania dutch many of them use a germanized english end of footnote 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 the young gentleman who had likewise 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 goodwill 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 had 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 ask never refuse nor ever resign an office if they will have my office of clerk to dispose of to another they shall take it from me i will not by giving it up lose my right of some time or other making 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 which the house had long been harassed they might have been pleased if i would voluntarily have left them but they did not care to displace me on account merely of my zeal for the association and they could not well give another reason 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 my 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 supposed that we should encourage the scheme for building a battery by laying out the present stock then about 60 pounds in tickets of the lottery by our rules no money could be disposed of till the next meeting after the proposal the company consisted of 30 members of which 22 were quakers and eight only of other persuasions we ate punctuously attended the meetings 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 out voted us we must and should agreeably to the usage of all societies submit when the hour for business arrived and was moved to put to the vote he allowed we might then do it by the rules but as he could assure us that a number of members had intended to be present for the purpose of opposing it it would be but candid to allow a little time for their appearing 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 quicker members they told me there were eight of them assembled at a tavern just by and 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 should not call for their assistance if we could do without it as they're voting for such a measure might embroil 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 appeared at which he expressed great surprise and at the expiration of the hour we carried the resolution eight to one and as of the 22 quickers eight were ready to vote with us and thirteen by their absence manifested that they were not inclined to oppose the measure i afterward estimated the proportion of quickers sincerely against the 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 hand sixty pounds to be laid out in lottery tickets for the battery with directions to apply what prize 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 wartime 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 quickers that he did not expect their assistance 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 and there was no fighting but when the secretary went down to communicate 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 i being my servant why did the not order me to come down but he was willing enough that i should stay and help to fight the ship when they thought there was danger begin footnote james logan 1674 to 1751 came to america with william penn in 1699 and was the business agent for the penn family he bequathed his valuable library preserved at his county seat senton to the city of philadelphia end footnote my being many years in the assembly the majority of which were constantly quickers gave me frequent opportunities of seeing the embarrassment given them by their principle 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 compliance contrary to their principles hence a variety of evasions to avoid complying and modes of disguising the compliance when it became unavoidable 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 lewisburg and the government of new england 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 ingredient of war but they voted and aid to new england of 3 000 pounds to be put into the hands of the governor and appropriated it for the purchase of bread flour wheat or other grain some of the council desires 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 i understand very well their meaning other grain is gunpowder which he accordingly bought and they never objected to it it was an allusion to this fact that when in our fire company we feared the success of our proposal in favor of the lottery and i had said to my friend mr sing one of our members if we fail let us move the purchase of a fire engine with the money the quickers can have no objection to that and then if you nominate me and i you as a committee for that purpose ruled by a great gun which is certainly a fire engine 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 quicker suffered from having 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 mind easily get rid of reminds me of what i think a more prudent conduct in another sect among us that of the dunkers i was acquainted with one of its founders michael welfare soon after it appeared he complained to me that they were grievously collimated by the zealots of other persuasions and charged with the abominable principles and practices to which they were utter strangers i told him this had always been the case with new sex and that to put a stop to such abuse i imagined it might be well to publish the articles of their belief and the rules of their discipline he said it had been proposed among them but not agreed to for this reason when we were first drawn together as a society he said it had pleased god to enlighten our minds so far as to see some doctrines which we once esteemed to truce were errors and that others which we had esteemed errors were real truths from time to time he has been pleased to afford us further light and our principles have been improving and our errors diminishing now we are not sure that we are arrived at the end of this progression 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 confirmed by it and perhaps be unwilling to receive further improvement and our successors still more so as conceiving what we their elders and founders have 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 possession 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 Magistry 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 warming 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 demand to promote that demand I wrote and published pamphlet entitled an account of the new invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces wherein their construction and manner of operation is particularly explained their advantages above every other method of warming rooms demonstrated and all objections that had been raised against the use of them answered and obviated etc this pamphlet had a good effect governor Thomas was so pleased with the construction of this stove as described in it that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years but I declined it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions fees that as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours and thus we should do freely and generously begin footnote the franklin stove is still in use warwick furnace chester county pennsylvania across the shishko river from putts dam into footnote an iron monger in london however assumed 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 cut 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 end of chapter 12 the autobiography of benjamin frankland chapter 13 this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org the autobiography of benjamin franklin edited by frank woodworth pine chapter 13 public services and duties 1749 to 1753 peace being concluded and the association business therefore at an end I turned my thoughts again to the affair of establishing an academy the first step I took was to associate in design of a number of active friends to whom the schoonto furnished a good part the next was to write and publish a pamphlet entitled proposals relating to the education of youth in Pennsylvania this I distributed among the principal inhabitants gratis and as soon as I could suppose their minds a little prepared by the perusal of it I set on foot a subscription for opening and supporting an academy it was to be paid in quotas yearly for five years by so dividing it I judged the subscription might be larger and I believe it was so amounting to no less if I remember right than five thousand pounds in the introduction to these proposals I stated their publication not as an act of mine but of some public spirited gentlemen avoiding as much as I could according to my usual rule the presenting myself to the public as the author of any scheme for their benefit the subscribers to carry the project into immediate execution chose out of their numbers 24 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 begin footnote trench Francis uncle of Sir Philip Francis emigrated from England to Maryland to become attorney for Lord Baltimore he removed to Philadelphia and was attorney general of Pennsylvania from 1741 to 1755 he died in Philadelphia august 16th 1758 end footnote the scholars increasing fast the house was soon found too small and we were looking out for a piece of ground properly situated with intention to build when provenance drew to our way a large house already built which with a few alterations might well serve our purpose this was the building before mentioned erected by the hearers of mr. Whitfield 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 least 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 to fees one church of England man one Presbyterian one Baptist one Moravian etc those in case of vacancy by death were filled it by election from among the contributors the Moravian happened not to please his colleagues 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 by 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 have no sect at all which prevailed with them to choose me the enthusiasm which existed when the house was built had long since abated and its trustees had not been able to procure fresh contributions for paying the ground rent and discharging some of the 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 ceded to those of the academy the latter undertaking to discharge the debt to keep forever open in the building a large hall for occasional preachers according to the original intention and maintain a free school for the instruction of poor children writings were accordingly drawn and on paying the debts the trustees of the academy were put in possession of the premises and by dividing of 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 workmen purchasing materials and superintending the work fell upon me and I went through it the more cheerfully as it did not then interfere with my private business having the year before taken a very able 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 the partnership continued 18 years successfully for us both the trustees of the academy after a while were incorporated by a charter from the governor their funds were increased by contributions in britain and grants of land from the proprietaries to which the assembly had since made considerable addition and thus was established the present university of philadelphia I have been continued one of its trustees from the beginning now near 40 years and have had the very great pleasure of seeing a number of the youth who have received their education in it distinguished by their proven abilities serviceable in public stations and ornaments to their country begin footnote the institution was later called the university of pennsylvania in footnote 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 secure leisure during the rest of my life for philosophical studies and amusements I purchased all of dr. spence's apparatus who had come from england to lecture here and I proceeded in my electrical experiments with great illiquity but the public now considering me as a man of leisure laid hold of me for their purposes every part of our civil government and almost at the same time imposing some duty upon me the governor put me into the commission of the peace the corporation of the city chose me of the common council and soon after an alderman and the citizens at large chose me a burgess to represent them in assembly this latter station was 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 testimonies of the public good opinion and by me entirely unsolicited the office of justice of the peace I tried a little by attending a few courts and sitting on the bench to hear cases 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 being obliged to attend the higher duties of a legislature in the assembly my election to this trust was repeated every year for ten years without my ever asking any elector for his vote or signifying either directly or indirectly any desire of being chosen on taking my seat in the house my son was appointed their clerk the year following a treaty being 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 of 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 concluded very orderly and concluded to mutual satisfaction they then claimed and received the rum this was in the afternoon they were near one hundred men women and children and were lodged in temporary cabins built in the form of a square just without the town in the evening hearing a great noise among them the commissioners walked 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 fighting their dark colored bodies half naked seen only by the gloomy light of the bonfire running after and beating one another with fire brands 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 that disturbance they sent three of their old counselors to make their apology the order 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 be put to now when he made rum 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 improbable that rum may be the appointed means it has already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited the seacoast 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 endeavouring to procure subscriptions for it but the proposal being a novelty in america and at first not well understood he met but with small success the lengthy came to me with the complaint that he found there was no such thing as carrying a public spirited project through without my being concerned in it four 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 subscribe but say they will consider of it i inquire into the nature and probable utility of his scheme and received from him a very satisfactory explanation i not only subscribe to it myself but engaged heartily in the design of procuring subscriptions from others previously however to the solicitation i endeavour to prepare the minds of the people by writing on the subject in the newspapers which was my usual custom in such cases but which he had omitted the subscriptions afterward were more free and generous but beginning to flag i saw they would be insufficient without some assistance from the assembly and therefore proposed a petition for it which was done the country members did not at first relish the project they objected that it could only be serviceable to the city and therefore the citizens alone should be at the expense of it and they doubted whether the citizens themselves generally approved of it my allegation on the contrary that it met with such approbation as to leave no doubt of our being able to raise two thousand pounds by voluntary donations they considered as a most extravagant supposition and utterly impossible on this i formed my plan and asked leave to bring a bill for incorporating the contributions 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 would throw the bill out if they did not like it i drew it so as to make the important clause a conditioned one fees and be enacted by the authority of fore said that when the said contributions shall have met and chosen their managers and treasurer and shall have raised by their contributions a capital stock of blank value the yearly interest of which is to be applied to the accommodating of the sick poor in 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 furnishing of the same the 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 urge the conditional promise of the law as additional motive to give since every man's donation would be doubled thus the clause worked both ways the subscriptions 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 was 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 reverend Gilbert tenant 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 use of a congregation he had gathered among the Presbyterians who are originally disciples of Mr. Woodfield unwilling to make myself disagreeable to my fellow citizen by too frequent soliciting their contributions I absolutely refused he then desired I would furnish him with a list of names of persons I knew by experience to be generous and public spirited I thought it would be unbecoming in me after their kind compliance with my solicitations to mark them out to be worried by other beggars and therefore refused also to give him 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 or in some of them you may be mistaken he laughed and thanked me and said he would take my advice he did so for he asked of everybody 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 begin footnote Gilbert Tennant 1703 to 1764 came to America with his father Reverend William Tennant and taught for a time in the log college from which sprang the College of New Jersey and footnote our city though laid out with a beautiful regularity the streets large straight and crossing each other at right angles had the disgrace of suffering those streets to remain long unpaved and in wet weather bills of heavy carriages plowed them into a quagmire so that it was difficult to cross them and in dry weather the dust was offensive I had lived it near what was called the jersey market and saw with pain the inhabitants waiting in mud while purchasing their provisions a strip of ground down the middle of that market was at least paved with brick so that being once in the market they had firm footing but were often over shoes in dirt to get there by talking and writing on the subject I was at length instrumental in getting the street paved with some stone between the market and the bricked foot pavement that was on each side next to the houses this for some time gave an easy access to the market dry shot but the rest of the street not being paved where never a carriage came out of the mud upon the pavement it shook off and left its dirt upon it and it was soon covered with mire which was not removed the city as yet having no scavengers after some inquiry I found a poor industrious man who was willing to undertake keeping the pavement clean by sweeping it twice a week carrying off the dirt from before all the neighbors doors for the sum of six months per month to be paid by each house I then wrote and printed a paper setting forth the advantages to the neighborhood that might be obtained by this small expense the greater ease in keeping our houses clean so much dirt not being brought in by people's feet the benefit of 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 agreement to pay these six pence 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 thus raised a general desire to have all the streets paved and made the people more willing to submit to attacks 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 until I was gone and then with an alteration in the mode of assessment which I thought not for the better but with an additional provision for lighting as well as paving the streets which was a great improvement it was by a private person the late Mr. John Clifton is giving a sample of the utility of lamps by placing one at his door that the people were first impressed with the idea of enlightening all the city the honor of this public benefit has also been ascribed to me but it belongs truly to that gentleman 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 we 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 stroke on one of them would demolish it and render it totally useless I therefore suggested the composing them of four flat panes with a long funnel above to draw up the smoke and crevices admitting air below to facilitate the ascent of the smoke by this means they were kept clean and did not grow dark in a few hours as the London lamps do but continued bright till morning and an accidental stroke would generally break but a single pane easily repaired I have sometimes wondered that the londoners did not from the effect holes in the bottom of the globe lamps used at Vauxhall have in keeping them clean learned to have such holes in their street lamps but these holes being made for another purpose these 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 had been lit a few hours the streets of London were very poorly illuminated begin foot not Vauxhall Gardens once a popular and fashionable london resort situated on the Thames above Lambeth the gardens were closed in 1859 but they will always be remembered because of Sir Roger Decovery's visit to them in the spectator and from the description in Smollett's Humphrey Clinker and Thackeray's Vanity Fair end of footnote the mention of these improvements puts me in mind of one I proposed when in London to Dr. Fathergill 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 the 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 clear by poor people with brooms it was with great labour 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 and just come out of a fit of sickness I asked who employed her to sweep there she said nobody but I am very poor and in distress and I sweeps before gentle folks's doors and hopes they will give me something I bit 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 away so that pavement and even the kennel were perfectly clean I then judged that if that feeble woman could 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 the street runs from the sides and meets in the middle it forms their current 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 west minster 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 their several streets and lanes of his round that they be furnished with rooms and other proper instruments for these purposes to be kept at their respective stands ready to furnish the poor people they may employ in the service that in the dry summer months the dust will all be swept up into heaps in proper distances before the shops and windows of houses are usually open when the scavengers with close covered carts shall also carry it away that the mud when raked up be not left in heaps to be spread abroad again by the wheels of carriages and traveling 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 thereby it will become much lighter water making the greatest part of its weight and these bodies of carts to be placed at convenient distances and the mud brought to them in wheelbarrows by remaining their placed till the mud is drained and the horses brought to draw them away i have since had doubts of the practicality 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 of 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 practicable in the 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 inhabitants of london choosing voluntarily to live much by candlelight 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 mining 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 greater number of the instances in a populous city and its frequent repetitions give it weight and consequence perhaps they will not censor very severely those who bestow some attention to affairs of this seemingly low nature human felicity is produced 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 escapes 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 pages hoping that they may afford hints which sometime 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 comptroller in regulating several offices and bringing the offices 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 Britain we were to have six hundred pounds a year between us if we could make that sum out of the profits of the office to do this a variety of improvements were necessary some of these were inevitably at first expensive so that in the first four years the office became above nine hundred pounds in debt to us but it soon after began to repay us and before I was displaced by a freak of the ministers 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 Ireland since that imprudent transaction they have received from it not one farthing the business of the post office occasioned by taking a journey this year to new england where the college of Cambridge of their own motion presented me with a 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 discoveries in the electric branch of natural philosophy end of chapter 13 the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin chapter 14 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin edited by Frank Woodworth Pine chapter 14 Albany plan of union in 1754 war with France being again apprehended a congress of commissioners from the different colonies was by an order of the lords of trade to be assembled at Albany they are 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 requested they should furnish proper presence 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 Pennsylvania the house approved the nomination and provided the goods for the present and though they did not much like treating out of the provinces and we met the other commissioners at Albany about the middle of June in our way further 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 being fortified by their approbation I ventured to lay it before the congress it then appeared that several of the commissioners had formed plans of the same kind a previous question was first taken whether a union should be established which passed in the affirmative unanimously a committee 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 reported 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 difficulties were started but at length they were all overcome and the plan was unanimously agreed to and copies ordered to be transmitted to the board of trade and to the assemblies of the several provinces its fate was singular the assemblies did not adopt it as they all thought there was too much prerogative in it and in england it was judged to have too much of the democratic the board of trade therefore did not approve of it nor recommended for the approbation of his majesty but another scheme was formed supposed to answer 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 afterward to be refunded by an active parliament laying attacks on america my plan with my reasons in support of it is to be found among the political papers that are printed being the winter following in boston i had much conversation with governor surely 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 makes me suspect that it was really a true medium and i am still of opinion it would have been happy for both sides the water if it had been adopted the colonies 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 measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom but forced by the occasion the governor of pennsylvania in sending it down to the assembly expressed his approbation of the plan as appearing 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 however 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 modification end of chapter 14 the autobiography of benjamin frankland chapter 15 this is a libre vox recording all libre vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libre vox.org the autobiography of benjamin frankland edited by frank woodworth pine chapter 15 quarrels with the proprietary governors in my journey to boston this year i met at new york with our new governor mr morris just arrived there from england 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 disputes 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 council i promise you i will if possible avoid them he had some reason for loving to dispute being eloquent an accurate sophister and therefore generally successful in argumentive conversation he had been brought up to it from a boy his father as i have heard accustomed 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 observation these disputing contradicting and confuting people 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 philadelphia and idah boston in returning i met at new york with the votes of the assembly by which it appeared that notwithstanding his promise to me he and the 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 answers as well as his messages were often tart and sometimes indecently abusive and as he knew i wrote for the assembly one might have imagined that when we met we could hardly avoid cutting throats but he was so good nature to 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 it not you better sell them the proprietor would give you a good price the governor says i has not yet blackened them enough he indeed had labored hard to blacken the assembly in all his messages but they wiped off his coloring as fast as he laid it on them and placed it in return thick upon his own face so that finding he was likely to be negrified himself he as well as mr. hamilton grew tired of the contest and quitted the government these public quarrels were all at the bottom owing to the proprietaries our hereditary governors who when any expense was to be incurred for the defense of their province with incredible 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 these instructions how that was brought about i shall show here after 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 matter commenced with france the government of massachusetts bay projected an attack upon crown point and sent mr quinsey to pennsylvania and mr pauno afterward governor pauno to new york to solicit assistance as i was in the assembly knew hits temper and was mr quinsey's countryman he applied to me for my influence and assistance i dictated his address to them which was well received they voted in eight of ten thousand pounds to be laid out in provisions but the governor refusing this assent to their bill which included this with other sums granted for the use of the crown unless a clause were inserted exempting the proprietary estate from bearing any part of the tax that would be necessary the assembly though very desirous of making their grant to new england effectual were at a loss how to accomplish it mr quinsey 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 order of 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 and therefore i proposed that the order should be payable in a year and to bear an interest of five percent with these orders i suppose the provisions might easily be purchased the assembly with very little hesitation adopted the proposal the orders were immediately printed and i was one of the committee directed to a sign and dispose of them the funds for paying them was the interest of all the paper currency then extant in the province upon loan together with the revenue arising from the excise which being known to be more than sufficient they obtained instant credit and were not only received in payment for the provisions but many moneyed people who had cash lying by them vested in those orders which they found advantageous as they were 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 the important affair was by my means completed mr quincey returned thanks to the assembly in a handsome memorial went home highly pleased with this success of his embassy and ever after bore for me the most cordial and affectionate friendship end of chapter 15 the autobiography of benjamin franklin chapter 16 this is a libre vox recording all libre vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libre vox.org the autobiography of benjamin franklin edited by frank woodworth pine chapter 16 brattick's expedition 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 to military and feel their own strength suspicions and jealousies at this time being entertained of them sent over general brattick with two regiments of regular english troops for that purpose he landed at alexandria in virginia and thence marched to fredrick town 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 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 dispatches between him and the government of the several provinces with whom he must necessarily have continual correspondence and of which they posed to pay the expense my son accompanied me on this journey we found the general at fredrick town 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 opportunity 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 25 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 150 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 a 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 accordingly prepared immediately what those terms were will appear in the advertisement i published as soon as i arrived at Lancaster which being from the great and sudden effected produced a piece of some curiosity i shall insert it at length as follows advertisement Lancaster April 26 1755 whereas 150 wagons with four horses to each wagon and 1500 saddle or pack horses are wanted for the service of his majesty's forces now about to rendezvous at will'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 wednesday 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 fees one that there shall be paid for each wagon with four good horses and a driver 15 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 18 pence per diem two that the pay commence from the time of their joining the forces at will's creek which must be on or before the 29th of may ensuing and that a reasonable allowance be paid over and above for the time necessary for their traveling to will's creek and home again after their discharge three each wagon and team and every saddle or pack horse is to be valued by indifferent persons chosen between me and the owner and in case of the loss of any wagons team or other horse in the service the price accordingly to such valuation is to be allowed and paid for 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 required 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 five 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 to be otherwise employed and in conducting or taking care of their carriages or horses six all oats indian corn or other forage that wagons or horses bring to the camp more than is necessary 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 be franklin to the inhabitants of the counties of Lancaster york and cumberland friends and countrymen being occasionally at the camp of fredrick a few days since i found the general and officers extremely exasperated on account of they're not being supplied with horses and carriages which had been expected from this province as most able to furnish them but though 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 inhabitants and therefore more willingly took the trouble of trying first what might be done by fair and equitable means the people of these back countries have lately complained to the assembly that a sufficient currency was 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 120 days the hire of these wagons and horses will amount to upward of 30 000 pounds which will be paid to you in silver and gold of the king's money the service will be light and easy for the army will scarce march above 12 miles per day and the wagons and baggage horses as they carry those things that are absolutely necessary for 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 if you are really as i believe you are good and loyal subjects to his majesty you may now do a most acceptable service and make it easy for yourselves for three or four of such as cannot separately spare from the business of their plantations a wagon and four horses and a driver may do it together one furnishing the wagon another one or two horses and another the driver and divide the pay proportionally between you but if you do not this service to your king and country voluntarily when such good pay and reasonable terms are offered you your loyalty will be strongly suspected the king's business must be done so many brave troops come so far for your defense must not stand idle through your backwardness 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 recompense where you can find it and your case perhaps 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 14 days and i suppose sir john st clare the hussar with a body of soldiers will immediately enter the province for the purpose which i shall be sorry to hear because i am very sincerely and truly your friend and well-wisher be franklin i received of the general about 800 pounds to be dispersed in advance money to the wagon owners etc but the sum being insufficient i advanced upward of 200 pounds more and in two weeks the 150 wagons with 259 carriage horses were on the march for the camp the advertisement promised payment according to the valuation in case any wagon or horse should be lost the owners however alleging they did not know general braddock or what dependence might be had on his promise insisted on my bond for the performance which i accordingly gave them while i was at the camp something one evening with the officers of colonel dunbar's regiment he represented it 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 for so long a march through a wilderness where nothing was to be purchased i commiserated their care and resolved to endeavor procuring them some relief i said nothing however to him of my intention but wrote the next morning to the committee of the assembly who had the disposition of some public money warmly recommending the case of these officers to their consideration and proposing that a present should be sent them of necessaries and refreshments my son who had some experience of a camp life and of its wants drew up a list for me which i enclosed in my letter the committee approved and used such diligence that conducted by my son the stores arrived at the camp as soon as the wagons they consisted of 20 parcels each containing six pounds of sugarloaf six pounds of good muscovado one pound good green tea one pound good bohe adu six pounds loaf sugar six pounds good muscovado one pound good green tea one pound good bohe six pounds good ground coffee six pounds chocolate one to two hundred weight best white biscuit one to two pounds pepper one quart best white wine vinegar one glossed cheese one cake containing 20 pounds good butter two dozen old madera wine two gallons jamaican spirits one bottle flower of mustard two well-cured hams one to two dozen dried tongues six pounds rice six pounds of raisins these 20 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 kernels of both regiments in the most grateful terms the general two was highly satisfied with my conduct in procuring him the wagons etc and readily paid my account of disbursements thanking me repeatedly and requesting my further assistance in sending provisions after him i undertook this 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 i sent him an account it came to his hands luckily for me a few days before the battle and he returned to me immediately in order on the paymaster for the round sum of one thousand pounds leaving the remainder to the next account i considered this payment as good luck having never been able to obtain that remainder of which more hereafter the 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 to mean a one of both americans and indians george crohan our indian interpreter joined him on his march with one hundred of those people who might have been of great use to his army as guides scouts etc if he had treated them kindly but he slighted and neglected him and they gradually left him in conversation with him one day he was giving me some account of his intended progress after taking fort decaying says he i am to proceed to niagra and having taken that to fontanac if the season will allow me and i suppose it will for ducane can hardly retain me above three or four days and i see nothing that can obstruct my march to niagra having before revolved in my mind the long line his army must take in the 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 1500 french who invaded the ericoy country i had 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 ducane 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 and executing them and the slender line near four miles long which your army must make and 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 with 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 an eruption till within nine miles of the place and then when more in a body or it had just passed river where the front had halted till all were come over and in a more open part of the woods than any it had attacked its advanced guard by 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 his troops up to their assistance which was done in great confusion though wagons baggage and cattle and presently the fire came upon their flank the officers being on horseback were more easily distinguished picked out as marks and fell very fast and the soldiers 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 wagoners took each horse out of its team and scampered their example was immediately followed by others so that all the wagons provisions artillery and stores were left to the enemy the general being wounded was brought off with difficulty his secretary mr. surely was killed by his side and out of 86 officers 63 were killed or wounded and 714 men killed out of the 1100 these 1100 had been picked men from the whole army the rest had been left behind with colonel Dunbar who was to follow with the heavier part of the stores provisions and baggage the 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 1000 men and the enemy who had beaten braddock did not at most exceed 400 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 settlements and less lumber to remove he was there met with requests from the governors of Virginia Maryland and Pennsylvania that he should post his troops on the frontier 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 power of British regulars had not been well founded begin footnote other accounts of this expedition and defeat may be found in fisk's washington and his country or lodges george washington volume one and footnote in the first march to from their landing till they got beyond the settlements they had plundered and stripped the inhabitants totally ruining some poor families besides insulting abusing and confining the people if they remonstrated this was enough to put us out of conceit of such defenders if we had really wanted any how different was the conduct of our French friends in 1781 who during a march through the most inhabited part of our country from Rhode Island to Virginia near 700 miles occasioned not the smallest complaint for the loss of a pig a chicken or even an apple captain or me who was one of the generals aged 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 that he was silent again the following day saying only at last we shall better know how to deal with them another time and died in a few minutes after the secretary's papers with all the general's orders instructions and correspondence falling into the enemy's hands they selected and translated into French a number of 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 Hurford then minister to France and afterward to general Conway when secretary of state told me he had seen among the papers in that office letters from Braddock highly recommending me but the expedition having been unfortunate my service it seems was not thought of much value for those recommendations were never of any use to me as to rewards for myself 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 done bar 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 in 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 where 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 laws and disappointment as soon as the loss of the wagons and horses was generally known all the owners came upon me for the valuation which I had given bond to pay the demands gave me a great deal of trouble my acquainting them that the money was ready in the pay master's hands but that orders for paying 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 received 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 20 000 pound which to pay would have ruined me before we had the news of this defeat the two 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 when we knew we should have occasion to rejoice they seemed surprised that I did not immediately comply with their approval why the devil 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 I 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 dr bond on some other occasion afterward said that he did not like franklin's forebodings governor morris who 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 defense of the province without taxing among others the proprietary estates and had rejected all their bills for not having such an exempting clause now redoubled his attacks with more hope of success the danger and necessity being greater the assembly however continued firm believing they had justice on their side and that it would be giving up an essential right if they suffered the governor to amend their money bills and one of the last indeed which was for granting 50 000 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 accepted 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 receiver general to add 5000 pounds of their money to whatever some might be given by the assembly for such purpose 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 but by this act i was appointed one of the commissioners for disposing of the money 60 000 pounds i had been actively modeling the bill and procuring its passage and had at the same time drawn a bill for establishing and disciplining a volunteer 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 objections i could think of for such a militia which was printed and had as i thought great effect end of chapter 16 the autobiography of benjamin franklin chapter 17 this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org the autobiography of benjamin franklin edited by frank woodworth pine chapter 17 franklin's defense of the frontier 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 northwestern 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 camp and of great use to me the indians had burned kanadanhut a village settled by the morovians 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 destruction of kanadanhut 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 the 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 springenberg 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 scrupulous 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 principal 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 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 the business of building forts i sent one detachment toward the menacing 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 gnadenhood where a fort was thought more immediately necessary the morovians 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 kettle i gave them each a gun with suitable ammunition we had not marched many miles before beyond the 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 were not attacked in our march for our arms were of the most ordinary sort and our men could not keep their gunlocks right the indians are dexterous in contrivances 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 began footnote flintlock guns discharged by means of a spark struck from flint and steel into powder priming in an open pan end footnote the next day being fair we continued our march and arrived at the desolate guna den hut there was a sawmill near round which were left several piles of boards with which we soon hutted ourselves an operation the more necessary at the inclement season as we had no tents our first work was to bury more effectively the dead we found there who were half interred by the country people the next morning our fort was planned and marked out the circumference measuring 454 feet which would require as many palisades to be made of trees one with another of a foot diameter each our axes of which we had 70 were immediately set to work to cut down trees and our men being dexterous in the use of them great dispatch was made seeing the trees fall so fast i had the curiosity to look at my watch when two men began to cut at a pine in six minutes they had it upon the ground and i found it a 14 inches diameter each pine made three palisades of 18 feet long pointed at one end while these were prepared 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 taken off and the four and hind wheels separated by taking out the pin which united the two parts of the perch we had 10 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 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 were within hearing that we had such pieces and thus our fort if such a magnificent name may be given to so miserable a stockade was finished 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 employed they are best contented for on the days they worked they were good-natured and cheerful and with the conscientiousness of having done a good day's work they spent the evening jolly 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 they had done everything and there was nothing further to employ them about oh says he make them scour the anchor this kind of fort however contemptible is a sufficient defense against indians who have no cannon finding ourselves now posted securely and having a place to retreat to on occasion we ventured out in parties to scour the adjacent country we met with no indians but we found places on the neighboring hills where they had lain to watch our proceedings there was an art in their contrivance of those places that seemed worth mentioning it's being winter a fire was necessary for them but a common fire on the surface of the ground would by its light have discovered their positions at a distance they had therefore dug holes in the ground around three feet diameter and somewhat deeper we saw where they had with their hatches cut off the charcoal from the sides of burnt logs lying in the woods with these coals they made small fires in the bottoms of the holes and we observed among the weeds and grass the prints of their bodies made by their laying 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 discover 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 prospect of advantage we had for our chaplain azela's presbyterian minister mr beady who complained to me that the men did not generally attend his prayers and exhortations when they enlisted they were promised besides pay and provisions a gala of roma day which was punctually served out to them half in the morning and the other half in the evening and i observed they were punctual in attending to receive it upon which i said to mr beady it is perhaps below the dignity 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 nonattendance on divine service i had hardly finished this business and got my fort well stored with provisions when i received the letter from the governor acquainting me that he had called the assembly and wished my attendance there if the posture of affairs on the frontier 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 now being completed with the inhabitants contented to remain on their farms under that protection i resolved to return the more willingly as a new england officer colonel chappan experienced in indian war being on 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 officer who by his skill in military affairs was much more fit to command them than myself and giving them a little exhortation drew 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 lodgings on the floor of our hut at kanagan hut wrapped only in a blanket or two while at bethlehem i inquired a little into the practice of the morovians some of them had accompanied me and all were very kind to me i found they worked for a common stock eight at common tables and slept in common dormitories great numbers together in the dormitories i observed loopholes 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 organs being accompanied with violins hot boys 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 conducted 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 and not allowed sufficient exercise i inquired concerning the morovian 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 governed the young women as these elders of the different 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 for 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 the parties some of them may chance to be very unhappy and so they may answered my informer if you let the partners 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 themselves 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 described much of those endeavors i had had the vanity to ascribe all to my dialogue however not knowing but what 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 forgot how many companies we had but we paraded around 1200 well-looking men with a company of artillery who had been furnished with six brass field pieces which they had become so expert in the use of as to fire 12 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 the short time of my colonel ship being about to set on a journey to virginia the officers of my regiment took it to their heads that it would be proper for them to escort me out of town as far as the lower ferry just as i was getting on horseback they came to my door between 30 and 40 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 wrote 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 within the province nor to any of his governors and he said it was only proper to princes of the blood royal which may it be true for ought i know who was and still am ignorant of the etiquette of such cases this silly affair however increased their anchor against me which was before not a little on account of my conduct in the assembly respecting the exemption of his estates from taxation which i had always opposed very warmly and not without severe reflection on his meanness and injustice of contending for it he accused me to the ministry as being the great obstacles to the king's service preventing by my influence in the house the proper form of the bills for raising money and he insisted 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 sir edward falkner the postmaster general to deprive me of my office but it had no other effect than to procure from sir everids a general admonition notwithstanding the continual wrangle between the governor and the house in which i as a member had so large a share there still subsisted a civil intercourse between the gentleman and myself and we never had any personal difference i have sometimes since thought that his little or no resentment against me for the answers he was known i drew up to his messages might be the effect of professional habit and that being bred a lawyer he might consider us both as merely advocates for contending clients in a suit he for the proprietaries and i for the assembly he would 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 baratix army with provisions and when the shocking news arrived of his defeat the governor sent in haste for me to consult with him on measures for preventing the destruction 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 frontier 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 to me undertake the conduct of such an expedition with provincial troops for the reduction of fort ducane dunbar and his men being otherwise employed 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 popularity would facilitate the raising of the men and my influence in the assembly the grant of money to pay for them and that perhaps without taxing the proprietary estates finding me not as forward to engage as he expected the project was dropped and he soon after left the government being superseded by captain denny end of chapter 17 the autobiography of benjamin franklin chapter 18 this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org the autobiography of benjamin franklin edited by frank woodworth arne chapter 18 scientific experiments before i proceed in relating the part i had in public affairs under the 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 doctor 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 repeating what i had seen at boston and by such practice acquired 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 begin footnote the royal society of london for improving natural knowledge was founded in 1660 and holds the foremost place among english societies for the advancement of science end footnote to divide a little of 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 kennes lee 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 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 attended and gave great satisfaction and after some time he went through the colonies exhibiting them in every capital town and picked up some money in the west indies indeed it was with difficulty 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 at 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 kennes lee on the sameness of lightning with electricity i sent to dr mitchell 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 fathergill 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 fathergill wrote the preface cave it seems judged rightly for his profit for by the additions that arrived afterwards they swelled to a quattro volume which has had five additions and cost him nothing for copy money it was however sometime 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 mishor de la barred to translate them into french and they were printed at paris the publication offended the abbe preceptor of the natural philosophy to the royal family and an able experimenter who had formed and published a theory of electricity which then had the general vogue he could not at first believe that such a work came from america and said it must have been fabricated by his enemies at paris to decry his system afterwards having been assured that there really existed such a person as franklin that philadelphia which he had doubted he wrote and published a volume of letters chiefly addressed to me defending his theory and denying the verity of my experiments and of the position reduced from them i once proposed answering the abbey and actually began the answer but on consideration that my writings contained a description of experiments which anyone might repeat and verify and if not to be verified it could not be defeated or of observations offered as conjectures and not delivered dogmatically therefore not laying me under any obligation to defend them and reflecting that the dispute between two persons writing in different languages might be lengthened greatly by mistranslations and hence misconceptions of one another's meaning much of one of the abbey'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 mishir nale and the event gave me no cause to repeat my silence for my friend mishir le roi of the royal academy of sciences took up my cause and refuted him my book was translated into italian german and latin languages and the doctrine it contained was by degrees universally adopted by the philosophers of europe in preference to that of the abbey so that he lived to see himself the last of his sect except mishir b of paris his immediate disciple what gave my book the more sudden and general celebrity was the success of one of its proposed experiments made by mishir delabard and delor at marley for drawing lightning from the clouds this engaged the public attention everywhere mishir delor who had an apparatus for experimental philosophy and lectured at the branch of science undertook to repeat what he called the philadelphia 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 narrative with an account of that capital experiment nor of the infinite pleasure i received in the process 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 right an english physician when at paris wrote to a friend who was of the royal society an account of the high esteem my experiments were in among the learned abroad and of their wonder that my writings had been so little noticed in england the society on this resumed the consideration of the letters that had been read to them and the celebrated dr watson drew up a summary account of them and of all i had afterwards sent to england on the subject which he accompanied with some praise of the writer this summary was then printed in the transactions and some members of the society in london particularly the very ingenious mr canton having verified the experiment of producing lightning from the clouds by a pointed rod had acquainted them with the success they soon made me more than a man's for the slight with which they had before treated me without my having made any application for that honor they chose me a member and voted that 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 seventeen fifty three the delivery of which was accompanied by a very handsome speech of the president lord macklefield where i was highly honored begin footnote sir godfrey copley an english baronet died in seventeen oh nine donator of a fund of one hundred pounds in trust for the royal society of london for improving natural knowledge end footnote end of chapter eighteen the autobiography of benjamin franklin chapter nineteen this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org the autobiography of benjamin franklin edited by frank woodward pain chapter nineteen an agent of pennsylvania in london 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 by the city he accompanied it with very polite expressions of his esteem for me having as he said been long acquainted with my character after dinner when the company as was customary at that time were engaged in drinking he took me aside into another room and acquainted me that he had been advised by his 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 of his administration easy that he therefore desired of all things to have a good understanding with me and he begged me to be assured of his readiness on all occasions to render me every service that might be in his power he said much to me also of the proprietors good disposition towards the province and of the advantage it might be to us all and to me in particular if the opposition that had been so long continued to his measures was dropped and harmony restored between him and the people in effecting which it was thought no one could be more serviceable than myself and i might depend on adequate acknowledgments and recompenses etc etc the drinkers finding we did not return immediately to the table sent us a decanner of madera 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 unnecessary to me and that being a member of the assembly i could not possibly accept of any that however i had no personal enmity to the proprietary and that whatever 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 which i was much obliged to him the governor for his profession of regard to me 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 unfortunate instructions his predecessor had been hampered with on this he did not then explain himself but when he afterward came to do business with the assembly they appeared again the disputes were renewed and i was as active as ever in the opposition being the penman first of the request to have a communication of the instructions and then of the remarks upon them which may be found in the votes of the time and in the historical review i afterward published but between us personally no enmity arose we were often together he was a man of letters had seen much of the world and was very entertaining and pleasing in conversation he gave me the first information that my old friend jason randoff was still alive that he was esteemed one of the best political writers in england and been employed in the dispute between prince fredrick and the king and had obtained a pension of 300 a year that his reputation was indeed small as a poet pope having damned his poetry in the duncan aid but his prose was thought as good as any man begin footnote quarrel between george the second and his son fredrick prince of wales who died before his father a satirical poem by alexander pope directed against various contemporary writers end of footnote the assembly finally finding the proprietary obstinately persistent in menacing their deputies and with instructions inconsistent not only with the privileges of the people but with the service of the crown resolved to petition the king against them and appointed me their agent to go over to england to present and support the petition the house had set up a bill to the governor granting a sum of 60 000 pounds for the king's use 10 000 pounds of which was subject to the orders of the then general lord laudan which the governor absolutely refused to pass in compliance with his instructions i agreed with captain morris of the packet at new york for my passage and my stores were put on board when lord laudan arrived at philadelphia expressly as he told me to endeavor an accommodation between the governor and the 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 behalf of the assembly i urged all various arguments that may be found in the public papers of that time which were of my writing and were 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 disobeyed yet seemed not unwilling to hazard himself if lord laudan would advise it this his lord ship 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 the defense ourselves they must remain exposed to the enemy i acquainted the house with what had been passed and presenting them with a set of resolutions i had drawn up declaring our rights and that we did not relinquish our claim to those rights but only suspended the exercise of them on this occasion through force against which we protested they had length agreed to drop that bill and frame another comfortable to the proprietary instructions this of course the governor passed and i was then at liberty to proceed on my voyage but in the meantime the packet had sailed with my sea stores which was some loss to me and my only recompense was his lord ship's thanks for my service all the credit 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 was to sail very soon i'd 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 and through a note that if you are there by monday morning you will 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 information 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 delayed for the generals letters which were always to be ready tomorrow 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 the 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 at being wartime 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 that he must needs right abundantly going myself one morning to pay my respects i found in his anti chamber 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 tomorrow at nine for the general's answer to the governor and should set off immediately i put my letters into his hand that 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 passed for his lordship's letter and it is not yet ready is it possible when he is so great a writer for i see him constantly at his escritor yes says innis but he is like st george on the signs always on horseback and never rides on this observation of the messenger was it seems well founded for when in england i understood that mr pit gave it as one reason for removing this general and sending generals amherst and wolf that the minister never heard from him and could not know what he was doing in footnote william pit first earl of chatham 1708 to 1778 a great english statesman in orator under his able administration england won canada from france he was a friend of america at the time of our revolution into footnote this daily expectation of sailing and all the three packets going down to sandy hook to join the fleet there the passengers thought it best to be on board lest by a sudden order the ship should sail and they be left behind there if i remember right we were about six weeks consuming our c stores and obliged to procure more at the length the fleet sailed the general in all his army on board bound to luisberg with the intent to besiege and take that fortress all the packet boats and 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 carrying them with him to halifax where he stayed some time to exercise the man in sham attacks upon sham forts then altered his mind as to besieging luisberg and returned to new york with all his troops together with the two packets of 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 commanded 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 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 tomorrow so he never obtained leave though detained afterwards from day to day during full three months i saw also in london one of bonnell's passengers who was sowing raged 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 have not heard 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 entrusted 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 surely on whom the command 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 beyond conception for though surely was not a bred soldier he was sensible and sagacious in himself and attentive to good advice from others capable of forming judicious plan and quick and active in carrying them to execution loudon 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 contractors 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 begin footnote this relation illustrates the corruption that characterized english public life in the 18th century it was gradually overcome in the early part of the next century in footnote surely 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 entertainment given by the city of new york to lord lodin on his taking upon him the command surely 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 surely perceiving it as i sat by him i said have they given you sir too low a seat no matter says he mr franklin i find a low seat the easiest while i was as a forementioned detained at new york i received all the accounts of my provisions etc that i had furnished dramatic 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 louden desiring to be paid the balance he caused them to be regularly 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 pay master 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 predecessor and you says he went 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 in 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 advanced as i charged no commission for my service sir says he you must not think of persuading us that you are no gainer we understand better those affairs and know that everyone 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 learned that immense fortunes are often made in such employment 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 the sea she proved the dullest of 96 sail to his no small mortifications 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 off and stand as near the instant staff as possible we were passengers included about 40 persons while we stood there the ship mended her pace and soon left her neighbor far beyond which proved clearly that our captain suspected that she was loaded too much by the head the casks of water it seemed had been all placed forward these were therefore ordered to be moved further aft on which the ship recovered her character and proved the best sailor in the fleet the captain said he had once gone at the rate of 13 knots which is accounted 13 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 there upon examined rigorously the log line and being satisfied with it he determined to throw the log himself accordingly some days after when the wind blew very fair and fresh and the captain of the packet ludwig said he believed she then went at the rate of 13 knots kennedy made the experiment and owed his wager lost again footnote a log line is a piece of wood shaped and weighted so as to keep it stable within the water this is attached to line not at regular distances by these devices it is possible to tell the speed of a ship and footnote the above fact i give for the sake of the following observation it has been remarked as an imperfection in the art of shipbuilding that it can never be known till she has tried whether a new ship will or will not be a good sailor for that the model of a good sailing ship has been exactly followed in a new one which has proved on the contrary remarkably dull i apprehend that this may barely 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 captain shall sail better or worse than win 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 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 commanded 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 the best dimensions and properest place for the masts then the form and quantity of sails and their position as the wind may be and lastly the disposition of the lading this is an age of experiments and i think a set of accurately made and combined would be of great use i am persuaded therefore that ere long some ingenious philosopher will undertake it to whom i wish success we were several times chased in our passage but out sailed everything and in 30 days had soundings we had a good observation and the captain judged himself so near to our port felmouth 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 that night might escape the notice of the enemy's privateers who often cruised near the entrance of the channel accordingly all the sail was set and that we could possibly make and the wind being very fresh and fair it went right before it and it made great way the captain after his observation shaped his course as he thought so as to pass wide of the shillie aisles but it seems there is sometimes a strong in draft setting up st george's channel which deceived seaman and caused the loss of a sir collarsley shovels squadron this in draft was probably the cause of what happened to us we had a watchman placed on the bow to whom they often called look well out before thee and he has often answered i i 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 which had been hid by the stubbing 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 cartwheel it was midnight and our captain fast asleep but captain kennedy jumped upon deck and seeing the danger ordered the ship to wear round all sails standing and operation dangerous to the masts but it carried us clear and we escaped shipwreck for we were running right upon the rocks on which the lighthouse was erected thus deliverance impressed me strongly with the utility of lighthouses and made me resolve to encourage the building 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 site about nine o'clock the fog began to rise and seemed to be lifted up from the water like a curtain at a playhouse discovering underneath the town of foulmouth the vessels in its harbor and the fields that surrounded it there was a most pleasing spectacle to those who had been so long without 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 stone hinge on salisbury plain and lord pembroke's house and the gardens with his very curious antiques at wilton we arrived in london the 27th of july 1757 as soon as i was settled in a lodging mr charles had provided for me i went to visit dr fathergill to whom i was strongly recommended and whose counsel respecting my proceedings i was advised to obtain he was against an immediate 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 halsbury 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 hansbury called for me and took me in his carriage to the noblemans who received me with great civility and after some questions respecting the president state of affairs in america and discourse thereupon he said to me you americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution you contend that the king's instructions to his governors are not laws and think yourselves at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion but those instructions 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 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 law of the land for the king is the legislator of the colonies i told his lordship that this was new doctrine to me i had always understood from our charters that our laws were to be made by our assemblies to present it indeed to the king for his royal assent but 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 20 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 begin footnote this whole passage shows how hopelessly divergent were the english and american views on the relations between the mother country and her colonies grenville here made clear that the americans were to have no voice in making or amending their laws parliament and the king were to have absolute power over the colonies no wonder franklin was alarmed by this new doctrine with his keen insight into human nature and his consequent knowledge of american character he foresaw the inevitable result of such an attitude on the part of england his conversation with grenville makes these last pages of the autobiography one of his most important parts after some days dr father gill having spoken to the proprietaries 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 accommodations but i supposed each party had his own ideas what should be meant by reasonable we then went into consideration of our several points of complaint which i enumerated the proprietaries justified their conduct as well as they could and i the assemblies 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 promised then to consider them i did soon after but they put the paper into the hands of their solicitor furden and john peris who managed for them all their law business in their great suit with the neighboring proprietary of maryland lord baltimore which had subsisted 70 years and wrote for them all their papers and messages in their dispute with the assembly he was a proud angry man and as i had occasionally in answers of the assembly treated his papers with some severity they being really weak in point of argument and hotty 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 discuss the heads of complaint between our two selves and refused treating with anyone but them they then by his advice put the paper into the hands of the attorney and solicitor 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 proprietary's 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 received 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 whereby that i was not such want of formality or rudeness was probably my not having addressed the papers to them with the assumed titles of true and absolute proprietary's of the province of pennsylvania which i omitted this 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 vosa but during this delay the assembly having prevailed with governor denny to pass an act at 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 proprietary's counseled 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 by them against the act and it too 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 proprietary's who were in odium with the people left to their mercy in purporting of the taxes they would inevitably be ruined we replied 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 advantage each of them might expect in lessening his own tax by augmenting that of the proprietary's was too trifling to induce them to purge themselves this is the purport of what i remember as urged by both sides except that we insist strongly on the mischievous consequences that must attend a repeal for that the money one hundred thousand pounds 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 proprietary's in soliciting such a general catastrophe nearly from a groundless fear of their estate being taxed too highly was insisted upon in the strongest terms on this lord mansfield one of the council rose and beckoning me took me into the clerk's chamber while the lawyers were pleading and asked me if i was really of the opinion that no injury would be done the proprietary 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 point 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 province 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 tax having been levied by the act before the order of the council arrived they appointed a committee to examine the proceedings of the assessors and on this committee they put several particular friends of the proprietary's 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 returned but the proprietary's 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 insistence 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 unfinished end of chapter 19 the autobiography of benjamin franklin appendix this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org the autobiography of benjamin franklin edited by frank woodward pine appendix electrical kite to peter colinson philadelphia october 19th 1752 sir as frequent mention is made in public papers from europe of the success of the philadelphia experiment for drawing the electric fire from clouds by means of pointed rods of iron erected on high buildings etc it may be agreeable to the curious to be informed that the same experiment has succeeded in philadelphia though made in a different and more easy manner which is as follows make a small cross of two light strips of cedar the arm so long as to reach to the four corners of a large thin silk handkerchief then extended tie the corners of the handkerchief to the extremities of the cross so you have the body of a kite which being properly accommodated with a tail loop and string will rise in the air like those made of paper but this being of silk is fitter to bear the wet and wind of a thunder gust without tearing to the top of the upright stick of the cross is to be fixed a very sharp pointed wire rising a foot or more above the wood to the end of the twine next the hand is to be tied a silk ribbon and where the silk and twine join a key may be fastened this kite is to be raised when a thunder gust appears to be coming on and the person who holds the string must stand within a door or window or under some cover so that the silk ribbon may not be wet and care must be taken that the twine does not touch the frame of the door or window as soon as any of the thunder clouds come over the kite the pointed wire will draw the electric fire from them and the kite with all the twine will be electrified and the loose filaments of the twine will stand out every way and be attracted by an approaching finger and when the rain has wet the kite and twine so that it can conduct electric fire freely you will find it streams out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle as this key the file may be charged and from electric fire thus obtained spirits may be kindled and all the electric experiments be performed which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube and thereby the sameness of the electric matter with which that of lightning completely demonstrated be franklin the shade of him who counsel can bestow still pleased to teach and yet not proud to know unbiased or by favor or by spite nor dully prepossessed nor blindly right who learned well-bred and though well-bred sincere modestly bold and humanely severe who to a friend his faults can sweetly show and gladly praise the merit of a foe here there he sits his cheerful aid to lend a firm unshaken uncorrupted friend a verse alike to flatter or offend he rarely warm in censure or in praise good nature wit and judgment round him wait and thus he sits enthroned in classic state to failings mild but zealous for dessert the clearest head and sincerest heart few men deserve our passion either ways from father abraham's speech seventeen sixty end of electrical kite the way to wealth from father abraham's speech forming the preface to poor richard's almanac for seventeen fifty eight it would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part of their time to be employed in its service but idleness taxes many of us much more if we reckon all that is spent in absolute sloth or doing of nothing with that which is spent in the employment or amusements that amount to nothing sloth by bringing on disease absolutely shortens life sloth like rust consumes faster than labor wares while the used key is always bright as poor richard says but dust thou love life then do not squander time for that's the stuff life is made of as poor richard says how much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep forgetting that the sleeping fox catches no poultry and that there will be sleeping enough in the grave as poor richard says if time be of all things the most precious wasting time must be as poor richard says the greatest progility since as he elsewhere tells us lost time is never found again and what we call time enough always proves little enough let us then up and be doing and doing to the purpose so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity sloth makes all things difficult but industry all easy as poor richard says and he that riseth late must trod all day and shall scarce overtake his business at night while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes it as we read in poor richard who adds drive thy business let not that drive thee and early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise industry need not wish and he that lives upon hope will die fasting there's no gains without pains he that hath a trade hath an estate and he that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honor but then the trade must be worked and the calling well formed for neither the estate nor the office will enable us to pay our taxes what though you have found no treasure nor has any such relation left you a legacy diligence is the mother of good luck as poor richard says and god gives all things to industry one today is worth to tomorrow and farther have you something to do tomorrow do it today if you were a servant you would not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle are you then your own master be ashamed to catch yourself idle stick to it steadily and you will see great effects for constant dropping wears away stones and by diligence and patience the mouse ate into the cable and little strokes fell great oaks me thinks i hear some of you say must a man afford himself no leisure i will tell thee my friend what poor richard says employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure and since thou art not sure of a minute throw not away an hour leisure is time for doing something useful this leisure the diligent man will obtain but the lazy man never so that as poor richard says a life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee and again if you would have your business done go if not send if you would have a faithful servant and when you like serve yourself a little neglect may breed great mischief adding for want of a nail the shoe was lost for want of a shoe the horse was lost and for want of a horse the rider was lost being overtaken and slain by the enemy all for the want of care about a horseshoe nail so much for industry my friends and attention to one's own business but to these we must add frugality what maintains one vice would bring up two children you may think perhaps that a little tea or a little punch now and then diet a little more costly clothes a little finer and a little entertainment now and then can be no great matter but remember what poor Richard says many a little makes a nickel beware of little expenses a little leak will sink a great ship and again who dainty's love shall beggars prove and more over fools make feasts and wise men eat them but what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries if you would know the value of money go and try to borrow some for he that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing the second device is lying the first is running in debt lying rides upon debts back poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue it is hard for an empty bag to stand upright and now to conclude experience keeps a dear school but fools will learn in no other and scare in that for it is true we may give advice but we cannot give conduct as poor Richard says however remember this they that won't be counseled can't be helped as poor Richard says and farther that if you will not hear reason she'll surely wrap your knuckles the whistle to madam brilliant passe november 10th 1779 i am charmed with your description of paradise and with your plan of living there and i approve much of your conclusion that in the meantime we should draw all the good we can from this world in my opinion we might all draw more good from it than we do and suffer less evil if we should take care not to give too much for whistles for to me it seems that most of the unhappy people we meet with are come to by neglect of that caution you ask what i mean you love stories and will excuse my telling one of myself when i was a child of seven years old my friends on a holiday filled my pockets with coppers i went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children and being charmed with the sound of a whistle that i met by the way in the hands of another boy i voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one i then came home and went whistling all over the house much pleased with my whistle but disturbing all the family my brothers and sisters and cousins understanding the bargain i had made told me i had given four times as much for it as it was worth put me in mind of what good things i might have bought with the rest of the money and laughed at me so much for my folly that i cried with vexation and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure this however was afterwards of use to me the impression continuing on my mind so that often when i was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing i said to myself don't give too much for the whistle and i saved my money as i grew up came into the world and observed the actions of men i thought i met with many very many who gave too much for the whistle when i saw one too ambitious for court favors sacrificing his time in attendance on levies his repose his liberty his virtue and perhaps his friends to attain it i have said to myself this man gives too much for his whistle when i saw another fond of popularity constantly employing himself in political bustles neglecting his own affairs and ruining them by neglect he pays indeed said i too much for his whistle if i knew a miser who gave up every kind of comfortable living all the pleasure of doing good to others all the esteem of his fellow citizens and the joys of benevolent friendship for the sake of accumulating wealth poor man said i you pay too much for your whistle when i met with a man of pleasure sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind or of his fortune to mere corporal sensations and ruining his health in the pursuit mistaken man said i you are providing pain for yourself instead of pleasure you give too much for your whistle if i see one fond of appearance or fine clothes fine houses fine furniture fine equipages all above his fortune for which he contracts debts and ends his career in a prison alas say i he paid dear very dear for his whistle when i see a beautiful sweet-tempered girl married to an ill-natured brute of a husband what a pity say i that she should pay so much for a whistle in short i conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things and by their giving too much for their whistles yet i ought to have charity for these unhappy people when i consider that with all this wisdom of which i am boasting there are certain things in the world so tempting for example the apples of king john which happily are not to be bought for they were put to sale by auction i might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase and find that i had once more given too much for the whistle i do my dear friend and believe me ever yours very sincerely with unalterable affection be franklin a letter to samuel madder pass a may 12 1784 reverend sir it is now more than 60 years since i left boston but i remember well both your father and grandfather having heard them both in the pulpit and seen them in their houses the last time i saw your father it was the beginning of 1724 when i visited him after my first trip to pennsylvania he received me in his library and on taking leave showed me a shorter way out of the house through a narrow passage which was crossed by a beam overhead we were still talking as i withdrew he accompanied me behind and i turned partly towards him when he said hastily stoop stoop i did not understand him till i felt my head hit against the beam he was a man that never missed an occasion of giving instruction and upon this he said to me you are young and have the world before you stoop as you go through it and you will miss many hard thumps this advice thus beat into my head has frequently been of use to me and i often think of it when i see pride mortified and misfortunes brought upon people by their carrying their heads too high be frankland the end end of appendix end of the autobiography of benjamin frankland