tradiction, and prevent your being heard with attention. On the other hand, if, with a desire of being informed, and of benefitting by the knowledge of others, you express yourself as being strongly attached to your own opinions, modest and sensible men, who do not love disputation, will leave you in tran quil possession of your errors. By following such a method, you can rarely hope to please your au ditors, conciliate their good will, or work conviction on those whom you may be desirous of gaining over to your views. Pope judiciously observes, Men must be taught as if you taught them not, And in the same poem he afterwards advises us. To speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence. He might have added to these lines, one that he has coupled elsewhere, in my opinion, with less propriety. It is thus : For want of modesty is want of sense. If you ask why I say with less propriety, I must give you the two lines together: Immodest words admit of no defence, For want of decency is want of sense. Now, want of sense, when a man has the misfortune to be so circumstanced, is it not a kind of excuse for want of modesty? And would not the verses have been more accurate, if they had been constructed thus: Immodest words admit but this defence, But I leave the decision of this to better judges than myself. In 1720, or 1721, my brother began to print a new public paper. It was the second that made its ap 1 pearance in America and was entitled the "New England Courant." The only one that existed before was the Boston News Letter." Some of his friends, I remember, would have dissuaded him from this undertaking, as a thing that was not likely to succeed; a single newspaper being, in their opinion, sufficient for all America. At present, however, in 1771, there are no less than twenty-five. But he carried his project into execution, and I was employed in distributing the copies to his customers, after having assisted in composing and working them off. Among his friends he had a number of literary characters, who, as an amusement, wrote short essays for the paper, which gave it reputation, and increased the sale. These gentlemen frequently came to our house. I heard the conversation that passed, and the accounts they gave of the favourable reception of their writings with the public. I was tempted to try my hand among them; but, being still a child as it were, I was fearful that my brother might be unwilling to print in his paper any performance of which he should know me to be the author. I therefore contrived to disguise my hand, and having written an anonymous piece, I placed it at night under the door of the printing house, where it was found the next morning. My brother communicated it to his friends, when they came as usual to see him, who read it, commented upon it within my hearing, and I had the exquisite pleasure to find that it met with their approbation, and that in their various conjectures they made respecting the author, no one was mentioned who did not enjoy a high reputation in the country for talents and genius. I now supposed myself fortunate in my judges, and began to suspect that they were not such excellent writers as I had hitherto supposed them. Be this as it may, encouraged by this little adventure, I wrote and sent to press, in the same way, many other pieces, which were equally approved; keeping the secret till my slender stock of information and knowledge for such performances was pretty completely exhausted, when I made myself known. My brother, upon this discovery, began to entertain little more respect for me; but he still regarded him B self as my master, and treated me as an apprentice. He thought himself entitled to the same services from me as from any other person. On the contrary, I conceived that, in many instances, he was too rigorous, and that, on the part of a brother, I had a right to expect greater indulgence. Our disputes were frequently brought before my father; and either my brother was generally in the wrong, or I was the better pleader of the two, for judgment was commonly given in my favour. But my brother was passionate, and often had recourse to blows, a circumstance which I' took in very ill part. This severe and tyrannical treatment contributed, I believe, to imprint on my mind that aversion to arbitrary power, which, during my whole life, I have ever preserved. My apprentice ship became insupportable to me, and I continually† sighed for an opportunity of shortening it, which at length unexpectedly offered. An article inserted in our paper, upon some politi cal subject which I have now forgotten, gave offence to the Assembly. My brother was taken into custody, censured, and ordered into confinement for a month, because, I presume, he would not discover the author. I was also taken up, and examined before the coun cil; but though I gave them no satisfaction, they contented themselves with reprimanding, and then dismissing me; considering me probably as bound, in quality of apprentice, to keep my master's secrets. The imprisonment of my brother, kindled my resentment, notwithstanding our private quarrels. During its continuance, the management of the paper was entrusted to me, and I was bold enough to insert some pasquinades against the governors, which highly pleased my brother, while others began to look upon me in an unfavourable point of view, com sidering me as a young wit, inclined to satire and lampoon. My brother's enlargement was accompanied with an arbitrary order from the House of Assembly, "That James Franklin should no longer print the newspaper entitled the New England Courant." " In this con juncture, we held a consultation of our friends at the printing-house, in order to determine what was to be done. Some proposed to evade the order, by chang ing the title of the paper; but my brother foreseeing inconveniences that would result from this step, thought it better that it should in future be printed in the name of Benjamin Franklin; and, to avoid the cen sure of the Assembly, who might charge him with still printing the paper himself, under the name of his apprentice, it was resolved that my old indentures should be given up to me, with a full and entire discharge written on the back, in order to be produced upon an emergency: but that, to secure to my brother the benefit of my service, I should sign a new contract, which should be kept secret during the remainder of the term. This was a very shallow arrangement. It was, however, carried into immediate execution, and the paper continued, in consequence, to make its ap-pearance for some months in my name. At length a new difference arising between my brother and me, I ventured to take advantage of my liberty, presuming that he would not dare to produce the new con tract. It was undoubtedly dishonourable to avail myself of this circumstance, and I reckon this action as one of the first errors of my life; but I was little capable of estimating it at its true value, embittered as my mind had been by the recollection of the blows I had received. Exclusive of his passionate treatment to me, my brother was by no means a man of an ill temper, and perhaps my manners had too much impertinence not to afford it a very natural pretext. When he knew that it was my determination to quit him, he wished to prevent my finding employment elsewhere. He went to all the printing-houses in the town, and prejudiced the inasters against me; who accordingly refused to employ me. The idea then suggested itself to me of going to New York, the nearest town in which there was a printing-office. Farther reflection confirmed me in the design of leaving Boston, where I had already rendered myself an object of suspicion to the governing party. It was probable, from the arbitrary proceedings of the Assembly in the affair of my brother, that, by remaining, I should soon have been exposed to difficulties, which I had the greater reason to apprehend, as, from my indiscreet disputes upon the subject of religion, I began to be regarded by pious souls with horror, either as an apostate or an atheist. I came therefore to a resolu tion; but my father, siding with my brother, I preEumed that if I attempted to depart openly, measures would be taken to prevent me. My friend Collins undertook to favour my flight. He agreed for my pas sage with a captain of a New York sloop, to whom he represented me as a young man of his acquaint ance, who had an affair with a girl of bad character, whose parents wished to compel me to marry her, and of consequence I could neither make my appearance, nor go off publicly. I sold part of my books to pro cure a small sum of money, and went privately on board the sloop. By favour of a good wind, I found myself in three days at New York, nearly three bun dred miles from my home, at the age only of seventeen years, without knowing an individual in the place, and with very little money in my pocket. The inclination I had felt for a sea-faring life was entirely subsided, or 1 should now have been able to gratify it; but, having another trade, and believing my self to be a tolerable workman. I hesitated not to offer my services to the old Mr. William Bradford, who had been the first printer in Pennsylvania, but had quitted" the province on account of a quarrel with George Keith, the governor. He could not give me employ ment himself, having little to do, and already as many persons as he wanted; but he told me that his son, printer at Philadelphia, had lately lost his principal workman, Aquila Rose, who was dead, and that if would go thither, he believed that he would engage me. Philadelphia was a hundred miles farther. hesitated not to embark in a boat in order to repair by the shortest cut of the sea, to Amboy, leaving my trunk and effects to come after me by the usual and more tedious conveyance. In crossing the bay we met with a squall, which shattered to pieces our rot ten sails, prevented us from entering the Kill, and, threw us upon Long Island. During the squall, a drunken Dutchman, who, like myself, was a passenger in the boat, fell into the sea. At the moment that he was sinking, I seized him by |