body expectations that are not likely to be answered, but aim at sincerity in every word and action; the most amiable excellence in a rational being.

"3. To apply myself industriously to whatever business I take in hand, and not divert my mind from my business by any foolish project of growing suddenly rich; for industry and patience are the surest means of plenty.

"4. I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but rather by some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and, upon proper occasions, speak all the good I know of everybody."

He did not stop here. The conduct of his life was frequently the subject of his meditations from this time; with what results we shall see ere long.

The Atlantic Ocean, at that day, was indeed a waste of waters. The Berkshire had been at sea fifty days before her passengers saw another vessel. The whole company were thrilled with delight when, at length, they not only saw a friendly ship, but came near enough to speak to her. Franklin himself was deeply moved at the sight. "She was the Snow from Dublin," he wrote, "bound to New York, having upwards of fifty servants on board, of both sexes; they all appeared upon deck, and seemed very much pleased at the sight of us. There is really something strangely cheering to the spirits in the meeting of a ship at sea, containing a society of creatures of the same species and in the same circumstances with ourselves, after we had been long separated and excommunicated, as it were, from the rest of mankind. My heart fluttered in my breast with joy, when I saw so many human countenances, and I could scarce refrain from that kind of laughter, which proceeds from some degree of inward pleasure. We reckon ourselves in a kind of paradise, when we consider how they live, confined and stifled up with such a lousy, stinking rabble, in this sultry latitude."

*

*

*

Sixteen days after, to the still greater joy of all on board, the look out at the Berkshire mast-head shouted, LAND! "I could not discern it as soon as the rest," Franklin writes; my eyes were dimmed with the suffusion of two small drops of joy." Two days later, at eight in the evening, the ship cast anchor in the Delaware, six miles below Philadelphia. Franklin concludes his journal with these words: "Some young Philadelphians happening to be out

upon their pleasure in a boat, came on board, and offered to take us up with them. We accepted of their kind proposal, and about ten o'clock landed at Philadelphia, heartily congratulating each other upon our having happily completed so tedious and dangerous a voyage. Thank God!"

The Philadelphia newspaper chronicled the arrival of the ship in a single line:

"Entered inwards, ship Barkshire, Henry Clark, from London."*

There is no subsequent allusion either to the ship, her passengers, or her news. The editors then published the foreign news in the order in which the events occurred. The news by former ships had to be all printed and got out of the way before the intelligence brought by later arrivals was taken in hand.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE JUNTO.

SOON after landing, Franklin met, in the streets of Philadelphia, Sir William Keith, who had been recently deposed from office. Keith had just virtue enough to look a little ashamed at seeing the youth he had so shamefully wronged, and passed by without speaking. For nearly a quarter of a century longer, this man lagged superfluous on the scene, poor and neglected, striving to earn a little money by writing histories of the colonies. He died in London, in 1749, aged eighty. His wife remained in Philadelphia, and lived many years, secluded and destitute, in a little wooden tenement in the outskirts of the town.t

Unfaithful as Franklin had been to Miss Read, he had not forgotten her. Toward the close of his stay in London, when he had escaped the fascinating Ralph, and Franklin began to be himself again, his affection appears to have revived; for he wrote, long

* "American Weekly Mercury," Oct. 18, 1726. + Watson's Annals of Philadelphia," ii., 274.

66

66

after, that it was the cords of love" that had "drawn him back from England to Philadelphia." He returned to find the lady married and miserable; and both through his fault. Despairing of his return, her mother and her other relations had persuaded her to marry one Rogers, a potter," to use Franklin's own language. He was an excellent potter; which was the inducement to Mrs. Read. But he proved to be a worthless fellow, and it was soon suspected that he had another wife. Deborah Read, who had never lived happily with him, returned to her mother, and resumed her maiden name, a sorrowful woman. The potter ran away from his creditors in the following year, and went to the West Indies, whence came, not long after, a rumor of his death.

Keimer appeared to have greatly thriven during the absence of his journeyman. He had removed to a better house; his shop was well supplied with stationery, and his printing-office with new type, He employed several hands, and seemed to have a great deal of business.

Our young friend was soon at work. Mr. Denham took a store in Water Street, and opened for sale his large stock of goods. His clerk, entering upon his new vocation with all his old ardor and diligence, soon became an adept in book-keeping, and an expert salesman. He loved and respected his employer, who, in turn, had a sincere affection for his clerk, and treated him with paternal kindness. They lived in the same house, and went on together so happily that Franklin seemed destined to pass his days as a Philadelphia merchant. There was every probability of his becoming, ere long, a partner in the concern, and of finally succeeding to Mr. Denham's place at its head. Well content with his employment, his employer, and his prospects, his only unhappiness sprang from the recollection of his still unpaid debt to Mr. Vernon, and from reflecting upon his infidelity to Miss Read, and its bitter conse

quences.

A quaint, old-fashioned, but very kind letter, which he wrote to his youngest and favorite sister Jane, soon after his return to Philadelphia, is the earliest of his letters that has been preserved, if we except the short note to Sir Hans Sloane, of 1725. Jane Franklin was then fifteen. A captain of a Boston vessel had given him a glowing account of her virtues and her charms, and he resolved to send her back a present. He tells her that he was puz

zled to select a suitable gift, as he had heard she had grown a celebrated beauty. "I had almost," he wrote, "determined on a teatable; but when I considered, that the character of a good housewife was far preferable to that of being only a pretty gentlewoman, I concluded to send you a spinning-wheel, which I hope you will accept as a small token of my sincere love and affection." His letter consists of two short paragraphs: the first of which relates to the present, the second gives the young beauty a little brotherly advice, characteristic of the period: "Sister, farewell, and remember that modesty, as it makes the most homely virgin amiable and charming, so the want of it infallibly renders the most perfect beauty disagreeable and odious. But, when that brightest of female virtues shines among other perfections of body and mind in the same person, it makes the woman more lovely than an angel. Excuse this freedom, and use the same with me. I am, dear Jenny, your loving brother." Among the very last efforts of his pen, were generous, sprightly, and consoling letters to this same sister.

Promising as were the prospects of Franklin during the first few months after his return, his mercantile career was destined to a speedy and abrupt termination. Early in February, 1727, four months after the opening of the store, Mr. Denham and himself were both taken seriously ill. Franklin's disease, the pleurisy, brought him to the verge of the grave. "I suffered a good deal," he records, "gave up the point in my own mind, and was at the time rather disappointed when I found myself recovering; regretting, in some degree, that I must now, some time or other, have all that disagreeable work to go over again." Mr. Denham struggled long with his complaint, but sunk under it at last. On his death-bed he signified his desire to bequeath his young friend a small legacy as a token of his good-will. The store was taken in charge by the executors, and Franklin was without employment.

His first thought was to find another clerkship. Not succeeding in this, he reluctantly accepted an offer of large wages from Keimer, who wished him to superintend the printing-office, while himself took charge of the stationery-shop. In London, where Keimer had formerly lived, and where he had a wife then living, Franklin had heard so bad a character of the man, that he was unwilling to have any thing more to do with him. But necessity

knows no law, and he found himself again in Keimer's chaotic printing-office, striving to reduce it to order. Keimer had engaged five hands, at very low wages, who were unacquainted with the trade, and whom the new foreman was expected to convert into efficient printers. One of these was John, "a wild Irishman," brought up to no business, whose services, for four years, Keimer had bought of the captain who had brought him over. John saved the new foreman a world of trouble by running away, a practice to which bought servants were much addicted. Another of Keimer's men was Hugh Meredith, an honest countryman, a man of sense, experience, and reading, but given to drinking, and not fond of his new trade. Another was Stephen Potts, also a countryman, witty, capable, but not too industrious. Another was George Webb, a young scapegrace from Oxford University, who having spent all his money in London, had procured a passage to America, by binding himself to serve for four years. Keimer had bought his time of the captain of the ship. He was full of wit and good nature, but extremely idle and thoughtless. To this catalogue must be added David Harry, an apprentice from the country, who served the rest in the capacity of devil.

Franklin, who had the art of being always cheerful, was soon at home among Keimer's merry men; and teaching them something new in their vocation every day, he stood high in their esteem. He even managed to cast type, from his London recollections of the process. He cut small engravings, made the ink, assisted in bookbinding, served as warehouse-man, and was of Keimer's establishment the vital principle. The green hands became less and less inexpert; order emerged from chaos, and Keimer was in a fair way of founding a profitable business. The foreman prevailed upon Hugh Meredith to forego his dram-drinking for a time: to the great joy of his father, a man of some consideration in the colony. Franklin was especially fortunate in having two days in every week for study, as Keimer still persisted in keeping holy the last day of the week.

About this time it was, that he formed his fellow-workmen, and a few of his young friends in the town, into that celebrated club, THE JUNTO, which, for forty years, was a means of happiness and benefit to all who belonged to it. Its first members were eleven in number: the four printers, Benjamin Franklin, Hugh Meredith,