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."

Finding, however, that his brother, in consequence of this exploit, had taken care to give him such a character to all those of his own profession in Boston, that nobody would employ him there, he now resolved to make his way to New York, the nearest place where there was a printer; and accordingly, after selling his books to raise a little money, he embarked on board a vessel for that city, without communicating his intention to his friends, who he knew would oppose it. In three days he found himself at the end of his voyage, near three hundred miles from his home, at the age of seventeen, without the least recommendation, as he tells us, or knowledge of any person in the place, and with very little money in his pocket. Worst of all, upon applying to the only printer likely to give him any employment, he found that this person had nothing for him to do, and that the only way in which he could serve him was by recommending him to proceed to Philadelphia, a hundred miles farther, where he had a son, who, he believed, might employ him. We are unable, however, to follow our runaway through all the incidents of this journey, some of which were disastrous enough; but we cannot refrain from relating the following anecdote :-Being troubled, wherever he stopped, by the inquisitiveness and curiosity of the people, he was induced to try an expedient for silencing similar inquiries. Accordingly, at the next place, as soon as supper was laid, he called his landlord, when the following dialogue took place between them. "Pray, are you married?" "Yes." "What family have you got?" " Two sons and three daughters." "How many servants?" ❝ Two, and an hostler." "Have you any objection to my seeing them ?" "None, I guess. "Then be so good as to desire them all to step here." This was done; and the whole being assembled, Franklin thus addressed them: “Good people, my name is Benjamin Franklin-I am by trade a printer-I came from Boston, and am going to Philadelphia to seek employment—I am in rather humble circumstances, and quite indifferent to news of any kind unconnected with printing. This is all I know of myself, and all I can possibly inform you; and now, I hope you will allow me to take my supper in quiet.'

The following is Franklin's most graphic description of his first appearance in Philadelphia. After concluding the account of his voyage, "I have been the more particular," says he," in this description of my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may, in your mind, compare such unlikely beginnings

with the figure I have since made there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes coming round by sea. I was dirty, from my being so long in the boat; my pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings; and I knew no one, nor where to look for lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and the want of sleep, I was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted in a single dollar, and about a shilling in copper coin, which I gave to the boatmen for my passage. At first they refused it, on account of my having rowed; but I insisted on their taking it. Man is sometimes more generous when he has little money than when he has plenty; perhaps to prevent his being thought to have but little. I walked towards the top of the street, gazing about till near Market-street, where I met a boy with bread. I had often made a meal of dry bread, and inquiring where he had bought it, I went immediately to the baker's he directed me to. I asked for biscuits, meaning such as we had at Boston; that sort, it seems, was not made in Philadelphia. I then asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none. Not knowing the different prices, nor the names of the different sorts of bread, I told him to give me three-penny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it; and having no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went up Market-street, as far as Fourth-street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father, when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chesnut-street and part of Walnutstreet, eating my roll all the way, and coming round, found myself again at Market-street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river water; and being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther. Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had many clean dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the Quakers, near the market. I sat down among them; and after looking round a while, and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy, through labor and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, when some one was kind enough to rouse me. therefore, was the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia."

This,

Refreshed by his brief sojourn in this cheap place of repose, he then set out in quest of a lodging for the night. Next morning

he found the person to whom he had been directed, who was not, however, able to give him any employment; but upon applying to another printer in the place, of the name of Keimer, he was a little more fortunate, being set by him, in the first instance, to put an old press to rights, and afterwards taken into regular work. He had been some months at Philadelphia, his relations in Boston knowing nothing of what had become of him, when a brother-inlaw, who was the master of a trading sloop, happening to hear of him in one of his voyages, wrote to him in very earnest terms to entreat him to return home. The letter which he sent in reply to this application reaching his brother-in-law when he chanced to be in company with Sir William Keith, the governor of the province, it was shown to that gentleman, who expressed considerable surprise on being told the age of the writer; and immediately said that he appeared to be a young man of promising parts, and that if he would set up on his own account in Philadelphia, where the printers were wretched ones, he had no doubt he would succeed; for his part he would procure him the public business, and do him every service in his power. Some time after this, Franklin, who knew nothing of what had taken place, was one day at work along with his master near the window, when "we saw,” says he, "the governor and another gentleman, (who proved to be Colonel French, of Newcastle, in the province of Delaware,) finely dressed, come directly across the street to our house, and heard them at the door. Keimer ran down immediately, thinking it a visit to him: but the governor inquired for me, came up, and with a condescension and politeness I had been quite unused to, made me many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me, blamed me kindly for not having made myself known to him when I first came to the place, and would have me away with him to the tavern, where he was going with Colonel French, to taste, as he said, some excellent Madeira. I was not a little surprised, and Keimer stared with astonishment."

The reader already perceives that Sir William must have been rather an odd sort of person; and this becomes still more apparent in the sequel of the story. Having got his young protege to the tavern, he proposed to him, over their wine, that he should, as soon as possible, set up in Philadelphia as a master printer, only continuing to work with Keimer till an opportunity should offer of a passage to Boston, when he would return home, to arrange the matter with his father, who, the governor had no doubt, would, upon a letter from him, at once advance his son the necessary funds for commencing business. Accordingly, Franklin set out for Boston by the first vessel that sailed; and, upon his arrival,

was very kindly received by all his family, except his brother, and surprised his father not a little by presenting him with the governor's letter. For some time his father said little or nothing on the subject, merely remarking, that Sir William must be a person of small discretion, to think of setting a youth up in business who wanted three years to arrive at man's estate. But at last he decidedly refused to have any thing to do with the arrangement; and Franklin returned to his patron to tell him of his bad success, going this time, however, with the consent and blessing of his parents, who finding how industrious he had been while in Philadelphia, were willing that he should continue there. When Franklin presented himself to Sir William with his father's answer to the letter he had been honored with from that functionary, the governor observed that he was too prudent: "but since he will not set you up,” added he, "I will do it myself." It was finally agreed that Franklin should proceed in person to England, to purchase types and other necessary articles, for which the governor was to give him letters of credit to the extent of one hundred pounds.

After repeated applications to the governor for the promised letters of credit, Franklin was at last sent on board the vessel for England, which was just on the point of sailing, with an assurance that Colonel French should be sent to him with the letters immediately. That gentleman soon after made his appearance, bearing a packet of despatches from the governor: in this packet Franklin was informed his letters were. Accordingly, when they got into the Britsh channel, the captain having allowed him to search for them among the others, he found several addressed to his care, which he concluded of course to be those he had been promised. Upon presenting one of them, however, to a stationer to whom it was directed, the man having opened it, merely said, "Oh, this is from Riddlesdon (an attorney in Philadelphia, whom Franklin knew to be a thorough knave;) I have lately found him to be a complete rascal;" and giving back the letter, turned on his heel, and proceeded to serve his customers. Upon this, Franklin's confidence in his patron began to be a little shaken; and, after reviewing the whole affair in his own mind, he resolved to lay it before a very intelligent mercantile gentleman, who had come over from America with them, and with whom he had contracted an intimacy on the passage. This friend very soon put an end to his doubts. "He let me,' says Franklin, "into Keith's character; told me there was not the least probability that he had written any letters for me; that no one who knew him had the smallest dependence on him; and he laughed at the idea of the governor's giving me a letter of credit, having, as he said, no credit to give."

Thus thrown once more on his own means, our young adventurer found there was no resource for him but to endeavor to procure some employment at his trade in London. Accordingly, having applied to a Mr. Palmer, a printer of eminence in Bartholomew. close, his services were accepted, and he remained there for nearly a year. During this time, although he was led into a good deal of idleness by the example of a friend, somewhat older than himself, he by no means forgot his old habits of reading and study. Having been employed in printing a second edition of Wollaston's Religion of Nature, his perusal of the work induced him to compose and publish a small pamphlet in refutation of some of the author's positions, which, he tells us, he did not afterwards look back upon as altogether a wise proceeding. He employed the greater part of his leisure more profitably in reading a great many works, which (circulating libraries, he remarks, not being then in use) he borrowed, on certain terms that were agreed upon between them, from a bookseller whose shop was next door to his lodgings in Little Britain, and who had an immense collection of second-hand books. His pamphlet, however, was the means of making him known to a few of the literary characters then in London, among the rest to the noted Dr. Mandeville, author of the Fable of the Bees; and to Dr. Pemberton, Sir Isaac Newton's friend, who promised to give him an opportunity, some time or other, of seeing that great man: but this, he says, never happened. He also became acquainted about the same time with the famous collector and naturalist, Sir Hans Sloane, the Founder of the British Museum, who had heard of some curiosities which Franklin had brought over from America; among these was a purse made of asbestos, which he purchased from him.

While with Mr. Palmer, and afterwards with Mr. Watts, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, he gave very striking evidence of those habits of temperance, self-command, industry, and frugality, which distinguished him through after life, and were undoubtedly the source of much of the success that attended his persevering efforts to raise himself from the humble condition in which he passed his earlier years. While Mr. Watts's other workmen spent a great part of every week's wages on beer, he drank only water, and found him. self a good deal stronger, as well as much more clear headed, on his light beverage, than they on their strong potations. "From my example," says he, "a great many of them left off their muddling breakfast of beer, bread, and cheese, finding they could with me be supplied from a neighboring house with a large porringer of hot water-gruel, sprinkled with pepper, crumbled with bread, and and a bit of butter in it, for the price of a pint of beer, viz,-three