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able help to me; another advantage which I derived from having habituated myself to write.

Time and experience fo fully demonftrated the utility of paper currency, that it never after experienced any confiderable oppofition; fo that it foon amounted to 55,cool. and in the year 1739 to 80,000l. It has fince rifen, during the last war, to 350,000l. trade, buildings and population having in the interval continually increased: but I am now convinced that there are limits beyond which paper money would be prejudicial.

I foon after obtained, by the influence of my friend Hamilton, the printing of the Newcastle paper-money, another profitable work, as I then thought it, little things appearing great to perfons of moderate fortune; and they were really great to me, as proving great encouragements. He also procured me the printing of the laws and votes of that government,

government, which I retained as long as I continued in the bufinefs.

I now opened a small stationer's shop. I kept bonds and agreements of all kinds, drawn up in a more accurate form than had yet been seen in that part of the world; a work in which I was affifted by my friend Breintnal. I had alfo paper, parchment, pafteboard, books, &c. One Whitemash, an excellent compofitor, whom I had known in London, came to offer himself. I engaged him; and he continued conftantly and diligently to work with me. I alfo took an apprentice, the fon of Aquila Rofe.

I began to pay, by degrees, the debt I had contracted; and in order to infure my credit and character as a tradefman, I took care not only to be really industrious and frugal, but also to avoid every appearance of the contrary. I was plainly

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plainly dreffed, and never feen in any place of public amufement. I never went a fishing or hunting. A book indeed enticed me fometimes from my work, but it was feldom, by ftealth, and occafioned no fcandal; and to fhow that I did not think myself above my profeffion, I conveyed home fometimes in a wheelbarrow the paper I purchased at the warehouses.

I thus obtained the reputation of being an induftrious young man, and very punctual in his payments. The merchants who imported articles of stationary folicited my cuftom; others offered to furnish me with books, and my little trade went on prosperously.

Meanwhile the credit and business of Keimer diminishing every day, he was at laft forced to fell his ftock to fatisfy his creditors; and he betook himself to Barbadoes, where he lived for fome time in a very impoverished ftate. His apprentice,

prentice, David Harry, whom I had inftructed while I worked with Keimer, having bought his materials, fucceeded him in the business. I was apprehenfive, at first, of finding in Harry a powerful competitor, as he was allied to an opulent and refpectable family; I therefore propofed a partnership, which, happily for me, he rejected with difdain. He was extremely proud, thought himfelf a fine gentleman, lived extravagantly, and purfued amufements which fuffered him to be scarcely ever at home; of confequence he became in debt, neglected his business, and business neglected him. Finding in a fhort time nothing to do in the country, he followed Keimer to Barbadoes, carrying his printing materials with him. There the apprentice employed his old mafter as a journeyman. They were continually quarrelling; and Harry ftill getting in debt, was obliged at laft to fell his prefs N 3 and

and types, and return to his old occupa tion of husbandry in Pennsylvania. The perfon who purchased them employed Keimer to manage the business; but he died a few years after.

I had now at Philadelphia no competitor but Bradford, who, being in easy circumftances, did not engage in the printing of books, except now and then as workmen chanced to offer themselves; and was not anxious to extend his trade. He had, however, one advantage over me, as he had the direction of the postoffice, and was of confequence fuppofed to have better opportunities of obtaining His paper was also fuppofed to be more advantageous to advertifing cuftomers; and in confequence of that fup pofition, his advertisements were much more numerous than mine: this was a fource of great profit to him, and difadvantageous to me. It was to no purpose

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that