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 walk. ing 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 Phila delphia."

This,

Refreshed by his brief sojourn in this cheap place of repose, be 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 himself 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

half-pence. This was a more comfortable, as well as a cheaper breakfast, and kept their heads clearer. Those who continued sotting with their beer all day, were often, by not paying, out of credit at the alehouse, and used to make interest with me to get beer, their light, as they phrased 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. This, and my being esteemed a pretty good riggite, 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 works of despatch, which are generally better paid; so I went on now very agreeably."

He spent about eighteen months altogether in London, during most part of which time he worked hard, he says, at his business. and spent but little upon himself except in seeing plays, and in books. At last his friend Mr. Denham, the gentleman with whom, as we mentioned before, he had got acquainted on his voyage to England, informed him he was going to return to Philadelphia to open a store, or mercantile establishment, there, and offered him the situation of his clerk at a salary of fifty pounds. The money was less than he was now making as a compositor; but he longed to see his native country again, and accepted the proposal. Ac. cordingly they set sail together; and, after a long voyage, arrived in Philadelphia on the 11th of October, 1726. Franklin was at this time only in his twenty-first year; and he mentions having formed, and committed to writing, while at sea, a plan for regulating the future conduct of his life. This unfortunately has been lost; but he tells us himself, that although conceived and determined upon when he was so young, it had yet "been pretty faithfully adhered to quite through to old age."

Mr. Denham had only begun business for a few months when he died; and Franklin was once more left upon the world. He now engaged again with his old master, Keimer, the printer, who had got a better house, and plenty of new types, though he was still as ignorant of his business as he was at the time of Franklin's former connection with him. While in this situation Franklin got acquainted with several persons, like himself, fond of literary pursuits; and as the men never worked on Saturday, that being Keimer's self-appointed Sabbath, he had the whole day for reading.*

*Keimer had peculiar notions upon religious observances, and amongst other things, fancied it a Christian duty to observe the Sabbath on the last day of the week