The Autobiography of Ben Franklin - Benjamin Franklin (bookreader .txt) š
- Author: Benjamin Franklin
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This was all I could obtain, except some small gifts as tokens of his and my motherās love, when I embarkād again for New York, now with their approbation and their blessing.
The sloop putting in at Newport, Rhode Island, I visited my brother John, who had been married and settled there some years. He received me very affectionately, for he always lovād me. A friend of his, one Vernon, having some money due to him in Pensilvania, about thirty-five pounds currency, desired I would receive it for him, and keep it till I had his directions what to remit it in. Accordingly, he gave me an order. This afterwards occasionād me a good deal of uneasiness.
At Newport we took in a number of passengers for New York, among which were two young women, companions, and a grave, sensible, matron-like Quaker woman, with her attendants. I had shown an obliging readiness to do her some little services, which impressād her I suppose with a degree of good will toward me; therefore, when she saw a daily growing familiarity between me and the two young women, which they appearād to encourage, she took me aside, and said: āYoung man, I am concernād for thee, as thou has no friend with thee, and seems not to know much of the world, or of the snares youth is exposād to; depend upon it, those are very bad women; I can see it in all their actions; and if thee art not upon thy guard, they will draw thee into some danger; they are strangers to thee, and I advise thee, in a friendly concern for thy welfare, to have no acquaintance with them.ā As I seemād at first not to think so ill of them as she did, she mentioned some things she had observād and heard that had escapād my notice, but now convincād me she was right.
I thankād her for her kind advice, and promisād to follow it.
When we arrivād at New York, they told me where they livād, and invited me to come and see them; but I avoided it, and it was well I did; for the next day the captain missād a silver spoon and some other things, that had been taken out of his cabbin, and, knowing that these were a couple of strumpets, he got a warrant to search their lodgings, found the stolen goods, and had the thieves punishād. So, thoā
we had escapād a sunken rock, which we scrapād upon in the passage, I thought this escape of rather more importance to me.
At New York I found my friend Collins, who had arrivād there some time before me. We had been intimate from children, and had read the same books together; but he had the advantage of more time for reading and studying, and a wonderful genius for mathematical learning, in which he far outstript me. While I livād in Boston most of my hours of leisure for conversation were spent with him, and he continuād a sober as well as an industrious lad; was much respected for his learning by several of the clergy and other gentlemen, and seemed to promise making a good figure in life. But, during my absence, he had acquirād a habit of sotting with brandy; and I found by his own account, and what I heard from others, that he had been drunk every day since his arrival at New York, and behavād very oddly.
He had gamād, too, and lost his money, so that I was obligād to discharge his lodgings, and defray his expenses to and at Philadelphia, which provād extremely inconvenient to me.
The then governor of New York, Burnet (son of Bishop Burnet), hearing from the captain that a young man, one of his passengers, had a great many books, desirād he would bring me to see him.
I waited upon him accordingly, and should have taken Collins with me but that he was not sober. The govār. treated me with great civility, showād me his library, which was a very large one, and we had a good deal of conversation about books and authors.
This was the second governor who had done me the honor to take notice of me; which, to a poor boy like me, was very pleasing.
We proceeded to Philadelphia. I received on the way Vernonās money, without which we could hardly have finishād our journey. Collins wished to be employād in some counting-house, but, whether they discoverād his dramming by his breath, or by his behaviour, thoā he had some recommendations, he met with no success in any application, and continuād lodging and boarding at the same house with me, and at my expense. Knowing I had that money of Vernonās, he was continually borrowing of me, still promising repayment as soon as he should be in business. At length he had got so much of it that I was distressād to think what I should do in case of being callād on to remit it.
His drinking continuād, about which we sometimes quarrellād;, for, when a little intoxicated, he was very fractious. Once, in a boat on the Delaware with some other young men, he refused to row in his turn. āI will be rowād home,ā says he. āWe will not row you,ā says I. āYou must, or stay all night on the water,ā
says he, ājust as you please.ā The others said, āLet us row; what signifies it?ā But, my mind being soured with his other conduct, I continuād to refuse. So he swore he would make me row, or throw me overboard; and coming along, stepping on the thwarts, toward me, when he came up and struck at me, I clapped my hand under his crutch, and, rising, pitched him head-foremost into the river.
I knew he was a good swimmer, and so was under little concern about him; but before he could get round to lay hold of the boat, we had with a few strokes pullād her out of his reach; and ever when he drew near the boat, we askād if he would row, striking a few strokes to slide her away from him. He was ready to die with vexation, and obstinately would not promise to row. However, seeing him at last beginning to tire, we lifted him in and brought him home dripping wet in the evening. We hardly exchangād a civil word afterwards, and a West India captain, who had a commission to procure a tutor for the sons of a gentleman at Barbadoes, happening to meet with him, agreed to carry him thither. He left me then, promising to remit me the first money he should receive in order to discharge the debt; but I never heard of him after.
The breaking into this money of Vernonās was one of the first great errata of my life; and this affair showād that my father was not much out in his judgment when he supposād me too young to manage business of importance. But Sir William, on reading his letter, said he was too prudent. There was great difference in persons; and discretion did not always accompany years, nor was youth always without it.
āAnd since he will not set you up,ā says he, āI will do it myself.
Give me an inventory of the things necessary to be had from England, and I will send for them. You shall repay me when you are able; I am resolvād to have a good printer here, and I am sure you must succeed.ā This was spoken with such an appearance of cordiality, that I had not the least doubt of his meaning what he said.
I had hitherto kept the proposition of my setting up, a secret in Philadelphia, and I still kept it. Had it been known that I depended on the governor, probably some friend, that knew him better, would have advisād me not to rely on him, as I afterwards heard it as his known character to be liberal of promises which he never meant to keep. Yet, unsolicited as he was by me, how could I think his generous offers insincere? I believād him one of the best men in the world.
I presented him an inventory of a little printāg-house, amounting by my computation to about one hundred pounds sterling. He likād it, but askād me if my being on the spot in England to chuse the types, and see that every thing was good of the kind, might not be of some advantage. āThen,ā says he, āwhen there, you may make acquaintances, and establish correspondences in the bookselling and stationery way.ā
I agreed that this might be advantageous. āThen,ā says he, āget yourself ready to go with Annis;ā which was the annual ship, and the only one at that time usually passing between London and Philadelphia. But it would be some months before Annis sailād, so I continuād working with Keimer, fretting about the money Collins had got from me, and in daily apprehensions of being callād upon by Vernon, which, however, did not happen for some years after.
I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalmād off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion considerād, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter.
All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balancād some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, āIf you eat one another, I donāt see why we maynāt eat you.ā So I dinād upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.
Keimer and I livād on a pretty good familiar footing, and agreed tolerably well, for he suspected nothing of my setting up.
He retained a great deal of his old enthusiasms and lovād argumentation.
We therefore had many disputations. I used to work him so with my Socratic method, and had trepannād him so often by questions apparently so distant from any point we had in hand, and yet by degrees lead to the point, and brought him into difficulties and contradictions, that at last he grew ridiculously cautious, and would hardly answer me the most common question, without asking first, āWhat do you intend to infer from that?ā However, it gave him so high an opinion of my abilities in the confuting way, that he seriously proposed my being his colleague in a project he had of setting up a new sect.
He was to preach
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