The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (7 page)

When we came into the Channel, the captain kept his word with me, and gave
me an opportunity of examining the bag for the governor's letters.
I found none upon which my name was put as under my care. I picked
out six or seven, that, by the handwriting, I thought might be the
promised letters, especially as one of them was directed to Basket,
the king's printer, and another to some stationer. We arriv'd
in London the 24th of December, 1724. I waited upon the stationer,
who came first in my way, delivering the letter as from Governor Keith.
"I don't know such a person," says he; but, opening the letter, "O! this
is from Riddlesden. I have lately found him to be a compleat rascal,
and I will have nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters
from him." So, putting the letter into my hand, he turn'd on his
heel and left me to serve some customer. I was surprized to find
these were not the governor's letters; and, after recollecting
and comparing circumstances, I began to doubt his sincerity.
I found my friend Denham, and opened the whole affair to him.
He let me 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 laught at
the notion of the governor's giving me a letter of credit, having,
as he said, no credit to give. On my expressing some concern
about what I should do, he advised me to endeavor getting some
employment in the way of my business. "Among the printers here,"
said he, "you will improve yourself, and when you return to America,
you will set up to greater advantage."

We both of us happen'd to know, as well as the stationer,
that Riddlesden, the attorney, was a very knave. He had half
ruin'd Miss Read's father by persuading him to be bound for him.
By this letter it appear'd there was a secret scheme on foot to
the prejudice of Hamilton (suppos'd to be then coming over with us);
and that Keith was concerned in it with Riddlesden. Denham, who was
a friend of Hamilton's thought he ought to be acquainted with it;
so, when he arriv'd in England, which was soon after, partly from
resentment and ill-will to Keith and Riddlesden, and partly from
good-will to him, I waited on him, and gave him the letter.
He thank'd me cordially, the information being of importance to him;
and from that time he became my friend, greatly to my advantage
afterwards on many occasions.

But what shall we think of a governor's playing such pitiful tricks,
and imposing so grossly on a poor ignorant boy! It was a habit he
had acquired. He wish'd to please everybody; and, having little
to give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenious,
sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good governor for
the people, tho' not for his constituents, the proprietaries,
whose instructions he sometimes disregarded. Several of our best
laws were of his planning and passed during his administration.

Ralph and I were inseparable companions. We took lodgings
together in Little Britain at three shillings and sixpence a week—
as much as we could then afford. He found some relations,
but they were poor, and unable to assist him. He now let me know
his intentions of remaining in London, and that he never meant
to return to Philadelphia. He had brought no money with him,
the whole he could muster having been expended in paying his passage.
I had fifteen pistoles; so he borrowed occasionally of me to subsist,
while he was looking out for business. He first endeavored to get
into the playhouse, believing himself qualify'd for an actor;
but Wilkes, to whom he apply'd, advis'd him candidly not to think
of that employment, as it was impossible be should succeed in it.
Then he propos'd to Roberts, a publisher in Paternoster Row, to write
for him a weekly paper like the Spectator, on certain conditions,
which Roberts did not approve. Then he endeavored to get employment
as a hackney writer, to copy for the stationers and lawyers about
the Temple, but could find no vacancy.

I immediately got into work at Palmer's, then a famous printing-house
in Bartholomew Close, and here I continu'd near a year. I was
pretty diligent, but spent with Ralph a good deal of my earnings
in going to plays and other places of amusement. We had together
consumed all my pistoles, and now just rubbed on from hand to mouth.
He seem'd quite to forget his wife and child, and I, by degrees,
my engagements with Miss Read, to whom I never wrote more than
one letter, and that was to let her know I was not likely soon
to return. This was another of the great errata of my life,
which I should wish to correct if I were to live it over again.
In fact, by our expenses, I was constantly kept unable to pay
my passage.

At Palmer's I was employed in composing for the second edition
of Wollaston's "Religion of Nature." Some of his reasonings
not appearing to me well founded, I wrote a little metaphysical
piece in which I made remarks on them. It was entitled "A
Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain."
I inscribed it to my friend Ralph; I printed a small number.
It occasion'd my being more consider'd by Mr. Palmer as a young
man of some ingenuity, tho' he seriously expostulated with me upon
the principles of my pamphlet, which to him appear'd abominable.
My printing this pamphlet was another erratum. While I lodg'd in
Little Britain, I made an acquaintance with one Wilcox, a bookseller,
whose shop was at the next door. He had an immense collection
of second-hand books. Circulating libraries were not then in use;
but we agreed that, on certain reasonable terms, which I have
now forgotten, I might take, read, and return any of his books.
This I esteem'd a great advantage, and I made as much use of it as
I could.

My pamphlet by some means falling into the hands of one Lyons, a surgeon,
author of a book entitled "The Infallibility of Human Judgment,"
it occasioned an acquaintance between us. He took great notice
of me, called on me often to converse on those subjects, carried me
to the Horns, a pale alehouse in —- Lane, Cheapside, and introduced
me to Dr. Mandeville, author of the "Fable of the Bees," who had
a club there, of which he was the soul, being a most facetious,
entertaining companion. Lyons, too, introduced me to Dr. Pemberton,
at Batson's Coffee-house, who promis'd to give me an opportunity,
some time or other, of seeing Sir Isaac Newton, of which I was
extreamely desirous; but this never happened.

I had brought over a few curiosities, among which the principal
was a purse made of the asbestos, which purifies by fire.
Sir Hans Sloane heard of it, came to see me, and invited me to his
house in Bloomsbury Square, where he show'd me all his curiosities,
and persuaded me to let him add that to the number, for which he
paid me handsomely.

In our house there lodg'd a young woman, a milliner, who, I think,
had a shop in the Cloisters. She had been genteelly bred, was sensible
and lively, and of most pleasing conversation. Ralph read plays
to her in the evenings, they grew intimate, she took another lodging,
and he followed her. They liv'd together some time; but, he being
still out of business, and her income not sufficient to maintain
them with her child, he took a resolution of going from London,
to try for a country school, which he thought himself well qualified
to undertake, as he wrote an excellent hand, and was a master
of arithmetic and accounts. This, however, he deemed a business
below him, and confident of future better fortune, when he should
be unwilling to have it known that he once was so meanly employed,
he changed his name, and did me the honor to assume mine; for I soon
after had a letter from him, acquainting me that he was settled
in a small village (in Berkshire, I think it was, where he taught
reading and writing to ten or a dozen boys, at sixpence each per
week), recommending Mrs. T—- to my care, and desiring me to write
to him, directing for Mr. Franklin, schoolmaster, at such a place.

He continued to write frequently, sending me large specimens
of an epic poem which he was then composing, and desiring my
remarks and corrections. These I gave him from time to time,
but endeavor'd rather to discourage his proceeding. One of Young's
Satires was then just published. I copy'd and sent him a great
part of it, which set in a strong light the folly of pursuing
the Muses with any hope of advancement by them. All was in vain;
sheets of the poem continued to come by every post. In the mean time,
Mrs. T—-, having on his account lost her friends and business,
was often in distresses, and us'd to send for me, and borrow
what I could spare to help her out of them. I grew fond of
her company, and, being at that time under no religious restraint,
and presuming upon my importance to her, I attempted familiarities
(another erratum) which she repuls'd with a proper resentment,
and acquainted him with my behaviour. This made a breach between us;
and, when he returned again to London, he let me know he thought
I had cancell'd all the obligations he had been under to me.
So I found I was never to expect his repaying me what I lent to him,
or advanc'd for him. This, however, was not then of much consequence,
as he was totally unable; and in the loss of his friendship I found
myself relieved from a burthen. I now began to think of getting
a little money beforehand, and, expecting better work, I left Palmer's
to work at Watts's, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, a still greater
printing-house. Here I continued all the rest of my stay in London.

At my first admission into this printing-house I took to working
at press, imagining I felt a want of the bodily exercise I had been
us'd to in America, where presswork is mix'd with composing.
I drank only water; the other workmen, near fifty in number,
were great guzzlers of beer. On occasion, I carried up and down
stairs a large form of types in each hand, when others carried
but one in both hands. They wondered to see, from this and
several instances, that the Water-American, as they called me,
was stronger than themselves, who drank strong beer! We had an
alehouse boy who attended always in the house to supply the workmen.
My companion at the press drank every day a pint before breakfast,
a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between
breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon
about six o'clock, and another when he had done his day's work.
I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he suppos'd,
to drink strong beer, that he might be strong to labor. I endeavored
to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could
only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved
in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a
pennyworth of bread; and therefore, if he would eat that with a pint
of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer.
He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay
out of his wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor;
an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils keep
themselves always under.

Watts, after some weeks, desiring to have me in the composing-room, I left
the pressmen; a new bien venu or sum for drink, being five shillings,
was demanded of me by the compositors. I thought it an imposition,
as I had paid below; the master thought so too, and forbad my paying it.
I stood out two or three weeks, was accordingly considered as
an excommunicate, and bad so many little pieces of private mischief
done me, by mixing my sorts, transposing my pages, breaking my matter,
etc., etc., if I were ever so little out of the room, and all
ascribed to the chappel ghost, which they said ever haunted those not
regularly admitted, that, notwithstanding the master's protection,
I found myself oblig'd to comply and pay the money, convinc'd of the
folly of being on ill terms with those one is to live with continually.

I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon acquir'd
considerable influence. I propos'd some reasonable alterations
in their chappel
[5]
laws, and carried them against all opposition.
From my example, a great part of them left their muddling breakfast
of beer, and bread, and cheese, finding they could with me be
suppli'd from a neighboring house with a large porringer of hot
water-gruel, sprinkled with pepper, crumbl'd with bread, 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 cheaper breakfast,
and kept their heads clearer. Those who continued sotting with beer
all day, were often, by not paying, out of credit at the alehouse,
and us'd to make interest with me to get beer; their light, as they
phrased it, being out. I watch'd the pay-table on Saturday night,
and collected what I stood engag'd for them, having to pay sometimes
near thirty shillings a week on their account. This, and my being
esteem'd 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 all work of dispatch, which was generally better paid.
So I went on now very agreeably.

My lodging in Little Britain being too remote, I found another
in Duke-street, opposite to the Romish Chapel. It was two pair
of stairs backwards, at an Italian warehouse. A widow lady kept
the house; she had a daughter, and a maid servant, and a journeyman
who attended the warehouse, but lodg'd abroad. After sending to inquire
my character at the house where I last lodg'd she agreed to take
me in at the same rate, 3s. 6d. per week; cheaper, as she said,
from the protection she expected in having a man lodge in the house.
She was a widow, an elderly woman; had been bred a Protestant,
being a clergyman's daughter, but was converted to the Catholic
religion by her husband, whose memory she much revered; had lived much
among people of distinction, and knew a thousand anecdotes of them
as far back as the times of Charles the Second. She was lame in her
knees with the gout, and, therefore, seldom stirred out of her room,
so sometimes wanted company; and hers was so highly amusing to me,
that I was sure to spend an evening with her whenever she desired it.
Our supper was only half an anchovy each, on a very little strip
of bread and butter, and half a pint of ale between us; but the
entertainment was in her conversation. My always keeping good hours,
and giving little trouble in the family, made her unwilling to part
with me; so that, when I talk'd of a lodging I had heard of, nearer
my business, for two shillings a week, which, intent as I now was
on saving money, made some difference, she bid me not think of it,
for she would abate me two shillings a week for the future; so I
remained with her at one shilling and sixpence as long as I staid
in London.