aid of one of his female friends, solicited from the firm employment as a
journeyman. Its situation was not such as to warrant his employment, but
Franklin indiscreetly let him know as a secret that he expected to
establish a newspaper soon; when he might have work for him. Bradford's
newspaper, _The American Mercury_, he told Webb, was a paltry thing, stupid
and wretchedly managed, and yet was profitable. "Three can keep a Secret if
two are dead," is a saying of Poor Richard. It would have been well if
Franklin on this occasion had been mindful of the wisdom in which it was
conceived. He requested Webb not to mention what he said; but, as is often
true under such circumstances, it would have been more prudent for him to
have asked him to mention it. Webb did tell Keimer, and he immediately
published the prospectus of a newspaper on which Webb was to be employed.
This was resented by Franklin, and, to counteract the scheme, he and his
friend Breintnal wrote some clever little essays for Bradford's newspaper
under the title of the "Busy Body." In that dull sheet, they were, to
borrow Shakespeare's image, like bright metal on sullen ground. Public
attention was fixed upon them, and Keimer's prospectus was overlooked. He
founded his newspaper nevertheless, and conducted it for nine months under
the prolix name of the _Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences and
Pennsylvania Gazette_. It never had, at any time, more than ninety
subscribers, and, at the end of the nine months, in 1729, Franklin, who had
for some time had his arms extended to catch it when it fell, bought it at
a trifling price. Under his ownership, the cumbrous name of the paper was
cut down simply to that of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, and the absurd plan
formed by Keimer of publishing an instalment of Chambers' Universal
Dictionary of all the Arts and Sciences in every issue was abandoned for a
strain of original comment and unctuous humor which made the _Gazette_ in
popularity second only to _Poor Richard's Almanac_. Under Franklin's hands,
the paper assumed from the beginning a better typographical appearance than
any previously known to the Province, and some spirited observations by him
on a controversy between Governor Burnet and the Massachusetts Assembly,
which called into play his aversion to political tyranny, aroused so much
public attention that all the leading citizens of the Province became
subscribers. Many other subscribers followed in their train, and the
subscriptions went on continually increasing until in a few years, to quote
Franklin's own words, the _Gazette_ proved extremely profitable to him.
This was one of the first good effects of my having
learnt a little to scribble [he tells us], another was
that the leading men, seeing a newspaper now in the
hands of one who could also handle a pen, thought it
convenient to oblige and encourage me. Bradford still
printed the Votes and laws, and other publick business.
He had printed an address of the House to the Governor,
in a coarse, blundering manner; we reprinted it
elegantly and correctly, and sent one to every member.
They were sensible of the difference: it strengthened
the hands of our friends in the House, and they voted
us their printers for the year ensuing.
Among these friends, was the grateful Andrew Hamilton.
The young printer had pushed himself forward successfully enough to make
his competition keenly felt by both Keimer and Bradford. But now
unexpectedly, when all the omens were so fair, he found himself on the
brink of ruin. For some time past, he had faithfully observed his
obligations to Meredith, though his friends lamented his connection with
him. Meredith was no compositor, and but a poor pressman, and, if he had
been the best compositor or pressman in the world, he would have been a
poor partner, for he was seldom sober. While Franklin was bearing him along
on his back as well as he could, Meredith's father found himself unable to
advance for the firm the second instalment of one hundred pounds, necessary
to complete the payment for its printing outfit. The result was that the
merchant, who had sold it to the firm, grew impatient, and sued them all.
They gave bail, but realized that, if the money could not be raised in
time, judgment and execution would follow, and that the outfit would be
sold at half price. Then it was, to recall the simple and affecting words
of Franklin himself in the _Autobiography_, that two true friends, William
Coleman and Robert Grace, whose kindness he had never forgotten, and never
would forget, while he could remember anything, came to him separately,
unknown to each other, and, without any application from him, each offered
to advance to him all the money that should be necessary to enable him to
acquire the whole business of the firm, if that should be practicable.[8]
They did not like the idea of his continuing to be a partner of Meredith,
who, they said, was often seen drunk in the streets, and playing at low
games in alehouses to the discredit of the firm. Distressing, however, as
his situation was, Franklin appears to have acted with a high-minded regard
to the proprieties of the occasion. He told Coleman and Grace that, so long
as there was any prospect that the Merediths might live up to their
agreement, he was under too great obligations to them for what they had
done, and would do, if they could, to suggest a dissolution of the
partnership, but that, if they finally defaulted in the performance of
their part of the agreement, and the partnership was dissolved, he would
feel at liberty to accept the assistance of his friends.
But he was astute as well as conscientious. After the matter had rested in
this position for some time, he said to Meredith:
Perhaps your father is dissatisfied at the part you
have undertaken in this affair of ours, and is
unwilling to advance for you and me what he would for
you alone. If that is the case, tell me, and I will
resign the whole to you, and go about my business.
No, said he, my father has really been disappointed,
and is really unable; and I am unwilling to distress
him farther. I see this is a business I am not fit for.
I was bred a farmer, and it was a folly in me to come
to town, and put myself, at thirty years of age, an
apprentice to learn a new trade. Many of our Welsh
people are going to settle in North Carolina, where
land is cheap. I am inclin'd to go with them, and
follow my old employment. You may find friends to
assist you. If you will take the debts of the company
upon you; return to my father the hundred pound he has
advanced; pay my little personal debts, and give me
thirty pounds and a new saddle, I will relinquish the
partnership, and leave the whole in your hands.
Franklin agreed to this proposal. It was made the basis of a contract which
was immediately signed and sealed. Meredith received the thirty pounds and
the saddle, and soon afterwards went off to North Carolina, whence he sent
to Franklin the next year two long letters containing the best account of
the climate, soil, husbandry and other features of that Province that had
been given up to that time. "For in those matters," adds Franklin, with his
usual generosity, "he was very judicious. I printed them in the papers, and
they gave great satisfaction to the publick."
After the departure of Meredith for North Carolina, Franklin turned to the
two friends who had proffered their help. He accepted from each of them,
because he would not give an unkind preference to either, one half of the
money he needed, paid off the debts of the partnership, advertised its
dissolution and went on with the business in his own name. This was on July
14, 1730.
Seasonably for him, there was a loud cry among the people at this time for
a more abundant issue of paper money. The wealthier members of the
community were all against the proposition. They feared that an addition to
the existing paper circulation would depreciate, as it had done in New
York, and that the debts due to them would be discharged by payment in a
medium worth less than its nominal value. The question was discussed by the
Junto, and Franklin argued in favor of the issue; being persuaded that the
prosperity of the Province had been very much promoted by a small previous
issue of paper money in 1723. He remembered, he says in the
_Autobiography_, that, when he first walked about the streets of
Philadelphia, eating his roll, most of the houses on Walnut Street, between
Second and Front Streets, and many besides, on Chestnut and other streets,
were placarded, "To be let"; which made him feel as if the inhabitants of
Philadelphia were deserting the town one after the other; whereas at the
time of this discussion all the old houses were occupied, and many new ones
were in process of construction. Not content with presenting his views on
the subject to the Junto, he wrote an anonymous pamphlet on it entitled
_The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency_. This pamphlet was well
received by the common people, he tells us, but met with the disfavor of
the rich, because it swelled the clamor for more money. Their opposition,
however, for lack of writers, competent to refute its reasoning,
languished, and the issue was authorized by the Assembly. Franklin's
friends in the house rewarded him for his part in the controversy over it
by employing him to print the money. "A very profitable jobb and a great
help to me," remarks Franklin complacently in the _Autobiography_, and he
adds, "This was another advantage gain'd by my being able to write."
Through the influence of his friend Hamilton, he likewise secured the
contract for printing the paper money, issued by the Three Lower Counties
on the Delaware. "Another profitable jobb as I then thought it," he says,
"small things appearing great to those in small circumstances." Hamilton
also procured for him the privilege of printing the laws and legislative
proceedings of the Three Lower Counties, and he retained it as long as he
remained in the printing business. Now, for the first time, he felt that
his position was assured enough for him to open up a small stationery shop,
where he sold blanks of all sorts, paper, parchment, chapmen's books and
other such wares. The blanks he believed to be "the correctest that ever
appear'd among us, being assisted in that by my friend Breintnal." The
demands on his printing-office, too, increased to such a degree that he
employed a compositor, one Whitemarsh, an excellent workman, whom he had
known in London, and undertook the care of an apprentice, a son of the
ever-to-be-lamented Aquila Rose. Soon he was prospering to such an extent
that he could begin to pay off the debt that he owed on his printing
outfit. These are the words in which he himself described his situation at
this time:
In order to secure my credit and character as a
tradesman, I took care not only to be in _reality_
industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to
the contrary. I drest plainly; I was seen at no places
of idle diversion. I never went out a fishing or
shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes debauch'd me from
my work, but that was seldom, snug, and gave no
scandal; and, to show that I was not above my business,
I sometimes brought home the paper I purchas'd at the
stores thro' the streets on a wheel-barrow. Thus being
esteem'd an industrious, thriving young man, and paying
duly for what I bought, the merchants who imported
stationery solicited my custom; others proposed
supplying me with books, and I went on swimmingly. In
the meantime, Keimer's credit and business declining
daily, he was at last forc'd to sell his printing-house
to satisfy his creditors. He went to Barbadoes, and
there lived some years in very poor circumstances.
For some time before Keimer went off to Barbadoes, he had been in the
condition of an unsound tree, which still stands but with a dry rot at its
heart momentarily presaging its fall. As far back as Issue No. 27 of _The
Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences_, and _Pennsylvania Gazette_,
he had found it necessary to explain a week's delay in the publication of
that issue by stating to the public that he had been awakened, when fast
asleep in bed, about eleven at night, over-tired with the labor of the day,
and taken away from his dwelling by a writ and summons; it being basely and
confidently given out that he was that very night about to run away, though
there was not the least color or ground for such a vile report. He was, he
further declared, "the shuttlecock of fortune ... the very but for villany
to shoot at, or the continued mark for slander and her imps to spit their
venom upon." It was remarkable, he thought, that
a person of strict sincerity, refin'd justice, and
universal love to the whole creation, should for a
series of near twenty years, be the constant but of
slander, as to be three times ruin'd as a
master-printer, to be nine times in prison, one of
which was six years together, and often reduc'd to the
most wretched circumstances, hunted as a partridge upon
the mountains, and persecuted with the most abominable
lies the devil himself could invent or malice utter.
It was but the old story of the man, who is dizzy, thinking that the whole
world is spinning around.
David Harry, Keimer's former apprentice, had also opened a printing-office
in Philadelphia. When his enterprise was in its inception, Franklin
regarded his rivalry with much uneasiness on account of his influential
connections. He accordingly proposed a partnership to him, a proposal
which, fortunately for the former, was disdainfully refused. "He was very
proud," says Franklin, "dress'd like a gentleman, liv'd expensively, took
much diversion and pleasure abroad, ran in debt, and neglected his
business; upon which, all business left him." The result was that Harry had
to follow Keimer to Barbadoes, taking his printing outfit with him. Here
the former apprentice employed the former master as a journeyman; they
frequently quarrelled with each other; Harry steadily fell behind, and was
compelled to sell his type, and to return to his country work in
Pennsylvania. The purchaser of the outfit employed Keimer to operate it,
but, in a few years more, Keimer was transported by death out of the world,
which for a considerable part of his life he had seen only through the
gratings of a jail.
The departure of Harry left Franklin without any competitor except his old
one, Bradford, who was too rich and easy-going to actively push for
business. But, in one respect, Bradford was a formidable rival. He was the
Postmaster at Philadelphia, and his newspaper flourished at the expense of
the _Gazette_ upon the public impression that his connection with the
Post-office gave him facilities for gathering news and for circulating
advertisements that Franklin did not enjoy.
To this period belong Franklin's treaty for a wife with enough means to
discharge the balance of one hundred pounds still due on his printing
outfit, and his final recoil to Deborah whose industry and frugality were
far more than the pecuniary equivalent of one hundred pounds. After his
marriage, he was, if anything, even more industrious than before, and this
is what he has to say about his habits and employments during the period
that immediately followed that event:
Reading was the only amusement I allow'd myself. I
spent no time in taverns, games, or frolicks of any
kind; and my industry in my business continu'd as
indefatigable as it was necessary. I was indebted for
my printing-house; I had a young family coming on to be
educated, and I had to contend with for business two
printers, who were established in the place before me.
My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My
original habits of frugality continuing, and my father
having among his instructions to me when a boy,
frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, "Seest thou a
man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before
kings, he shall not stand before mean men," I from
thence considered industry as a means of obtaining
wealth and distinction, which encourag'd me, tho' I did
not think that I should ever literally _stand before_
kings, which, however, has since happened; for I have
stood before _five_, and even had the honour of sitting
down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner.
Another passage in the _Autobiography_ tells us just what degree of
frugality Franklin and Deborah practiced at this stage of his business
career.
We kept no idle servants [he says], our table was plain
and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For
instance, my breakfast was a long time bread and milk
(no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen
porringer, with a pewter spoon. But mark how luxury
will enter families, and make a progress, in spite of
principle: being call'd one morning to breakfast, I
found it in a China bowl, with a spoon of silver! They
had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife,
and had cost her the enormous sum of three-and-twenty
shillings, for which she had no other excuse or apology
to make, but that she thought _her_ husband deserv'd a
silver spoon and China bowl as well as any of his
neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and
China in our house, which afterward, in a course of
years, as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to
several hundred pounds in value.
In 1732 was first published, at fivepence a copy, Franklin's famous almanac
known as _Poor Richard's Almanac_, which for twenty-five years warmed the
homes of Pennsylvania with the ruddy glow of its wit, humor and wisdom. His
endeavor in conducting it he tells us was to make it both entertaining and
useful, and he was so successful that he reaped considerable profit from
the nearly ten thousand copies of it that he annually sold. Hundreds of the
inhabitants of Pennsylvania, who read nothing else, read the _Almanac_. Its
infectious humor, its coarse pleasantry, its proverbs and sayings so much
wiser than the wisdom, and so much wittier than the wit of any single
individual, made the name of Franklin a common household word from one end
of Pennsylvania to another, and, when finally strained off into Father
Abraham's speech, established his reputation as a kindly humorist and moral
teacher throughout the world.
In somewhat the same spirit of instruction as well as entertainment was the
_Gazette_, too, conducted.
I considered my newspaper, also [says Franklin], as
another means of communicating instruction, and in that
view frequently reprinted in it extracts from the
_Spectator_, and other moral writers; and sometimes
publish'd little pieces of my own, which had been first
compos'd for reading in our Junto.
The caution exercised by the _Gazette_ in shutting out malice and personal
abuse from its columns is the subject of one of the weightiest series of
statements in the _Autobiography_.
In the conduct of my newspaper [Franklin declares] I
carefully excluded all libelling and personal abuse,
which is of late years become so disgraceful to our
country. Whenever I was solicited to insert anything
of that kind, and the writers pleaded, as they
generally did, the liberty of the press, and that a
newspaper was like a stage-coach, in which any one who
would pay had a right to a place, my answer was, that I
would print the piece separately if desired, and the
author might have as many copies as he pleased to
distribute himself, but that I would not take upon me
to spread his detraction; and that, having contracted
with my subscribers to furnish them with what might be
either useful or entertaining, I could not fill their
papers with private altercation, in which they had no
concern, without doing them manifest injustice. Now,
many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the
malice of individuals by false accusations of the
fairest characters among ourselves, augmenting
animosity even to the producing of duels; and are,
moreover, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous
reflections on the government of neighboring states,
and even on the conduct of our best national allies,
which may be attended with the most pernicious
consequences. These things I mention as a caution to
young printers, and that they may be encouraged not to
pollute their presses and disgrace their profession by
such infamous practices, but refuse steadily, as they
may see by my example that such a course of conduct
will not, on the whole, be injurious to their
interests.
By 1733 Franklin was sufficiently established in business to branch out
still more. That year he sent one of his journeymen, Thomas Whitemarsh, to
Charleston, South Carolina, where a printer was needed, under an agreement
of partnership which was the prototype of most of the subsequent articles
of copartnership formed by him with other printers under similar
conditions; that is to say, he furnished the printing outfit, paid one
third of the expenses, and received one third of the profits. The history
of this partner gave Franklin an opportunity to moralize a little in the
_Autobiography_ upon the importance of a knowledge of accounts rather than
of music or dancing as a part of female education. The Carolina printer was
a man of education and honest, but ignorant of accounts, and, though he
made occasional remittances, Franklin could never get any account from him,
nor any satisfactory statement of the condition of the partnership
business. On his death, however, his widow, who had been born and bred in
Holland, not only sent Franklin as clear a statement as was possible of the
past transactions of the firm, but subsequently rendered him an exact
account every quarter with the utmost punctuality, and, besides, managed
the business with such success that she reared a family of children
decently, and, upon the expiration of the copartnership, purchased the
outfit from Franklin, and turned it over to her son.
The success of the Carolina partnership encouraged Franklin to form
partnerships with other journeymen of his, and by 1743 he had opened three
printing-offices in three different colonies, and proposed to open a
fourth, if he could find a suitable person to take charge of it. Others
were opened by him later. Among the persons besides Whitemarsh, established
by him at different times as printers, under one arrangement or another
with himself, were Peter Timothy in South Carolina, Smith and Benjamin
Mecom in Antigua, James Parker in New York, his brother in Rhode Island,
Hall and Miller and Samuel Holland at Lancaster, and William Daniell at
Kingston, Jamaica. Speaking of his partners in the _Autobiography_, he says
of them:
Most of them did well, being enabled at the end of our
term, six years, to purchase the types of me and go on
working for themselves, by which means several families
were raised. Partnerships often finish in quarrels; but
I was happy in this, that mine were all carried on and
ended amicably, owing, I think, a good deal to the
precaution of having very explicitly settled, in our
articles, everything to be done by or expected from
each partner, so that there was nothing to dispute,
which precaution I would therefore recommend to all who
enter into partnerships; for, whatever esteem partners
may have for, and confidence in each other at the time
of the contract, little jealousies and disgusts may
arise, with ideas of inequality in the care and burden
of the business, etc., which are attended often with
breach of friendship and of the connection, perhaps
with lawsuits and other disagreeable consequences.
Two other business enterprises of Franklin merit notice. He was the founder
of the first newspaper in the United States to be published in a foreign
tongue, namely, the _Philadelphische Zeitung_, which owed its origin to the
large number of Germans who came over to Pennsylvania during the Colonial
Period. He was also the founder of a monthly literary magazine which for
some reason he does not mention in the _Autobiography_ at all. It was the
second enterprise of the kind undertaken in America, and was known as _The
General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for All the British Plantations
in America_. To Franklin as a business man might aptly be applied the words
of Emerson with respect to Guy:
Stream could not so perversely wind
But corn of Guy's was there to grind.
One exception, however, appears to have been this magazine which lasted but
a short time. It was ill-starred from the start. When Franklin was ready to
spring it upon the public, he engaged John Webbe as its editor, but Webbe
betrayed the project to Bradford, who at once announced that, a little
later, a magazine would be offered to the public edited by Webbe, and
published by himself. When the first number of Franklin's magazine came
out, he stated that its publication was earlier than he had intended
because of the faithless conduct of Webbe. This Webbe resented by charging
Franklin, who was then Postmaster at Philadelphia, with shutting out
Bradford's _Mercury_ from the post, but Franklin silenced his fire by
stating and proving that he had had no choice in the matter, because he had
been commanded by Postmaster-General Spottswood, on account of Bradford's
failure as Postmaster at Philadelphia to account with him, to suffer no
longer any of his newspapers or letters to be conveyed by post free of
charge.
The business of Franklin received another push forward with the political
consequence which he acquired through the _Gazette_ and the influence of
the Junto. In 1736, he was chosen Clerk of the General Assembly, and in the
succeeding year he was appointed Postmaster at Philadelphia, in the place
of Bradford, by Alexander Spottswood, who had been Governor of Virginia,
and was then the Deputy Postmaster-General for America. The salary of the
Postmastership was small, but, for the purposes of the _Gazette_, the
office gave him the same advantage that Bradford had enjoyed, when he
refused to allow that newspaper to be carried by his post-riders. The
positions of the two men were now reversed, but Franklin was too
magnanimous to remind Bradford, sternly, as he did Jemmy Read, that
Fortune's Wheel is ever turning. "My old competitor's newspaper," he says,
"declined proportionably, and I was satisfy'd without retaliating his
refusal, while postmaster, to permit my papers being carried by the
riders." Bradford had suffered, Franklin adds, "for his neglect in due
accounting." And this gave him occasion to observe that regularity and
clearness in rendering accounts and punctuality in making remittances are
"the most powerful of all recommendations to new employments and increase
of business."
The office of Clerk of the Assembly also had its business value.
Besides the pay for the immediate service as clerk
[Franklin says] the place gave me a better opportunity
of keeping up an interest among the members, which
secur'd to me the business of printing the votes,
laws, paper money, and other occasional jobbs for the
public, that, on the whole, were very profitable.
The first year that he came up for election the vote in his favor was
unanimous, but the next year, while he was elected, it was only after a new
member had made a long speech against him in the interest of another
candidate. How Franklin conciliated the unfriendliness of this member is
fully told in the _Autobiography_;
I therefore did not like the opposition of this new
member, who was a gentleman of fortune and education,
with talents that were likely to give him, in time,
great influence in the House, which, indeed, afterwards
happened. I did not, however, aim at gaining his favour
by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some
time, took this other method. Having heard that he had
in his library a certain very scarce and curious book,
I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing
that book, and requesting he would do me the favour of
lending it to me for a few days. He sent it
immediately, and I return'd it in about a week with
another note, expressing strongly my sense of the
favour. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me
(which he had never done before), and with great
civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to
serve me on all occasions, so that we became great
friends, and our friendship continued to his death.
This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I
had learned, which says, "_He that has once done you a
kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he
whom you yourself have obliged._" And it shows how much
more profitable it is prudently to remove, than to
resent, return, and continue inimical proceedings.
The artifice practised by Franklin on this occasion has been condemned.
What he really did, of course, was to use gratified vanity as a foil to
mortified vanity. The possible consequences of the new member's hostility
were too serious for him to say as Washington was in the habit of saying
when he had a bad cold: "Let it go as it came." He knew that the malice was
as shallow as the good will; and the alternatives were resentment,
sycophancy, or a little subtlety. Under the circumstances, Franklin would
not have been Franklin, if he had not elected subtlety.
Nothing was now wanting to the full development of his business career
except the repetition in other communities of the success that had crowned
his personal exertions in Pennsylvania. Referring to the state of his
business at this time, he says in the _Autobiography_;
My business was now continually augmenting, and my
circumstances growing daily easier, my newspaper having
become very profitable, as being for a time almost the
only one in this and the neighboring provinces. I
experienced, too, the truth of the observation, "_that
after getting the first hundred pound, it is more easy
to get the second_," money itself being of a prolific
nature.
The outcome of it all was that, in the year 1748, at the age of forty-two,
he flattered himself, to repeat his own language, that, by the sufficient,
though moderate, fortune which he had acquired, he had secured leisure
during the rest of his life for philosophical studies and amusements.
The plan that he formed for securing this leisure, which he turned to such
fruitful, purposes, was marked by his usual good judgment. In 1744, he had
taken into his employment David Hall, a Scotch journeyman, and a friend of
Strahan. He now admitted Hall to partnership with him. "A very able,
industrious, and honest partner, Mr. David Hall, with whose character I was
well acquainted, as he had work'd for me for four years," are the terms in
which he speaks of Hall in the _Autobiography_. "He took off my hands," he
continues, "all care of the printing-office, paying me punctually my share
of the profits. The partnership continued eighteen years, successfully for
us both." Under the provisions of the partnership agreement, Hall was to
carry on the printing and publishing business of Franklin in his own way,
but in the firm name of Franklin and Hall, and Hall was to pay to Franklin
a thousand pounds a year for eighteen years; at the end of which period
Hall was to become the sole proprietor of the business.[9] Exactly what
income Franklin was deriving from his printing and publishing business at
the time that this agreement was entered into is not known, but reasonable
conjecture has placed it at something like two thousand pounds a year. At
that time he was also the owner of a considerable amount of property,
representing invested returns from his business in the past. The _Gazette_
continued to be published until the year 1821. When the term of eighteen
years, during which the partnership was to last, expired in 1766, the
profits had been over twelve thousand pounds, Pennsylvania currency, from
subscriptions, and over four thousand pounds, Pennsylvania currency, from
advertisements. Judged by the standards of the time and place, it was an
extraordinary degree of success which had enabled Franklin in some twenty
years to establish so lucrative a business as that which he handed over to
the management of Hall in 1748, and few indeed have been the men in
mercantile history, who have been willing, after so long a period of
prosperous addiction to gain, to turn away to purely intellectual and
unremunerative pursuits from such a prospect of increasing self-enrichment
as that renounced by Franklin when he wrote to Cadwallader Colden that he,
too, was taking the proper measures for obtaining leisure to enjoy life and
his friends more than in the past; having put his printing-house under the
care of his partner, David Hall, absolutely left off book-selling, and
removed to a more quiet part of the town, where he was settling his old
accounts, and hoped soon to be quite master of his own time, and no longer,
as the song had it, at everyone's call but his own. Nobody knew better than
he that, if, after getting the first hundred pounds, it is easier to get
the second, it is still easier, after getting the second hundred pounds, to
get the third.
For Hall, Franklin entertained uninterrupted feelings of respect and
affection, down to the date of the former's death on December 17, 1772. "My
Love to Mr. Hall," is one of his messages to Deborah some seven years after
the firm of Franklin and Hall was created. Before that he had written to
Strahan, "Our friend, Mr. Hall, is well, and manages perfectly to my
satisfaction." Many years after the death of Hall, the account between
Franklin and him had not been wholly settled, and a letter from the former
to Strahan in the year 1785 tells him that Hall and himself had not been of
the same mind as to "the value of a copyright in an established newspaper,
of each of which from eight to ten thousand were printed," but "were to be
determined" by Strahan's opinion. "My long absence from that country, and
immense employment the little time I was there," Franklin wrote, "have
hitherto prevented the settlement of all the accounts that had been between
us; though we never differed about them, and never should if that good
honest man had continued in being."
Franklin's failure to forecast the stubborn hostility of the Colonies to
the Stamp Act not only cost him some personal popularity but it caused his
firm some pecuniary loss. Anticipating with his usual shrewdness the
passage of that Act, which imposed a tax of a sterling half-penny on every
half-sheet of a newspaper, however small, he sent over to Hall one hundred
reams of large half-sheet paper, but permission could not be obtained to
have it stamped in America, and it was all reshipped to England at a loss.
As to the Paper sent over [he wrote to Hall] I did it
for the best, having at that time Expectations given me
that we might have had it stampt there; in which case
you would have had great Advantage of the other
Printers, since if they were not provided with such
Paper, they must have either printed but a half sheet
common Demi, or paid for two Stamps on each Sheet. The
Plan was afterward alter'd notwithstanding all I could
do, it being alledged that Scotland & every Colony
would expect the same Indulgence if it was granted to
us. The Papers must not be sent back again: But I hope
you will excuse what I did in Good will, tho' it
happen'd wrong.
After the retirement of Franklin from active business, he still continued
to hold his office as Postmaster at Philadelphia, and, while holding it, he
was employed by the Deputy Postmaster-General for America as his
comptroller to examine and audit the accounts of several of his subordinate
officers. Upon the death of the Deputy Postmaster-General, he was appointed
his successor, jointly with William Hunter, of Virginia, by the British
Postmasters-General. When the pair were appointed, the office had never
earned any net revenue for the British Crown. Under the terms of their
appointment, they were to have six hundred pounds a year between them, if
they could make that sum out of its profits, and, when they entered upon
it, so many improvements had to be effected by them that, in the first four
years, it ran into debt to them to the extent of upwards of nine hundred
pounds; but, under the skilful management of Franklin, it became
remunerative, and, before he was removed by the British Government, after
his arraignment before the Privy Council, it had been brought to yield
three times as much clear revenue to the Crown as the Irish Post-office.
"Since that imprudent transaction," Franklin observes in the
_Autobiography_, "they have receiv'd from it--not one farthing!"
On August 10, 1761, eight years after the appointment of Franklin and
Hunter, and a few weeks before Foxcroft succeeded Hunter, there was a net
balance of four hundred and ninety-four pounds four shillings and eight
pence due by the American Post-office to the British Crown; which was duly
remitted. "And this," exclaims the astonished official record of the fact
in England, "is the first remittance ever made of the kind." Between August
10, 1761, and the beginning of 1764, the net profits of the American
Post-office amounted to two thousand and seventy pounds twelve shillings
and three and one quarter pence, and drew from the British
Postmasters-General the statement, "The Posts in America are under the
management of persons of acknowledged ability." With this record of
administrative success, it is not surprising that, when Franklin was
removed from office, he should have written to Thomas Cushing these bitter
words:
I received a written notice from the Secretary of the
general post-office, that His Majesty's
postmaster-general _found it necessary_ to dismiss me
from my office of deputy postmaster-general in North
America. The expression was well chosen, for in truth
they were _under a necessity_ of doing it; it was not
their own inclination; they had no fault to find with
my conduct in the office; they knew my merit in it, and
that, if it was now an office of value, it had become
such chiefly through my care and good management; that
it was worth nothing, when given to me; it would not
then pay the salary allowed me, and, unless it did, I
was not to expect it; and that it now produces near
three thousand pounds a year clear to the treasury
here. They had beside a personal regard for me. But as
the postoffices in all the principal towns are growing
daily more and more valuable, by the increase of
correspondence, the officers being paid _commissions_
instead of _salaries_, the ministers seem to intend, by
directing me to be displaced on this occasion, to hold
out to them all an example that, if they are not
corrupted by their office to promote the measures of
administration, though against the interests and rights
of the colonies, they must not expect to be continued.
Not only was the American postal service made by Franklin's able management
to yield a net revenue to the British Crown, but it was brought up to a
much higher level of efficiency. For one thing, the mails between New York
and Philadelphia were increased from one a week in summer and two a month
in winter to three a week in summer and one a week in winter. In 1764, a
Philadelphia merchant could mail a letter to New York and receive a reply
the next day. For another thing, post-riders were required to carry all
newspapers offered to them for carriage whether the newspapers of
postmasters or not. In the discharge of his postal duties, Franklin was
compelled to make many long journeys outside of Pennsylvania, and these
journeys did much, as we have said, to extend his reputation on the
American continent and to confirm his extraordinary familiarity with
American conditions. As soon as he was appointed Deputy Postmaster-General
for America with Hunter, William Franklin was appointed Comptroller of the
Post-office. The post-office at Philadelphia he first conferred upon
William Franklin, then upon Joseph Read, one of Deborah's relatives, and
then upon Peter Franklin, Franklin's brother. Indeed, so long as there was
a Franklin or a Read willing to enter the public service, Franklin's other
fellow-countrymen had very little chance of filling any vacant post in the
American Post-office. This was doubtless due not only to his clannishness
but also to the fact that, as far as we can now judge, nepotism was a much
more venial offence in the eyes of the public during the colonial era than
now. Even now it may be doubted whether the disfavor with which it is
regarded is prompted so much by its prejudicial tendency from a public
point of view as by its tendency, from the point of view of the spoilsman,
to interfere with the repeated use of office for partisan purposes.
The income upon which Franklin retired from business was the sum of one
thousand pounds a year for eighteen years, which Hall agreed to pay him,
the small salary, arising from the office of Postmaster at Philadelphia,
and the income, supposed to be about seven hundred pounds a year, produced
by his invested savings. When in England, in addition to the one thousand
pounds a year, paid to him by Hall, which ended in the year 1766, and the
income derived by him from invested savings, he received a salary of three
hundred pounds a year from his office as Deputy Postmaster-General for
America, until he was removed in 1774, and for briefer periods a salary of
five hundred pounds a year from his office as Colonial Agent for
Pennsylvania, and salaries of four hundred pounds, two hundred pounds and
one hundred pounds as the Colonial Agent of Massachusetts, Georgia and New
Jersey, respectively. With his removal from his office of Deputy
Postmaster-General, all these agencies and the salaries attached to them
came to an end. When the annuity paid to him by Hall ceased, his income was
so seriously curtailed that he was compelled, as we have seen, to remind
Deborah of the fact. After his return from England in 1775, he was
appointed the Postmaster-General of the United States at a salary of one
thousand pounds a year.
For his public services in France, he was allowed at first a salary of five
hundred pounds a year and his expenses, and subsequently, when his rank was
advanced to that of ambassador, two thousand five hundred pounds a year.
When he returned from France to America, he communicated to his old friend,
Charles Thomson, the Secretary of Congress, his hope that Congress might be
kind enough to recognize the value of his services and sacrifices in the
American cause by granting him some small tract of land in the West. He
saw, he said, that Congress had made a handsome allowance to Arthur Lee for
his services to America in England before his appointment as Commissioner
to France, though it had made none to the writer or to Mr. Bollan, who were
also parties to these services. Moreover, Lee, on his return to America, as
well as John Jay, had been rewarded by Congress with a good office. The
letter, of course, made out an irrefragable case; for, if the United States
had given the whole Northwest Territory to Franklin, his heirs and assigns
forever, the gift would hardly have exceeded the value of his services. It
was written just before the Old Congress gave way to the First Congress
under the Federal Constitution, and nothing ever came of it. The conduct of
the Old Congress to Franklin in other respects had been so ungenerous that
it is hardly likely that it would have made any response to the appeal
anyhow unless solicited by a more intriguing spirit than his.
The State of Georgia was more mindful of its obligations to him, and voted
him the right to take up three thousand acres of land within its limits.
After his return from France, a great rise took place in the value of real
estate in Philadelphia, and his houses and lots reaped its benefits to a
conspicuous degree. On Jan. 29, 1786, he wrote to Ferdinand Grand, "My own
Estate I find more than tripled in Value since the Revolution"; and similar
statements are to be found in other letters of his at this time.
At this period of his life, a considerable amount of his attention was
given to the improvement of his property. On Apr. 22, 1787, in a letter to
Ferdinand Grand, he said, "The three Houses which I began to build last
year, are nearly finished, and I am now about to begin two others. Building
is an Old Man's Amusement. The Advantage is for his Posterity."
When Franklin died, his estate consisted of ten houses in Philadelphia, and
almost as many vacant lots, a pasture lot near Philadelphia, a farm near
Burlington, New Jersey, a house in Boston, the right to the three thousand
acres of land in Georgia, a tract of land on the Ohio, a tract of land in
Nova Scotia, twelve shares of the capital stock of the Bank of North
America and bonds of individuals in excess of eighteen thousand pounds. The
value of his entire estate was supposed to be between two hundred and two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Under his management, the _Gazette_ was probably the best newspaper
produced in Colonial America. In its early history, it appeared first twice
a week, and then weekly, and consisted of but a single sheet, which, when
folded, was about 12 by 18 inches square. Parton is not accurate, as his
own context shows, in stating that Franklin "originated the modern system
of business-advertising." Other newspapers of the time, including
Bradford's _Mercury_, contained advertisements for the recovery of runaway
servants and slaves, and lost or stolen articles, and for the sale of
different kinds of merchandise. When Franklin fled from Boston, his brother
James advertised for another apprentice in the _Courant_. Nor is Parton
accurate, either, in stating that Franklin "invented the plan of
distinguishing advertisements by means of little pictures, which he cut
with his own hands." There were such cuts in Bradford's _Mercury_ even
before the _Gazette_ was founded. The _Gazette_ won a position of its own
because its proprietor and editor brought to its issues that knowledge of
human life and human nature and that combination of practical sagacity,
humor and literary skill which he carried into everything. The latest
advices of the day, foreign and domestic, which were tardy enough, extracts
from the _Spectator_ and other moral writers of the age, verses from
contemporary poets, cuttings from the English newspapers, broad, obscene
jokes, as unconscious of offence as the self-exposure of a child or an
animal, all assembled with the instinctive eye to unity of effect, which is
the most consummate achievement of journalistic art, made up the usual
contents of the _Gazette_. Now, along with news items of local and outside
interest, we have a humorous account of a lottery in England, by which, for
the better increase of the King's subjects, all the old maids are to be
raffled for; now some truculent flings at the Catholics, the _caput
lupinum_ of that age; now a hint to a delinquent subscriber that it was
considerably in his power to contribute towards the happiness of his most
humble obliged servant; now an exasperating intimation that the _Mercury_
has been depredating upon the columns of its rival; now some little essay
or dialogue from the pen of Franklin himself, good enough to be classed as
literature. The open, kindly, yet shrewd, face, with the crow's-feet,
furrowed by the incessant play of humor about the corners of its eyes,
looks out at us from every page.
The editor of the _Gazette_ sustains to his readers a relation as personal
as that sustained by Poor Richard to his. He goes off to New Jersey to
print some paper currency for that Colony, and he inserts this paragraph in
the _Gazette_: "The Printer hopes the irregular Publication of this Paper
will be excused a few times by his Town Readers, on consideration of his
being at Burlington with the press, labouring for the publick Good, to make
Money more plentiful." The statement that a flash of lightning in Bucks
County had melted the pewter buttons off the waistband of a farmer's
breeches elicits the observation, "Tis well nothing else thereabouts was
made of pewter." When contributions by others failed him, he even wrote
letters to himself under feigned names. "Printerum est errare," we are
told, and then, under this announcement, Franklin, in another name,
addresses the following facetious letter to himself:
Sir, As your last Paper was reading in some Company
where I was present, these Words were taken Notice of
in the Article concerning Governor Belcher (After which
his Excellency, with the Gentlemen trading to New
England, died elegantly at Pontack's). The Word died
should doubtless have been dined, Pontack's being a
noted Tavern and Eating house in London for Gentlemen
of Condition; but this Omission of the Letter (n) in
that Word, gave us as much Entertainment as any Part of
your Paper. One took the Opportunity of telling us,
that in a certain Edition of the Bible, the Printer
had, where David says I am fearfully and wonderfully
made, omitted the Letter (e) in the last Word, so that
it was, I am fearfully and wonderfully mad; which
occasion'd an ignorant Preacher, who took that Text, to
harangue his Audience for half an hour on the Subject
of Spiritual Madness. Another related to us, that when
the Company of Stationers in England had the Printing
of the Bible in their Hands, the Word (not) was left
out of the Seventh Commandment, and the whole Edition
was printed off with Thou shalt commit Adultery,
instead of Thou shalt not, &c. This material Erratum
induc'd the Crown to take the Patent from them which is
now held by the King's Printer. The Spectator's Remark
upon this Story is, that he doubts many of our modern
Gentlemen have this faulty edition by 'em, and are not
made sensible of the Mistake. A Third Person in the
Company acquainted us with an unlucky Fault that went
through a whole Impression of Common-Prayer Books; in
the Funeral Service, where these Words are, We shall
all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an Eye,
&c., the Printer had omitted the (c) in changed, and it
read thus, We shall all be hanged, &c. And lastly, a
Mistake of your Brother News-Printer was mentioned, in
The Speech of James Prouse written the Night before he
was to have been executed, instead of I die a
Protestant, he has put it, I died a Protestant. Upon
the whole you came off with the more favourable
Censure, because your Paper is most commonly very
correct, and yet you were never known to triumph upon
it, by publickly ridiculing and exposing the continual
Blunders of your Contemporary Which Observation was
concluded by a good old Gentleman in Company, with this
general just Remark, That whoever accustoms himself to
pass over in Silence the Faults of his Neighbours,
shall meet with much better Quarter from the World when
he happens to fall into a Mistake himself; for the
Satyrical and Censorious, whose Hand is against every
Man, shall upon such Occasions have every Man's Hand
against him.
This is an accusation of plagiarism made by Franklin against Bradford:
When Mr. Bradford publishes after us [he declared], and
has Occasion to take an Article or two out of the
_Gazette_, which he is always welcome to do, he is
desired not to date his Paper a Day before ours, (as
last Week in the Case of the Letter containing Kelsey's
Speech, &c) lest distant Readers should imagine we take
from him, which we always carefully avoid.
Bradford hit back as best he could. On one occasion he charged that the
contract for printing paper money for the Province of New Jersey had been
awarded to Franklin at a higher bid than that of another bidder. "Its no
matter," he said, "its the Country's Money, and if the Publick cannot
afford to pay well, who can? Its proper to serve a Friend when there is an
opportunity."
One of Franklin's favorite devices for filling up gaps in the _Gazette_ was
to have himself, in the guise of a correspondent, ask himself questions,
and then answer them. "I am about courting a girl I have had but little
acquaintance with; how shall I come to a knowledge of her faults, and
whether she has the virtues I imagine she has," is one such supposititious
question. "Commend her among her female acquaintance," is the ready-made
answer. Another imaginary question was of this tenor: "Mr. Franklin: Pray
let the prettiest Creature in this Place know (by publishing this), that if
it was not for her Affectation she would be absolutely irresistible." Next
week a flood of replies gushed out of the editor's pigeon-holes. One ran
thus:
"I cannot conceive who your Correspondent means by 'the prettiest creature'
in this Place; but I can assure either him or her, that she who is truly
so, has no Affectation at all."
And another ran thus:
"Sir, Since your last Week's Paper I have look'd in my Glass a thousand
Times, I believe, in one way; and if it was not for the Charge of
Affectation I might, without Partiality believe myself the Person meant."
At times we cannot but suspect that Franklin has deliberately created a
sensation for the purpose of quickening the sale of the _Gazette_. For
instance, a peruke maker in Second Street advertises that he will "leave
off the shaving business after the 22nd of August next." Commenting on this
advertisement, Franklin observes that barbers are peculiarly fitted for
politics, for they are adept shavers and trimmers; and, when the angry
peruke maker calls him to task for his levity, he replies that he cherishes
no animosity at all towards him, and can only impute his feelings to a
"Want of taste and relish for pieces of that force and beauty which none
but a University bred gentleman can produce."
On another occasion, when advertising the sailing of a ship, he added this
N. B. of his own: "No Sea Hens, nor Black Gowns will be admitted on any
terms." To such a degree were some of the clergy incensed by it that they
withdrew their subscriptions; but it is not unlikely that in a day or so
twice their number in scoffers were added to the subscription list of the
young printer. At times the fooling is bald buffoonery.
On Thursday last [he informed his readers] a certain
P--r ('tis not customary to give names at length on
these occasions) walking carefully in clean clothes
over some barrels of tar on Carpenter's Wharf, the head
of one of them unluckily gave way, and let a leg of him
in above the knee. Whether he was upon the Catch at
that time, we can not say, but 'tis certain he caught a
_Tar-tar_, 'Twas observed he sprang out again right
briskly, verifying the common saying, as nimble as a
Bee in a Tar barrel. You must know there are several
sorts of bees: 'tis true he was no honey bee, nor yet a
humble bee: but a _Boo-bee_ he may be allowed to be,
namely B. F.
Franklin was a publisher of books as well as a newspaper proprietor. Most
of the books and pamphlets published by him were of a theological or
religious nature, in other words books which, aside from the pecuniary
profit of printing them, he was very much disposed to regard as no books at
all. Others were of a description to serve the practical wants of a society
yet simple in its structure, such as _The Gentlemen's Pocket Farrier_ and
_Every Man his Own Doctor, or the Poor Planter's Physician_. But some were
of real note such as two little volumes of native American poetry, Colden's
_Essay on the Iliac Passion_, which is said to have been the first American
medical treatise, Cadwallader's _Essay on the West India Dry Gripes_, and
James Logan's translation of Cato's _Moral Distichs_, which Franklin
regarded as his _chef d'oeuvre_, and which is said to have been the first
book in the Latin tongue to have been both translated and printed in
America. Worthy of mention also are various publications on the subject of
slavery, precursors of the endless succession a little later on of
anti-slavery tracts, books and speeches, which anon became a mountain. The
mercantile business, of which Franklin's stationery shop was the nucleus,
was of a highly miscellaneous character. In addition to books and pamphlets
printed by himself, he imported and sold many others including chapmen's
books and ballads.
At the time I establish'd myself in Pennsylvania [he
tells us in the _Autobiography_], there was not a good
bookseller's shop in any of the Colonies to the
southward of Boston. In New York and Philad'a the
printers were indeed stationers; they sold only paper,
etc., almanacs, ballads, and a few common school-books.
Those who lov'd reading were oblig'd to send for their
books from England.
The spirit in which he imported the pamphlets sold by him is indicated in
one of his letters to Strahan. "Let me have everything, good or bad, that
makes a Noise and has a Run," he says. His stock of merchandise included
everything usually sold at a stationer's shop such as good writing paper,
choice writing parchment, cyphering slates and pencils, Holman's ink
powders, ivory pocket books, pounce and pounce boxes, sealing wax, wafers,
pencils, fountain pens, choice English quills, brass inkhorns, and sand
glasses. There were besides "fine mezzotints, a great variety of maps,
cheap pictures engraved on copper plate of all sorts of birds, beasts,
fishes, fruits, flowers etc., useful to such as would learn to draw." Along
with these things, and choice consignments of the Franklin Crown Soap, were
vended articles almost as varied as the contents of a junkshop, such as
the following:
very good sack at 6s per gallon, glaz'd fulling papers
and bonnet-papers, very good lamp-black, very good
chocolate, linseed oil, very good coffee, compasses and
scales, Seneca rattlesnake root, with directions how to
use it in the pleurisy &c, dividers and protractors, a
very good second hand two-wheel chaise, a very neat,
new fashion'd vehicle, or four wheel'd chaise, very
convenient to carry weak or other sick persons, old or
young, good Rhode Island cheese and codfish, quadrants,
forestaffs, nocturnals, mariner's compasses, season'd
murchantable boards, coarse and fine edgings, fine
broad scarlet cloth, fine broad black cloth, fine white
thread hose and English sale duck, very good iron
stoves, a large horse fit for a chair or saddle, the
true and genuine Godfrey's cordial, choice bohea tea,
very good English saffron, New York Lottery tickets,
choice makrel, to be sold by the barrel, a large copper
still, very good spermacety, fine palm oyl, very good
Temple spectacles and a new fishing net.
Another commodity in which Franklin dealt was the unexpired time of
indentured or bond servants, who had sold their services for a series of
years in return for transportation to America. This traffic is illustrated
in such advertisements in the _Gazette_ as these: "To be sold. A likely
servant woman, having three years and a half to serve. She is a good
spinner"; "To be sold. A likely servant lad about 15 years of age, and has
6 years to serve." And alas! the humanitarian, who strove so earnestly,
during the closing years of his life, when he was famous and rich, and the
President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of
Slavery, to bring home the horrors of slavery to the Southern conscience,
was himself what involved until the end utter social disrepute in the
slaveholding South, that is to say, a negro-trader. "Some of these slaves,"
Paul Leicester Ford tells us in _The_ _Many Sided Franklin_, "he procured
from New England where, as population grew in density, the need for them
passed, leading to their sale in the colonies to the southward." The
business was certainly a repulsive one, even when conducted by such a lover
of the human species as Franklin. How far this is true the reader can judge
for himself when he reads the following advertisements, which are but two
of the many of the same kind that appeared in the _Gazette_:
To be sold a likely negro woman, with a man-child, fit
for town or country business. Enquire of the printer
hereof.
To be sold. A prime able young negro man, fit for
laborious work, in town or country, that has had the
small pox: As also a middle aged negro man, that has
likewise had the small pox. Enquire of the printer
hereof: Or otherwise they will be expos'd to sale by
publick vendue, on Saturday the 11th of April next, at
12 o'clock, at the Indian-king, in Market Street.
While Franklin was printing pamphlets against slavery and selling negroes,
and Deborah was stitching pamphlets and vending old rags, Mrs. Read, the
mother of Deborah, was engaged in compounding and vending an ointment
suited to conditions still graver than those for which the Franklin Crown
Soap was intended. We can hardly doubt that this advertisement, which was
published in the _Gazette_, was penned by the same hand which wrote the
_Ephemera_:
The Widow Read, removed from the upper End of High
Street to the _New Printing Office_ near the Market,
continues to make and sell her well-known Ointment for
the ITCH, with which she has cured abundance of People
in and about this City for many Years past. It is
always effectual for that purpose, and never fails to
perform the Cure speedily. It also kills or drives away
all Sorts of Lice in once or twice using. It has no
offensive Smell, but rather a pleasant one; and may be
used without the least Apprehension of Danger, even to
a sucking Infant, being perfectly innocent and safe.
Price 2s. a Galleypot containing an Ounce; which is
sufficient to remove the most inveterate Itch, and
render the Skin clear and smooth.
The same advertisement informed the public that the Widow Read also
continued to make and sell her excellent _Family Salve_ or Ointment, for
Burns or Scalds, (Price 1s. an Ounce) and several other Sorts of Ointments
and Salves as usual.
From this review of the business career of Franklin, it will be seen that
the stairway, by which he climbed to pecuniary independence and his wider
fame, though not long, was, in its earlier gradations, hewn step by step
from the rock. From the printing office of Keimer to Versailles and the
_salon_ of Madame Helvetius was no primrose path. As long as the human
struggle in its thousand forms, for subsistence and preferment, goes on, as
long as from year to year youth continues to be rudely pushed over the edge
of the nest, with no reliance except its own strength of wing, it is safe
to say that the first chapters of the _Autobiography_ will remain a
powerful incentive to human hope and ambition.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] In 1723 the town of New York had a population of seven or eight
thousand persons.
[7] In his edition of Franklin's works, vol. x., p. 154, Smyth says of him,
when he was in London in his youth, "His nights were spent in cynical
criticism of religion or in the company of dissolute women." It is likely
enough that the religious skepticism of Franklin at this time found
expression in his conversation as well as in his _Dissertation on Liberty
and Necessity_, though there is no evidence to justify the extreme
statement that his nights _were spent_ in irreligious talk. His days, we do
know, were partly spent in listening to London preachers. He may have had
good reason, too, to utter a _peccavi_ in other sexual relations than those
that he so disastrously attempted to sustain to Ralph's mistress; but of
this there is no evidence whatever.
[8] The ineffaceable impression of gratitude left upon the mind of Franklin
by the timely assistance of these two dear friends was again expressed in
the Codicil to his Will executed in 1789. In it he speaks of himself as
"assisted to set up" his business in Philadelphia by kind loans of money
from two friends there, which was the foundation, he said, of his fortune
and of all the utility in life that might be ascribed to him.
[9] The interest of Franklin in the Art of Printing did not end with his
retirement from his vocation as a printer. When he arrived in England in
1757, he is said to have visited the composing-room at Watts' printing
establishment, where he was employed many years before, and to have
celebrated the occasion by giving to the composing force there a
_bienvenu_, or fee for drink, and proposing as a toast "Success to
Printing." The type of Baskerville, the "charming Editions" of Didot _le
Jeune_, the even finer _Sallust_, and _Don Quixote_ of Madrid, and the
method of cementing letters, conceived by John Walter, the founder of the
_London Times_, all came in for his appreciative attention. It is said that
the process of stereotyping was first communicated to Didot by him. When he
visited the establishment of the latter, in 1780, he turned to one of his
presses, and printed off several sheets with an ease which excited the
astonishment of the printers about him. Until the close of his life he had
a keen eye for a truly black ink and superfine printing paper and all the
other niceties of his former calling. The only trace of eccentricity in his
life is to be found in his methods of punctuation, which are marked by a
sad lack of uniformity in the use of commas, semicolons and colons, and by
the lavish employment of the devices to denote emphasis which someone has
happily termed "typographical yells."