LONDON AND A LONG SWIM.
WHAT kind of a man was Governor Sir William Keith? There are not many
such, but one such may be found in almost every large community. He
desired popularity, and he loved to please every one. He was constantly
promising what he was not able to fulfill. He had a lively imagination,
and he liked to think what he would do if he could for every bright
person he met; and these things which he would like to do he promised,
and his promises often ended in disappointment. It delighted him to see
faces light up with hope. Did he intend to deceive? No. He had a heart
to bless the whole world. He was for a time a very popular Governor, but
he who had given away expectations that but disappointed so many hearts
was at last disappointed in all his expectations. He was greatly pleased
with young Benjamin Franklin when he first met him, just as he had been
with many other promising young men. He liked a young man who had the
hope of the future in his face. This young printer who had entertained
Boston under the name of Silence Dogood won his heart on a further
acquaintance, and so he used to invite him to his home. He there showed
him how essential a good printer would be to the province; how such a
young man as he would make a fortune; and he urged him to go back to
his father in Boston and borrow money for such an enterprise. He gave
him a long letter of commendation to his father, a droll missive indeed
to carry to clear-sighted, long-headed Josiah Franklin.
With this grand letter and twenty-five pounds in silver in his pocket
and a gold watch besides, and his vision full of rainbows, he returned
to the Puritan town. He went to the printing office, which was again
under the charge of his brother James. He was finely dressed, and as he
had come back with such flattering prospects he had a grain of vanity.
He entered James's office. The latter looked at him with wide eyes, then
turned from him coldly.
But Silence Dogood was not to be chilled. The printers flocked around
him with wonder, as though he had been a returning Sindbad, and he began
to relate to them his adventures in Philadelphia. James heard him with
envy, doubtful of the land "where rocs flew away with elephants." But
when Benjamin showed the men his watch, and finally shared with them a
silver dollar in hospitalities, he fancied that his brother had come
there to insult him, and he felt more bitterly toward him than ever
before. Benjamin had much to learn in life. He and his brother,
notwithstanding their good Quaker-born mother, had not learned the
secret of the harmony of Abraham and Lot.
But one of these lessons of life our elated printer was to learn, and at
once.
He returned to his home at the Blue Ball. His parents had not heard from
him since he went away some seven months before, and they, though
grieved at his conduct, received him joyfully. There was always an open
door in Abiah Folger's heart. The Quaker blood of good Peter Folger
never ceased to course warm in her veins.
Ben told his marvelous story. After the literary adventures of Silence
Dogood in Boston, his parents could believe much, but when he came to
tell of his intimacy with Sir William Keith, Governor of the Province of
Pennsylvania, successor to the great William Penn, they knew not what to
think. Either Sir William must be a singular man, or they must have
underrated the ability of young Silence Dogood.
"This is great news indeed. But what proof do you bring of your good
fortune, my son?" asked the level-headed Josiah, lifting his spectacles
upon his forehead and giving his son a searching look.
Young Benjamin took from his pocket the letter of Sir William and laid
it before his father. It indeed had the vice-royal seal of the province.
His father put down his spectacles from his forehead, and his wife Abiah
drew up her chair beside him, and he read the letter to himself and then
reviewed it aloud.
The letter told him what a wonderfully promising young man Benjamin was;
how well he was adapted to become the printer of the province, and how
he only needed a loan wherewith to begin business to make a fortune.
Josiah Franklin could not doubt the genuineness of the letter. He sat
thinking, drumming on a soap shelf.
"But why, my boy, if you are so able and so much needed does not
Governor Keith lend you the money himself?"
Ben sat silent. Not all the arts of the Socratic method could suggest
any answer to this question.
"I am glad that you have an influential patron," said Josiah, "but to a
man of hard sense it would seem very strange that he should not advance
the money himself to help one so likely to become so useful to the
province to begin business. People are seldom offered something for
nothing in this world, and why this man has made himself your patron I
can not see, even through my spectacles."
"He wishes, father, to make me a printer for the advancement of the
province."
"Then why, my son, should not a governor of a rich province himself
provide you with means to become a printer for the advancement of the
province?"
Socrates himself could not have answered this question.
"Did you tell him that your father was an honest, hard-working soap
boiler and candle maker?"
"No," said the young man.
"Benjamin, I have a large family, and I am unable to lend you the money
that the Governor requests. But even if I had the money I should
hesitate to let you have it for such a purpose. You are too young to
start in business, and your character is not settled. That troubles me,
Ben. Your character is not settled. You have made some bad mistakes
already. You went away without bidding your mother good-by, and now
return to me with a letter from the Governor of Pennsylvania who asks me
to loan you money to set you up in business, because you are so
agreeable and promising. O Ben, Ben, did you not think that I had more
sense than that?"
Josiah lifted his spectacles up to his forehead, and looked his finely
dressed son fully in the face. The pride of the latter began to shrink.
He saw himself as he was.
But Abiah pleaded for her large-brained boy--Abiah, whose heart was
always open, in whom lived Peter Folger still. Jenny had but one thing
to say. It was, "Ben, don't go back, don't go back."
"I will tell you what I will do," said Josiah. "I will write a letter to
Governor Keith, telling him the plain truth of my circumstances. That is
just right. If when you are twenty years of age you will have saved a
part of the money to begin business, I will do what I can for you."
With this letter Silence Dogood returned to Philadelphia in humiliation.
We think it was this Silence Dogood who wrote the oft-quoted proverb, "A
good kick out of doors is worth all the rich uncles in the world."
Young Franklin presented his father's letter to Governor Keith.
"Your father is too prudent," said the latter. "He says that you are too
young and unsettled for business. Some people are thirty years old at
eighteen. It is not years that are to be considered in this case, but
fitness for work. I will start you in business myself."
Silence Dogood rejoiced. Here was a man who was "better than a
father"--the "best man in all the world," he thought.
"Make out an inventory of the things that you need to begin the business
of a printer, and I will send to London for them."
Benjamin did so, an inventory to the amount of one hundred pounds. He
brought it to the Governor, who greatly surprised him by a suggestion.
"Perhaps," said Sir William, "you would like to go to London and get the
machinery yourself. I would give you a letter of credit."
Was it raining gold?
"I would like to go to London," answered the young printer.
"Then I will provide for your journey. You shall go with Captain Annis."
This captain sailed yearly from Philadelphia to London.
Waiting the sailing of the ship months passed away. Governor Keith
entertained the young printer at his home. The sailing time came.
Franklin went to the office of the Governor to receive the letter of
credit and promised letters of introduction.
"All in good time, my boy," said the Governor's clerk, "but the Governor
is busy and can not see you now. If you will call on Wednesday you will
receive the letters."
Young Franklin called at the office on the day appointed.
"All in good time, my boy," said the clerk. "The Governor has not had
time to fix them up and get them ready. They will be sent to you on
board the ship with the Governor's mail."
So Franklin went on board the ship. As the Governor's mail came on board
he asked the captain to let him see the letters, but the latter told him
that he must wait until the ship got under way.
Out at sea the Governor's letters were shown to him. There were several
directed to people "in the care of Benjamin Franklin." He supposed these
contained notes of introduction and the letter of credit, so he passed
happily over the sea.
He reached London December 24, 1724. He rushed into the grand old city
bearing the letters directed in his care. He took the one deemed most
important to the office of the gentleman to whom it was directed. "This
letter is from Governor Keith, of the Province of Pennsylvania," said
Franklin.
"I know of no such person," said the man. The latter opened the letter.
"Oh, I see," said he, "it is from one Riddleson. I have found him out to
be a rascal, an exile, and refuse to entertain any communication from
him."
Franklin's face fell. His heart turned heavy. He went out wondering.
"Was his father's advice sound, after all?"
The rest of the letters that had been directed in his care were not
written by Governor Keith, but by people in the province to their
friends, of which he had been made a postboy. There were in the mail no
letters of introduction from Governor Keith to any one, and no letter of
credit.
He found himself alone in London, that great wilderness of homes. Of
Keith's conduct he thus speaks in his autobiography:
"What shall we think of a Governor playing such pitiful tricks, and
imposing so grossly upon a poor ignorant boy? It was a habit he had
acquired; he wished to please everybody, and having little to give, he
gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenuous, sensible man, a pretty
good writer, and a good Governor for the people, though 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."
He found work as a journeyman printer in London, and we are sorry to say
lived like most journeymen printers there. But Silence Dogood had to
make himself useful even among these unsettled people. He instituted new
ways of business and life of advantage to journeymen printers, and so
kept the chain of his purpose lengthening.
There was a series of curious incidents that happened during the last
part of this year of residence in London that came near changing his
career. It was in 1726; he was about twenty years old. He had always
loved the water, to be on it and in it, and he became an expert swimmer
when he was a lad in Boston town.
He had led a temperate life among the London apprentices, and had kept
his physical strength unimpaired. He drank water while they drank beer.
They laughed at him, but he was able to carry up stairs a heavier case
of type than any of them. They called him the "American water-drinker,"
but there came a day when he performed a feat that became the admiration
of the young London printers. He loved companionship, and had many
intimate friends, and among them there was one Wygate, who went swimming
with him, probably in the Thames, and whom he taught to swim in two
lessons.
One day Wygate invited him to go into the country with him and some of
his friends. They had a merry time and returned by water. After they had
embarked from Chelsea, a suburb which was then some four and a half
miles from St. Paul's Cathedral, Wygate said to him:
[Illustration: "ARE YOU GOING TO SWIM BACK TO LONDON?"]
"Franklin, you are a water boy; let us see how well you can swim."
Franklin knew his strength and skill. He took off his clothing and
leaped into the river, and probably performed all the old feats that one
can do in the water.
His dexterity delighted the party, but it soon won their applause.
He swam a mile.
"Come on board!" shouted they. "Are you going to swim back to London?"
"Yes," came a voice as if from a fish in the bright, sunny water.
He swam two miles.
The wonder of the party grew.
Three miles.
They cheered.
Four miles to Blackfriars Bridge. Such a thing had never been known
among the apprentice lads. The swim brought young Franklin immediate
fame among these apprentices, and it spread and filled London.
Sir William Wyndham, once Chancellor of the Exchequer, heard of this
exploit, and desired to see him. He had two sons who were about to
travel, to whom he wished Franklin to teach swimming. But the two boys
were detained in another place, and Franklin never met them. It was
proposed to Franklin that he open a swimming school.
But while he was favorable to such agreeable employment, there occurred
one of those incidents that seem providential.
He met one day at this shifting period Mr. Denham, the upright
merchant, whose integrity came to honor his profession and Philadelphia.
This man had failed in business at Bristol, and had left England under a
cloud. But he had an honest soul and purpose, and he resolved to pay
every dollar that he owed. To this end he put all the energies of his
life into his business. He went to America to make a fortune, and he
made it. He then returned to Bristol, which he had left in sorrow and
humiliation.
He gave a banquet, and invited to it all the merchants and people whom
he owed. They responded to the unexpected invitation, and wondered what
would happen. When they had seated themselves at the table, and the time
to serve the meal came, the dinner plates were lifted, and each one
found before him the full amount of the money due to him. The banquet of
honor made the name of the merchant famous.
Mr. Denham was a friend to men in need of good influences. He saw
Franklin's need of advice, and he said to him:
"My young friend, you should return to Philadelphia. It is the place of
opportunity."
"But I have not the means."
"I have the means for you. I am about to return to America with a cargo
of merchandise. You must go back with me. Your place in life is there."
Should he go?
It was early summer. He went out on London Bridge one night. It grew
dark late. But at last there gleamed in the dark water the lights of
London like stars. Many voices filled the air as the boats passed by.
The nine o'clock bells rang. It may be that he heard the Bow bells ring,
the bells that said, "Come back! come back! come back!" to young Dick
Whittington when he was running away from his place in life. If so, he
must have been reminded of all that this man accomplished by heeding the
voice of the bells, and of how King Henry had said, after all his
benefactions, "Did ever a prince have such a subject?"
He must have thought of Uncle Tom and the bells of Nottingham on this
clear night of lovely airs and out-of-door merriments. Over the great
city towered St. Paul's under the rising moon. Afar was the Abbey, with
the dust of kings.
Then he thought of Uncle Benjamin's pamphlets. It seemed useless for one
to look for books in this great city of London.
Franklin never saw ghosts, except such as arise out of conscience into
the eye of the mind. But the old man's form and his counsels now came
into the view of the imagination. His old Boston home came back to his
dreams; Jenny came back to him, and the face of the young woman whom he
had learned to love in Philadelphia.
He resolved to return. America was his land, and he must build with her
builders. He sailed for America with his good adviser, the honest
merchant, July 21, 1726, and left noblemen's sons to learn to swim in
the manner that he himself had mastered the water.
Did he ever see Governor Keith again? Yes. After his return to
Philadelphia he met there upon the street one who was becoming a
discredited man. The latter recognized him, but his face turned into
confusion. He did not bow; nor did Franklin. It was Governor Keith. This
Governor Please-Everybody died in London after years of poverty, at the
age of eighty.
Silence Dogood may have thought of his father's raised spectacles when
he met Sir William that day on the street, and when they did not wish to
recognize each other, or of Jenny's words, "Ben, don't go back."
He had learned some hard lessons from the book of life, and he would
henceforth be true to the most unselfish counsels on earth--the heart
and voice of home.