On the 23d of July, 1726, Ben, with his friend Denham, took leave of
their London acquaintance, and embarked for America. As the ebbing
current gently bore the vessel along down the amber coloured flood,
Ben could not suppress his emotions, as he looked back on that mighty
city, whose restless din was now gradually dying on his ear, as were
its smoke-covered houses sinking from his view, perhaps for ever. And
as he looked back, the secret sigh would arise, for the many toils and
heart aches he had suffered there, and all to so little profit. But
virtue, like the sun, though it may be overcast with clouds, will soon
scatter those clouds, and spread a brighter ray after their transient
showers. 'Tis true, eighteen months had been spent there, but they had
not been _misspent_. He could look back upon them without shame or
remorse. He had broken no midnight lamps--had knocked down no poor
watchman--had contributed nothing to the idleness and misery of any
family. On the contrary, he had the exceeding satisfaction to know,
that he had left the largest printing-houses in London in mourning for
his departure--that he had shown them the blessings of temperance, and
had proselyted many of them from folly to wise and manly living. And
though, when he looked at those eighteen months, he could not behold
them, like eastern maidens, dowered with gold and diamonds, yet,
better still, he could behold them like the "Wise Virgins," whose
lamps he had diligently fed with the oil of wisdom, for some great
marriage supper--perhaps that between LIBERTY and his COUNTRY.
After a wearisome passage of near eleven weeks, the ship arrived at
Philadelphia, where Ben met the perfidious Keith, walking the street
alone, and shorn of all the short-lived splendours of his governorship.
Ben's honest face struck the culprit pale and dumb. The reader hardly
need be told, that Ben was too magnanimous to add to his confusion, by
reproaching or even speaking to him. But as if to keep Ben from pride,
Providence kindly threw into his way his old sweetheart, Miss Read.
Here his confusion would have been equal to Keith's, had not that fair
one furnished him with the sad charge against herself--of marrying
during his absence. Her friends, after reading his letter to her,
concluding that he would never return, had advised her to take a
husband. But she soon separated from him, and even refused to bear
his name; in consequence of learning that he had another wife.
Denham and Ben took a store-house, and displayed their goods; which,
having been well laid in, sold off very rapidly. This was in October,
1726. Early in the following February, when the utmost kindness on
Denham's part, and an equal fidelity on Ben's, had rendered them
mutually dear, as father and son; and when also, by their extraordinary
success in trade, they had a fair prospect of speedily making their
fortunes, behold! O, vanity of all worldly hopes! they were both taken
down dangerously ill. Denham, for his part, actually made a die of it.
And Ben was so far gone, at one time, that he concluded it was all over
with him; which afforded a melancholy kind of pleasure, especially when
he was told that his friend Denham, who lay in the next room, was dead.
And when he reflected that now, since his good patron had left him, he
should be turned out again upon the world, with the same hard struggles
to encounter, and no prospect of ever being able to do any thing for
his aged father, he felt a secret regret, that he was called back to
life again.