James’ business appears to have thriven for a time, owing doubtless to the fact of his being possessed of the matrices of Dutch letter, which at that time had quite superseded the home productions in the popular favour. So much were they sought after, indeed, that we hear of a great printer like Tonson making a special journey to Holland, and there laying out as much as £300 on Dutch letter. The upper floor, on which the work of the foundry was carried on in the house at the Town Ditch, being insufficient in strength for the weight of his operations, he removed to the foundry in Bartholomew Close, where he continued till the time of his death. “This founding House,” says Rowe Mores, “is an edifice disjoined from the dwelling-house, and seems to have been built for Mr. James’ own purpose. The dwelling-house is an irregular rambling place, formerly in the occupation of Mr. Roycroft, afterwards in that of Mr. Houndeslow, afterwards in that of Mr. S. Palmer, author of the _General History of Printing_, and lastly that of the two Mr. James’s, and was a part of the Priory of St. Bartholomew. And in this house wrought formerly as a journeyman {218} with Mr. Palmer, a gentleman well known since in the philosophical world, Dr. Benj. Franklin of Philadelphia.” Franklin worked here in 1725 for about a year, during which time, as he himself states in the interesting note quoted from his autobiography at page 15, he was an occasional visitor in James’s typefoundry adjoining. James’ later years were embittered by transactions which tended neither to his credit nor his fortunes, and which one would be tempted to pass by unnoticed, but that the history of English type-founding is closely involved in the narration.