He was otherwise an ingenious, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good governor for the people.... Several of our best laws were of his planning, and passed during his administration." None the less it turned out that this contemptible governor did Franklin a good turn in sending him to London, though the benefit came in a fashion not anticipated by either. For Franklin, not yet much wiser than the generality of mankind, had to go through his period of youthful folly, and it was good fortune for him that the worst portion of this period fell within the eighteen months which he passed in England. Had this part of his career been run in Philadelphia its unsavory aroma might have kept him long in ill odor among his fellow townsmen, then little tolerant of profligacy. But the "errata" of a journeyman printer in London were quite beyond the ken of provincial gossips. He easily gained employment in his trade, at wages which left him a little surplus beyond his maintenance. This surplus, during most of the time, he and his comrades squandered in the pleasures of the town. Yet in one matter his good sense showed itself, for he kept clear of drink; indeed, his real nature asserted itself even at this time, to such a degree that we find him waging a temperance crusade in his printing-house, and actually weaning some of his fellow compositors from their dearly loved "beer." One of these, David Hall, afterward became his able partner in the printing business in Philadelphia. Amid much bad companionship he fell in with some clever men. His friend James Ralph, though a despicable, bad fellow, had brains and some education. At this time, too, Franklin was in the proselyting stage of infidelity. He published "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," and the pamphlet got him some little notoriety among the free-thinkers of London, and an introduction to some of them, but chiefly of the class who love to sit in taverns and blow clouds of words. Their society did him no good, and such effervescence was better blown off in London than in Philadelphia.