In the meantime James was having his own troubles. Because of an editorial attack by one of his contributors on the Massachusetts governor, James was summoned before the City Council, sent to jail for a month, and released only when he agreed to make an abject apology. The City Council then forbade him to print or publish the _Courant_. In desperation, James and his friends hit on the scheme of making Benjamin, in name only, the _Courant_ publisher. So it would be legal, James burned his brother’s apprenticeship papers, although privately a new set was drawn up. “Mrs. Dogood” added her voice to the indignation aroused at James Franklin’s persecution. From the London _Journal_, she quoted an article: “Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as public liberty without Freedom of Speech.” (Capitalization of nouns was then held part of elegant writing, a practice which Benjamin Franklin always followed carefully.) He had a freer hand now and composed many articles for the _Courant_. At seventeen, he was without doubt the best writer in Boston, with a mind inferior to none. It is small wonder that his brother felt it his moral duty to exert his authority over him. There were arguments. There were more blows on the part of James. Benjamin, by his own admission, was “perhaps ... too saucy and provoking.” One day he told his brother he was quitting. A runaway apprentice was subject to the same penalties as a runaway slave, but Benjamin’s case was slightly different. James could not make public the secret apprenticeship papers without getting himself in trouble. He took out his fury by visiting other Boston printing shops to warn them not to employ his arrogant younger brother. Benjamin resolved to go to New York. His only confidant was a young friend named Collins. Collins persuaded the captain of a New York sloop to give him passage, telling a fantastic yarn about Benjamin being pursued by a young woman who wanted to marry him. The captain would not have carried a runaway apprentice but goodnaturedly agreed to help the young “ne’er-do-well” elude the female sex. New York, where Benjamin arrived after a three-day journey, had only 7,000 inhabitants but was suffused with an atmosphere of luxury unknown in Boston. Streets, paved with cobblestones, were filled with elegantly attired English officials and wealthy businessmen. Houses were mostly of brick with stairstep roofs in the Dutch style. Though the English had captured it from the Netherlands in 1674, Dutch customs still prevailed. Benjamin called at once on William Bradford, New York’s only printer. Bradford told him he needed no help—privately he thought the Boston youth unstable—but advised him to go to Philadelphia and see his son, Andrew Bradford, also a printer. He could guarantee nothing but at least there was no harm trying.