Two common misconceptions in regard to Franklin's newspaper call for correction: (1) The _Pennsylvania Gazette_ was not connected as forerunner or ancestor with the _Saturday Evening Post_. The _Gazette_, a newspaper to the end, closed its file in 1815;[i-175] the _Post_, a story paper, issued its Volume I, Number 1, in 1821. Throughout much of the latter half of the nineteenth century, the _Post_ carried the legend "Founded in 1821" on its front page; and not until after the Curtis Publishing Company bought it in 1897 did it begin to print the words "Founded A.D. 1728 by Benjamin Franklin" on its cover. The sole connection of the _Post_ with Franklin lies in the fact that it was first issued from an office at 53 Market Street which Franklin had once occupied.[i-176] (2) Franklin did not publish a "chain" of newspapers. A "chain" implies some kind of co-operative connection between the various members, but the several papers which Franklin helped to finance had no such relationship. In some he was a six-years partner,[i-177] keeping his interest until the resident publisher, usually a former employee, was established; to some he made loans or, in the case of relatives, gifts.[i-178] One of his journalistic ventures which is not mentioned in the _Autobiography_ is the _General Magazine_, of 1741. It missed by three days being the first of American magazines: Andrew Bradford had learned of Franklin's project and, with his _American Magazine_, beat him in the race for priority. But the _American Magazine_ was a failure in three monthly numbers, while Franklin's periodical, though more readable, died after its sixth issue.[i-179] As an initial episode in the history of American magazines, the _General Magazine_ has a certain eminence; but Franklin's neglect of it when writing his _Autobiography_, after the events of nearly fifty busy years had apparently crowded it out of his memory, is sufficient commentary on its unimportance. To the end of his life Franklin was proud of his trade of printing, with its handmaiden journalism. His last will and testament begins: "I, Benjamin Franklin, Printer...." Though clearly not the chief interest of his life, it was one to which he was fundamentally and consistently attached. V. FRANKLIN'S ECONOMIC VIEWS An eighteenth-century colonial who wrote on paper money, interest, value, and insurance, who discussed a theory of population and the economic aspects of the abolition of slavery, who championed free trade, and who probably lent Adam Smith some information used in his _Wealth of Nations_, who was an empirical agriculturist, who was "half physiocratic before the rise of the physiocratic school"--such a colonial has, indeed, claims to being America's pioneer economist.