Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790; Statesmen -- United States -- Biography
which appeared in its columns, he could only obtain his release from
prison, to which the colonial assembly had condemned him, upon on that
he "would no longer print the _New England Courant_." The relations of
the two brothers, however, gradually grew so inharmonious that Benjamin
determined to quit his brother's employment and leave New England. He
sold some of his books, and with the proceeds, in October 1723, he found
his way to the city of Philadelphia, where, 400 miles from home, at the
immature age of seventeen, without an acquaintance, and with only a few
pence in his pocket, he was fortunate enough to get employment with a
Jew printer named Keimer. Keimer was not a man of business, and knew
very little of his trade, nor had he any very competent assistants.
Franklin, who was a rapid composer, ingenious and full of resources,
soon came to be recognized by the public as the master spirit of the
shop, and to receive flattering attentions from prominent citizens who
had had opportunities of appreciating his cleverness. Among others, Sir
William Keith, the governor of the province, who may have possessed all
the qualifications for his station except every one of the few which
are quite indispensable to a gentleman, took him under his patronage,
and proposed to start him in business for himself, and to give hint the
means of going to England and purchasing the material necessary to equip
a new printing office. Franklin, rather against the advice of his
father, whom he revisited in Boston to consult about it, embraced the
governor's proposal, took passage for London, which he paid with his own
money (the governor being more ready with excuses than coin), and on
reaching London in December 1724, where he had been assured he would
find a draft to cover his expenses, discovered too late that he had been
the dupe of Keith, and that he must rely upon his own exertions for his
daily bread. He readily found employment at Palmer's, then a famous
printer in Bartholomew Close, where, and afterwards at Wall's printing
house, he continued to be employed until the 33d of July 1736, when he
again set sail for Philadelphia in company with a Mr Dunham, whose
acquaintance he had made on his voyage out, and who tempted him back by
the offer of a position as clerk in a commercial business which he
proposed to establish in Philadelphia. While in London Franklin had been
engaged in setting up the type of a second edition of Wollaston's
_Religion of Nature_. The perusal of this work led him toy write and
print a small edition of a pamphlet, which he entitled _A Dissertation
on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Paris_. Had he deferred printing
it a few years, it would probably never have been heard of, for he lived
to be rather ashamed of it. It procured him, however, the acquaintance
of Dr Mandeville, author of the _Fable of the Bees_, whom he described
as a most facetious and entertaining companion. Only a few months after
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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