Franklin's Autobiography: (Eclectic English Classics) — John Shaqi
Franklin's Autobiography: (Eclectic English Classics)Franklin, Benjamin
History
Franklin's Autobiography: (Eclectic English Classics)
Franklin, Benjamin
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790
It rained very hard all the day. I was thoroughly soaked, and by noon a
good deal tired, so I stopped at a poor inn, where I stayed all night,
beginning now to wish that I had never left home. I cut so miserable a
figure, too, that I found, by the questions asked me, I was suspected to
be some runaway servant and in danger of being taken up on that
suspicion. However, I proceeded the next day, and got in the evening to
an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept by one Dr. Brown.
He entered into conversation with me while I took some refreshment, and,
finding I had read a little, became very sociable and friendly. Our
acquaintance continued as long as he lived.[n] He had been, I imagine,
an itinerant doctor; for there was no town in England, or country in
Europe, of which he could not give a very particular account. He had
some letters,[41] and was ingenious, but much of an unbeliever, and
wickedly undertook, some years after, to travesty the Bible in doggerel
verse, as Cotton had done Virgil. By this means he set many of the facts
in a very ridiculous light, and might have hurt weak minds if his work
had been published; but it never was.
At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reached
Burlington, but had the mortification to find that the regular boats
were gone a little before my coming, and no other expected to go
before Tuesday, this being Saturday; wherefore I returned to an old
woman in the town of whom I had bought gingerbread to eat on the
water, and asked her advice. She invited me to lodge at her house till
a passage by water should offer; and, being tired with my foot
traveling, I accepted the invitation. She, understanding I was a
printer, would have had me stay at that town and follow my business,
being ignorant of the stock necessary to begin with. She was very
hospitable, gave me a dinner of ox cheek with great good will,
accepting only of a pot of ale in return; and I thought myself fixed
till Tuesday should come. However, walking in the evening by the side
of the river, a boat came by, which I found was going toward
Philadelphia, with several people in her. They took me in, and, as
there was no wind, we rowed all the way, and about midnight, not
having yet seen the city, some of the company were confident we must
have passed it, and would row no farther. The others knew not where we
were; so we put toward the shore, got into a creek, and landed near an
old fence, with the rails of which we made a fire, the night being
cold, in October, and there we remained till daylight. Then one of the
company knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little above
Philadelphia, which we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and
arrived there about eight or nine o'clock on the Sunday morning, and
landed at the Market Street wharf.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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