Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; Written by Himself. [Vol. 1 of 2]: With His Most Interesting Essays, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings; Familiar, Moral, Political, Economical, and Philosophical, Selected with Care from All His Published Productions, and Comprising Whatever Is Most Entertaining and Valuable to the General Reader — John Shaqi
Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; Written by Himself. [Vol. 1 of 2]: With His Most Interesting Essays, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings; Familiar, Moral, Political, Economical, and Philosophical, Selected with Care from All His Published Productions, and Comprising Whatever Is Most Entertaining and Valuable to the General ReaderFranklin, Benjamin
History
Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; Written by Himself. [Vol. 1 of 2]: With His Most Interesting Essays, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings; Familiar, Moral, Political, Economical, and Philosophical, Selected with Care from All His Published Productions, and Comprising Whatever Is Most Entertaining and Valuable to the General Reader
Franklin, Benjamin
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790; Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790 -- Correspondence; Statesmen -- United States -- Biography
I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and
shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may in your mind
compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since made
there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes coming round by sea. I
was dirty, from my being so long in the boat; my pockets were stuffed
out with shirts and stockings, and I knew no one, nor where to look for
lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and the want of sleep, I was
very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted in a single dollar,
and about a shilling in copper coin, which I gave to the boatmen for my
passage. At first they refused it on account of my having rowed, but I
insisted on their taking it. Man is sometimes more generous when he has
little money than when he has plenty; perhaps to prevent his being
thought to have but little. I walked towards the top of the street,
gazing about, still in Market-street, where I met a boy with bread. I
had often made a meal of dry bread, and inquiring where he had bought
it, I went immediately to the baker's he directed me to. I asked for
biscuits, meaning such as we had at Boston: that sort, it seems, was not
made in Philadelphia. I then asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told
they had none. Not knowing the different prices, nor the names of the
different sorts of bread, I told him to give me threepenny worth of any
sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surprised
at the quantity, but took it, and having no room in my pockets, walked
off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went up
Market-street as far as Fourth-street, passing by the door of Mr. Read,
my future wife's father; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and
thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous
appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut-street and part of
Walnut-street, eating my roll all the way, and, coming round, found
myself again at Market-street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I
went for a draught of the river water; and, being filled with one of my
rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the
river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther. Thus
refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had many
clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way: I joined
them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the Quakers
near the market. I sat down among them, and after looking round awhile,
and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy, through labour and want of
rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the
meeting broke up, when some one was kind enough to rouse me. This,
therefore, was the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia.
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