against them: there will be a continual ebb and flow, like that of the sea, but no general advance; and the sooner that the like of you and I get out of the rough conflict and jostle of the tideway, and set ourselves to labour apart on our own internal resources, it will be all the better for us." William, however, did not give up his clerkship; and I daresay the sort of treatment which I had received at the hands of my fellow-workmen made me express myself rather strongly on the subject; but the actual history of the numerous strikes and combinations which have taken place during the quarter of a century and more which has since intervened, is of a kind not in the least suited to modify my views. There _is_ a want of judicious leadership among our working men; and such of the autobiographies of the class as are able and interesting enough to obtain a hearing of their authors show, I am inclined to think, how this takes place. Combination is first brought to bear among them against the men, their fellows, who have vigour enough of intellect to think and act for themselves; and such always is the character of the born leader: these true leaders are almost always forced into the opposition; and thus separating between themselves and the men fitted by nature to render them formidable, they fall under the direction of mere chatterers and stump orators, which is in reality no direction at all. The author of the "Working Man's Way in the World"--evidently a very superior man--had, he tells us, to quit at one time his employment, overborne by the senseless ridicule of his brother workmen. Somerville states in his Autobiography, that, both as a labouring man and a soldier, it was from the hands of his comrades that--save in one memorable instance--he had experienced all the tyranny and oppression of which he had been the victim. Nay, Benjamin Franklin himself was deemed a much more ordinary man in the printing-house in Bartholomew Close, where he was teased and laughed at as the _Water-American_, than in the House of Representatives, the Royal Society, or the Court of France. The great Printer, though recognised by accomplished politicians as a profound statesman, and by men of solid science as "the most rational of the philosophers," was regarded by his poor brother compositors as merely an odd fellow, who did not conform to their drinking usages, and whom it was therefore fair to tease and annoy as a contemner of the _sacrament_ of the _chapel_.[9]