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Benjamin Franklin

<h2>2 A YOUNG MAN ON HIS OWN</h2> No one could have looked sadder or funnier than Benjamin Franklin when he walked down Philadelphia’s Market Street for the first time. At the Fourth Street intersection, a rosy-cheeked buxom young girl, standing in a doorway, burst out laughing at the sight of him. It was understandable. His traveling suit was wet, shrunken and shapeless. His pockets were bulging with spare socks and shirts. He was hugging a large puffy white roll tightly under each arm and simultaneously eating a third. The journey from New York had been a series of mishaps. His ship nearly foundered in a squall off the Long Island coast and was becalmed near Block Island. Fresh water ran low. They would have gone hungry had not some of the passengers hauled in a batch of codfish. Benjamin found the aroma of frying fish so tempting that he there and then renounced Mr. Tryon’s vegetarian regime, never returning to it except for lack of funds. Thirty hours later they landed at Amboy, where a leaky ferry took him across to Perth Amboy. From there he walked some fifty miles to Burlington, a two-day hike in pouring rain, then caught a boat going down the Delaware. The captain was short a hand and Benjamin helped with the rowing. By the time they reached Philadelphia, his entire fortune was a Dutch dollar and a shilling in copper. The captain told him he had earned his passage, but he insisted on paying the shilling. It was a matter of pride: “A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro’ fear of being thought to have but little.” A three-penny piece had procured him the three enormous rolls. One of them satisfied his hunger. He gave the other two to a woman and child who had been on the boat with him. That night he slept at the Crooked Billet Tavern, to which a friendly Quaker directed him. The next morning he made himself as presentable as he could and went to see Andrew Bradford, the printer. Young Bradford had no work but hospitably invited him to lodge with his family. The same day Benjamin called on another printer, Samuel Keimer, who promptly hired him. Thus within twenty-four hours of his inopportune arrival, he had a place to stay and a job. Keimer was an eccentric little man with a long black beard who had but recently come from France. He was somewhat of a knave as Benjamin would learn later, and he knew little about his trade. His press was old and in disrepair with only one small and worn-out font (set of type). But the pay was good, or so it seemed to a youth who had never had a salary before. He soon had Keimer befuddled with admiration by quoting Socrates to him. His employer was nervous about Benjamin living with a rival printer and in a few weeks arranged for him to lodge with a family named Read. His chest of clothes which he had shipped from New York had now arrived. When Keimer took him to his new landlady, Ben was dressed in his best, a handsome, husky well-mannered young man, about five feet ten inches, with a wide mouth and a humorous light in his brown eyes. He was introduced to the daughter of the house, Deborah Read. Both young people started in surprise. She was the same lass who had laughed at him as he walked down Market Street eating his roll. Debby was a warmhearted outspoken young lady, cheerful and quite pretty. Although, unlike himself, she had little interest in improving her mind, he enjoyed her company. There was shortly some talk of marriage between them. Her parents discouraged the idea, saying they were both too young. Nor was Benjamin overly ardent in his courtship. He was not yet eighteen, and far too pleased to be free of family discipline to think of settling down as a married man. Philadelphia was largely a Quaker town, with a sprinkling of Swedes and Finns and a large contingent of German immigrants. The rich farms surrounding it were cut into deep forests where Indians lingered. Bears and wolves were still shot at the city’s gates. This “City of Brotherly Love” had been planned by William Penn, the noble Quaker to whom King Charles II had made a grant of the some forty thousand square miles of land that made up the province of Pennsylvania. In contrast to the royal colonies, like New York and Massachusetts, Pennsylvania was known as a “proprietary” colony. At William Penn’s death, his sons inherited the proprietorship. There was already some resentment because of the vast tracts which the Penns held tax-free. In Philadelphia, Benjamin soon found friends of his own age and of kindred interests. There were three with whom he spent many social evenings: a pious young man named Watson, an argumentative one named Osborne, and James Ralph, who fancied himself a poet. They exchanged ideas on a multitude of subjects and read each other things they had written. Franklin was not overworked on his job and had leisure for reading. His needs were few and he saved some money. Certainly he missed his family but he dared not let them know where he was for fear of being dragged back to Boston. He did not realize that in the small and intimate world of the colonies news of a stranger was likely to get around. He had a brother-in-law, Robert Holmes, who was a sloop owner living in New Castle, forty miles from Philadelphia. Somehow Holmes learned of his whereabouts and wrote to tell him the worry he had caused his parents. Benjamin answered in considerable detail, explaining the reasons for his departure. Soon afterwards two distinguished gentlemen knocked at Keimer’s shop. Keimer spied them from an upstairs window. “Sir William Keith!” he gasped in awe, and rushed down the steps to open the door, bowing and scraping. Keith was governor of the province of Pennsylvania! With him was another important citizen, one Colonel French. No doubt Keimer expected some important commission. The governor, however, brushed him aside and demanded to see Mr. Benjamin Franklin. “How do you do, sir,” he said when Benjamin appeared. “I must reproach you for not making yourself known to me when you first arrived. I have heard fine things about you, very fine things indeed. The colonel and I are headed to the tavern across the way which serves an excellent Madeira. Would you care to join us?” “I would be delighted, your honor,” Benjamin told him, removing the leather apron which was a symbol of his trade. His face was as impassive as if it were an everyday occurrence to have a governor invite him for a glass of wine. Keimer, mouth open, stared at them with the look of a “poisoned pig.” Over the Madeira, Benjamin learned that Keith knew Robert Holmes, his brother-in-law, and had seen his letter. Keith, a man of some literary pretensions himself, had been deeply impressed with his skill at expressing himself. “The printers of Philadelphia are a wretched lot,” Keith asserted. “From what your brother-in-law says, Mr. Franklin, I am convinced that you would succeed in your own shop. I will do all in my power to aid you.” As Benjamin basked in this heady tribute, the governor and Colonel French launched into ways and means of setting him up in the printing business. All that was needed was capital. Would not Benjamin’s father provide the necessary backing? It was very unlikely, Benjamin commented. “I will tell you what I will do,” said the governor. “I will write to your father myself to tell him how much faith I have in your ability.” Dazzled, Benjamin agreed to make a trip home to deliver the governor’s letter personally. He took a leave of absence a few weeks later, telling Keimer only that he was visiting his family. A year before he had quit Boston, a near penniless runaway. He returned in triumph, wearing a new suit, carrying a watch, and jingling some five pounds of sterling in his pocket. His mother and father were overjoyed to see him, and his sisters crowded around him delightedly. He could not resist going to the printing shop of his brother James. No doubt he strutted somewhat and bragged about his success. He showed the admiring workmen his silver money, a novelty in Boston where paper money was used, and handed each a piece of eight to buy a drink. Only James refused to be impressed. He grew increasingly glum during Benjamin’s visit. Later he said Benjamin had gone out of his way to insult him and he would never forgive him. That night Benjamin showed his father the letter from Sir William Keith. Josiah Franklin was pleased as any parent that such an important personage had taken an interest in his son but did not approve of Keith’s proposal. In his opinion Benjamin was too young to have the responsibility of his own shop, he wrote in his politely worded reply. “I see your father is a prudent man,” Keith said later in Philadelphia when Benjamin came to make his report. He added that he had found there was a great difference in persons and that discretion did not always accompany years. Since Josiah Franklin did not recognize his son’s unusual abilities, he, the governor, would sponsor him. He had Benjamin regularly to his fine house for dinner the next weeks. Gradually he unfolded his plan. Benjamin must take his savings and go to England. There he could pick out for himself his own press, type fonts, paper, and whatever else he needed for a printing shop. The governor would provide him with letters of introduction and letters of credit to cover everything. Who could have refused such a splendid opportunity? Toward the end of 1724, after quitting his employment with Keimer, Benjamin set sail for his first visit to the Old World. There had been a touching farewell to Deborah Read, to whom he promised to write often. James Ralph, his poet friend, went with him, having decided to try his fortune in England. Since the governor was busy with pressing affairs, Colonel French saw him off. He did not have the letters Keith had promised, but assured Benjamin they were safe in the captain’s mailbag. He had a pleasant trip and made one good friend—an elderly Quaker merchant named Thomas Denham. Not until they reached the English Channel did the ship captain sort out his mail. That was when Benjamin learned that there were no letters of credit, no letters of introduction, nothing at all from Governor Keith. He was stranded in London, with only twelve pounds to his name. In his bewilderment, he confided his plight to Denham. “There is not the least probability that he wrote any letters for you,” the Quaker told him. “No one who knows the governor would depend on him. As for his giving you any letters of credit—that is a sad joke. He has no credit to give.” “But why?” Benjamin asked. “Why would he play such a trick on me?” “Do not think too harshly of him,” Denham said charitably. “Keith wants to please everyone. Having little to give, he gives expectations.” It was a bitter lesson. He stayed in London nearly eighteen months. It turned out to be as easy for him to find a job here as in Philadelphia. Part of the time he worked for a printer named Palmer and after that for a Mr. Watt. Under the tutelage of experienced workmen, he perfected his printing skills. He also attempted to improve his colleagues by urging them to drink water instead of beer for breakfast. The “Water American,” they dubbed him, but a few of them followed his advice. Not that he was a prude. London had much to offer a young man who was curious and alert and full of fun. There were operas in French or Italian, plays by William Shakespeare at the Drury Lane Theatre, scientific lectures, and the lure of dance halls. He wrote a pamphlet called “A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain,” which brought him some acclaim among London’s young intellectuals. He presented an American curiosity, a purse of stone asbestos, to Sir Hans Sloane, secretary of the Royal Society, and almost met Sir Isaac Newton. James Ralph borrowed money from him and then split up with him without paying him back, in a quarrel over a pretty milliner. He sent off one letter to Deborah Read, but never got around to writing another. He could not have missed observing the squalor of the slums and the contrasting elegance of the great lords with their postilions and liveried coachmen. That no such vast difference existed between rich and poor in America may have struck him, but he drew no moral lesson. He was not yet a crusader and his heart was set on having as good a time as his means allowed. On occasion he went swimming in the Thames with a co-worker named Wygate, and once on an excursion to Chelsea he dazzled Wygate and his other companions with a display of the water exercises which he had invented in his childhood. A certain Sir William Wyndham, a friend of the great Jonathan Swift, heard of his prowess and invited him to teach swimming to his sons. About the same time, Wygate proposed that the two of them travel through Europe, earning their way as journeymen printers. Both suggestions tempted Benjamin but he rejected them. His Quaker friend Thomas Denham had offered him a position in his Philadelphia importing company. Denham had made one fortune as a merchant and was set on making another. With the crying need of America’s growing population for goods from abroad, there was no reason why he should not succeed. The salary was less than Franklin earned as a printer, but there would be handsome commissions, travel to foreign lands, and, so he believed, an assured future. He set sail on July 23, 1726, on the Berkshire. It was October 11 before they reached Philadelphia. Franklin, now twenty, kept a journal on this long voyage. He had time to think, to observe nature, to philosophize. An eclipse of the sun and one of the moon were notable events of the trip, duly recorded in his journal. The passengers fished for dolphins. He noted their glorious appearance in the water, their bodies “of a bright green, mixed with a silver colour, and their tails of a shining golden yellow,” and wondered at the “vulgar error of the painters, who always represent this fish monstrously crooked and deformed.” From the Gulf Stream he fished out several branches of gulfweed and spent long hours studying a growth which he called “vegetable animals,” resembling shellfish and yet seeming part of the weed. Noting a small crab of the same yellowish color as the weed, he deduced—erroneously but with logic—that the crab came from the “vegetable animals” as a butterfly comes from a cocoon. The idiosyncrasies of his fellow passengers also came under his scrutiny. From watching the men play drafts he concluded that “if two persons equal in judgment play for a considerable sum, he that loves money will lose; his anxiety for the success of the game confounds him.” One of the passengers was caught cheating and would not pay a fine. The others refused to eat, drink or talk with him. The cheat soon paid up. “Man is a sociable being,” young Franklin wrote in his journal, “and it is, for aught I know, one of the worst of punishments to be excluded from society.” He discovered that there was nothing like a contrary wind to bring out the worst in mankind: “... we grow sullen, silent, and reserved, and fret at each other upon every little occasion.” At the sight of a ship from Dublin bound from New York, on the contrary, he commented: “There is something strangely cheering to the spirits in the meeting of a ship at sea ... after we had been long separated and excommunicated as it were from the rest of mankind.” Interesting as the trip was, there was no moment equal to that when one of the mess cried “Land! Land!” In less than an hour they perceived the tufts of trees. “I could not discern it so soon as the rest; my eyes were dimmed with the suffusion of two small drops of joy.” He had set out to conquer Philadelphia three years before and had not succeeded. Now he was to have another try. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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