Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin | Page 8

of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of
whom honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather,[11] in his church
history of that country, entitled Magnalia Christi Americana, as "a
godly, learned Englishman," if I remember the words rightly. I have
heard that he wrote sundry small occasional pieces, but only one of
them was printed, which I saw now many years since. It was written in
1675, in the home-spun verse of that time and people, and addressed to
those then concerned in the government there. It was in favour of
liberty of conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other
sectaries that had been under persecution, ascribing the Indian wars,
and other distresses that had befallen the country, to that persecution, as
so many judgments of God to punish so heinous an offense, and
exhorting a repeal of those uncharitable laws. The whole appeared to
me as written with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom.
The six concluding lines I remember, though I have forgotten the two
first of the stanza; but the purport of them was, that his censures
proceeded from good-will, and, therefore, he would be known to be the
author.
"Because to be a libeller (says he) I hate it with my heart; From
Sherburne town,[12] where now I dwell My name I do put here;
Without offense your real friend, It is Peter Folgier."
[10] Franklin was born on Sunday, January 6, old style, 1706, in a
house on Milk Street, opposite the Old South Meeting House, where he
was baptized on the day of his birth, during a snowstorm. The house

where he was born was burned in 1810.--Griffin.
[11] Cotton Mather (1663-1728), clergyman, author, and scholar.
Pastor of the North Church, Boston. He took an active part in the
persecution of witchcraft.
[12] Nantucket.
My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was put
to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father intending to
devote me, as the tithe[13] of his sons, to the service of the Church. My
early readiness in learning to read (which must have been very early, as
I do not remember when I could not read), and the opinion of all his
friends, that I should certainly make a good scholar, encouraged him in
this purpose of his. My uncle Benjamin, too, approved of it, and
proposed to give me all his short-hand volumes of sermons, I suppose
as a stock to set up with, if I would learn his character.[14] I continued,
however, at the grammar-school not quite one year, though in that time
I had risen gradually from the middle of the class of that year to be the
head of it, and farther was removed into the next class above it, in order
to go with that into the third at the end of the year. But my father, in the
meantime, from a view of the expense of a college education, which
having so large a family he could not well afford, and the mean living
many so educated were afterwards able to obtain--reasons that he gave
to his friends in my hearing--altered his first intention, took me from
the grammar-school, and sent me to a school for writing and arithmetic,
kept by a then famous man, Mr. George Brownell, very successful in
his profession generally, and that by mild, encouraging methods. Under
him I acquired fair writing pretty soon, but I failed in the arithmetic,
and made no progress in it. At ten years old I was taken home to assist
my father in his business, which was that of a tallow-chandler and
sope-boiler; a business he was not bred to, but had assumed on his
arrival in New England, and on finding his dyeing trade would not
maintain his family, being in little request. Accordingly, I was
employed in cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping mould and
the moulds for cast candles, attending the shop, going of errands, etc.
[13] Tenth.

[14] System of short-hand.
I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the sea, but my
father declared against it; however, living near the water, I was much in
and about it, learnt early to swim well, and to manage boats; and when
in a boat or canoe with other boys, I was commonly allowed to govern,
especially in any case of difficulty; and upon other occasions I was
generally a leader among the boys, and sometimes led them into
scrapes, of which I will mention one instance, as it shows an early
projecting public spirit, tho' not then justly conducted.
There was a salt-marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond, on the edge
of which, at high water, we used to stand to fish