Benjamin Franklin | Page 7

purchase a press and types with
funds to be advanced by Sir William. Everything was arranged, only
from day to day there was delay in the actual delivery to Franklin of the
letters of introduction and credit. The governor was a very busy man.
The day of sailing came, but the documents had not come, only a
message from the governor that Franklin might feel easy at embarking,
for that the papers should be sent on board at Newcastle, down the
stream. Accordingly, at the last moment, a messenger came hurriedly
on board and put the packet into the captain's hands. Afterward, when
during the leisure hours of the voyage the letters were sorted, none was
found for Franklin. His patron had simply broken an inconvenient
promise. It was indeed a "pitiful trick" to "impose so grossly on a poor
innocent boy." Yet Franklin, in his broad tolerance of all that is bad as
well as good in human nature, spoke with good-tempered indifference,
and with more of charity than of justice, concerning the deceiver. "It
was a habit he had acquired. He wish'd to please everybody; and,
having little to give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an
ingenious, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good governor for
the people.... Several of our best laws were of his planning, and passed
during his administration."
None the less it turned out that this contemptible governor did Franklin
a good turn in sending him to London, though the benefit came in a
fashion not anticipated by either. For Franklin, not yet much wiser than
the generality of mankind, had to go through his period of youthful
folly, and it was good fortune for him that the worst portion of this
period fell within the eighteen months which he passed in England.
Had this part of his career been run in Philadelphia its unsavory aroma
might have kept him long in ill odor among his fellow townsmen, then
little tolerant of profligacy. But the "errata" of a journeyman printer in
London were quite beyond the ken of provincial gossips. He easily
gained employment in his trade, at wages which left him a little surplus
beyond his maintenance. This surplus, during most of the time, he and

his comrades squandered in the pleasures of the town. Yet in one matter
his good sense showed itself, for he kept clear of drink; indeed, his real
nature asserted itself even at this time, to such a degree that we find
him waging a temperance crusade in his printing-house, and actually
weaning some of his fellow compositors from their dearly loved "beer."
One of these, David Hall, afterward became his able partner in the
printing business in Philadelphia. Amid much bad companionship he
fell in with some clever men. His friend James Ralph, though a
despicable, bad fellow, had brains and some education. At this time,
too, Franklin was in the proselyting stage of infidelity. He published "A
Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," and the
pamphlet got him some little notoriety among the free-thinkers of
London, and an introduction to some of them, but chiefly of the class
who love to sit in taverns and blow clouds of words. Their society did
him no good, and such effervescence was better blown off in London
than in Philadelphia.
But after the novelty of London life had worn off, it ceased to be to
Franklin's taste. He began to reform somewhat, to retrench and lay by a
little money; and after eighteen months he eagerly seized an
opportunity which offered for returning home. This was opened to him
by a Mr. Denham, a good man and prosperous merchant, then engaged
in England in purchasing stock for his store in Philadelphia. Franklin
was to be his managing and confidential clerk, with the prospect of
rapid advancement. At the same time Sir William Wyndham,
ex-chancellor of the exchequer, endeavored to persuade Franklin to
open a swimming school in London. He promised very aristocratic
patronage; and as an opening for money-getting this plan was perhaps
the better. Franklin almost closed with the proposition. He seems,
however, to have had a little touch of homesickness, a preference, if not
quite a yearning, for the colonies, which sufficed to turn the scale. Such
was his third escape; he might have passed his days in instructing the
scions of British nobility in the art of swimming! He arrived at home,
after a tedious voyage, October 11, 1726. But almost immediately
fortune seemed to cross him, for Mr. Denham and he were both taken
suddenly ill. Denham died; Franklin narrowly evaded death, and
fancied himself somewhat disappointed at his recovery, "regretting in

some degree that [he] must now sometime or other have all that
disagreeable work to go over again." He seems