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True/False
Indicate whether the statement is true or false.

____ 1. Computer science focuses on a broad set of interrelated ideas.

____ 2. Informally, a computing agent is like a recipe.

____ 3. An algorithm describes a process that ends with a solution to a problem.

____ 4. Each individual instruction in an algorithm is well defined.

____ 5. An algorithm describes a process that may or may not halt after arriving at a solution to a problem.

____ 6. An algorithm solves a general class of problems.

____ 7. The algorithms that describe information processing can also be represented as information.

____ 8. When using a computer, human users primarily interact with the memory.

____ 9. Information is stored as patterns of bytes (1s and 0s).

____ 10. The part of a computer that is responsible for processing data is the central processing unit (CPU).

____ 11. Magnetic storage media, such as tapes and hard disks, allow bit patterns to be stored as patterns on a
magnetic field.

____ 12. A program stored in computer memory must be represented in binary digits, which is also known as ascii
code.

____ 13. The most important example of system software is a computer’s operating system.

____ 14. An important part of any operating system is its file system, which allows human users to organize their
data and programs in permanent storage.

____ 15. A programmer typically starts by writing high-level language statements in a text editor.

____ 16. Ancient mathematicians developed the first algorithms.

____ 17. In the 1930s, the mathematician Blaise Pascal explored the theoretical foundations and limits of
algorithms and computation.
____ 18. The first electronic digital computers, sometimes called mainframe computers, consisted of vacuum tubes,
wires, and plugs, and filled entire rooms.

____ 19. In the early 1940s, computer scientists realized that a symbolic notation could be used instead of machine
code, and the first assembly languages appeared.

____ 20. The development of the transistor in the early 1960s allowed computer engineers to build ever smaller,
faster, and less expensive computer hardware components.

____ 21. Moore’s Law states that the processing speed and storage capacity of hardware will increase and its cost
will decrease by approximately a factor of 3 every 18 months.

____ 22. In the 1960s, batch processing sometimes caused a programmer to wait days for results, including error
messages.

____ 23. In 1984, Apple Computer brought forth the Macintosh, the first successful mass-produced personal
computer with a graphical user interface.

____ 24. By the mid 1980s, the ARPANET had grown into what we now call the Internet, connecting computers
owned by large institutions, small organizations, and individuals all over the world.

____ 25. Steve Jobs wrote the first Web server and Web browser software.

____ 26. Guido van Rossum invented the Python programming language in the early 1990s.

____ 27. In Python, the programmer can force the output of a value by using the cout statement.

____ 28. When executing the print statement, Python first displays the value and then evaluates the expression.

____ 29. When writing Python programs, you should use a .pyt extension.

____ 30. The interpreter reads a Python expression or statement, also called the source code, and verifies that it is
well formed.

____ 31. If a Python expression is well formed, the interpreter translates it to an equivalent form in a low-level
language called byte code.

Multiple Choice
Identify the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.

____ 32. The sequence of steps that describes a computational processes is called a(n) ____.
a. program c. pseudocode
b. computing agent d. algorithm
____ 33. An algorithm consists of a(n) ____ number of instructions.
a. finite c. predefined
b. infinite d. undefined
____ 34. The action described by the instruction in an algorithm can be performed effectively or be executed by a
____.
a. computer c. computing agent
b. processor d. program
____ 35. In the modern world of computers, information is also commonly referred to as ____.
a. data c. input
b. bits d. records
____ 36. In carrying out the instructions of any algorithm, the computing agent starts with some given information
(known as ____).
a. data c. input
b. variables d. output
____ 37. In carrying out the instructions of any algorithm, the computing agent transforms some given information
according to well-defined rules, and produces new information, known as ____.
a. data c. input
b. variables d. output
____ 38. ____ consists of the physical devices required to execute algorithms.
a. Firmware c. I/O
b. Hardware d. Processors
____ 39. ____ is the set of algorithms, represented as programs in particular programming languages.
a. Freeware c. Software
b. Shareware d. Dataset
____ 40. In a computer, the ____ devices include a keyboard, a mouse, and a microphone.
a. memory c. input
b. CPU d. output
____ 41. Computers can communicate with the external world through various ____ that connect them to networks
and to other devices such as handheld music players and digital cameras.
a. facilities c. racks
b. ports d. slots
____ 42. The primary memory of a computer is also sometimes called internal or ____.
a. read-only memory (ROM) c. flash memory
b. random access memory (RAM) d. associative memory
____ 43. The CPU, which is also sometimes called a ____, consists of electronic switches arranged to perform
simple logical, arithmetic, and control operations.
a. motherboard c. chip
b. computing agent d. processor
____ 44. Flash memory sticks are an example of ____ storage media.
a. semiconductor c. optical
b. magnetic d. primary
____ 45. Tapes and hard disks are an example of ____ storage media.
a. semiconductor c. optical
b. magnetic d. primary
____ 46. CDs and DVDs are an example of ____ storage media.
 a. semiconductor c. optical
b. magnetic d. primary
____ 47. A ____ takes a set of machine language instructions as input and loads them into the appropriate memory
locations.
a. compiler c. loader
b. linker d. interpreter
____ 48. A modern ____ organizes the monitor screen around the metaphor of a desktop, with windows containing
icons for folders, files, and applications.
a. GUI c. terminal-based interface
b. CLI d. applications software
____ 49. ____ programming languages resemble English and allow the author to express algorithms in a form that
other people can understand.
a. Assembly c. Low-level
b. Interpreted d. High-level
____ 50. Early in the nineteenth century, ____ designed and constructed a machine that automated the process of
weaving.
a. George Boole c. Herman Hollerith
b. Joseph Jacquard d. Charles Babbage
____ 51. ____ took the concept of a programmable computer a step further by designing a model of a machine that,
conceptually, bore a striking resemblance to a modern general-purpose computer.
a. George Boole c. Herman Hollerith
b. Joseph Jacquard d. Charles Babbage
____ 52. ____ developed a machine that automated data processing for the U.S. Census.
a. George Boole c. Herman Hollerith
b. Joseph Jacquard d. Charles Babbage
____ 53. ____ developed a system of logic which consisted of a pair of values, TRUE and FALSE, and a set of
three primitive operations on these values, AND, OR, and NOT.
a. George Boole c. Herman Hollerith
b. Joseph Jacquard d. Charles Babbage
____ 54. ____ was considered ideal for numerical and scientific applications.
a. COBOL c. LISP
b. Machine code d. FORTRAN
____ 55. In its early days, ____ was used primarily for laboratory experiments in an area of research known as
artificial intelligence.
a. COBOL c. LISP
b. Machine code d. FORTRAN
____ 56. In science or any other area of enquiry, a(n) ____ allows human beings to reduce complex ideas or entities
to simpler ones.
a. abstraction c. module
b. algorithm d. compiler
____ 57. In the early 1980s, a college dropout named Bill Gates and his partner Paul Allen built their own
operating system software, which they called ____.
a. LISP c. MS-DOS
 b. Windows d. Linux
____ 58. Python is a(n) ____ language.
a. functional c. interpreted
b. assembly d. compiled
____ 59. To quit the Python shell, you can either select the window’s close box or press the ____ key combination.
a. Control+C c. Control+Z
b. Control+D d. Control+X
____ 60. In Python, you can write a print statement that includes two or more expressions separated by ____.
a. periods c. colons
b. commas d. semicolons
____ 61. The Python interpreter rejects any statement that does not adhere to the grammar rules, or ____, of the
language.
a. code c. definition
b. library d. syntax
1
Answer Section

TRUE/FALSE

1. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 2

2. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 3
3. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 3
4. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 3
5. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 4
6. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 4
7. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 5
8. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 6
9. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 7
10. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 7
11. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 8
12. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 8
13. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 8
14. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 9
15. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 9
16. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 11
17. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 15
18. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 16
19. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 16
20. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 18
21. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 18
22. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 19
23. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 20
24. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 21
25. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 23
26. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 23
27. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 25
28. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 25
29. ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 28
30. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 30
31. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 30

MULTIPLE CHOICE

32. ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 3

33. ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 3
34. ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 3
35. ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 4
36. ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 5
37. ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 5
38. ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 6
39. ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 6
40. ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 6
41. ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 6
42. ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 7
43. ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 7
44. ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 8
45. ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 8
46. ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 8
47. ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 8
48. ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 9
49. ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 9
50. ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 14
51. ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 14
52. ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 14
53. ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 14-15
54. ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 17
55. ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 17
56. ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 18
57. ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 21
58. ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 23
59. ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 25
60. ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 25
61. ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 30
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of
Benjamin Franklin
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
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Title: Benjamin Franklin

Author: Robin McKown

Release date: August 19, 2020 [eBook #62974]

Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BENJAMIN

FRANKLIN ***
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
by
Robin McKown

G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York

To Rosalie Quine

Third Impression
© 1963 by Robin McKown
All rights reserved

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-9688

Manufactured in the United States of America

Published simultaneously in the Dominion of Canada

by Longmans Canada Limited, Toronto
10216

5
 CONTENTS

1. A Boyhood in Boston 9
2. A Young Man on His Own 18
3. The Birth of Poor Richard 28
4. The Civic-Minded Citizen 38
5. The Thunder Giant 49
6. A Brief Military Career 61
7. The Battle with the Penns 73
8. The White Christian Savages 84
9. The Stamp Act 91
10. Friendships in England 100
11. The Terrible Hutchinson Letters 111
12. Beginning of a Long War 123
13. The Splendid Word Independence 132
14. France Falls in Love with an American 143
15. America’s First Ambassador 155
16. A Glorious Old Age 165
17. The Closing Years 177
Suggested Reading 188
Index 189

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
 9

1
A BOYHOOD IN BOSTON

The Franklins of Boston were poor, numerous, lively and

intelligent. There were seventeen children in all, seven
by their father’s first wife, who had died after Josiah
Franklin brought her from England to America; and ten
by his second wife, Abiah, Benjamin’s mother. Benjamin,
born on January 6 (January 17, new style), 1706, was
the youngest son, though he had two younger sisters,
Jane, who was always his favorite, and Lydia.

They lived on Milk Street across from the Old South

Church until he was six, when they took a larger house
on Hanover Street. A blue ball hung over the door,
serving to identify the house in lieu of street numbers.
In June 1713, a firm of slave traders advertised “three
able Negro men and three Negro women ... to be seen
at the house of Mr. Josiah Franklin at the Blue Ball.”
Josiah kept no slaves himself but had a shed in which
he allowed these captives to be housed.

Boston was then a busy seaport town, with some 10

12,000 population, next largest to Philadelphia in the
American colonies. Its harbor was filled with sailing
vessels; merchant ships from the Barbados or faraway
England unloaded their goods at the Long Wharf.
Streets were unpaved and unlighted, but there was
plenty of activity in the coffeehouses and taverns. The
town boasted of at least six book stores.

Benjamin could not remember when he learned to read.

According to his sister Jane, he was reading the Bible at
five and composing verses at seven. The verse writing
was inspired by his father’s brother, Uncle Benjamin, a
versifier himself, who appeared at varying intervals,
usually staying as long as his welcome lasted.

At a very young age, Benjamin devoured his father’s

religious tracts and sermons, but soon found boring
their tirades against infidels and Catholics. Pilgrim’s
Progress, in contrast, was an absorbing adventure story,
and Plutarch’s Lives opened up a new and exciting
world. His official schooling began at eight and lasted
just two years. After that he worked in his father’s soap
and candle making shop, doing errands, dipping molds,
cutting wick for candles.

With so many mouths to feed, higher education, such as

that offered at nearby Harvard University, was out of
reach for any of the Franklin children. To improve their
minds, Josiah often invited men of learning to dinner,
encouraging them to discuss worthwhile matters.
Though his trade was lowly, he was one of the town’s
most respected citizens. Leading Bostonians often
consulted him about public affairs, or asked him to
arbitrate disputes. He was a man of many skills, was
handy with tools, played the violin, and sang hymns in a
pleasing voice. Benjamin’s love of music began in his
childhood.

The values of obedience and industry were implanted in 11

all of them. “Seest thou a man diligent in his calling,”
Josiah would quote from Solomon, “he shall stand
before kings, he shall not stand before mean men.”
Nothing then seemed more unlikely than that he,
Benjamin Franklin, would ever stand before a king.

He was a sturdy, squarely built youngster, with a broad

friendly face, light brown hair, and bright mischievous
eyes. Among boys of his own age he was the leader—
and sometimes led them into scrapes.

Once they were fishing for minnows in the salt marsh.

Benjamin suggested they build a wharf so as not to get
their feet wet. For the purpose, they appropriated a pile
of stones belonging to some workmen who were using
them to build a house. The wharf was a success but
there were repercussions when the men found their
stones missing.

“Nothing is useful which is not honest,” Josiah told his

erring son.

As a youth, he learned to handle boats, to swim, to

dive, and to perform all manner of water stunts. One
day he resolved to try swimming and flying his kite
simultaneously. To his delight, he found that if he
floated on his back while holding the kite’s string, he
was effortlessly drawn across the pond. Another time he
carved himself two oval slabs of wood, shaped like a
painter’s palette, bored a hole for his thumb, and used
them like oars to propel himself along. In this way he
could easily outswim his comrades, though his wrists
soon tired. He tried similar devices for his feet with less
success. For this invention he might be called the first
frog man.

12
He had no enthusiasm for cutting candle wicks and
often dreamed of going to sea as an older brother had
done. Josiah Franklin, sensing his discontent, told him
he could take his pick of other trades. In turn, he took
his son to watch the work of joiners, bricklayers,
turners, and braziers. Young Benjamin admired the way
they handled their tools but did not find these trades to
his taste either.

Wisely, his father did not press him. His brother James
had returned from England in 1717 with equipment to
set up a printing shop at the corner of Queen Street and
Dasset Alley. Since Benjamin liked to read, what would
he think of being a printer—a trade that deals with
pamphlets, books, everything made with words? The
idea appealed to Benjamin, though he balked when he
learned he would be apprenticed to his brother until he
was twenty. His father insisted; the apprenticeship, legal
as a slave contract, would assure him against losing a
second son to the dangerous sea. When Benjamin
finally signed the papers which bound him to his
brother’s service, he was twelve years old. Everyone
agreed he was exceptionally bright for his age.

James Franklin was one of Boston’s young intellectuals,

belonging to what the pious Cotton Mather called the
“Hell Fire Club,” made up of clever young men like
himself. He had reason to be pleased with how quickly
his little brother mastered the techniques of a printer’s
trade. As Benjamin’s skill began to surpass his own, his
attitude changed to resentment and jealousy. He found
excuses to scold Benjamin, and sometimes gave him
blows.

The shop handled pamphlets and advertisements and 13

such odd jobs. As a sideline they printed patterns on
linen, calico, and silk “in good figures, very lively and
durable colours.” In the second year of Benjamin’s
apprenticeship, their fortunes improved with a
substantial contract to print the Boston Gazette for 40
weeks. The Gazette was one of Boston’s two
newspapers, both insufferably dull. When his contract
came to an end, James decided to publish his own
newspaper. His friends scoffed, saying that America had
no need of still another newspaper!

The first issue of James Franklin’s New England Courant

appeared August 7, 1721, during a smallpox epidemic—
and was devoted to opposing the new “doubtful and
dangerous practice” of smallpox inoculation. There is no
evidence that young Benjamin took any stand—either
for or against—in the controversy.

The great advantage of working for his brother was that

he had access to books. Several apprentices to
booksellers with whom he made friends obligingly
“loaned” him volumes from their masters’ shelves. So
they could be returned early in the morning before they
were missed, he often sat up all night reading. There
was also a tradesman named Matthew Adams with his
own library, who took a fancy to Benjamin and let him
borrow what he chose. From reading he turned his hand
to writing, composing a ballad called The Lighthouse
Tragedy, the account of the drowning of a ship’s captain
and his two daughters.

James saw possibilities in this effort, printed it for

Benjamin, then sent him out on the streets to sell it.
(The story of young Benjamin Franklin hawking his
ballads on the streets of Boston would much later bring
tears to the eyes of his aristocratic French friends.) The
Lighthouse Tragedy was wonderfully popular, but his
second ballad, a sailor’s song about a pirate, was such a
dismal failure that he allowed his father to discourage
him from trying others.

“Verse-makers are usually beggars,” Josiah Franklin had 14

commented.

Prose was Benjamin’s next effort. His inspiration was a

volume of the London Spectator, with essays by Joseph
Addison and Richard Steele, leading prose stylists of the
eighteenth century. He made notes on their subject
matter, laid the notes aside a few days, tried to
reconstruct the original. He changed the essays into
verse, endeavored to put them back to prose. Thus he
strove to correct his own writing faults, on occasion
having the thrill of finding he had in a phrase or
expression improved the original.

Both reading and writing were done on his own time,

before the shop opened in the morning, at night, and on
Sundays when his conscience let him miss church. And
still there were never enough hours in the day for all the
learning he sought.

When he was sixteen he came under the influence of a

book by a man named Tryon, who preached on the evils
of eating “fish or flesh.” He had been taking his dinners
with James and the workmen at a boardinghouse run by
a Mrs. Peabody. Would his brother agree to giving him
half what he paid Mrs. Peabody and let him buy his own
dinner? Benjamin proposed. James jumped at such a
bargain. Henceforth the young apprentice dined on
dried raisins and bread instead of roasts and legs of
mutton. He even had money left over for books, and
two extra hours in the empty shop to peruse them as he
ate. One of the volumes he purchased at this time
influenced him even more than Tryon and his
vegetarianism.

This was Xenophon’s Memorabilia, which told of

Socrates and his philosophy.

Hitherto when Benjamin had an opinion, he stated it, as 15

so many do, unequivocally as a fact. It had been a
mystery to him why people so often took offense and
set to arguing the opposite side of the question. Instead
of saying outright what he had in mind, Socrates asked
questions—and indirectly led people to his own opinion.
From that time on, Benjamin used rarely such words as
“certainly” or “undoubtedly,” but expressed his own
ideas with seeming diffidence and modesty. Rather than
saying, “This is so,” he substituted, “In my opinion, this
might be so.” He retained this habit of speech the rest
of his life.

Outwardly more humble, he was inwardly gaining self-

confidence. It seemed to him that the things which
James and his literary friends wrote for the Courant
were no better than he could do himself, but he was too
smart to risk asking his brother to let him have an
opportunity to try. One morning a letter was slipped
under the door of the shop before any of the staff
arrived. It was signed by a “Mrs. Silence Dogood.”

Mrs. Dogood claimed to have been born on a ship

bringing her parents from London to New England. Her
father, so she said, was standing on the deck rejoicing
at her birth when “a merciless wave” carried him to his
death. In America, as soon as she was old enough, her
hard-pressed mother had apprenticed her to a young
country parson, whom the young girl later married. Now
she was a widow with three children.
James printed Mrs. Dogood’s first letter, as well as
subsequent ones in which she expressed herself, wittily
and clearly, on such varied subjects as the folly of
fashionable dress, the character of the so-called weaker
sex, the ill effects of liquor, the inferior quality of New
England poetry, the need of insurance for widows and
old maids, the hypocrisy of certain “pretenders to
religion,” and the uselessness of sending dullards to
Harvard simply because their fathers could afford to pay
their way.

Not until her column had become the most controversial 16

and the most popular in the paper, did James Franklin
learn that his apprentice-brother was Mrs. Dogood’s
creator.

In the meantime James was having his own troubles.

Because of an editorial attack by one of his contributors
on the Massachusetts governor, James was summoned
before the City Council, sent to jail for a month, and
released only when he agreed to make an abject
apology. The City Council then forbade him to print or
publish the Courant. In desperation, James and his
friends hit on the scheme of making Benjamin, in name
only, the Courant publisher. So it would be legal, James
burned his brother’s apprenticeship papers, although
privately a new set was drawn up.

“Mrs. Dogood” added her voice to the indignation

aroused at James Franklin’s persecution. From the
London Journal, she quoted an article: “Without
Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as
Wisdom; and no such Thing as public liberty without
Freedom of Speech.” (Capitalization of nouns was then
held part of elegant writing, a practice which Benjamin
Franklin always followed carefully.)
He had a freer hand now and composed many articles
for the Courant. At seventeen, he was without doubt the
best writer in Boston, with a mind inferior to none. It is
small wonder that his brother felt it his moral duty to
exert his authority over him. There were arguments.
There were more blows on the part of James. Benjamin,
by his own admission, was “perhaps ... too saucy and
provoking.”

One day he told his brother he was quitting. A runaway 17

apprentice was subject to the same penalties as a
runaway slave, but Benjamin’s case was slightly
different. James could not make public the secret
apprenticeship papers without getting himself in trouble.
He took out his fury by visiting other Boston printing
shops to warn them not to employ his arrogant younger
brother.

Benjamin resolved to go to New York. His only confidant

was a young friend named Collins. Collins persuaded the
captain of a New York sloop to give him passage, telling
a fantastic yarn about Benjamin being pursued by a
young woman who wanted to marry him. The captain
would not have carried a runaway apprentice but
goodnaturedly agreed to help the young “ne’er-do-well”
elude the female sex.

New York, where Benjamin arrived after a three-day

journey, had only 7,000 inhabitants but was suffused
with an atmosphere of luxury unknown in Boston.
Streets, paved with cobblestones, were filled with
elegantly attired English officials and wealthy
businessmen. Houses were mostly of brick with stairstep
roofs in the Dutch style. Though the English had
captured it from the Netherlands in 1674, Dutch
customs still prevailed.
Benjamin called at once on William Bradford, New York’s
only printer. Bradford told him he needed no help—
privately he thought the Boston youth unstable—but
advised him to go to Philadelphia and see his son,
Andrew Bradford, also a printer. He could guarantee
nothing but at least there was no harm trying.

In history, William Bradford, a worthy man in his own

way, has two indirect claims to fame. One was that a
former apprentice of his named Peter Zenger braved
official censure and served a prison sentence for the
principle of freedom of the press. The other—that he
refused a job to Benjamin Franklin.

18
 2
A YOUNG MAN ON HIS OWN

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 19

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.

20
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 21
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. 22
“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 23

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 24
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 25

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 26

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 27

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:
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