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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 23
of 154
when she first happen'd to see me eating my roll in the street.
I began now to have some acquaintance among the young people of the town, that
were lovers of reading, with whom I spent my evenings very pleasantly; and
gaining money by my industry and frugality, I lived very agreeably, forgetting
Boston as much as I could, and not desiring that any there should know where I
resided, except my friend Collins, who was in my secret, and kept it when I
wrote to him. At length, an incident happened that sent me back again much
sooner than I had intended. I had a brother-in-law, Robert Holmes, master of a
sloop that traded between Boston and Delaware. He being at Newcastle, forty
miles below Philadelphia, heard there of me, and wrote me a letter mentioning
the concern of my friends in Boston at my abrupt departure, assuring me of their
good will to me, and that every thing would be accommodated to my mind if I
would return, to which he exhorted me very earnestly. I wrote an answer to his
letter, thank'd him for his advice, but stated my reasons for quitting Boston
fully and in such a light as to convince him I was not so wrong as he had
apprehended.
Sir William Keith, governor of the province, was then at Newcastle, and Captain
Holmes, happening to be in company with him when my letter came to hand, spoke
to him of me, and show'd him the letter. The governor read it, and seem'd
surpris'd when he was told my age. He said I appear'd a young man of promising
parts, and therefore should be encouraged; the printers at Philadelphia were
wretched ones; and, if I would set up there, he made no doubt I should succeed;
for his part, he would procure me the public business, and do me every other
service in his power. This my brother-in-law afterwards told me in Boston, but I
knew as yet nothing of it; when, one day, Keimer and I being at work together
near the window, we saw the governor and another gentleman (which proved to be
Colonel French, of Newcastle), finely dress'd, come directly across the street
to our house, and heard them at the door.
Keimer ran down immediately, thinking it a visit to him; but the governor
inquir'd for me, came up, and with a condescension of politeness I had been
quite unus'd to, made me many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me,
blam'd me kindly for not having made myself known to him when I first came to
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