Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
opportunity, sometime or other, of seeing Sir Isaac Newton, of which I
was extreamly desirous; but this never happened.
I had brought over a few curiosities, among which the principal was a
purse made of the asbestos, which purifies by fire. Sir Hans Sloane
heard of it, came to see me, and invited me to his house in Bloomsbury
Square, where he show'd me all his curiosities, and persuaded me to
let him add that to the number, for which he paid me handsomely.
In our house there lodg'd a young woman, a milliner, who, I think, had
a shop in the Cloisters. She had been genteelly bred, was sensible and
lively, and of most pleasing conversation. Ralph read plays to her in
the evenings, they grew intimate, she took another lodging, and he
followed her. They liv'd together some time; but, he being still out
of business, and her income not sufficient to maintain them with her
child, he took a resolution of going from London, to try for a country
school, which he thought himself well qualified to undertake, as he
wrote an excellent hand, and was a master of arithmetic and accounts.
This, however, he deemed a business below him, and confident of future
better fortune, when he should be unwilling to have it known that he
once was so meanly employed, he changed his name, and did me the
honour to assume mine; for I soon after had a letter from him,
acquainting me that he was settled in a small village (in Berkshire, I
think it was, where he taught reading and writing to ten or a dozen
boys, at sixpence each per week), recommending Mrs. T---- to my care,
and desiring me to write to him, directing for Mr. Franklin,
schoolmaster, at such a place.
He continued to write frequently, sending me large specimens of an
epic poem which he was then composing, and desiring my remarks and
corrections. These I gave him from time to time, but endeavour'd
rather to discourage his proceeding. One of Young's Satires[41] was
then just published. I copy'd and sent him a great part of it, which
set in a strong light the folly of pursuing the Muses with any hope of
advancement by them. All was in vain; sheets of the poem continued to
come by every post. In the meantime, Mrs. T----, having on his account
lost her friends and business, was often in distresses, and us'd to
send for me and borrow what I could spare to help her out of them. I
grew fond of her company, and, being at that time under no religious
restraint, and presuming upon my importance to her, I attempted
familiarities (another erratum) which she repuls'd with a proper
resentment, and acquainted him with my behaviour. This made a breach
between us; and, when he returned again to London, he let me know he
thought I had cancell'd all the obligations he had been under to me.
So I found I was never to expect his repaying me what I lent to him or
advanc'd for him. This, however, was not then of much consequence, as
he was totally unable; and in the loss of his friendship I found
myself relieved from a burthen. I now began to think of getting a
little money beforehand, and, expecting better work, I left Palmer's
to work at Watts's, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, a still greater
printing-house.[42] Here I continued all the rest of my stay in London.
[41] Edward Young (1681-1765), an English poet. See his
satires, Vol. III, Epist. ii, page 70.
[42] The printing press at which Franklin worked is
preserved in the Patent Office at Washington.
At my first admission into this printing-house I took to working at
press, imagining I felt a want of the bodily exercise I had been us'd
to in America, where presswork is mix'd with composing. I drank only
water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were great guzzlers of
beer. On occasion, I carried up and down stairs a large form of types
in each hand, when others carried but one in both hands. They wondered
to see, from this and several instances, that the _Water-American_, as
they called me, was _stronger_ than themselves, who drank _strong_
beer! We had an alehouse boy who attended always in the house to
supply the workmen. My companion at the press drank every day a pint
before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a
pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the
afternoon about six o'clock, and another when he had done his day's
work. I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he
suppos'd, to drink _strong_ beer, that he might be _strong_ to labour.
I endeavoured to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by
beer could only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley
dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour
in a pennyworth of bread; and therefore, if he would eat that with a
pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer.
He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his
wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor; an expense I was
free from. And thus these poor devils keep themselves always under.
Watts, after some weeks, desiring to have me in the composing-room,[43]
I left the pressmen; a new bien venu or sum for drink, being five
shillings, was demanded of me by the compositors. I thought it an
imposition, as I had paid below; the master thought so too, and forbade
my paying it. I stood out two or three weeks, was accordingly considered
as an excommunicate, and had so many little pieces of private mischief
done me, by mixing my sorts, transposing my pages, breaking my matter,
etc., etc., if I were ever so little out of the room, and all ascribed
to the chappel ghost, which they said ever haunted those not regularly
admitted, that, notwithstanding the master's protection, I found myself
oblig'd to comply and pay the money, convinc'd of the folly of being on
ill terms with those one is to live with continually.
[43] Franklin now left the work of operating the printing
presses, which was largely a matter of manual labor, and
began setting type, which required more skill and
intelligence.
I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon acquir'd considerable
influence. I propos'd some reasonable alterations in their chappel
laws,[44] and carried them against all opposition. From my example, a
great part of them left their muddling breakfast of beer, and bread,
and cheese, finding they could with me be supply'd from a neighbouring
house with a large porringer of hot water-gruel, sprinkled with
pepper, crumb'd with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the price
of a pint of beer, viz., three half-pence. This was a more comfortable
as well as cheaper breakfast, and keep their heads clearer. Those who
continued sotting with beer all day, were often, by not paying, out of
credit at the alehouse, and us'd to make interest with me to get beer;
their _light_, as they phrased it, _being out_. I watch'd the
pay-table on Saturday night, and collected what I stood engag'd for
them, having to pay sometimes near thirty shillings a week on their
accounts. This, and my being esteem'd a pretty good _riggite_, that
is, a jocular verbal satirist, supported my consequence in the
society. My constant attendance (I never making a St. Monday)[45]
recommended me to the master; and my uncommon quickness at composing
occasioned my being put upon all work of dispatch, which was generally
better paid. So I went on now very agreeably.
[44] A printing house is called a chapel because Caxton,
the first English printer, did his printing in a chapel
connected with Westminster Abbey.
[45] A holiday taken to prolong the dissipation of
Saturday's wages.
My lodging in Little Britain being too remote, I found another in
Duke-street, opposite to the Romish Chapel. It was two pair of stairs
backwards, at an Italian warehouse. A widow lady kept the house; she
had a daughter, and a maid servant, and a journeyman who attended the
warehouse, but lodg'd abroad. After sending to inquire my character at
the house where I last lodg'd she agreed to take me in at the same
rate, 3s. 6d. per week; cheaper, as she said, from the protection she
expected in having a man lodge in the house. She was a widow, an
elderly woman; had been bred a Protestant, being a clergyman's
daughter, but was converted to the Catholic religion by her husband,
whose memory she much revered; had lived much among people of
distinction, and knew a thousand anecdotes of them as far back as the
times of Charles the Second. She was lame in her knees with the gout,
and, therefore, seldom stirred out of her room, so sometimes wanted
company; and hers was so highly amusing to me, that I was sure to
spend an evening with her whenever she desired it. Our supper was
only half an anchovy each, on a very little strip of bread and butter,
and half a pint of ale between us; but the entertainment was in her
conversation. My always keeping good hours, and giving little trouble
in the family, made her unwilling to part with me, so that, when I
talk'd of a lodging I had heard of, nearer my business, for two
shillings a week, which, intent as I now was on saving money, made
some difference, she bid me not think of it, for she would abate me
two shillings a week for the future; so I remained with her at one
shilling and sixpence as long as I staid in London.
In a garret of her house there lived a maiden lady of seventy, in the
most retired manner, of whom my landlady gave me this account: that
she was a Roman Catholic, had been sent abroad when young, and lodg'd
in a nunnery with an intent of becoming a nun; but, the country not
agreeing with her, she returned to England, where, there being no
nunnery, she had vow'd to lead the life of a nun, as near as might be
done in those circumstances. Accordingly, she had given all her estate
to charitable uses, reserving only twelve pounds a year to live on,
and out of this sum she still gave a great deal in charity, living
herself on water-gruel only, and using no fire but to boil it. She had
lived many years in that garret, being permitted to remain there
gratis by successive Catholic tenants of the house below, as they
deemed it a blessing to have her there. A priest visited her to
confess her every day. "I have ask'd her," says my landlady, "how she,
as she liv'd, could possibly find so much employment for a confessor?"
"Oh," said she, "it is impossible to avoid _vain thoughts_." I was
permitted once to visit her. She was cheerful and polite, and
convers'd pleasantly. The room was clean, but had no other furniture
than a matras, a table with a crucifix and book, a stool which she
gave me to sit on, and a picture over the chimney of Saint Veronica
displaying her handkerchief, with the miraculous figure of Christ's
bleeding face on it,[46] which she explained to me with great
seriousness. She look'd pale, but was never sick; and I give it as
another instance on how small an income, life and health may be
supported.
At Watts's printing-house I contracted an acquaintance with an
ingenious young man, one Wygate, who, having wealthy relations, had
been better educated than most printers; was a tolerable Latinist,
spoke French, and lov'd reading. I taught him and a friend of his to
swim at twice going into the river, and they soon became good
swimmers. They introduc'd me to some gentlemen from the country, who
went to Chelsea by water to see the College and Don Saltero's
curiosities.[47] In our return, at the request of the company, whose
curiosity Wygate had excited, I stripped and leaped into the river,
and swam from near Chelsea to Blackfriar's,[48] performing on the way
many feats of activity, both upon and under water, that surpris'd and
pleas'd those to whom they were novelties.