The Life of Benjamin Franklin. M. L. Weems
reputation for talents! Encouraged by such good success of this his first adventure, he wrote on, and sent to the press, in the same sly way, several other pieces, which were equally approved, keeping the secret till his slender stock of information was pretty completely exhausted, when he came out with the real author.
His brother, on this discovery, began to entertain a little more respect for him, but still looked on and treated him as a common apprentice. Ben, on the other hand, thought that, as a brother, he had a right to greater indulgence, and sometimes complained of James as rather too rigorous. This difference in opinion rose to disputes, which were often brought before their father, who either from partiality to Ben, or his better cause, generally gave it in his favour. James could not bear these awards of his father in favour of a younger brother, but would fly into a passion and treat him with abuse even to blows. Ben took this tyrannical behaviour of his brother in extremely ill part; and he somewhere says that it imprinted on his mind that deep-rooted aversion to arbitrary power, which he never lost, and which rendered him through life such a firm and unconquerable enemy of oppression. His apprenticeship became insupportable, and he sighed continually for an opportunity of shortening it, which at length unexpectedly offered.
An article in his paper, on some political subject, giving great offence to the assembly, James was taken up; and because he would not discover the author, was ordered into confinement for a month. Ben also was had up and examined before the council, who, after reprimanding, dismissed him, probably because deeming him bound, as an apprentice, to keep his master's secrets.
Notwithstanding their private quarrels, this imprisonment of his brother excited Ben's indignation against the assembly; and having now, during James' confinement, the sole direction of the paper, he boldly came out every week with some severe pasquinade against "The little tyrants of Boston." But though this served to gratify his own angry feelings, and to tickle James, as also to gain himself the character of a wonderful young man for satire; yet it answered no good end, but far contrariwise, proved a fatal blow to their newspaper; for at the expiration of the month, James's enlargement was accompanied with an order from the assembly, that "James Franklin should no longer print the newspaper entitled the New England Courant."
This was a terrible thunder-clap on poor James and his whole scribbling squad; and Ben could find no lightning rod to parry the bolt. A caucus, however, of all the friends was convoked at the printing-office, to devise ways and means of redress. One proposed this measure and another that; but the measure proposed by James himself was at length adopted. This was to carry on the newspaper under Ben's name. But, said some, will not the assembly haul you over the coals for thus attempting to whip the d——l round the stump?
No, replied James.
Aye, how will you prevent it?
Why, I'll give up Ben's indentures.
So then you'll let Ben run free?
No, nor that neither; for he shall sign a new contract.
This was to be sure a very shallow arrangement. It was however carried into immediate execution, and the paper continued in consequence to make its appearance for some months in Ben's name. At length a new difference arising between the brothers, and Ben knowing that James would not dare to talk of his new contract, boldly asserted his freedom!
His numerous admirers will here blush for poor Ben, and hide their reddening cheeks. But let them redden as they may, they will hardly ever equal that honest crimson which glows in the following lines from his own pen:
"It was, no doubt, very dishonourable to avail myself of this advantage, and I reckon this as the first error of my life. But, I was little capable of seeing it in its true light, embittered as my mind had been by the blows I had received. Exclusively of his passionate treatment of me, my brother was by no means an ill tempered man. And even here, perhaps, my manners had too much of impertinence not to afford it a very natural pretext."
Go thy way, honest Ben. Such a confession of error will plead thy excuse with all who know their own infirmities, and remember what the greatest saints have done. Yes, when we remember what young Jacob did to his brother Esau, and how he came over him with his mess of pottage, robbing him of his birthright; and also what David did to Uriah, whom he robbed not only of his wife, but of his life also, we surely shall pity not only Ben, but every man his brother for their follies, and heartily rejoice that there is mercy with Christ to forgive all, on their repentance and amendment.
CHAPTER XIII.
Finding that to live with James in the pleasant relations of a brother and a freeman was a lost hope, Ben made up his mind to quit him and go on journey-work with some of the Boston printers. But James suspecting Ben's intentions, went around town to the printers, and made such a report of him, that not a man of them all would have any thing to say to him. The door of employment thus shut against him, and all New England furnishing no other printing office, Ben determined, in quest of one, to push off to New-York. He was farther confirmed in this resolution by a consciousness that his newspaper squibs in behalf of his brother, had made the governing party his mortal enemies. And he was also afraid that his bold and indiscreet argumentation against the gloomy puritans, had led those crabbed people to look on him as no better than a young atheist, whom it would be doing God service to worry as they would a wild cat. He felt indeed that it was high time to be off.
To keep his intended flight from the knowledge of his father, his friend Collins engaged his passage with the captain of a New-York sloop, to whom he represented Ben as an amorous young blade, who wished to get away privately in consequence of an intrigue with a worthless hussy, whom her relations wanted to force upon him. Ben had no money. But he had money's worth. Having, for four years past, been carefully turning into books every penny he could spare, he had by this time made up a pretty little library. It went prodigiously against him to break in upon his books. But there was no help for it. So turning a parcel of them back again into money, he slipped privately on board of a sloop, which on the third day landed him safely in New-York, three hundred miles from home, only seventeen years old, without a single friend in the place, and but little money in his pocket.
He immediately offered his services to a Mr. Bradford, the only printer in New-York. The old gentleman expressed his regret that he could give him no employment; but in a very encouraging manner advised him to go on to Philadelphia, where he had a son, a printer, who would probably do something for him. Philadelphia was a good hundred miles farther off; but Ben, nothing disheartened by that, instantly ran down to the wharf, and took his passage in an open boat for Amboy, leaving his trunk to follow him by sea. In crossing the bay, they were overtaken by a dreadful squall, during which a drunken Dutchman, a passenger, fell headlong into the raging waves. Being hissing hot and swollen with rum, he popped up like a dead catfish; but just as he was going down the second time, never to rise again, by a miracle of mercy, Ben caught him by the fore-top, and lugged him in, where he lay tumbled over on the bottom of the boat, fast asleep, and senseless as a corpse of the frightful storm which threatened every moment to bury them all in a watery grave. The violence of the wind presently drove them on the rocky coasts of Long Island; where, to prevent being dashed to pieces among the furious breakers, they cast anchor, and there during the rest of the day, and all night long, lay riding out the gale. Their little boat pitching bows under at every surge, while the water constantly flying over them in drenching showers, kept them as wet as drowned rats; and not only unable to get a wink of sleep, but also obliged to stir their stumps, baling the boat to keep her from sinking.
The wind falling the next day, they reached Amboy about dark, after having passed thirty hours without a morsel of victuals, and with no other drink than a bottle of bad rum; the water upon which they had rowed, being as salt as brine. Ben went to bed with a high fever. Having somewhere read that cold water, plentifully drank, was good in such cases; he followed the prescription, which threw him into a profuse sweat, and the fever left him. The next day, feeble and alone, he set out, with fifty wearisome miles to walk before he could reach Burlington, whence he was told that a passage boat would take him to Philadelphia. To increase his depression, soon as he left the tavern, it set in to rain hard. But though wet to the skin, he pressed on by himself through the gloomy woods till noon, when feeling much fatigued, and