They maintained a large family comfortably, and brought up thirteen children and seven
grandchildren reputably. From this instance, reader, Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, And distrust
not Providence. He was a pious and prudent man; She, a discreet and virtuous woman. Their youngest son, In
filial regard to their memory, Places this stone. J.F. born 1655, died 1744, AEtat 89. A.F. born 1667, died
1752, —– 95.
By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be grown old. I us’d to write more methodically. But one
does not dress for private company as for a publick ball. ‘Tis perhaps only negligence.
To return: I continued thus employed in my father’s business for two years, that is, till I was twelve years old;
and my brother John, who was bred to that business, having left my father, married, and set up for himself at
Rhode Island, there was all appearance that I was destined to supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler.
But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under apprehensions that if he did not find one for me
more agreeable, I should break away and get to sea, as his son Josiah had done, to his great vexation. He
therefore sometimes took me to walk with him, and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their
work, that he might observe my inclination, and endeavor to fix it on some trade or other on land. It has ever
since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools; and it has been useful to me, having
learnt so much by it as to be able to do little jobs myself in my house when a workman could not readily be
got, and to construct little machines for my experiments, while the intention of making the experiment was
fresh and warm in my mind. My father at last fixed upon the cutler’s trade, and my uncle Benjamin’s son
Samuel, who was bred to that business in London, being about that time established in Boston, I was sent to
be with him some time on liking. But his expectations of a fee with me displeasing my father, I was taken
home again.
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in
books. Pleased with the Pilgrim’s Progress, my first collection was of John Bunyan’s works in separate little
volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton’s Historical Collections; they were small
chapmen’s books, and cheap, 40 or 50 in all. My father’s little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic
divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst for
knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way since it was now resolved I should not be a
clergyman. Plutarch’s Lives there was in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great
advantage. There was also a book of De Foe’s, called an Essay on Projects, and another of Dr. Mather’s, called
Essays to do Good, which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal
future events of my life.
This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already one son
(James) of that profession. In 1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and letters to set up
his business in Boston. I liked it much better than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To
prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to have me bound to my
brother. I stood out some time, but at last was persuaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve
years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed
journeyman’s wages during the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency in the business, and became
a useful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of
booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often
I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to
be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted.
And after some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and
who frequented our printing-house, took notice of me, invited me to his library, and very kindly lent me such
books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces; my brother, thinking it
might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing occasional ballads. One was called The
Lighthouse Tragedy, and contained an account of the drowning of Captain Worthilake, with his two They maintained a large family comfortably, and brought up thirteen children and seven
grandchildren reputably. From this instance, reader, Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, And distrust
not Providence. He was a pious and prudent man; She, a discreet and virtuous woman. Their youngest son, In
filial regard to their memory, Places this stone. J.F. born 1655, died 1744, AEtat 89. A.F. born 1667, died
1752, —– 95.
By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be grown old. I us’d to write more methodically. But one
does not dress for private company as for a publick ball. ‘Tis perhaps only negligence.
To return: I continued thus employed in my father’s business for two years, that is, till I was twelve years old;
and my brother John, who was bred to that business, having left my father, married, and set up for himself at
Rhode Island, there was all appearance that I was destined to supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler.
But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under apprehensions that if he did not find one for me
more agreeable, I should break away and get to sea, as his son Josiah had done, to his great vexation. He
therefore sometimes took me to walk with him, and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their
work, that he might observe my inclination, and endeavor to fix it on some trade or other on land. It has ever
since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools; and it has been useful to me, having
learnt so much by it as to be able to do little jobs myself in my house when a workman could not readily be
got, and to construct little machines for my experiments, while the intention of making the experiment was
fresh and warm in my mind. My father at last fixed upon the cutler’s trade, and my uncle Benjamin’s son
Samuel, who was bred to that business in London, being about that time established in Boston, I was sent to
be with him some time on liking. But his expectations of a fee with me displeasing my father, I was taken
home again.
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in
books. Pleased with the Pilgrim’s Progress, my first collection was of John Bunyan’s works in separate little
volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton’s Historical Collections; they were small
chapmen’s books, and cheap, 40 or 50 in all. My father’s little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic
divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst for
knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way since it was now resolved I should not be a
clergyman. Plutarch’s Lives there was in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great
advantage. There was also a book of De Foe’s, called an Essay on Projects, and another of Dr. Mather’s, called
Essays to do Good, which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal
future events of my life.
This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already one son
(James) of that profession. In 1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and letters to set up
his business in Boston. I liked it much better than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To
prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to have me bound to my
brother. I stood out some time, but at last was persuaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve
years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed
journeyman’s wages during the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency in the business, and became
a useful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of
booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often
I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to
be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted.
And after some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and
who frequented our printing-house, took notice of me, invited me to his library, and very kindly lent me such
books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces; my brother, thinking it
might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing occasional ballads. One was called The
Lighthouse Tragedy, and contained an account of the drowning of Captain Worthilake, with his two
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin 7
daughters: the other was a sailor’s song, on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard) the pirate. They were
wretched stuff, in the Grub-street-ballad style; and when they were printed he sent me about the town to sell
them. The first sold wonderfully, the event being recent, having made a great noise. This flattered my vanity;
but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally
beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one; but as prose writing bad been of great use
to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a
situation, I acquired what little ability I have in that way.
There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name, with whom I was intimately acquainted.
We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another,
which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely
disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides
souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, perhaps enmities where you may have
occasion for friendship. I had caught it by reading my father’s books of dispute about religion. Persons of
good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that
have been bred at Edinborough.
A question was once, somehow or other, started between Collins and me, of the propriety of educating the
female sex in learning, and their abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper, and that they were
naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary side, perhaps a little for dispute’s sake. He was naturally more
eloquent, had a ready plenty of words; and sometimes, as I thought, bore me down more by his fluency than
by the strength of his reasons. As we parted without settling the point, and were not to see one another again
for some time, I sat down to put my arguments in writing, which I copied fair and sent to him. He answered,
and I replied. Three or four letters of a side had passed, when my father happened to find my papers and read
them. Without entering into the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about the manner of my writing;
observed that, though I had the advantage of my antagonist in correct spelling and pointing (which I ow’d to
the printing-house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he
convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remark, and thence grew more attentive to the
manner in writing, and determined to endeavor at improvement.
About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of
them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and
wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the
sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try’d to compleat
the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before,
in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered
some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting
and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since
the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different
sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have
tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned
them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also
sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them
into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me
method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered
many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of
small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language, and this encouraged me to
think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My
time for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on
Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common
attendance on public worship which my father used to exact on me when I was under his care, and which
indeed I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practise it.
When about 16 years of age I happened to meet with a book, written by one Tryon, recommending a
vegetable diet. I determined to go into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded
himself and his apprentices in another family. My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I
was frequently chid for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon’s manner of preparing some of
his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, making hasty pudding, and a few others, and then proposed to my
brother, that if he would give me, weekly, half the money he paid for my board, I would board myself. He
instantly agreed to it, and I presently found that I could save half what he paid me. This was an additional
fund for buying books. But I had another advantage in it. My brother and the rest going from the
printing-house to their meals, I remained there alone, and, despatching presently my light repast, which often
was no more than a bisket or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins or a tart from the pastry-cook’s, and a glass
of water, had the rest of the time till their return for study, in which I made the greater progress, from that
greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually attend temperance in eating and drinking.
And now it was that, being on some occasion made asham’d of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice
failed in learning when at school, I took Cocker’s book of Arithmetick, and went through the whole by myself
with great ease. I also read Seller’s and Shermy’s books of Navigation, and became acquainted with the little
geometry they contain; but never proceeded far in that science. And I read about this time Locke On Human
Understanding, and the Art of Thinking, by Messrs. du Port Royal.
While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood’s), at
the end of which there were two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a
specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon after I procur’d Xenophon’s Memorable Things of
Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method. I was charm’d with it, adopted it, dropt my
abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter. And being then,
from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine, I found
this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took a delight
in it, practis’d it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge,
into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which
they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always
deserved. I continu’d this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing
myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be disputed,
the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I
conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or I should think it so or so, for such and such
reasons; or I imagine it to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit, I believe, has been of great
advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I
have been from time to time engag’d in promoting; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to
be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of
doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to
defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information
or pleasure. For, if you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may
provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish information and improvement from the
knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix’d in your present opinions,
modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of
your error. And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself in pleasing your hearers, or to
persuade those whose concurrence you desire. Pope says, judiciously:
“Men should be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown propos’d as things forgot;”
farther recommending to us
“To speak, tho’ sure, with seeming diffidence.”
And he might have coupled with this line that which he has coupled with another, I think, less properly,
“For want of modesty is want of sense.”
If you ask, Why less properly? I must repeat the lines,
“Immodest words admit of no defense, For want of modesty is want of sense.”
Now, is not want of sense (where a man is so unfortunate as to want it) some apology for his want of
modesty? and would not the lines stand more justly thus?
“Immodest words admit but this defense, That want of modesty is want of sense.”
This, however, I should submit to better judgments.
My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a newspaper. It was the second that appeared in America, and
was called the New England Courant. The only one before it was the Boston News-Letter. I remember his
being dissuaded by some of his friends from the undertaking, as not likely to succeed, one newspaper being,
in their judgment, enough for America. At this time (1771) there are not less than five-and-twenty. He went
on, however, with the undertaking, and after having worked in composing the types and printing off the
sheets, I was employed to carry the papers thro’ the streets to the customers.
He had some ingenious men among his friends, who amus’d themselves by writing little pieces for this paper,
which gain’d it credit and made it more in demand, and these gentlemen often visited us. Hearing their
conversations, and their accounts of the approbation their papers were received with, I was excited to try my
hand among them; but, being still a boy, and suspecting that my brother would object to printing anything of
mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I contrived to disguise my hand, and, writing an anonymous paper,
I put it in at night under the door of the printing-house. It was found in the morning, and communicated to his
writing friends when they call’d in as usual. They read it, commented on it in my hearing, and I had the
exquisite pleasure of finding it met with their approbation, and that, in their different guesses at the author,
none were named but men of some character among us for learning and ingenuity. I suppose now that I was
rather lucky in my judges, and that perhaps they were not really so very good ones as I then esteem’d them.
Encourag’d, however, by this, I wrote and convey’d in the same way to the press several more papers which
were equally approv’d; and I kept my secret till my small fund of sense for such performances was pretty well
exhausted and then I discovered it, when I began to be considered a little more by my brother’s acquaintance,
and in a manner that did not quite please him, as he thought, probably with reason, that it tended to make me
too vain. And, perhaps, this might be one occasion of the differences that we began to have about this time.
Though a brother, he considered himself as my master, and me as his apprentice, and accordingly, expected
the same services from me as he would from another, while I thought he demean’d me too much in some he
requir’d of me, who from a brother expected more indulgence. Our disputes were often brought before our
father, and I fancy I was either generally in the right, or else a better pleader, because the judgment was
generally in my favor. But my brother was passionate, and had often beaten me, which I took extreamly
amiss; and, thinking my apprenticeship very tedious, I was continually wishing for some opportunity of
shortening it, which at length offered in a manner unexpected.<3>
<3> I fancy his harsh and tyrannical treatment of me might be a means of impressing me with that aversion to
arbitrary power that has stuck to me through my whole life.
One of the pieces in our newspaper on some political point, which I have now forgotten, gave offense to the
Assembly. He was taken up, censur’d, and imprison’d for a month, by the speaker’s warrant, I suppose,
because he would not discover his author. I too was taken up and examin’d before the council; but, tho’ I did
