56 A Man Diligent in his Calling (1732)

Our first papers made a quite different appearance from any before in the province. A better type and better printed, but some spirited remarks of my writing on the dispute then going on between Governor Burnet and the Massachusetts Assembly struck the principal people and in a few weeks brought them all to be our subscribers. Their example was followed by many and our number went on growing continually. This was one of the first good effects of my having learnt a little to scribble. Another was that the leading men, seeing a newspaper now in the hands of one who could also handle a pen, thought it convenient to oblige and encourage me.

About this time there was a cry among the people for more paper money, only fifteen thousand pounds being extant in the province and that soon to be sunk. The wealthy inhabitants opposed any addition, being against all paper currency from an apprehension that it would depreciate, as it had done in New England, to the prejudice of all creditors. Our debates possessed me so fully of the subject that I wrote and printed an anonymous pamphlet on it entitled “The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency ”. It was well received by the common people in general but the rich men disliked it, for it increased and strengthened the clamor for more money. And they happening to have no writers among them that were able to answer it, their opposition slackened and the point was carried by a majority in the House. My friends there, who conceived I had been of some service thought fit to reward me by employing me in printing the money; a very profitable job and a great help to me. This was another advantage gained by my being able to write.

I now opened a little stationer’s shop. One Whitemash, a compositor I had known in London, an excellent workman, now came to me and worked with me constantly and diligently. And I took an apprentice, the son of Aquila Rose. I began now gradually to pay off the debt I was under for the printing house. In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in reality industrious and frugal but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I dressed plainly. I was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never went out a fishing or shooting.  A book, indeed, sometimes debauched me from my work; but that was seldom, snug, and gave no scandal. And to show that I was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchased at the stores through the streets on a wheelbarrow. Thus being esteemed an industrious, thriving young man and paying duly tor what I bought, the merchants who imported stationery solicited my custom. Others proposed supplying me with books and I went on swimmingly.

There remained now no competitor with me at Philadelphia but the old one, Bradford, who was rich and easy, did a little printing now and then by straggling hands, but was not very anxious about the business. However as he kept the post office, it was imagined he had better opportunities of obtaining news. His paper was thought a better distributer of advertisements than mine and therefore had many more, which was a profitable thing to him and a disadvantage to me. For though I did indeed receive and send papers by the post, yet the public opinion was otherwise. For what I did send was by bribing the riders, who took them privately, Bradford being unkind enough to forbid it. Which occasioned some resentment on my part and I thought so meanly of him for it that, when I afterward came into his situation, I took care never to imitate it.

I had hitherto continued to board with Godfrey, who lived in part of my house with his wife and children and had one side of the shop for his glazier’s business though he worked little, being always absorbed in his mathematics. Mrs. Godfrey projected a match for me with a relation’s daughter, took opportunities of bringing us often together till a serious courtship on my part ensued, the girl being in herself very deserving. The old folks encouraged me by continual invitations to supper and by leaving us together, till at length it was time to explain. Mrs. Godfrey managed our little treaty. I let her know that I expected as much money with their daughter as would pay off my remaining debt for the printing house, which I believe was not then above a hundred pounds. She brought me word they had no such sum to spare. I said they might mortgage their house in the loan office. The answer to this, after some days, was that they did not approve the match and therefore I was forbidden the house and the daughter shut up.

And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up the proposals, got them put into form by our great scrivener, Brockden, and by the help of my friends in the Junto, procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue. We afterwards obtained a charter, the company being increased to one hundred. This was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and continually increasing. These libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defense of their privileges.

This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two each day and thus repaired in some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended for me. Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind. And my industry in my business continued as indefatigable as it was necessary. I was indebted for my printing house, I had a young family coming on to be educated, and I had to contend for business with two printers who were established in the place before me. My circumstances however, grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continuing and my father having, among his instructions to me when a boy, frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, “Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings.” I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encouraged me, though I did not think that I should ever literally stand before kings. Which however has since happened, for I have stood before five and even had the honor of sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner.

We have an English proverb that says, “he that would thrive, must ask his wife”. It was lucky for me that I had one as much disposed to industry and frugality as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in my business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing old linen rags for the paper makers, etc., etc. We kept no idle servants, our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was a long time bread and milk (no tea) and I ate it out of a two-penny earthen porringer with a pewter spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families and make a progress in spite of principle: being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a China bowl with a spoon of silver! They had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife and had cost her the enormous sum of three-and-twenty shillings, for which she had no other excuse or apology to make but that she thought her husband deserved a silver spoon and China bowl as well as any of his neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and China in our house, which afterward in a course of years, as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value.

Source: Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 177-210. https://archive.org/details/toldcontemporari02hartrich/page/228/mode/2up