Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/257

No. 81] beads wch serves for change. Pay as mony is provisions, as afores'd, one Third cheaper then as the Assembly or Genel Court sets it ; and Trust as they and the merch 1 agree for time.

Now, when the buyer comes to ask for a comodity, sometimes before the merchant answers that he has it, he sais, is Your pay redy? Perhaps the Chap Reply's Yes: what do You pay in? say's the merchant. The buyer having answered, then the price is set ; as suppose he wants a sixpenny knife, in pay it is izd in pay as money eight pence, and hard money its own price, viz. 6d. It seems a very Intricate way of trade and what Lex Mercatoria had not thought of.



81. "A Man Diligent in his Calling" (1729-1732) BY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1771)

S I could not yet begin our paper, I wrote several pieces of entertainment for Bradford s paper, under the title of the, which Breintnal continu'd some months. By this means the attention of the publick was fixed on that paper, and Keimer's proposals, which we burlesq'd and ridicul'd, were disregarded. He began his paper, however, and, after carrying it on three quarters of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers, he offer'd it to me for a trifle ; and I, having been ready some time to go on with it, took it in hand directly ; and it prov'd in a few years extremely profitable to me. . ..

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, occasioned the paper and the manager of it to be much talk'd of, and in a few weeks brought them all to be our subscribers.

Their example was follow'd 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