Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/69

Rh vehture into commercial life having failed, went back to Philadelphia and worked for Keimer until 1728, when he and one of his associates, Hugh Meredith, set up a printing plant for themselves. He was hardly established in this when the idea of a newspaper of his own came to him. He was preparing to issue it when his former employer, Keimer, hearing of the project, anticipated them, and issued, in 1728, the first number of the Universal Instructor in All Arts and Sciences, or the Pennsylvania Gazette.

This publication, as might be expected from its origin and the ignorance with which Franklin endows Keimer, made little impression on the community. Keimer struggled along up to the twenty-seventh number of the paper, when there was a week's delay, which he later explained as being due to the fact that he had been "awak'd when fast asleep in Bed, about Eleven at Night, over-tir'd with the Labour of the Day, and taken away from my Dwelling, by a Writ and Summons, it being based and confidently given out, that I was that very Night about to run away, tho' there was not the least Colour or Ground for such a vile Report."

He was released, through the forbearance of his creditors, and struggled on until number 39, when, the circulation being reduced to ninety subscribers, the paper was sold for a small price to Franklin and his partner Meredith, and continued as the Pennsylvania Gazette, the second paper established in Pennsylvania.

Of Franklin, as editor and publisher of his own paper, it is to be said that, in this year, 1728, he came to his task—one might even say his mission—unusually well equipped. From the age of twelve, when he was apprentice to his brother James, to the time when he took hold of the Pennsylvania Gazette, he had been steadily