Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/36

26 contract. It was undoubtedly diſhonourable to avail myſelf of this circumſtance, and I reckon this action as one of the firſt errors of my life; but I was little capable of eſtimating it at its true value, embittered as my mind had been by the recollection of the blows I had received. Excluſively of his paſſionate treatment of me, my brother was by no means a man of an ill temper, and perhaps my manners had too much of impertinence not to afford it a very natural pretext.

When he knew that it was my determination to quit him, he wiſhed to prevent my finding employment elſewhere. He went to all the printing-houſes in the town, and prejudiced the maſters againſt me; who accordingly refuſed to employ me. The idea then ſuggeſted itſelf to me of going to New-York, the neareſt town in which there was a printing-office. Farther reflection confirmed me in the deſign of leaving Boſton, where I had already rendered myſelf an object of ſuſpicion to the governing party. It was probable, from the arbitrary proceedings of the Aſſembly in the affair of my brother, that, by remaining, I ſhould ſoon have been expoſed to difficulties, which I had the greater reaſon to apprehend, as, from my indiſcreet diſputes upon the ſubject of religion, I began to be regarded, by pious fouls, with horror, either as an apoſtate or an atheiſt. I came therefore to a reſolution; but my father, in this inſtance, ſiding with my brother, I preſumed that if I attempted to depart openly, meaſures would be taken to prevent me. My friend Collins undertook to favour my flight. He agreed for my paſſage with the captain of a New-York ſloop, to whom he repreſented me as a young man of his acquaintance, who had had an affair with a girl of bad character, whoſe parents wiſhed to compel me to marry her, and