Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/37

27 that of conſequence I could neither make my appearance nor go off publicly. I ſold part of my books to procure a ſmall ſum of money, and went privately on board the ſloop. By favour of a good wind, I found myſelf in three days at New-York, nearly three hundred miles from my home, at the age only of ſeventeen years, without knowing an individual in the place, and with very little money in my pocket.

The inclination I had felt for a ſea-faring life was entirely ſubſided, or I ſhould now have been able to gratify it; but having another trade, and believing myſelf to be a tolerable workman, I heſitated not to offer my ſervices to the old Mr. William Bradford, who had been the firſt printer in Pennſylvania, but had quitted that province on account of a quarrel with George Keith, the governor. He could not give me employment himſelf, having little to do, and already as many perſons as he wanted; but he told me that his ſon, printer at Philadelphia, had lately loſt his principal workman, Aquila Roſe, who was dead, and that if I would go thither, he believed that he would engage me. Philadelphia was a hundred miles farther. I heſitated not to embark in a boat in order to repair, by the ſhorteſt cut of the ſea, to Amboy, leaving my trunk and effects to come after me by the uſual and more tedious conveyance. In croſſing the bay we met with a ſquall, which ſhattered to pieces our rotten ſails, prevented us from entering the Kill, and threw us upon Long Iſland. During the ſquall a drunken Dutchman, who like myſelf was a paſſenger in the boat, fell into the ſea. At the moment that he was ſinking, I ſeized him by the fore-top, ſaved him, and drew him on board. This immerſion fobered him a little, ſo that he fell aſleep, after having taken